Campaigns without Policy
Biden is about to be replaced without any conversation about policy or governing
After President Biden’s exit from the 2024 campaign, many Democratic leaders swiftly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Those decisions seemed to have been based on two factors.
First, the party needs a replacement as soon as possible so a new campaign can launch, and Harris is the obvious choice as vice president and the preferred candidate of Biden. Second, any delay (much less debate) would open the door to a damaging internecine war that the party can’t afford since it’s behind in the polls and there are only a few months until Election Day. In fairness, Harris’s résumé shows why those two factors carry such weight in the moment: She is in some senses a standard presidential nominee. She was a high-ranking state official (attorney general of California), a U.S. Senator, and vice president. If the party is looking for an expeditious, non-controversial decision, Harris is the pick.
Shouldn’t We Eventually Talk About Policy?
I’ll leave the politics to others. My interest here is in policy and governing. What is most striking to me is how this rapid decision—free of any meaningful discussion of policy—fits perfectly (but sadly) with the trend of the last three elections.
Donald Trump was nominated in 2016 for reasons largely unrelated to policy (apart maybe from immigration). In debate after debate, speech after speech, he showed little interest in and even less knowledge of how governing works. That is astonishing. But people gravitated to him in the primary for other reasons. (Writers have spent a lot of time debating if the “other reasons” were fame, affect, outsider-ness, or something else. Whatever it was, it was not policy and governing chops.) And then in the general few voted for him because of his articulate, comprehensive views on say, transportation, education, or housing policy.
In 2020, not only did Mr. Trump continue to be policy- and governing-lite, the party chose not to have a new policy platform. At all. On the other side, Mr. Biden spent very little time campaigning, largely positioning himself as not Mr. Trump. This cycle, Trump defeated his GOP primary opponents again without engaging much on policy (though a number of his opponents tried). Until his exit from the race this weekend, Mr. Biden’s strategy again appeared to be underscoring that he was not Mr. Trump.
I think the explanation for this is our apocalyptic doom loop. Polarization has convinced many voters that the particulars of governing don’t matter so much. What matters is that the other party’s choice not win. Discussions about governing become superfluous.
As a result, I’m not sure—even though this is his third time heading the GOP ticket—what Mr. Trump thinks of federalism or civil society. I don’t know whether he believes in deficit reduction. I’m not sure how he’d pick judges were he re-elected. I don’t know what he thinks about criminal justice reform or a host of family policies.
And now it appears that Ms. Harris will become her party’s nominee without any discussion of the budget, China, crime, child tax credits, free speech, immigration, K-12 education, student-loan forgiveness, taxes, workforce participation rates, or anything else. It’s not as though the party lacks for viable options. Just among governors, they have potentially compelling candidates like Colorado’s Polis, California’s Newsom, Illinois’s Pritzker, Kentucky’s Beshear, Maryland’s Moore, and Michigan’s Whitmer. But it appears that the party’s leaders have decided that if an open discussion of policy reduces the party’s chances of winning in November, then a debate about governing can be sacrificed.
For a moment it seemed like former president Obama’s interest in an open process might get traction. Michael Bloomberg appears to want that. But more and more Democratic leaders are falling behind Harris, and within 24 hours it might be a fait accompli.
We’ll know our politics are healing when we return to the days of seeing a discussion of policy and governing as a way to win an election not a way to lose it.
I totally agree. This notion of entrusting our votes to people of whom we know precious little about their beliefs and intentions for governance, and whom they might populate their cabinets with, is jolting to someone like me who first voted for Reagan. It's sad, because when conservatives can articulately debate philosophies and postions and their rationale, we can win hearts and minds. Of course, not that the Democrats want THAT. They'd much prefer we vote based solely on emotion.
The term "policy" is a red flag for me, as it implies state action. "The First Amendment disables our country from having a reasonable and balanced media policy." Damn right it does, and that's a good thing. "Something as important as interest rates mustn't be left to the chaos of the market. We need a Federal Reserve System to turn the dials and knobs of interest rate policy for the good of all."
Not every use of the word "policy" is statist (the "policy" of not having a wealth tax or confiscatory income taxes or a VAT or a carbon tax), but every use of the word deserves scrutiny and thought, like the terms "we," "crisis," "fundamental right," "fair share," and "a little bit more."