There was a moment during Oprah Winfrey’s “Unite for America” rally with Kamala Harris last Thursday when I realised quite how serious the Democratic presidential nominee is about winning. In a spree of digital gloating, Donald Trump’s supporters claimed that it was a gaffe. But it wasn’t.
In the middle of an often-emotional conversation about school shootings and gun safety, Harris suddenly announced: “If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot”. This was so unexpected and off-script that even Oprah was unsure how to react. “I hear that, I hear that” she said – clearly wondering whether she had, in fact, heard that.
In every other respect, the rally was a feelgood fantasia of Hollywood liberalism – Meryl Streep, Chris Rock, Julia Roberts and Bryan Cranston dialling in – and anti-MAGA virtue-signalling. There was hugging, there were tears, there was a word salad buffet. And then Harris went all Death Wish.
As soon as she had spoken, she laughed and said: “I probably should not have said that… my staff will deal with that later.” But she knew that she had her news top line and her viral digital clip.
In the UK, where there is no Second Amendment, the idea of a progressive politician bragging about shooting an intruder is unthinkable. But an estimated 134 million Americans live in a home where there is at least one firearm. It was to them that Harris was speaking.
Not all presidential candidates – especially Democrats – believe that they can and will win. Go back and watch Walter Mondale in 1984, or Michael Dukakis in 1988, or even John Kerry (who was expected to win) in 2004. None looks truly hungry. Harris does. But she also knows that – six weeks away from polling day – she has not yet sealed the deal.
As Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of Harris for President, said at the Oprah event, this remains “a margin-of-error race”. In the short time remaining, “we have got to go persuade those people that still don’t know enough about the vice-president and her vision for the future”.
Last week’s New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll illustrated O’Malley Dillon’s point very clearly. The voters definitely think that Harris won the ABC News debate with Trump on September 10. But the national contest remains a tie.
Of those who had watched or heard about the debate, 25% said that they had learned “not much” or “nothing at all”. In poll after poll, focus group after focus group, the message is the same: we don’t know enough about her.
I don’t think the voters are saying that they want Harris to unveil an Excel spreadsheet of detailed policies. As it happens, she has what amounts to a pledge card of appealing retail proposals: from a $25,000 down payment programme for first-time home buyers to a $6,000 child tax credit. She could add more, but I doubt it would solve the problem.
When voters say they want to know more about her, they mean what they say. They know instinctively that the speeches and the softball conversations with celebrities are scripted to the point of vacuity.
They have seen her framing of contest: prosecutor versus felon; freedom versus tyranny; “turn the page” versus the past. But they still want to know more about the character behind the framing and the scripts.
It is true that Harris occasionally gets lost in cliched streams of consciousness about the American dream that make her sound like she is narrating Little House on the Prairie. But – when she gives herself the chance – she is engaging, witty and precise.
Which is why, against her natural inclination, the vice president should forge a path deep into what the commentator Sam Harris calls “Podcastistan”: the ecosphere of podcasts, Substack shows and YouTube channels that are so important in shaping US political debate.
She needs to take the risk of a two-hour, free-form interview, in marked contrast to the stilted 27-minute exchange that she and her running mate, Tim Walz, had in August with CNN’s Dana Bash. She needs to relax, and be spontaneous, and talk about her development as a politician – especially since 2019-20.
Her advisers believe that her success since she announced her candidacy on July 21 owes much to her evasion of one-on-one media scrutiny. But they are wrong.
This ultra-cautious strategy has stalled her progress. She is stuck in a terrifying grey zone where, as things stand, a coin-toss will determine who leads the free world.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and its proxies are filling the gaps in her story with poison, fabrication and innuendo. In particular, they use clips of her speaking up for racial justice during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 to imply that she is, at heart, a communist agitator.
In practice, there is only one podcast that Harris needs to do. The Joe Rogan Experience regularly notches up 200 million downloads a month and has much greater reach, thanks to the many YouTube channels and social media accounts that clip and comment on each episode. Whatever you think of this UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) commentator and stand-up comic, he is the world’s most influential media personality.
