Can Kamala Win?

I’m Umair Haque, and this is The Issue: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported publication. Our job is to give you the freshest, deepest, no-holds-barred insight about the issues that matter most.

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Hi! How’s everyone? Welcome new readers, welcome back old friends, and many thanks for joining me.

Today we’re going to discuss…

Don’t Look Now, But the Democrats Are…Beginning to Win

There’s been a seismic shift in politics lately. A real one. Not just a “vibe shift,” but the consequence of that, which is a tectonic change in The Numbers.

For the first time, Kamala’s approval rating is higher than her disapproval rating. That’s the first time that’s been true for any political figure in this contest, whether Biden, or Trump, or JD Vance, who’s so disliked, because he’s so weird, that his approval rating languishes in almost surreal territory.

So Kamala’s what political pundits call “above water,” as in, she has a net positive approval rating. Unlike, again, anyone else in this campaign so far.

How did that happen?

Before I get to that, let me point out that all this matters. It was one thing for there to be a “vibe shift” as Kamala ascended to become the nominee—the base and donors and the Democratic party uniting behind her. But this is the consequence that we’d hope for from such a vibe shift. Would any of that translate into actual political momentum? Would people begin to want to vote for her? Especially those pesky swing state voters, whose choices will, for better or worse, decide the election?

It appears that the vibe shift isn’t just some ephemeral trend in feelings and sentiments, but rather, attitudes towards Kamala are changing. That’s a Big Deal, and I capitalize that because in America, attitudes almost never change. Towards much of anything. Politicians, the issues they encapsulate, right down to flavours of soda, doesn’t matter. America’s an entrenched society, people bitterly dug into foxholes.

Let me put that in perspective. Kamala’s approval rating was low, and steadily fell during Biden’s Presidency. For it to suddenly make a reversal, and climb, to the point where she’s now no longer “underwater, as in, has a net positive rating—might not sound like much, but in the context of an entrenched society, it is a tremendous shift. 

The Power of a Movement

So how did this happen? Kamala’s campaign is using much, much more modern tactics than Biden’s was, and that, joined with a feeling of freshness and hope, is electrifying people. 

Modern tactics. That means, for example, movement building. The Democrats are hard to work with. They make it all but impossible to get involved. They’re haughty, standoffish, aloof, and that fuels the perception of them as a not a party-of-the-average-person anymore. 

But Kamala’s campaign, and base, immediately turned all this inside out. They organized, for example, a now famous White Women with Kamala Zoom call, which broke Zoom, so many people joined—and broke fundraising records too. Then a White Dudes with Kamala call was organized, and it was so successful that, LOL, Elon Musk tried to ban talking about it on Twitter.

That’s modern movement building. People are hungry, desperate, to get involved. To participate. To be part of this thing called politics again. But the Democrats have made a big mistake to date, which is making it all but impossible for people to do any of that. How the hell would you do it? Call up your local party grandee, and beg? Hell, even I’ve tried to help them time and again, and they know exactly who I am, having been invited to speak to Obama’s White House a few times, and I don’t say that to humblebrag, but just to make the point: working with these guys has been impossible.

But now it’s different. Kamala’s team and base are experts, or at least budding experts, or at least versed in, this modern idea of movement building. Why not, in this day and age, just have a giant Zoom call? What’s a better way to let people express their enthusiasm and come together and participate than that? It’s…free, for Pete’s sake, and it takes minutes to set up. Doesn’t get easier than that, and the rewards are mind-blowing, whether they’re donations, or fans, or new sets of self-organizing little blocks, or just plain getting people fired up.

See how simple that is? It’s key to why the far right succeeds: though they’re weird, creepy, and pretty fascist, they make it incredibly easy to get involved. Hell, they’ll reach out to you, if you sound ugly and screechy and bigoted enough. But how many people has our side ever really reached out to? And so our side isn’t modern at this game, but this game is the only one in town now: politics. 

Kamala’s team of course also has an excellent modern media game, as in, they’re much, much better at using TikTok and whatnot than the Democratic machine is, or even probably wants them to be. They’re good at creating memes, and making funny, cute, inspirational pictures and videos, and…all that stuff really matters, when you’re trying to reach young people, rightly or wrongly, because young people are just glued to TikTok and YouTube and Discord and whatnot. Again, modern media is making all the difference.

Vibe Shifts and Political Transformations

This is how a vibe shift didn’t dissipate into the ether, and yield nothing politically—but is having a tangible, dramatic impact, so much so, that her approval rating, the hardest thing of all in politics to move one millimeter, is actually jumping. It’s highly encouraging to see, and I know that might sound weird coming from me, but right now…

We’re not quite at the point yet where we can do the “if the election was held today, Kamala would win it” exercise. That’s because the polling data isn’t quite there yet. But initial indications are highly encouraging. She’s ahead in plenty of swing states, and that’s not just because people were sick of Biden or whatnot—it’s also because of all the above, the ways we translate enthusiasm, which can be evanescent, if we don’t gather and shape it carefully and quickly, into proper, lasting political momentum.

We’ll be at that point in a couple of weeks, maybe less. And when we’re at that point, that’s when alarm bells are really going to ring for the fascists. Because right about now it’s all but certain that exercise will yield the result that if the election were held that day, Kamala would win it. Or at least be so close to it that the crackpots on the far right will realize that the relatively easy contest they had with Biden, which wasn’t just about Biden, but as we’ve discussed, the antiquated approach of his team to momentum and movement building—they’ll realize, to their horror, that this is an uphill battle…for them.

So right now? To everyone’s surprise, including mine, American democracy is in a good place. And my advice? It’s to chill and enjoy it. Laugh. Breathe in this sense of fresh air. Make it a summer of unity and laughter and good vibes and togetherness. That’s how we—always—defeat fascism. That is when we enact the values of democracy. And when we do that, the fascists realize what they’re truly up against, which is history, human nature, goodness, truth, beauty, decency, and the human condition itself. There’s nothing more powerful than all that.

History, and Rewriting Its Rules

Now. Let me give it to you straight. In systemic terms? I said this was a surprise, even to me, and it is. That’s because in those terms, America’s still a profoundly challenged society. Broken class structure, broken escalator of mobility, broken social cohesion, profound gaps in public goods, colossal levels of distrust, unhappiness, despair, stress, and rage. I could go on. The point is that history says that in fact, it’ll be an uphill struggle defeating the fascists in situations like the one America’s in now, where ruin’s been allowed to become so endemic.

But history isn’t an iron cage. We make it when we break yesterday’s rules, and rewrite new ones. That is what’s really happening right now. That’s why it feels so electric. And that feeling is crucial, because it’s how we keep the momentum going, and win this thing. 

So smile, my friends. These are good days for democracy. Yet remember: its victory depends on that feeling you have now, spreading, through a society, until, at last, there is no poison left for fascism to feed on. That is how democracies truly triumph. And so your responsibility is to feel this energy, this electricity, understand the momentous nature of, the rewriting of history’s rules, then, share it, embrace it, and give its gift to everyone you can.

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