OPINION:
Why do Democratic presidential campaigns seem to think that releasing lists of names of supposed experts making factually dubious claims is persuasive to voters?
It’s likely driven by the success of the 51 intelligence community operatives whose “Russia hoax” letter tipped the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. (One post-election poll found that social media suppression in October 2020 of the New York Post’s report on the Hunter Biden laptop at the operatives’ behest effectively swung the election to the elder Biden, with 17% of Biden voters reportedly saying had they known the salacious story was true, they would not have voted for him.)
Now, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, hope campaign lightning will strike twice.
With considerable fanfare, the Harris-Walz campaign on Aug. 26 released a list of 238 nominal Republicans associated in one way or another with previous GOP presidents (such as George W. Bush) and failed presidential candidates (including Sen. Mitt Romney) who have publicly endorsed the Democrats’ Harris-Walz ticket over the Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
The wrote that “another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership … will hurt real, everyday people.”
The list is more notable for its quantity than its quality. Only a handful of the 238 signatories are names that more than a sliver of the American electorate would recognize.
Most held low and midlevel appointed posts in presidential administrations or on the campaigns thereof. Eight of them were interns at the time.
In terms of being politically explosive, “Republicans for Harris-Walz” is a dud that will most likely have a negligible effect on the race.
Likely to have far more electoral impact is Jeff Walz, who on Friday disavowed his younger brother’s policies, saying, “I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology.” (The elder Walz is reportedly considering publicly endorsing Mr. Trump’s presidential bid.)
Among the few whose names might be recognizable by those who follow politics: Reed Galen, who turned his disdain for Mr. Trump into the multimillion-dollar Lincoln Project, and GOP strategist Mike Murphy, who bills himself as the “OG [original gangster] Trump hater.”
Curiously missing from the list was former Rep. Liz Cheney, whose condemnation of Mr. Trump won her the co-chairmanship of Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 committee — and the wrath of Wyoming Republicans. They rejected her in an August 2022 primary in the second-worst loss ever by a congressional incumbent.
Despite that repudiation, Ms. Cheney emerged last Wednesday to endorse Ms. Harris.
“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this,” Ms. Cheney harrumphed. “Because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.” Her dad, Dick Cheney, followed suit.
By lending their names to the list, these Republicans for Harris-Walz joined the Cheneys as what Stalin once dubbed “useful idiots.”
“Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable,” the signatories were quoted as saying in the Harris-Walz’s campaign letter first provided to USA Today.
What would be “untenable” would be four more years of the Biden-Harris economic devastation wrought by 40-year-high inflation and interest rates and by open borders that have seen an estimated 10 million immigrants enter the country illegally in the past 42 months. The signers also appear to be OK with the price controls Ms. Harris proposes to “cure” the inflation the administration created.
And because of their anti-Trump animus, those same putative Republicans are apparently willing to look past the “honest, ideological disagreements” they claim to have with Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz. Those would presumably include disagreeing with Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz’s radical policies supporting biological males invading women’s sports and restrooms, in favor of virtually no restrictions on abortion, and allowing gender-confused children to get body-mutilating chemicals and surgery without parental consent.
The signatories also agreed to be quoted as saying, “Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies.” It’s as though they have forgotten the peace that prevailed during Mr. Trump’s tenure in office, rather than the wars raging in Europe and the Middle East on Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris’ watch.
If these nominal Republicans are OK with that and more about Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz, Trump Derangement Syndrome isn’t limited to Democrats.
Coincidentally, their inexplicable endorsement letter came two months to the day after a June 25 missive in which 16 liberal Nobel Prize-winning economists endorsed Mr. Biden for reelection. (Their letter didn’t help the Biden campaign, which was fatally wounded by his poor debate performance against Trump two days later.)
“While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump,” the 16 economists wrote in the letter, first obtained by Axios. “We believe that a second Trump term would have a negative impact on the U.S.’s economic standing in the world, and a destabilizing effect on the U.S.’s domestic economy.”
Putting the best spin on “Bidenomics,” the economists wrote: “Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast. There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets.”
Their counterfactual, intellectually dishonest arguments basically asked voters to ignore the stark disparity between the Trump and Biden records on the economy.
As Stephen Moore, a senior visiting fellow in economics at The Heritage Foundation, wrote July 17: “Over Biden’s near-four years in office, inflation is up roughly 20%. Under Trump, inflation was up 8%. Even adjusting for Bidenflation, deficits have been at least 50% higher under Biden than Trump.”
The economists’ arguments were on their face so unpersuasive, in fact, that their endorsement was a one-day story in the news cycle, as was that of Republicans for Harris-Walz.
But with less than two months before the election, don’t be surprised if the Democrats’ October surprise involves going back to that well.
• Peter Parisi is a former editor with The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.