The week Trump finally started focusing on policy

OPINION:

There has been a rising sense of concern recently among some supporters of former President Donald Trump about the need for him and his campaign to engage more energetically on issues that voters care about: the economy, immigration and a general sense of societal disorder. The concern is acute enough and widespread enough that The Babylon Bee recently offered a post headlined “The Trump Campaign Is Wondering If It Should Probably Be Doing Something Now.”

Until a few days ago, those concerns and criticisms were valid. But late last week, Mr. Trump sat down with Matt Boyle at Breitbart. He gave a substantial 60-minute interview in which he attacked Vice President Kamala Harris on the economy, on immigration, on her ostensibly changed positions on fracking, on health care and even on the taxing of tips (which she favored during consideration of the Inflation Reduction Act, but now opposes, sort of). He also noted that Ms. Harris would eventually have to come out from behind her press statements and explain herself in open engagements with the media.

At around the same time, Mr. Trump posted on X a solid critique of the economy and immigration, critiques which he repeated and added to in his conversation earlier this week with Elon Musk.

Mr. Trump criticized and defined his opponent without devolving into distractions, divergences or the grinding of personal axes. He was focused and sharp and looked much like the candidate he was in 2016.

At around the same time, the White House press secretary admitted — after being unable to identify a single initiative or achievement that Ms. Harris could claim as mostly hers — that there was no daylight between President Biden and Ms. Harris’ agenda, policies or outlook. That is helpful to the Republicans, who have been trying to make that very point for almost a month now.

To make matters more interesting, Ms. Harris also committed to issue a platform shortly, hopefully such a thing might appear before next week’s Democratic National Convention. Obviously, though, the vice president has forgotten that she already has a de facto platform, largely constructed in 2019 and that it includes all the nonsense — the Green New Deal, government-run health care, erasing the southern border, confiscating guns, cutting funding to police departments, higher taxes, more spending, etc. — that is the hallmark of Bernie Sanders-style late-stage collectivism.

While Mr. Trump has begun to engage on policy, his running mate keeps steadily at it, remaining focused on the economy, on immigration, and the shortcomings of the current administration and the self-styled tribune of the plebs, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Mr. Walz, like Ms. Harris, has remained quiet about his own record, either economic (Minnesota is closer to the bottom than the top of the states in economic growth on his watch) or social (still in favor of allowing genital mutilation of minors). He also has yet to answer any questions about the end of his military career. But he has scrounged up enough time to spend this week raising cash from the residents of solidly blue-collar enclaves such as Newport Beach, California, and Newport, Rhode Island.

The good news for Mr. Trump’s supporters is that the campaign has moved away from the personal and toward the attack on policy. That’s a healthy development for a candidate who has definitive advantages with respect to the most important issues identified by voters.

Emphasizing policy differences — especially Ms. Harris’ late-in-life transformation into a moderate — is also likely to tangle the other side in an unwinnable game of Twister as they attempt to be all things to all people.

• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.