Not going back

This election is not about the economy. It's about Donald Trump.

Yesterday, Kamala Harris filled the Greensboro Coliseum and the old Charlotte Coliseum on the same day. I think she’s going to win North Carolina. She’s creating the level of excitement that drives a movement. People want to be part of whatever this thing is that she’s building. Many will go door-to-door. Others will supply low-dollar donations. They are up for the fight and ready to see it through.

But she’s not just going to win here. She going to win other states, too. Four high-quality post-debate polls came out yesterday showing Harris widening her lead nationally. Two have her up by five points and two by four. That’s enough to win the electoral college.

Taylor Swift’s endorsement is driving an unprecedented spike in younger people registering. Data analyst Tom Bonier calls it the “Swift effect” and they’ve seen a 400% to 500% increase in registrations. He says 9,000 to 10,000 people are registering per hour and it’s been going on for days. These voters won’t be supporting Trump. There may not be enough to swing the election, but they are telling us who is motivated to go to the polls.

So far, her campaign has done everything right. They have dominated news cycle after news cycle since Biden dropped out of the race. In four weeks, they put together a Democratic convention that showcased not just Harris and Walz but an entire party of political talent that can lead this country. After that, they took two weeks to prepare for Tuesday night’s debate, clearly time well-spent. Harris delivered what might have been knock out blow to Trump by showing that she’s up for the job and he’s not. She followed her debate victory by packing auditoriums in swing states and kicking the fall campaign into high gear.

Trump, in contrast, is re-litigating his loss and repeating debunked stories of migrants stealing pets and eating them. He’s also getting a little too close with right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, taking her with him to the 9/11 memorial services after she called the terrorist attack an inside job. His campaign is at war with itself.

The naysayers who have criticized Harris, mainly people from the media and academia, don’t understand what’s happening. They’re demanding she do more interviews or layout policy positions. Since the convention, a reporter at the New Republic has written articles titled “Kamala Harris is imitating Biden’s very bad media strategy” and “Kamala Harris can’t keep running like this.” At the New York Times, Duke University professor Jedediah Britton-Purdy wrote that her economic plan is too weak to win the election, saying “Optimistic words and some admirable proposals aren’t enough to overcome the discontent and anger that a large majority of Americans feel about the economy.”

They are just wrong. Pundits are stuck on this narrative of the economy driving the electorate. It’s not true. I don’t care what voters are telling pollsters about the economy, they are behaving like they’re pretty satisfied. The Consumer Confidence Index hit a six-month high in August. More people are flying than at any time in history. Gas prices are down and wages are up. According to a WRAL poll last week, a solid plurality, 45%, of North Carolinians feel positive about their economic future while only 33% are pessimistic.

We do not have the same angry, bitter electorate that drove Donald Trump to the White House in 2016. People are still pissed about inflation, but no detailed policy plan is going to make them suddenly become fans of Harris. I’ll take arenas full of excited young voters over economic policy proposals all day long.

This election is not about the economy, or any other issue, for that matter. It’s about Donald Trump and whether we want to return to another four years of a chaotic, narcissistic presidency. And Kamala Harris’ message is summarized neatly in the slogan, “We’re not going back.”

What we saw in Greensboro and Charlotte yesterday, we’ve seen before. In 2008, Barack Obama was drawing similar crowds in stadiums and auditoriums around the country. In 2016, Donald Trump did the same thing, filling arenas with angry white people. Both campaigns won because they excited a segment of the electorate and drove them to polls. This year, Kamala Harris is doing it again.