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Will soccer moms win it for Kamala? Picket-fence America will decide the election

'In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know' (Credit: Vote Common Good / YouTube)

'In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know' (Credit: Vote Common Good / YouTube)


November 5, 2024   7 mins

Journalists have now spent nearly a decade haunting the farms and taverns of rural America, trying to understand why millions of decent heartlanders voted for Trump. It’s a romantic story, casting the underdogs against elites, and explaining how America’s forgotten middle found hope in an uncouth New York billionaire. But understanding these voters and empathising with them are very different things. Democrats are not recovering their losses and Republicans are still making inroads. In Wisconsin, for instance, one Republican strategist told me early results actually show Trump gaining in small towns and farmsteads.

Yet if the fields and forests seem lost to liberal America — even as the cities reliably vote blue from Portland to Albuquerque — the one battleground left is what’s there in the middle. I mean the suburbs: the strip malls and drive-thrus where 43% of Americans live. They’re certainly less appealing to the media’s collective imagination than the woods of Michigan or Virginia’s mountain communities. But if they’re more Starbucks than dairy farms, the election is set to be decided here, with activists battling across gender and political affiliation to stumble over the line.

The easiest way to understand the political power of the suburbs is through demography. Consider the statistics. According to Pew, 46 million Americans live in rural countries, while 98 million live in “urban core” areas. Yet both of these pale compared to the suburbs — home to some 175 million people. To put it differently, then, the suburbs are simply a bigger slice of the electoral pie, and have the heft to make or break presidential campaigns.

Just as important, the electorate of swing states tend to be concentrated in the suburbs of big cities. There are plenty of examples here, from Raleigh (North Carolina) and Detroit (Michigan) and Atlanta (Georgia). Or else there’s my native Wisconsin. Outside Milwaukee sit the three suburban counties of Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha — together known as “WOW” — and which are home to over 600,000 Wisconsinites or roughly 10% of Wisconsin’s population. Philadelphia, for its part, has its own version of the WOW phenomenon, where its four so-called “collar” counties are among the richest and most educated in the state, and indeed boast more people than Philly and Pittsburgh combined.

Beyond the raw population figures, the suburbs matter because of how residents vote. Unlike both their rural and urban cousins, voters in the suburban mass are split basically down the middle between the two parties. And if that makes them worth courting whatever your politics, that’s equally clear from recent electoral cycles. Traditionally, Wisconsin’s WOW counties have been Republican stalwarts. In the Trump era, though, the GOP is winning those areas with eroding margins — meaning falling numbers in the suburbs hit the Republican haul statewide. “As always, Trump’s personally still not strong in the ‘burbs themselves,” a GOP strategist in Wisconsin tells me, “but his appeal in exurban areas remains strong, and he is really gaining rural and small town votes still.” As for the Democrats, they add, the party is “holding strong” in urban areas like Milwaukee and Madison, even as they’re also gaining ground in more suburban areas.

Over in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was partly the function of his popularity in those Philly collar counties, and indeed corrected for his underperformance in the City of Brotherly Love itself. It helped that Biden was both a native Pennsylvanian with blue collar fluency and a change candidate running against the pandemic economy. Yet if Harris is in a relatively less comfortable position — running as the sitting vice president and amid dissatisfaction over both the economy and the border — the consequences of Covid may actually help her in suburbs further south.

In North Carolina, for instance, the pandemic has led many Left-leaning voters to escape their small urban apartments and settle in the suburbs of towns like Charlotte or Greensboro, a phenomenon which may have permanently altered the electorate. As analysis by Bloomberg found, those counties that have seen the “highest population growth shifted toward Democrats between 2016 and 2020 — including many suburban counties that voted for Donald Trump in the last election”.

“Similar shifts are playing out in Arizona, Georgia and other key battlegrounds for next week’s race,” Bloomberg added. “It’s a continuation of a trend from 2020, when the suburbs decided the election.” Certainly, it’s something Parker Short has noticed too. “I have seen this shift in the suburbs firsthand”, explains the president of the Georgia Young Democrats, who grew up in Dunwoody, an affluent suburb of Atlanta named after a Confederate officer. “Since 2016, my town has gone from having all Republican local elected officials to all Democrats.”

