Believing he has established that Democrats in general are “radical” (or else believing it’s more his job to pretend they are than to dispel the notion), Leonhardt in the next section asks, how can Harris “signal that she’s more mainstream than other Democrats”?
He offers “five Democratic vulnerabilities,” the first of which he says is crime—”the most natural way for Harris to show moderation,” since she is “a former prosecutor who won elections partly by promising to crack down on crime. Today, many Americans are worried about crime.”
Again, Leonhardt takes a misperception among voters—that crime rates are elevated—and rather than attempting to debunk it based on data, which show that violent and property crime rates are lower than they’ve been in more than a generation (FAIR.org, 7/25/24), he allows the unchallenged misperception to buttress his move-to-the-center strategy recommendation.
“If Harris took a moderate position, she could undermine Republican claims that she is an elite cultural liberal,” Leonhardt wrote. By a “moderate position,” Leonhardt seems to mean banning access to hormone therapy for trans youth—a decidedly right-wing political position that, through misinformed and misleading media coverage, particularly from the New York Times (FAIR.org, 5/11/23), has become more politically acceptable.
Next is immigration, where Leonhardt wrote that, since
most Americans are deeply dissatisfied that Biden initially loosened immigration rules…I’ll be fascinated to see whether Harris—Biden’s point person on immigration—tries to persuade voters that she’ll be tougher than he was.
The truth is, it’s hard to get much tougher on immigration than Biden without going the route of mass deportation and caging children, as he kept in place many of Trump’s harsh refugee policies, much to the dismay of immigrant rights advocates. But few in the public recognize that, given media coverage that dehumanizes immigrants and fearmongers about the border (FAIR.org, 6/2/23, 8/31/23).
Finally, on “free speech,” Leonhardt wrote that “many Americans view liberals as intolerant,” noting that “Obama combated this problem by talking about his respect for conservative ideas, while Biden described Republicans as his friends.”
