{"id":7374,"date":"2024-09-04T15:50:43","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T07:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=7374"},"modified":"2024-09-04T15:50:46","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T07:50:46","slug":"trumps-hardline-new-quest-to-destroy-harris-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=7374","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s hardline new quest to destroy Harris\u2019 momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Donald Trump is trying to crush Democratic nominee Kamala Harris\u2019 persona as a force of change and to destroy her personal credibility as a potential president as their still-fresh competition careens into the final nine weeks before Election Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In recent days, the ex-president has unveiled a broad assault using the insult-driven politics with which he won power in 2016, even as his advisers have been pleading with him to focus his attention on top voter concerns including high prices and immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is seizing on foreign tragedies to accuse the vice president of responsibility for the deaths of US troops in Afghanistan and claiming she\u2019s complicit in killings of hostages in Gaza. He and his running mate, JD Vance, implied her mixed race \u2014 heritage that millions of Americans share \u2014 is evidence of a sinister \u201cchameleon\u201d-like character that also explains policy reversals on energy and immigration. In an ugly moment, he amplified a sexually themed social media slander against her. And his dark campaign ads allege she will slash Social Security benefits by welcoming millions of undocumented migrants to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in a reprise of past GOP campaigns branding Democratic nominees as extreme liberals, Trump and his supporters are trying to frame Harris as a communist and a \u201cBolshevik.\u201d South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem blasted Harris\u2019 running mate, Tim Walz, as a \u201csecurity risk\u201d because he once taught in China. And Trump has also started to imply the coming election might not be \u201cfree and fair\u201d and said in an interview that aired Sunday that it was ridiculous to indict him for \u201cinterfering\u201d in the 2020 election. This and other recent comments raised the specter of another national nightmare if he loses in November and refuses to accept defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trump\u2019s desperation to find traction has also seen him perform his own policy gyrations on reproductive rights as he seeks to narrow a huge gender gap in polling. But his credibility may already be shattered after he built the conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned the nationwide constitutional right to an abortion. Vance also seems to have a knack for alienating female voters \u2014 like when he compared Harris to a nerve-struck Miss Teen USA contestant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is not simply being true to his ill-disciplined self. He\u2019s illustrating his struggle to respond to Harris\u2019 transformation of the race. Increasingly brazen attempts to puncture Harris\u2019 bubble of hope also betray frustration in the Trump camp that she\u2019s managing to distinguish herself from her boss and is presenting a fresher option than her 78-year-old GOP rival. And Trump is showing that there\u2019s almost nothing he won\u2019t do to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is trying to compensate for his own liabilities
Trump\u2019s invective amounts to some of the most hardline political rhetoric in years, even by his own standards, and means the next two months are likely to be brutal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question is whether this barrage of negative attacks is merely successful in stoking feelings of existential anger Trump uses to drive his base the polls, or whether it begins to tarnish Harris at the margins in battleground states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may make some sense for Trump to throw everything he can think of at Harris. In two presidential elections, the ex-president has never risen above 49% of the vote in the so-called blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin or in the national popular count. So his chances in November may depend more on destroying the current feel-good factor around Harris and depressing her prospects among small groups of persuadable voters in swing states than on holding out hope of winning over new voters himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But Trump\u2019s behavior brings its own risks. His antics last week, including a grinning, thumbs-up gravesite campaign photo-op in Arlington National Cemetery that may have broken the law, could bolster Harris\u2019 warnings that Americans are pining for a chance to leave the bitterness and chaos of the Trump era behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though Harris has restored the contest to a neck-and-neck race, her campaign recognizes the still potent threat from Trump. \u201cMake no mistake: the next 65 days will be very hard,\u201d Harris campaign manager Jennifer O\u2019Malley Dillion wrote in a weekend memo despite arguing the vice president has multiple paths to the White House. \u201cThis race will remain incredibly close, and the voters who will decide this election will require an extraordinary amount of work to win over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris campaigned in Detroit and with Biden in Pittsburgh to mark Labor Day on Monday, reflecting the importance of union members. Blue-collar workers traditionally voted Democrat, but Trump\u2019s cultural transformation of the GOP now appeals to many workers, especially in rural areas. And Harris\u2019 appearance with Biden in the Steel City previewed how the lame-duck president could help her campaign in a state and among a voting demographic where he remains popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign swing comes a week before the critical meeting between Harris and Trump on a debate stage slated for September 10 in Philadelphia \u2014 one of the final foreseeable turning points of this campaign, with mail-in voting starting later this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s early efforts to define Harris have failed