As that reference to 2016 implies, one important factor here involves the distaste many suburbanites feel for Trump’s more vulgar tendencies. That’s especially true in Georgia: Short says that the Atlanta suburbs largely turned blue after Trump rejected the 2020 election results, and attacked local GOP officials. That’s echoed by anecdotal evidence too. “While I was in line to vote,” Short says, “an older white couple behind me confided in me that they were voting for Kamala Harris, and were lifelong Republicans.”

“One important factor here involves the distaste many suburbanites feel for Trump’s more vulgar tendencies.”

And if that explains why Harris has relentlessly campaigned on a platform of “democracy” — using Republican stalwarts like Liz Cheney to convince erstwhile conservatives to go blue for the good of the republic — it’s a similar story at the local level. In Stafford County on Saturday, amid Virginia’s sprawling suburbs, a three-hour line snaked around the sidewalk at one polling place. It was the last day to vote early and Democrats had dispatched the wives of Senator Tim Kaine and Eugene Vindman to work the line. That latter choice is telling: apart from being a candidate for the House of Representatives, Eugene Vindman is also the twin brother of Alexander, who became a liberal darling after testifying against Trump during his first impeachment. As Vindman’s wife told voters: “What he really stands for is service.”

Beyond an abstract commitment to the Constitution, meanwhile, Harris’s focus on Trump’s supposed threat to the rule of law matters for more pragmatic reasons too — especially when it comes to suburban America. To quote one Democratic strategist, the party really needs to “persuade ‘traditional/establishment’ Republican voters writ large, and that is really more about improving the margin with college-educated voters, many of whom are suburban women, because not only is [Harris] losing non-college-educated voters by huge margins, but she’s also not doing as well with traditionally democratic groups like young people and people of colour”.

Together with internal migration and disgust at Trump, though, there’s also a third factor that could turn the suburbs blue: gender. As Short points out, indeed, one of the most striking trends in his native Atlanta is how suburban women are moving towards the Democrats. Nor is this particularly hard to understand. Quite aside from Trump’s own dubious behaviour towards women, there’s also the question of abortion. With the Dobbs case no longer guaranteeing the abortion access nationwide, and fierce legal battles over the issue underway in states like Georgia, it’s little wonder that Short suggests it’ll “drive tens of thousands” of women to the polls — though he believes many likely voted blue already.

After Dobbs, Democrats are targeting what they see as the changing the politics of another group: suburban women married to Republicans. As Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist explains, “the big difference in this election are white women who are married to Republican dudes who might be registered Republicans but who want to vote for Kamala Harris.” This, according to Rocha, is because they want to see a woman president, are upset about Dobbs, or identify Trump with obnoxious men they’ve personally known and would never want near the nuclear codes.

Given Rocha’s experience in key states — he’s currently working in Wisconsin, Arizona and Pennsylvania, among other battlegrounds — he’s surely someone worth listening to. Or you could just turn on the TV. Less than a week before election day, a progressive group leant on Julia Roberts. In a pro-Kamala ad, the actor narrated a scene that followed white women into a voting booth. “In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know”, Roberts says as the women vote for Harris, return to their husbands, and assure their menfolk they “made the right choice”.

“Remember,” Roberts adds, “what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.” As Rocha explains, that last point speaks to what he calls the “silent vote” — mostly college-educated women who aren’t captured in polling, but who nonetheless plan to vote blue in private. And if Vote Common Group, the group behind the stunt, is spending $30,000 to get Julia Roberts beamed into the homes of women in swing states, the expense is a bet on Rocha’s “silent vote” to tip the scales on Tuesday. With Harris up nine points among women, Democrats are obviously tapping into something real — the question is whether they’re doing it well enough to combat Republican efforts.