And – guess what? – he really likes the Democrat nominee. In a podcast with fellow comedian Tom Segura last week, Rogan was effusive about her performance in the ABC debate: “She’s nailing it”.
This is less surprising than his many detractors would claim. The politician with whom Rogan is most closely aligned is Bernie Sanders, and, though he has an extremely eclectic mix of guests on his show, ranging from Robert F Kennedy Jr to Tucker Carlson, his personal politics are progressive (though not woke).
Yes, he hosts UFO kooks, health cranks, conspiracists and mumbling mixed martial artists. But that’s America, the nation Harris aspires to lead. If you can’t cope with that level of weirdness, and you can’t handle Joe Rogan sitting opposite you, how can you possibly handle Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un?
One of the many reasons that Rogan is successful is that he lets his guests talk. His greatest strength is his curiosity.
And Harris has yet to explain satisfactorily why her positions on certain key issues have changed since she first ran for the presidency in 2019, beyond her insistence that her “values” are unaltered: a disingenuous formula that insults the electorate’s intelligence.
There is a through-line that makes sense of it all, but it requires the space, time and informality of a candid conversation. Harris’s argument needs to proceed something like this:
“Joe, listen. My opponent says I’m a Marxist. Really? I mean, I must be the first Marxist that Dick Cheney ever endorsed for president!
“You have to remember that 2019-20 was a time of great intensity in American life – there was Covid and the murder of George Floyd. I always condemned rioting, and 93% of the BLM protests were non-violent. Which is why I supported donating to bail schemes for peaceful protesters. I have never argued for ‘defunding the police’ – in fact, the Biden-Harris administration announced new grants for 1,730 additional law enforcement officers in November.
“But I did say – and still say – that community safety depends upon more than police numbers. That was a theme of my book Smart on Crime in 2009 and it will be a theme of my presidency. Safe neighbourhoods for people of all ethnicities depend upon jobs, affordable housing, childcare, enterprise.”
Rogan asks her about reparations for slavery – a hot-button issue on both sides of the ideological divide.
“I’ve gotta tell you, this should not be a polarising issue, the way my opponent wants it to be. Look, all decent people can agree that slavery is a terrible stain on America’s history and that its after-effects are felt to this day.
“As I said at the National Association of Black Journalists on September 17, we should be ‘studying it to figure out exactly what we need to do’ – by which I meant: how can we best help Americans of colour escape the historic disadvantage bequeathed by the enslavement of their ancestors? I think it starts with making sure that all historically disenfranchised communities have a real opportunity in life – and backing that up with policies.
“I really want your listeners to get that about me: I talk about ‘civil rights’, which is a unifying idea, not ‘identity politics’, which is a divisive one. I don’t want to separate people into groups and tribes. I want all Americans to have a fair shot. I’m not an ideology politician. Trump – he’s the ideology guy.”
Rogan would, of course, press her on fracking. Why is she suddenly in favour of it?
“Not suddenly! I changed my mind in 2020. Listen, Joe. The experience of being vice-president is the best boot camp you can imagine – you’re learning all the time, reviewing and fine-tuning your assumptions. You ever change your mind on anything? Nixon changed his mind on China, didn’t he? Didn’t Reagan change his mind on dealing with the Soviets?
“Fracking is important but it’s not as big a deal as either of those issues. I looked into it and realised that the US still needs it, alongside our massive climate change investment measures. Especially since energy security became such an issue with the Ukraine conflict.
“I think part of the ‘new generation of leadership’ that I’ve been talking about has to allow the possibility of politicians changing their minds in good faith, without being called a ‘flip-flopper’. We live in a volatile world. We’re all going to have to change our minds, more often than ever. In conversations like this one. It’s a sign of strength, I believe. Don’t you, Joe?”
Why roll the dice on such a show when you could keep it cosy with the friendly journalists and celebrities of the coasts? Precisely because time is so short and the stakes are so high.
Four years ago, the presidency was won by 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. Who knows where those precious votes will be distributed this time?
Go on, Madam vice-president: fortune favours the bold. Trust your instincts, ignore your advisers, and give Joe Rogan a call.
