Lots of voters don’t know who Trump is. Harris is informing them

There’s a common perception among newspeople that there’s nothing Donald Trump can do or say that will change anyone’s mind.

This is often picked up by some Republicans, even those who are not especially enamored by the former president. They say Kamala Harris should stop calling him a fascist, for instance, because “name-calling” is going to alienate undecided voters who want policy, not politics.

I should say misperception, because that’s what it is. If there’s doubt, consider that a new generation is discovering news about Donald Trump that is the foundation on which all the “more of the same” news is piled skyward. Of course, I’m talking about “grab them by the p—y.”

Young women, who were teenagers at the time of its reporting, are listening and reacting to the “Access Hollywood” tape for the first time.

Today’s Post: “The generation that came of age during the #MeToo era is turning to social media for information about candidates and elections — 39 percent of young adults say they frequently get their news from TikTok, according to Pew Research. This week, many said on the social network they were shocked by the former president’s words and confused why the episode wasn’t a dealbreaker in 2016.”

Shocked, because they didn’t know that Trump had seemed to confess to committing sexual assault or at least seemed to condone the crime.

They didn’t know this thing that all the journalists have for the last eight years presumed that everyone knows. They didn’t know this thing that Republicans pundits and pollsters presume that everyone knows, and on the basis of everyone knowing it, advise Trump’s opponents and adversaries to forget about it and stick to policy.

But they didn’t know, and as a consequence of not knowing, this new generation of women, who cannot and will not tolerate the liberties that men of Trump’s generation have taken with women’s bodies, are so shocked they can’t believe he survived the episode politically.

“It's super concerning that so many people like to paint Trump as a family man," a TikToker toldTeen Vogue. “And he and [JD] Vance have tried to create this image of the importance of the American family unit, and that's why they're trying to get rid of a lot of reproductive health care services and facilities, if God forbid, they win the election.”

“I just realized first time voters 18-22 year olds are probably just hearing/understanding this, since it hasn’t really been played much since 2016, and they were children then,” a TikTok commentator said.

“Me being almost 20 and seeing this and you described my experience exactly. I’m horrified and literally want to cry,” another responded.

Another said: “I was in 7th grade in 2016 and I don’t [remember] much from it, but now I’m 20, educated and ready to vote for the first time.”

(These quotes were reported byTeen Vogue.)

If many Gen Z women are now discovering the “Access Hollywood” tape, others might also be discovering the 2022 deposition of the former president in the case of E Jean Carroll. The judge in that civil suit found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her, concluding that he raped her, according to any ordinary understanding of the word.

Under oath, Trump said it’s “historically true” that stars can “grab them by the pussy.” It’s true, he said, “unfortunately or fortunately.” When asked if he considers himself a star, he said, “you could say that.”

Seeing that Gen Z doesn’t know, the Harris campaign is scrambling to put these newfound facts into a larger context. When vice presidential running mate Tim Walz was in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, he said:

“Those women you are thinking about right now have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers had. That’s what [Trump] did. Now 20 states have a Trump abortion ban. Last night, Donald Trump said that if you’re a woman, he’ll be your protector. … He said, ‘I know a lot of people don’t like that … I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not.’ That’s how this guy’s lived his life. That’s why he was on the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape and that’s why he ended up in court. … Women [are now being] turned away now from emergency rooms to get basic care, having miscarriages in parking lots. Survivors of rape and incest [are] being forced to carry their attackers’ child.”

You could say, well, they were kids. Of course, this is news.

But kids, or rather teenagers, are not the exception to the rule. Everyone leads complex lives. Everyone is preoccupied. But not everyone is going to know what members of the press corps know.

When newspeople say there’s nothing new to say about Donald Trump, what they mean is there’s nothing new for them to say. And because they often see themselves as representing the views and interests of the American people, they presume the American people don’t or won’t care about the latest outrage if there’s nothing new to say.

That cynicism leads them to ask questions like this from CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who hosted a town hall with Harris last week:

“For weeks, you have been calling Donald Trump ‘unstable,’ ‘unhinged.’ You’ve called him ‘dangerous.’ You quoted General Milley recently who called him a fascist. Today, you quoted General Kelly, who said that Trump repeatedly praised Hitler. But there are tens of millions of Americans right nowwho heard all those things, and they don’t buy it or, even if they do, they’re still going to vote for Donald Trump. He’s arguably more popular now than ever. You have 13 days to go. What do you say to those voters to convince them”?

I’d guess Cooper assumed she’d pivot to policy. She didn’t.

She said you’re wrong. People don’t know. Then she told them.

“The people who know Donald Trump best, the people who worked with him in the White House, in the Situation Room, in the Oval Office, all Republicans … who served in his administration, his former chief of staff, former national security advisor, former secretaries of defense and his vice president, have all called him unfit and dangerous.”

She said: “They have said explicitly that he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States. They have said that he should never again serve as president of the United States. We know that’s why Mike Pence is not running with him, why the job is empty. And today, we learned that John Kelly, a four-star Marine general, who was his longest-serving chief of staff, gave an interview recently in the last two weeks of this election talking about how dangerous Donald Trump is.”

In this, she demonstrated faith in the American people. Sure, some of us, indeed, scores of millions of us, will vote for Trump no matter what. But millions more don’t know what he’s done, what he’s said and who he is. And they don’t know, in large part, because the Washington press corps presumed too much out of a mixture of boredom and cynicism.

What’s joyful about the Harris campaign is its tireless faith in the basic decency of the American people, in the belief that most of us, when we understand the facts, as a young generation of TikTokers is doing, will come to the right decision, because the right decision is so obvious.

With her victory, perhaps news people will rediscover their own faith.

I doubt it.