Amid the endless repeat-loop that is the coverage of Joe Biden’s stepping down, one thing has become clear.
Namely that there is one person who can beat Trump – and it’s not Kamala Harris.
Nope, that person is… Absolutely Anyone Else.
The madness of the Democrats clinging to old man Biden for so long (before turning on him like a pack of dogs on an injured fox, did you notice?) will be the stuff of a raft of 20-20 hindsight books and PhDs.
But anyone who sees Donald Trump as a “difficult” choice for the Most Powerful Man in World position can only hope those books don’t contain a further chapter entitled “How the Democrats confirmed their complete mental breakdown by voting Kamala Harris as Presidential Candidate”.
She’s the only person on the planet who could possibly be worse than Biden.
On paper of course Harris is a hand-wringing Liberal’s wet-dream; daughter to Jamaican-Asian civil rights activists, she was the first woman, and first person of colour, to be elected as San Francisco’s District Attorney, then California’s Attorney General before becoming the Golden State’s first Indian-American and black senator. And the speed of travel from dipping her toes into America’s political waters to Vice-President has been truly breathtaking.
But that is all on paper.
To the rank-and-file American she is the charmless cold-fish desperate for Biden’s job. She has a reputation for spouting indecipherable gobbledegook and being unable to think on her feet.
There is also a feeling Kamala Harris has done rather more for Kamala Harris than she has for the American people.
She was tasked with tacking illegal immigration across the US/Mexico border and has been roughly as successful as Rishi with our own immigration problems – ie they are running at record levels.
Then there’s the palpable bad blood between Kamala and Joe.
In an onstage debate when she was running for the Presidential Candidate job against Biden she threw out a “I do not believe you are a racist …” grenade, before detailing a story with a lead-heavy subtext suggesting Joe actually might be just a teensy-weensy bit racist. Not sure they’re going to lap that up in the Johnny Whitebread states.
Meanwhile Joe got his own back pointing to figures showing she was far more unpopular with the voters than he was, and thus, frankly, unelectable. And he was right then and he’s even more right now.
Indeed we learned today that Biden didn’t step down until he was pushed precisely because he felt Kamala would lose to Trump. And despite his alleged cognitive impairment he’s right on the money on this one.
Yes, some US commentators have claimed Kamala could access parts of the electorate Trump seems to have wrapped-up (suburban housewives for example) but this wilfully overlooks her charmlessness and her entire lack of natural warmth. Others have described her as “better in TV debates than Biden” – but really… I’ll let you fill in your own punchlines to that one.
Fans (strange but true) of Ms Harris are also wont to throw the racist card around at the drop of a hat, claiming she’s treated differently because of the colour of her skin. But most of us in the civilised, grown-up West are a bit past that now aren’t we? Indeed we cheered Obama winning the Presidency precisely because he had smashed through a racist glass ceiling and it felt like good history. Of course it helped that Barack was whip smart and super-charming – not accusations many would necessarily level at our Kamala.
So what’s the solution to America’s political and social woes then?
It’s Absolutely Anyone Else.
It barely matters if it’s Joe Manchin, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer (best bet for my two cents), Andy Beshear or any of the other tabled contenders – what matters is that they are not Biden, Harris or Trump.
I lived in the US a few years ago and, despite the stereotypes and cliches, they aren’t much different to us, which means they will be sick to the black teeth of the two men (and one woman) who have brought so much division and strife to a nation which should be glorying in its position as most successful and prosperous nation on earth.
Yes, Trump has a rump of immovable support and always will have – and for all the dangerous rambling rhetoric never forget he does grasp what the man on the Greyhound bus is thinking.
But a big chunk of his vote is just anti-Biden/Harris.
America will vote in its millions for anyone who isn’t deemed to be part of the problem – bit like we did in our droves with Nigel Farage – all they need is an alternative, a new contender to back.
This is the moment for Absolutely Anyone Else.
