How Trump’s 'campaign to belittle Harris' is only hurting himself: DC insider

16 August 2024

Many Democratic strategists have been warning Vice President Kamala Harris that attacks from GOP rival Donald Trump and his allies will only grow worse between now and the presidential election in November. But as of mid-August, Harris is performing well in a long list of national and battleground state polls.

Although Trump is ahead of Harris by 1 percent in a Fox News poll released on August 14, the vice president has small single-digit leads in many others.

Trump has been angrily railing against Harris on the campaign trail. But in an op-ed published by The Guardian on August 14, author and former Bill Clinton/Hillary Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal argues that so far, Trump's attacks are failing to resonate.

"Trump has become delirious at the sight of Kamala Harris," Blumenthal writes. "(King George's) courtiers succeeded in restraining him, while Trump's cannot control him. He rages, curses and shouts to the heavens of the unfairness of fate. His aides attempt to calm and steady him about Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race."

According to Blumenthal, Trump has been undisciplined and unfocused as a candidate.

"Trump frantically attempts to find the key to a negative campaign against Harris," the former Clintons adviser observes. "He stumblingly flickers his projection of Biden. She's the crook, the cheat, the liar. She's not really Black, or she is Black but only lately. He mispronounces her name in a variety of deliberately mangled ways to make her seem strange, but in doing so, he appears stranger."

Blumental adds, "She's 'dumb,' 'incompetent' and a 'bitch.' He states that Biden is plotting to stage a coup at the Democratic (National) Convention to overthrow her…. Trump’s projection has become blowback. He can't run a negative campaign to belittle Harris because his negative campaign engulfs and defines himself."

Sidney Blumenthal's full op-ed for The Guardian is available at this link.

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