Notes on the Election

Let’s offer two notes from yesterday’s Financial Times, a leading liberal newspaper with liberal columnists that far outshine those who write for New York’s favorite liberal newspaper.

First, Jemima Kelly explains that the attacks on Trump’s character are not working.

There are sev­eral dif­fi­culties with attack­ing Trump’s char­ac­ter.

For a start, while it might be fair and indeed accur­ate to point out the gulf that sep­ar­ates him from Har­ris when it comes to the vir­tues a leader should pos­sess — basic decency, hon­our, com­pas­sion, hon­esty, humil­ity — moral grand­stand­ing is an inef­fect­ive way to con­vince people to come over to your side. It gives an air of superi­or­ity and prig­gish­ness.

Candidates who denounce their opponents’ character sound more schoolmarmish than sensible. It signals bad character. 

And besides, to belabor the obvious, among the most important moral virtues lies the ability to take responsibility for one’s failings and errors. 

As it happens Kamela has changed her mind on a myriad of issues but has never accepted responsibility for her failures.

One may justifiably suggest that Trump errs when he talks trash about his opponents. And yet, his enemies have chosen to compete with him in the world of trash talk. They have labeled his supporters fascists, Nazis, anti-American and garbage.

And then they complain about how divided the country is. 

At that point, Trump’s unfortunate bad habit becomes far less salient.

And also, Kelly explains, Trump did manifest courage in Butler, PA when he was grazed by an assassin’s bullet:

The other reason attack­ing Trump in this way is so inef­fect­ive is that he pos­sesses some qual­it­ies that make him look like he does have moral char­ac­ter, not­ably cour­age. Elon Musk wasn’t the only multi-bil­lion­aire who gushed about Trump’s bravery after he got up and shouted “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, after the attempt on his life on July 13. “Our former Pres­id­ent showed tre­mend­ous grace and cour­age under lit­eral fire tonight,” Jeff Bezos pos­ted on X.

And also, Trump comes across as principled:

And yet some­how Trump man­ages to come across as a man of prin­ciple. A recent Pew sur­vey found 69 per cent of voters feel he “stands up for what he believes in”, nine points more than for Har­ris.

Since no one really knows what Kamala believes, this charge has some sticking power. You have noted yesterday that Harris refused to comment on how she voted on a California proposition that attempts to get a grip on the crime epidemic that prosecutors like Harris allowed into the state. She could have stood up for law and order, even if it meant repudiating reforms that she herself championed.

She preferred to punt.

A couple of pages later in the FT we read some comments by Ruchir Sharma about the state of the economy. We have been hearing, from the most earnest economists, that the economy has never been better, and that we never had it so good.

As you know, most people are not experiencing the economing in quite such rosy terms. According to economist Sharma, it is a lie, a mirage:

As the US goes to the polls, its eco­nomy looks unusu­ally strong. Aver­aging nearly 3 per cent growth for nine straight quar­ters, the coun­try is attract­ing heavy flows of for­eign money, which have helped push its share of the global stock mar­ket index well above 60 per cent, a record high. Yet voters remain pess­im­istic about their eco­nomic and fin­an­cial pro­spects.

Why? US growth is a mirage for most Amer­ic­ans, driven by rising wealth and dis­cre­tion­ary spend­ing among the richest con­sumers, and dis­tor­ted by rising profits for the biggest com­pan­ies. Times look good but this growth is lop­sided, brittle and heav­ily depend­ent on spend­ing and bor­row­ing by the gov­ern­ment, which is typ­ic­ally the lender of last resort.

Although the world mar­vels at “unsink­able” US con­sumers, a grow­ing num­ber are priced out of homes and fall­ing behind on credit-card debt. The bot­tom 40 per cent by income now account for 20 per cent of all spend­ing while the richest 20 per cent account for 40 per cent. That is the widest gap on record and it is likely to widen fur­ther, says Oxford Eco­nom­ics, a con­sultancy. Most Amer­ic­ans now spend so much on essen­tials such as food that they have little left for extras like travel or eat­ing out.

And this does not include the most recent discouraging jobs report, not to mention the fact that most of the jobs created under the Biden administration have been government jobs or have been held by migrants.

As for the last word, to keep you company as you wait on line outside the voting booths, we turn to Second Gentleman, man’s man, Doug Emhoff.

Kamala did what Kamala always does. She put her head down and went to work.

Some people have found an erotic innuendo in those words. I would not presume to offer such an undignified interpretation.

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