MELISSA MACKENZIE: The Best Possible Outcome for Democrats: A Trump Win.
It took a bit of time, but the hagiography of the media around Kamala Harris couldn’t hold. She is what she always was: an incompetent, dull-witted woman who achieved her success through horizontal negotiations and pretty privilege. Every time she talks, American voters wince. Every advertisement is a herculean effort in combatting full-body cringe reactions. To Scott McKay’s point: Kamala Harris isn’t having fun, her campaign isn’t having fun, and good grief, her voters aren’t having fun. She’ll get plenty of votes simply because she has ovaries, but even Biden polled better among women than Harris is now.
It’s a cataclysmic political outcome. Except, it’s not.
Should Harris win, it will be worse for the Democrats (and America, but we’re talking politics only for the moment). Consider, if she wins, after four disastrous years, she’ll be crowding out other, more able candidates. By losing, the Democrats can regroup and find someone who actually has a chance against JD Vance and/or Ron DeSantis, two young and capable politicians waiting in the wings.
Boom! With both Biden and Harris gone, two of the worst politicians in recent memory, the Democrats are free to remake themselves. The question is this, though: will they?
Is there a successor to the Democratic Leadership Council eager to promote another Bill Clinton-style move (feign) to somewhere near the center if Kamala loses? Or are the post-2020 Dems so over their skis that such a move would be impossible?
Related: “We’re nine days away from the end of the presidential election (and potentially a few days more away from knowing the victor). But within one of the defining political factions of our era, the possibility of a Harris win is already prompting an existential question: Are we in the last gasps of the Never Trump movement?”