Kamala Harris has produced a startling turnaround in the presidential race since President Joe Biden announced on Sunday afternoon, July 21, that he was ending his re-election bid and endorsed his vice president to succeed him.
Harris quickly gained support of Democratic Party leaders — including the leading potential challengers for the nomination — as well as congressional leaders, Democratic governors and labor leaders. Tthe Harris’ campaign received $81 million in donations in the first 24 hours and 10 days later had raised $310 million, with 66% coming from small donors.
Meanwhile, Biden’s exit from the campaign has left DonOld Trump as the elderly candidate showing signs of mental decline.
Trump had finished the Republican National Convention July 18 thinking he had the election in the bag. After all, he survived an assassination attempt at an open-air rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, when a 20-year-old Republican fired eight rounds from an assault rifle from the roof of a nearby building before a Secret Service sniper killed him. One of the assassin’s bullets apparently grazed Trump’s right ear, although the former president refused to release medical reports on his wound.
Trump wore an large bandage over his right ear throughout the convention, and many delegates wore similar bandages in solidarity with their Fearless Leader. After the convention, the bandage was gone as Trump’s ear apparently was miraculously healed.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) may have sealed his bid to become Trump’s running mate when he blamed Biden’s rhetoric about Trump being an authoritarian fascist with inspiring the assassination attempt. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” Vance said.
The Trump campaign may not have vetted Vance’s background. He no longer considers Trump “America’s Hitler” and “the Opioid of the Masses,” but old videos surfaced with his thoughts on childless cat ladies who, he said on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2021, “are miserable in the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable too.” He also believes childless adults have no “direct stake” in the future of the country and parents should get extra votes for their children.
Harris did a much better job in picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Aug. 6. Walz leapt into public view as one of a half-dozen Dems who were being considered by Harris, and he became known for coming across as an engaging, folksy Midwestern governor and former congressman with a progressive record in Minnesota, who tagged Trump and Vance as “weird,” which caught on.
Democrats remained in array in August, as Harris went on tour with Walz, filling auditoriums in swing states with newly energized supporters. It drove Trump crazy; he first complained that Harris conducted a coup in getting Biden to quit the campaign, then Trump accused Harris of using AI technology to distort the size of a crowd that greeted her at the Detroit airport Aug. 7. (In fact, a big crowd, estimated at 15,000 people, did greet Harris at an airport hangar.)
Trump called a press conference Aug. 8 at Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to draw attention from Harris and Walz, but it didn’t go well. In his meandering rants, NPR reporters and editors found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes.
Trump said the U.S. economy was in terrible shape, despite high employment and higher wages since Biden pulled the US out of the post-pandemic mess left over from Trump’s administration. Trump described the country as in mortal danger if he did not win the presidential election. He falsely described his departure from the White House — which followed his refusal to concede his election loss in November 2020 and the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a mob of his supporters — as a “peaceful” transfer of power.
Meanwhile, Trump has demonstrated that he has no clue or inclination to bring down inflated grocery and housing prices. He phoned in to Fox & Friends and took questions from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota Aug. 8. One of the questioners, who had a “Trump 2024” patch on his vest, said five of his children were struggling. “How are you going to make the economy — not just the food and electricity — but bring down the rent prices, the housing prices, so that these kids can survive without their parents’ help?”
Trump’s response: “We’re going to drill, baby, drill, we’re gonna bring down the cost of energy.” he said, repeating one of his campaign mantras. “Energy’s what caused the worst inflation, I think, in the history of our country. Food prices are up 50%, sometimes more.
“You look at bacon. Bacon has quadrupled. You can’t order bacon, you can’t order anything. We’re living horribly,” he continued. “We have the worst inflation we’ve probably ever had in our country, and it started because of energy. We’re gonna drill, baby, drill.”
He also noted that four years ago the price of gas was $1.87. Of course, during the pandemic, people were staying home and not driving, which kept gas prices down. And U.S. oil production already is at an all-time high under Biden, frustrating climate advocates.
We note that bacon and eggs are widely available, if more expensive than they were before the pandemic. The prices are based on market demand, and apparently peaked in 2022 but have dropped in the past two years.
The average price of bacon was $6.64 a pound in 2021 and peaked at $7.31 in 2022 before dropping to $6.827 in June 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The average price of a dozen eggs was $1.47 in 2021 and peaked at $2.86 in 2022 before dropping to $2.715 in June 2024.
Post-pandemic inflation peaked at 8.989% in June 2022, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Inflation was down to 2.975% in June 2024. The highest inflation in the past 60 years was 14.592% in March 1980.
Democrats have proposed to increase taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, and tax windfall profits to reduce the incentive to increase prices, but Republicans who narrowly control the House won’t hear of it. President Biden called on Congress to pass legislation presenting corporate landlords with a choice: cap rent increases on existing units to no more than 5% or lose valuable federal tax breaks. Republicans don’t like that kind of talk either.
Instead, Trump proposes to renew tax cuts for the rich, which Republicans passed in 2017 and expire next year. He also wants to put a 10% tariff on all imported goods, and a 60% tax on products from China, plus more tax cuts for the wealthy and a crackdown on immigration. all of which are more likely to increase costs for consumers. If Trump implements his economic agenda, the annual inflation rate would increase to 3.6% in 2025, Moody’s forecast.
If Trump enacts his proposed tariffs, the typical middle-class household in the U.S. would face an estimated $1,700 a year in additional costs, according to the non-partisan Peterson Institute for International Economics. And low- and middle-income households would feel the burden much more than high-income families.
Democrats are a better choice for working families struggling to make the rent and put food on the dinner table. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2024
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