Exactly 100 years ago, the incumbent president was Calvin Coolidge. Known for his taciturn persona, when news of his passing in 1933 became public, wisecracking writer Dorothy Parker quipped: “how can they tell?” Coolidge’s nickname was Silent Cal. Now, we’ve got Silent Kam – as in Kamala Harris – who’s banking that her strategy of soundlessness will carry her all the way to the White House. “Silence is golden” goes the ancient proverb; in Kamala’s case, it may also win her the presidency.

After a successful debut on the national stage during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court Senate Judiciary Hearings in 2018, it looked like Kamala was poised to become the next Democratic darling: a woman with both an African-American and Indian-American background, a U.S. Senator, and a prosecutor, to boot. But it was not to be: in her 2020 presidential bid, she didn’t even make it to 2020. It was a colossal failure and Kamala dropped out before the Iowa Caucus. Even though Joe Biden picked her as his running mate and she became the first female VP, the administration’s been hiding her for the most part ever since. That seems to be working rather well, as she’s become the Democratic presidential nominee by coronation.

Personally, I received exactly as many delegates to the Democratic Convention during the primaries as she did: zero.

Ever since the Democrat Syndicate pulled out the rug from Biden, forcing him into retirement for his own good – the way some mob bosses are strongarmed when they’ve fallen out of favor with the other families – Silent Kam’s enjoyed a honeymoon, whereby she sees her poll numbers soar even as she says and does next to nothing.
She doesn’t have to. She’ll get a free ride, the way Thomas Jefferson did when the Louisiana Purchase practically fell into his lap, or Bill Clinton did when his presidency coincided with the advent of the Internet, resulting in a juggernaut economy. After all, we all know how the vast majority of Americans didn’t want to see a Biden-Trump rematch, and now they won’t have to.

Kamala’s advantage is that unlike Donald Trump, she is, by default, not one of the two names comprising that rematch. She’s a sight for sore eyes to those for whom presidential elections are amusing parlor games, with no consequences expected based on candidates’ platforms. She’s a woman, she’s young(ish), and she’s black: “woo-hoo, you go, girl!”
As for Trump, he hasn’t done much as yet to slow Kamala’s momentum. He’s gone back to namecalling and picking pointless fights with Republican governors in crucial swing states. It’s as if he doesn’t realize it’s his election to lose: immigration is the top issue on voters’ minds, and the Harris campaign has the audacity to portray her as the one who’s tough on the border. Americans also care about rampant crime, wokeness run amok, and the longterm effects of runaway inflation. However, unlike a master campaigner like Ronald Reagan, who also ran against inflation the last time it was significant, in 1980, Trump’s not done a good enough job of explaining to the American people that now-falling inflation doesn’t mean grocery and gas prices will go down, it just means when they go even higher, they’ll rise at a slower rate. It’s like credit cards: if a cardholder runs up a $50,000 tab and then cuts spending in half, that means the debt will rise slower than before, but it’s not going to get smaller.
Trump also needs to explain why things got as bad as they did under Biden, why Harris would only make them worse, and what Trump would do, specifically, to make them better. Otherwise, Trump’s not going to attract any new voters, and that’s a problem. When Biden was Trump’s opponent, it didn’t matter; Trump was likely going to win by attrition because many Democrats, independents, and apolitical Americans were going to stay home. But now, they’re turning out for Kamala, which is why she closed the gap and jumped ahead.

Debates are back in style again, after that last one back in June. Trump needs to score big against Kamala on September 10. As the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger wisely recommends, Trump should stop the rallies filled with his own sycophants – which are breeding grounds for him going dangerously off script, to the mainstream media’s delight, as they’ll play the clips over and over again – and instead hold town hall meetings with undecided voters in swing states. If Trump really wants this thing – and I’m not unequivocally convinced he does – then he’s got to go out and work for it, harder than he’s been.

Speaking of the mainstream media, where have all the responsible journalists gone? Is there one reporter out there – other than those in Trump’s camp – who has the intestinal fortitude to demand that Silent Kam holds a press conference and starts appearing on the Sunday morning shows? Even if she does, would the hosts of Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and This Week challenge her with tough questions, or will they ask her to, say, name a song that inspired her?
As for those undecided voters, they don’t need any skills to do their ‘job’ or voting. Pilots need to know how to fly airplanes. Surgeons to perform operations. Mechanics to fix cars. Not voters, though. They just have to be U.S. citizens (well, theoretically anyway), 18 or older, and not in prison. And they can have fun walking to their favorite neighborhood dropbox weeks before the election to plop in their ballot: for Silent Kam, simply because she’s not Trump.