Trump\u2019s feral political offensive is a warning for Harris about what may lay ahead and underscores how hard it will be to prolong the smooth rollout of her sudden candidacy, her pick of Walz and her successful convention. But the ex-president\u2019s intensity is also a sign \u2014 which is reflected in favorable public polling nationally and in swing states \u2014 that his early efforts to negatively define her have not worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris is being criticized by Republicans for a lack of policy specificity and reversing previous positions on fracking and immigration. But her adoption of centrist positions also appears to be squeezing Trump and frustrating his efforts to land a decisive political attack. Her decision to take on high grocery prices with a vow to clamp down on supermarket giants might explain how she\u2019s narrowed the gap with Trump on who is most trusted on the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flap over Trump\u2019s visit to Arlington National Cemetery last week also showed how the ex-president\u2019s hardball tactics could hurt him as much as her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s honoring of 13 US service members killed in a suicide bombing amid the chaotic US evacuation of Afghanistan in 2021 highlights one of the worst moments of the Biden-Harris administration. And while the vice president joined Situation Room meetings on the crisis, it\u2019s not clear yet whether Trump can saddle her with personal responsibility for the deaths in the minds of voters since Biden was commander in chief at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris took steps to counter Trump\u2019s Afghan gambit when she wrote on social media that he had \u201cdisrespected sacred ground all for the sake of a political stunt\u201d in filming campaign videos at gravesites and that this was part of a pattern of disparaging the sacrifices of American warriors. Trump responded by posting videos of some of the relatives of the fallen soldiers accusing Harris and Biden of complicity in the murder of their loved ones and supporting Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The harrowing episode showed how Trump is willing to cross lines that more conventional politicians would consider off-limits. While some voters might consider he\u2019s honoring slain troops, others might agree with Harris that he is seizing on the deaths of Americans in foreign wars for political gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On other issues, Harris is refusing to be drawn into gutter for political fights with Trump that might tarnish her image. For instance, the vice president was asked by CNN\u2019s Dana Bash in an exclusive interview last week about Trump\u2019s claim that she \u201chappened to turn Black\u201d for political reasons. \u201cSame old tired playbook. Next question, please,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Harris campaign did, however, jump on Trump\u2019s argument that he did nothing wrong in 2020. The ex-president said in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday: \u201cWhoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election, where you have every right to do it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris-Walz spokesperson Sarafina Chitika folded his comment into the campaign\u2019s wider argument that it\u2019s time to consign Trump\u2019s dictatorial instincts to the past. \u201cThe American people are ready for a new way forward. They know Vice President Harris is the tough-as-nails prosecutor we need to turn the page on chaos, fear, and division, and uphold the rule of law,\u201d Chitika said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exchange encapsulated the bets at the center of the campaign\u2019s bitter endgame: Trump is putting his faith in a searing attempt to do anything it takes to bring Harris down; the vice president is wagering that his extreme attempts to do so will convince enough voters he\u2019s unfit to return to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump is trying to crush Democratic nominee Kamala Harris\u2019 persona as a force of change and to destroy her personal credibility as a potential president as their still-fresh competition careens into the final nine weeks before Election Day. In recent days, the ex-president has unveiled a broad assault using the insult-driven politics with which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2695,1733,1724],"class_list":["post-7374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-hardline","tag-new","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s hardline new quest to destroy Harris\u2019 momentum - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=7374\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s hardline new quest to destroy Harris\u2019 momentum - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Donald Trump is trying to crush Democratic nominee Kamala Harris\u2019 persona as a force of change and to destroy her personal credibility as a potential president as their still-fresh competition careens into the final nine weeks before Election Day. 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