Democrats are not the only ones appealing to moderate suburban housewives. Beyond focusing on the usual bugbears around inflation and migration, Republicans are also trying to make inroads by focusing on the creep of progressive radicalism in suburban areas where parent teacher association meetings have been upended by hot button culture battles. “The trans issue has been incredibly powerful — and it’s not just from our research — it’s showing up in everyone’s data”, says Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project, asked particularly about what’s working in the suburbs. “That’s why we are seeing it nonstop during the World Series and almost every college and professional football game.” This is clear enough in practice: in a battleground North Carolina district, encompassing some of Raleigh’s eastern suburbs, Republicans just put money behind an ad depicting the Democratic incumbent in drag, highlighting his support for transgenderism. Schilling, for his part, says his “gut” tells him Trump will do a bit better in suburban counties this time around. Before the midterm elections in 2022, 40% of American women said societal views on gender identity were “changing too quickly”.

Back in Stafford County, Republicans say they’re seeing a similar pattern to Schilling. When I stopped by the GOP’s tent, one middle-aged woman was posing giddily between lifesize cutouts of Trump and RFK Jr. As she watched that happy scene play out behind her, the wife of the local GOP chair told me that both Kennedy and Elon Musk were bringing a lot of people into the party, with women especially keen to vote red this time around. Like Schilling, meanwhile, she said many were particularly worried about extreme gender ideology.

Whoever ends up triumphant, at any rate, things are bound to be close. Biden won Stafford County by fewer than three thousand votes — just over 3% — in 2020. Four years earlier, Trump defeated Clinton by nearly 10 points. Not, of course, that any of this is happening in isolation. About 20 miles south of Stafford, King George County is designated rural by the Commonwealth of Virginia. There, Biden did better than Hillary Clinton, but Trump still won by more than 10 points in 2020 — and with more votes too. To put it differently, then, you don’t have to drive too far from DC’s affluent suburbs to discover country roads dotted with Trump signs. The question Republicans are wondering now is whether those signs, and their owners, will be enough if the GOP finally loses the battle for the suburbs.


Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington D.C. Correspondent.

emilyjashinsky

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Michael Askew
Michael Askew
15 days ago

You have to admire the sheer gall of the Democrat party, trumpeting itself as a protector of democracy. During the Biden years they opened the borders to illegal immigrants, and shepherded them towards the swing states, while taking action to allow illegals to have voting rights. Joe Rogan excoriated John Fetterman on his podcast for exactly this.
“Trump will try to imprison his political opponents!” they claimed. Trump did not do this in 2016, but the Democrats have spent the last 4 years trying to imprison DJT. The hypocrisy is sublime.

William Shaw
William Shaw
15 days ago

The Julia Roberts ad is incredibly demeaning of women.
The ad refers to the voting booth as “the one place in America where women still have a right to choose”, which as everyone knows is a total lie. Even when talking about abortion, which is undoubtedly the underlying issue, this is not the case, because there are many states where women have the right to choose. In every other aspect of life women have at least as much “right to choose” about things as men.
Then there’s the statement “you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know”. Well yes, that’s is and always has been the point of the voting booth, but it implies that women are too timid to voice their own opinions.
This is what Democrats think about women and based on that belief they are trying to drive a further wedge between the sexes and married couples for their own selfish ends. Despicable.

M Ruri
M Ruri
15 days ago
Reply to  William Shaw

Well, maybe you have yet to see it, but they have an identical version to that commercial for the men. It’s a group of farmers or something and the two men wink and vote for her. Equal opportunity lameness.

Dorian Grier
Dorian Grier
15 days ago
Reply to  William Shaw

Kamala’s morals are disgusting. Most soccer moms would have nothing in common with her.

Abortions are still running at about one million a year. Where’s the hysteria. The stats are there for anyone to see.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago
Reply to  William Shaw

The “Man enough” ad was tough to beat in the Cringe Ratings, but I think the “No-one will ever know” one has just about taken the biscuit.

Hans Daoghn
Hans Daoghn
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

It is said that creativity and comedy dies under authoritarian regimes. Those two ads support that thesis. The first one starts off: “I eat carburetors” as if real men eat car parts. Honestly: Don’t Democrats know what a carburetor is? I fix them (sometimes before breakfast), but eat them? What metro-man wrote that? Ew.

Jamie
Jamie
15 days ago

What could be more vulgar than a six
Foot and taller fully adult
Male being proud to win over a female athlete who has worked her heart out to compete in a college or Olympic sport denied to previous generations of women? What could be more vulgar than housing male rapists and murderers with female inmates? What could be more vulgar than encouraging disturbed young women with gender confusion to cut off their breast.
This makes Donald Trump look like a Puritan. Vulgar?

