Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign on Sunday is launching “Republicans for Harris” as she looks to win over Republican voters put off by Donald Trump’s candidacy.
The program will be a “campaign within a campaign,” according to Harris’ team, using well-known Republicans to activate their networks, with a particular emphasis on primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. The program will kick off with events this week in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Republicans backing Harris will also appear at rallies with the vice president and her soon-to-be-named running mate this coming week, the campaign said.
The Harris campaign shared the details of the program first with The Associated Press before the official announcement.
Excellent idea. Many of us disagree with Republicans, but many Republicans aren’t villains who want a bigoted dictator in the White House. They don’t want to be condescended to, either, and that’s fair. Nobody likes that.
The best way to win them over is with other Republicans who want to preserve democracy.
That’s a funny way of saying “former Republicans.” By definition, anyone who wants to preserve democracy can no longer be a member of the Republican Party because they are directly at odds with 100% of its platform and ideology.
A lot of people have a political party woven into their identity. It’s hard for them to accept that their party is no longer aligned with their views. If they still identify as Republicans but oppose Trump, they might just avoid confronting the cognitive dissonance by staying home or writing in a candidate for president. Plenty of others will pinch their nose and vote Trump because they just can’t escape seeing it as R vs D.
By appealing to them as Republicans, the Harris campaign is able to basically say that it’s ok, you don’t have to choose between being a Republican and voting against the insurrectionist would-be dictator.
You’re not wrong, tactically speaking about the current election, but at some point afterwards we’ve got quit enabling their denial and start helping them through the rest of those stages of grief.
Yeah, that’s what it’s become. A lot of people who voted for Trump the first time won’t do it again, because they thought the warnings and predictions were exaggerated. Oops.
Now, we’ve got a Republican Party that’s painted itself into a corner, because they let themselves become overrun by fascists. Former Republicans need to come to terms with that.
I mean, yes, but also no: it’s not so much that they’ve “let themselves become overrun” and more “willingly given in to their basest desires.”
An epiphany the party may one day have regarding progressives.