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Guest Essay

By Damon Linker

Mr. Linker, a former columnist at The Week, writes the newsletter Notes From the Middleground.

The strategy of the Kamala Harris campaign sounded great on paper. She would stay clear of the unpopular progressive positions of 2019, unapologetically embrace American patriotism and freedom, and establish a broad coalition by gladly accepting the endorsements of former Republican officials and officeholders like Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The approach seemed strategically reasonable. Modeled on the cross-ideological “popular front” against fascism in the 1930s, it has been tried against right-wing populist parties and candidates in Israel, Hungary and other countries in recent years. Yet the strategy has, at best, a mixed record of success. Add in the sour, inflation-inflected mood among voters around the world that has brought down incumbents over the past year, and Ms. Harris’s struggles can begin to look like the most recent episode of a continuing story.

But the decisive defeat of the Harris campaign strategy has its own dimension — and it is not just the consequence of a fleeting bad vibe in the country or the world. For years and even decades, overwhelming majorities of Americans have been telling pollsters that they are unhappy about the direction of the country and much else besides. By portraying herself as the defender and champion of the country’s governing establishment against Donald Trump’s anti-system impulses and diatribes, she placed herself, fatally, on the wrong side of public opinion.

For more than a decade, between 50 percent and 75 percent of the country has told pollsters they think the country is on the wrong track. That’s the most widely discussed measure of discontent, but........

© The New York Times