M Ruri
M Ruri
15 days ago

Sorry Emily,
Soccer moms want their girls to be able to play without fearing they will be run over by a trans girl two feet taller and 150 pounds heavier then they.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  M Ruri

Oh the irony.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
15 days ago
Reply to  M Ruri

Do they? Because many of these moms are genitals deep in the gender madness. It’s one of those boutique conditions that is almost exclusively associated with white, affluent, liberal women, the AWFLs as it were.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago

If women vote for Kamala, despite all Trump’s perceived affronts, then they’re cutting their noses to spite their faces.

And any woman who is voting Kamala because they want a woman president should be forced to take a civics course from Hillsdale College or Liberty U!

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
16 days ago

I completely understand American voters having reservations about Trump, even serious reservations.
I can even understand voters whose doubts about Trump are strong enough that they’d hold their nose and vote for Kamala just to stop him from re-taking the Presidency.
If that’s their considered judgement then fair enough, and good luck to them.
Where I really struggle is with those who, with a straight face, claim to be enthused – even impressed – by Kamala Harris. And the media stooges who shill for this hopeless candidate.
Remember, this is the same media who insisted Biden was sharp as a tack and fit as a fiddle (“and eff you if you can’t handle the truth!”), who then had to pivot away from him and onto a VP that the same media outlets had described as a dud until her backroom-deal installation as the new candidate, whereupon she instantly became a shining beacon of competence and hope.
Trust in Politicians is nearing an all time low, but trust in media is at rock-bottom.
Democrats insist that the very institutions of America, the Republic itself, is under threat if Donald Trump is re-elected – yet they’ve chosen to put up a woeful candidate (actually two) to stop him. They have only themselves to blame if this man now regains the presidency.
Shouting “fascist” at him is merely a demonstration of their own desperation.
Given all the many reasons why they insist Trump should not be president, it should be the easiest election for the Dems to win. The fact that they could VERY easily lose it, is all the evidence any Democrat supporter should need to show that they stuck with Biden long after everybody could see he was gonzo, and then swapped him for a VP whose record has been WOEFUL – every policy area in which she had a hand got markedly worse.
She is a terrible candidate. I honestly think the worst political candidate of my lifetime
No one dismantled the Kamala Harris bid for 2020 more effectively than Tulsi Gabbard – if a fellow democrat can make Kamala Harris look that bad, that easily – TO DEMOCRAT VOTERS – does anyone really think Harris can stand up to the job of President? Let alone face down Putin, Xi or the Iranians?
How the hell did we get here?
VPs are picked, more often than not, to bring to the table what the Presidential candidate lacks – that, rather than their suitability to be President themselves.
Obama went with Biden because he was seen as a canny party insider with foreign policy experience, which filled out two areas where Obama was perceived to be weak.
Harris was similarly picked to give the Biden ticket a younger female POC to counter what were perceived as his “identity” weaknesses (Old and White and Male). Her run in 2020 had ended in embarassment, but having promised a VP who was a “woman of colour” he was stuck with her. Insiders suggest that there is no love lost between the, which would explain why Harris has been largely side-lined throughout his presidency.
She had the lowest VP ratings in history. Even Dan Quayle was viewed as a more competent VP by the American people.
Just blindly standing behind such a low calibre candidate because you hate Trump makes no sense. Indeed, the very people who claim to fear Trump the most, decided to put up Harris against him?
Anyone who doesn’t want to see Trump re-elected ought to have been pushing Harris aside to get a better candidate into position.
They didn’t, more fool them. If they lose to Trump, it’s on them.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

The dems were also hostage to their own identity politics. To sideline the perceived “heir apparent,” who is a woman of color (sorry, colour, since this is a British site), for a better candidate would have been untenable to the far left identitarians.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
15 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Switching Joe Biden for Kamala Harris was like someone changing their tie having soiled their trousers. After the mess they’ve made, a whole new outfit is required.
Possibly one that would go well with a red hat?

