Kamala’s Harsh Takedown of Trump Points the Way to a Post-MAGA America

Harris extensively reassured swing voters on many fronts. For those struggling economically, she offered populist, broadly appealing policies to curb health care and housing costs. To those preoccupied with crime and the border, Harris recounted her history as a tough prosecutor and vowed stringent border security. Harris delivered extensive paeans to middle-class struggles and values like family, community, homeownership, and faith. As William Kristol notes, she even strongly endorsed American exceptionalism.

Yet Harris was also absolutely unsparing in her takedown of Trump. And it’s important to appreciate this criticism for what it really was. In numerous ways, Harris portrayed the broad MAGA worldview as something in need of comprehensive repudiation.

A certain pundit theory of this election goes like this. The rise of Trump revealed an authentic upsurge of right populism in this country. In this telling, many voters do not see Trump’s violent insurrection as too dramatic a crime, because they’re skeptical of our institutions and don’t feel liberal democracy is delivering materially or spiritually. Many think Ukraine aid reflects a corrupted liberal international order and believe globalization has unraveled local attachments. Many oppose immigration on sincere communitarian or nationalist grounds. If some of this strays into illiberalism, well, that’s an understandable backlash to liberalism’s own excesses and failures.