Perspective: Harris’ pitch to moderates wasn’t persuasive enough

Kamala Harris made historic attempts to reach out to moderates and conservatives. Several prominent Republicans spoke at the DNC, including a former White House press secretary, House representative and lieutenant governor. Dozens of Republican politicians and other officials endorsed her. Some even campaigned with her.

But something strange became apparent in the days just before the election. Among the moderate left, Harris' overture was viewed as a moral and strategic success. In contrast, Trump-skeptical conservatives like myself never saw the overture as fully credible; according to The Hill , a New York Times/Siena poll in September found that 47% believed that Harris was too progressive (as opposed to 32% who thought Trump was too conservative).

Why was the Harris campaign unable to mount a credible overture to moderates and conservatives? And why were they unable to see that the campaign was failing? Well one thing they seem not to have done was to actually check in with their target audience. This, in a nutshell, is one of the biggest electoral challenges Democrats face: they live in a bubble, and it's one they've built for themselves.

Over the last few decades, the left has come to dominate the sense-making institutions of America: pop culture, journalism and academia. At the same time, American politics have polarized along education (that is to say: class) lines. So if you are an upper-class, left-leaning American, the music you listen to, the books you read, the movies you watch, the video games you play, the courses you take at school and the news you read are all written by people who more or less think like you do.

It's fair to talk about a bubble on the political right as well. But practically speaking, if you are a lower- or middle-class American with any kind of politics other than those of the elite left, you don't have the same luxury. The left's dominance of pop culture means that the TV shows, movies, video games and books you enjoy are full of increasingly over-the-top left-wing talking points, including children's shows. The left's dominance of education ensures a persistent vocal minority of teachers who view their calling in terms of activism. Even though non-elite Americans may not be persuaded by these messages, they certainly can't avoid coming to understand the viewpoints they represent. (The left's dominance of journalism is increasingly irrelevant as social media allows Americans to build new bubbles of their own.)

Because the American left dominates the sense-making institutions, their language is like an official language. The language of the American left is also what they speak at home and in their communities. So they never have to learn more than one language. But lower- and middle-class Americans have to become at least a little bilingual.

That's the conceptual basis for the failure of the Harris campaign to successfully reach out to conservatives: They don't speak the language. But what does it mean in practice?

The fact that the American left lives in a bubble means that they have a hard time understanding how their coalition is perceived from the outside. From within the bubble, the distinction between the radical, progressive left and the mainstream, liberal left might seem very clear. But from the outside of the bubble, the line between radical and moderate is far too blurry.

Harris herself is an excellent example of this. When she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2019, she positioned herself at the progressive edge. When she ran for the presidency in 2024, she stopped talking about progressive positions she had espoused just a few years ago, but never addressed them explicitly or answered many questions about why her positions had changed. If she had understood just how repugnant radical policies and rhetoric are to most Americans, she would have known it would take a lot more to win the American people over.

The problem is broader than just Harris, however. The left may have moved beyond the now-infamous description of "fiery but mostly peaceful" riots in 2020, but most Americans haven't. Nor have Americans forgotten the lawlessness and violence that ensued when Democratic politicians in cities like Seattle stepped aside to allow entire neighborhoods to descend into violent, chaotic "autonomous zones."

The left's continued tone-deafness when it comes to their radical fringe continues to this day, especially with their treatment of the pro-Hamas demonstrations that have riven American college campuses (especially the most expensive ones) since Oct. 7, 2023. The most politically damaging aspect of these protests is not the violent, antisemitic rhetoric but the way in which professors, administrators, and Democratic politicians have responded: with kid gloves.

When the presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn appeared before Congress, they gave technically-correct answers to questions about free speech, but utterly failed to acknowledge either that demonstrators on their campuses often went beyond free speech to harassment or the glaring double standard with which they applied free speech standards. If a student group invites a conservative to give a lecture on campus, that is condemned as violence. But if a mob occupies and trashes buildings, disrupts classes or even physically bars Jewish students from entering parts of campus, that's often portrayed as free speech.

This is the context of the Harris campaign's outreach to moderate and conservative Americans. Yet she failed to acknowledge, let alone repudiate, some of the farthest left activism, as well as her own extremely radical positions of just a few short years ago.

An obvious rejoinder is that the American right has a radicalism problem, too. That's absolutely true, but the left's problem is particularly acute when it comes to electoral politics because it is tinged with anti-Americanism. It's stock-and-trade among the radical left to call America a white supremacy from its founding to today. The mainstream left treats their radicalism indulgently, as when The New York Times helped develop and publish the 1619 Project.

What's more, the American left has more than exhausted its supply of credibility with the American people. Why should anyone care when you call Donald Trump a fascist after you already said the same things about George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and basically every other Republican politician?

I take no joy in this analysis. I voted for Kamala Harris. This analysis is not a celebration of a failure of the American left. It is a plea to the American left to learn from their mistakes and change course.

The best thing about the Harris campaign was its patriotism. The vast majority of Democrats are not anti-American radicals. They love their country, and we saw glimmers of that in the Harris campaign at its most promising. But the fact that the resurgence of patriotism was noteworthy highlights the extent of the problem. The association of radical, anti-American views with the left is deeper than moderate Democrats want to admit. It's not enough to try and force left-radicalism to be discrete, which seems to be the current approach. It must be repudiated.

This would be good for the left, because it would allow it to make successful outreach to moderates and conservatives, boosting electoral performance. There are many, many more gettable moderates than fire-breathing radicals. I hope to see a principled, positive, pro-American candidate from the Democrats in 2028, one who not only downplays but emphatically rejects radicalism.

This would be good for the country, too, by forcing the Republicans to similarly reign in their own radicals. Right now our nation has two political parties who rely heavily on demonizing their opposition and activating their respective bases. It's great for fundraising, but it's terrible for governance and eats away at America's social fabric. What our nation needs is two political parties that push back on their own radicals and compete sincerely and competently for the middle.