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
16 days ago

I have a peculiar ambivalence about this election that I’ve not seen described anywhere despite ad nauseam discussion of the topic over the last four years. Like many, I don’t really care for either candidate. While I am convinced that Harris represents the clueless face of an entrenched establishment with sinister objectives toward my value system, I still think that for the long game it might be better if she wins. Counterintuitively, if she’s elected, the policies enacted by the Democratic Party will further reveal to centrists and old school liberals how extreme and toxic the party has become; world events may provide the opportunity for her administration to Jimmy Carter itself into disfavor; and during her administration the democrats will be left bare, having clothed themselves with anti-Trumpism since 2016. The seeds of foolishness sown in the current administration may bear their rotten fruit during the Harris term, preparing the way for a significant political shift in 2028 toward the center-right without the distraction of Trump available to the left as cover.

On the other hand, if Trump wins, he will face four years of non-stop gale force hyperbole and extreme controversy, which the Democrats will use to good effect to block his policies and neutralize more attractive Republican candidates for the midterms and for 2028. So, I hope Trump loses. Better for Republicans to let the Dems FUBAR things in plain sight with no Trump to blame, while Republicans take four years to prepare the foundations of a cogent campaign with new faces and coherently articulated platforms. The vacuum left by Trump’s deconstruction of the old Republican Party has opened an opportunity for the coalescence of the growing ranks of new younger conservatives, but they can’t thrive until he is no longer the figure sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

Let Harris be behind the wheel when the economy tanks or we’re still funding the Ukrainians, or an American ship is at the bottom of the Red Sea, or the Ivy League has decided that Jewish students must sew yellow stars on their sweaters, or whatever else unfolds. Does anyone really believe that the next four years will be halcyon days for any administration? Let the Dems be the ones to own the disaster that everyone feels is coming.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

I agree. Though the thought of the Democrats winning sends a chill down my spine. But I suspect even in losing they’ll expose themselves for what they are, one of the ways being the vicious internal battle taking place after their defeat. Which will be a pleasure to watch.

Peter D
Peter D
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

Yes, how much more speed can this car crash waiting to happen gather before it hits the tree of reality?

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Peter D

Love that.

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

I share your ambivalence. Some years it seems best to lose an election to avoid the inheritance. Let someone else take the flak. Then wait for a better leader to ride the wave of popularity into power at the next election. But the example of the Tories in the UK serves as a warning about the nature of power and party politics in a modern bureaucratic state.

Labour were toast in the 2010 election. The Tony Blair legacy had caught up with his successor. The debt and immigration-fuelled economic expansion had collapsed. The vast multiplication of quangos headed by Labour placemen had made the state even less responsive to public demands. The rapidly rising public spending had not improved services. Labour’s last budget had put in place significant spending cuts.

Yet in the 2010 election the two-party political system, relentlessly triangulating votes in marginals, offered no alternative. In 2010 the opposition leader David Cameron styled himself as the heir to Blair. After offering no real change, Cameron didn’t win a majority. His government inherited a highly politicised state implacably opposed to change. And the two party calculus ensured Cameron avoided tinkering to much with the state to avoid any politically difficult challenges.

The point is this: you can’t wait for the right sort of change. There is no perfect set of conditions for change. Trump, for good or for bad, offers the only chance of change today. The last 30 years of Republican and Democrat politics shows you’re unlikely to be offered a better chance for change, you might not even be offered another chance for change.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
15 days ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

It is difficult to see it any other way
I am just hoping that Trump has learned ands will take a wrecking ball to established interests from day 1

Addie Shog
Addie Shog
15 days ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Like many here I agree you make a good argument. However, she and her administration can do a lot of damage to America and her foreign policy is going to be a disaster and I truly fear a President Harris.

John Dellingby
John Dellingby
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

There’s a similar logic as to why many, such as myself, voted Reform over the Conservatives even if the cost of doing so was a Labour government. We all know Labour will fail to turn things around and if anything, probably make things worse. Let them own it and let the Right rebuild and come back in 2029.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

Your argument makes sense except for the concern that, after another four years of wide open borders, it may be too late for a Republican president to salvage anything.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

I’m pulling for the GOP, but I think your argument makes a lot of sense. I think America can survive economically for four years under Harris. Her administration will be a crap show for sure, and this will usher in a new set of GOP leaders like JD, Vivek and Disantis. The toxicity of Trump will be gone and we move forward.

