During the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris and her supporters did not literally refer to Donald Trump as the incumbent, but the party was keen to get that message across. Over the weekend, the former president added text to the subtext.
“Kamala and her ‘minds’ are trying to make it sound like I’m the sitting president,” the Republican complained at 1:15 a.m. early Saturday.
He is not the only one who has noticed this. Josh Marshall of TPM summed it up:
Harris inaugurated Trump and ran as a challenger with a campaign message of turning over a new leaf. Whether that’s fair, true, or however many other descriptions you can think of, there’s little doubt that it’s an accurate description of the campaign we’re in the middle of. The Trump campaign itself tells us so, almost against its will.
I can understand why this is so upsetting to the Republican candidate and his supporters. Harris is, after all, the incumbent Vice President. She is also the candidate who offers American voters a breath of fresh air and a “new way forward,” as the Democrat put it in her speech at the convention.
Trump has a very real degree of responsibility for this: he pretended to have won the 2020 election, demanded to be referred to as “Mr. President,” met with foreign politicians as a matter of course, banned the word “former” from his title, etc.
But there is more to it than that. Brian Beutler of Off Message noted in his latest column:
Only in political absolutist terminology, in which a political era is defined solely by the actions of a president, are we not stuck in the Trump era all the time. Nine years in a row. And the majority of Americans keep saying, election after election, that Trump’s America is an unpleasant place to spend time.
That’s right. Trump reluctantly left the White House in January 2021, but in the months and years that followed, he not only regained control of his political party but also remained a dominant voice in American discourse, handily winning the Republican primaries and caucuses and becoming his party’s presidential nominee for the third consecutive time.
Legally and officially, the Republican has no more authority than you or I. He cannot sign or veto legislation. He cannot issue executive orders. He is a private citizen with no significant powers.
But it’s hardly unreasonable to conclude that we are stuck in the Trump era of American politics. And that’s precisely why Harris has an advantage as a candidate for change.
The message to voters couldn’t be simpler: 2024 offers a unique opportunity to end the Trump era and usher in something new.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com.