My biggest fear is foreign affairs. Harris has the potential to unleash a new set of hell that no one is prepared for.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Living in Europe, I honestly fear a Harris presidency. If I was an American citizen, I’d have the same ambivalence as the other posters on this thread and be humming and hawing right up to the last moment in the voting booth.
As it is, I’m hoping for a Trump win.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Too late for RFK though.

Rob N
Rob N
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

I don’t think the US will survive 4 more years of the Dems taking even more control of the media, Big Tech, the security apparatus, mutilating children, destroying women’s rights and safe spaces. There will not, as Elon has said, ever be a real election again.

Trump for all his sins will do his best but the Elites/Blob will hamper him every step of the way and he will have to be very effective and ruthless to achieve anything. The Dems will have nothing holding them back from total control.

M Ruri
M Ruri
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

You think we can survive another 15-20 million immigrants flowing over the border where we are supposed to completely support them… while they move into the swing states and permanently entrench the left? In what scenario does that not completely destroy the country?

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

I understand your thoughts. And, domestically, I think a Harris win is going to look very similar to the situation in the UK. For a couple of weeks, there is relief that the Tories are history – but then you see what an unmitigated disaster you’ve now got on your hands and have to put up with for the next 4 years.

Hans Daoghn
Hans Daoghn
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Thanks for posting this. I left a comment about this before I saw your comment. From the U.S. perspective: Harris = Starmer. Thank you for letting the U.S. see what a politician of Harris’ stripes becomes once elected.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

In some respects you make sense, but an awful lot of damage would occur in the 4 years. Potentially loss of freedom of speech, huge government spending and money printing, unchecked illegal immigration, removing the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court, transitioning children, the fentanyl crisis, warmongering, erosion of the fabric of society… to mention only a few. The thought of dealing with Harris must be delicious to the bad actors in the world.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

Such a sad outlook ! Half the country will vote for DJT and the enthusiastic team he has putting together. RFK Jr. Nicole Shanahan, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy. Tulsi Gabbard, JD Vance, and yesterday even Joe Rogan endorsed him. Half the American people don’t deserve the “disaster that is coming”.
There isn’t a country in the world that is living within its means. Covid hit Trump’s last term. If he is elected this time it will be wars which are the disaster. Who is bringing them to us ? The Communists and the Islamists. If there were any doubt who needs to be sharply punished for these wars, it’s the Democrats and the Europeans who invited the hoards westward, in part by opening our borders.

M Ruri
M Ruri
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

The reconstruction of the Republican party is happening under your nose as well. And it is light years better than the Dems destroying everything they touch just to instill themselves into a permanent position of power.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
15 days ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

This argument just speaks to the ungovernability of the huge public establishment. Unless a new government shows up with a clear mandate to detonate a bomb under public services it’s likely it would be impossible to change course.

As the precipice nears do you pump the brakes or floor it.

Rob N
Rob N
15 days ago

Isn’t it a bit ironic that the Dems support absentee ballots yet the voting booth is “the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know”!

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
15 days ago

“It’s hard to imagine what will be more toxic. A defeated Trump will pump poison into the paranoid minds of his most ardent supporters, but the last time he took the Presidency, it unleashed a progressive tidal wave of outrage that deranged nearly every liberal institution in America. Either way, lunatic energy will blaze through the public realm, ending up who knows where.”

blue 0
blue 0
15 days ago

A Trump loss and a GOP Congress will be the best outcome. There is a trainwreck coming for many aspects of US life that even a competent POTUS can not repair.. Let the party primarily responsible for the wreck take the L.

Mark Knight
Mark Knight
15 days ago

Will soccer moms win it for Kamala?
No!

Amelia Melkinthorpe
Amelia Melkinthorpe
15 days ago

No.
Next daft question?

Anthony Roe
Anthony Roe
15 days ago

The WASP ‘Soccer Mom’ died out many years ago.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
15 days ago

They say they are offended by his “vulgar tendencies” but really they are offended by his wealth. He likes nice things and his lifestyle is that of a very wealthy man. And he has a beautiful and sexy wife. Whereas HRC is downright dupmy and Kamala is a bit dowdy. Kamala is kinda pretty but dumb as a post and quite a snob in her own right. People voting for Kamala seem quite shallow and scripted. Trumpers, on the other hand, have thought through the issues and come out the side of substance.

M Ruri
M Ruri
15 days ago

Kamala is not dowdy, she is an attractive woman in her own right. But she definitely is dumb as a post….

Bernard Brothman
Bernard Brothman
15 days ago

Abortion is the Prohibition issue of the 2020s. In the late 1910s there overwhelming support to ban alcohol and then in the early 1930s there was overwhelming support to repeal the alcohol ban.
Sure the economy and uncontrolled immigration are important issues and what surveys indicate voters care more about. However, in the privacy of the voting booth, many voters will pick Harris over Trump in their belief a national abortion rights law comes to pass, regardless of what other baggage comes along with a Harris Administration.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago

in the privacy of the voting booth, many voters will pick Harris over Trump in their belief a national abortion rights law comes to pass
Interesting. Of course we’ll never know. If Harris wins it might suggest that, but you’ll never know just what went on in the voting booth. If she does lose does that suggest women didn’t really care as much about it as other issues?

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
15 days ago

The reality is that those upper middle class families who live in suburbia and the wife can afford not to work or work at a job she finds interesting will only be minimally impacted by Harris. The husband will be working in some well-paid office work and will not be blue collar and they will not be living within the inner city areas. They will be able to afford to send children to private schools, Roman Catholic ones ( they expel troublemakers ) or good state schools in affluent areas. They can afford immigrant labour to clean house, look after garden, due odd jobs, etc.
Consequently bad schools, bad public health, overcrowding due to immigration, higher crime rates due to immigration, higher energy, food and living costs will have minimal impact.
The upper middle class of the USA live a very similar existence to the upper middle class in the UK between   1815 to 1914, not a care in the World.
They can afford Harris and massage their conscience at the same time and they find Trump ill-mannered and crass. 

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
15 days ago

Journalists have now spent nearly a decade haunting the farms and taverns of rural America, trying to understand why millions of decent heartlanders voted for Trump. 
Then those journos are not fit for the profession or anything that requires thought. Trump was made possible by the dysfunctional state of the republic. He’s not a cause of anything. He is a symptom. Aside from the rabid partisans who believe their side walks with the angels while the other side is demonic when not “literal Hitler,” most people see a govt that does not work for them. They see a DC that is all about enriching itself and its cronies.
If the republic was healthy and functioning smoothly, there would be no place for a Trump. And a Trump would have no interest in seeking the job because “healthy and functioning smoothly” are good things. He would surmise that the political professionals are doing their jobs property and he’d focus on his area of expertise. That’s why.

laura m
laura m
15 days ago

As Trump brought on his expanded team and ran a tight campaign including long form conversation, we learned (once again, think Travon Martin race hoax) how easily the MSM brainwashes with daily repetition. f**k the luxury beliefs and CIA a** kissing of Soccer Moms.

Hans Daoghn
Hans Daoghn
15 days ago

Harris = Starmer. How’s that going for you Brits?. Thank you for letting the U.S. see what a politician of Harris’ stripes becomes one elected.

0 0
0 0
15 days ago

To me, it’s all about policies on inflation, illegal immigration, foreign wars, and 1st amendment rights. Google the approaches to each – Harris not so much this year but her 2020 comments will suffice.
If you liked the last 4 years, vote for K, as the ones who are running it now will continue. If you liked the Trump era better, vote T, as there will be more of the same.
Easy peasy.

Brett H
Brett H
14 days ago

Whoever ends up triumphant, at any rate, things are bound to be close. 
Wrong, wrong, wrong. As these commentators so often are. And why so often? What makes them wrong so often? Could it be they just don’t know what they’re talking about or they just don’t care? This is Unherd’s Washington DC correspondent. Presumably that means political correspondent, close to the source, but not. What should be done with the media after what we’ve seen for the last eight years?

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
14 days ago

Once again, the answer to the question was: No!