American expert Victor Buck was impressed by the enthusiasm with which Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz were welcomed last week. Buck believes that Trump, who has claimed on social media that a mob was created using artificial intelligence, will have to do better if he wants to win.
Harris and Walls have a great time together.
“If you look at the way the two have presented themselves together in recent days, you can’t help but conclude that it was a good deal that Harris joined Walz,” Buck says. The couple has completed a tour of several swing states in recent days. “They’re having a great time. And that’s drawing people in. We’ve had 65,000 people come to the places where they’ve campaigned together.”
Rival candidate Donald Trump argued on his Truth Social site that the photos of a large group of supporters near Harris’ plane were fake. “Nobody was on the plane, but she did,” Trump wrote. “It showed a huge crowd of so-called supporters, but they weren’t there.” US media outlets write that this accusation is false.
According to Buck, Trump won’t win votes with such a counterargument. “If this is the response to the enthusiasm coming from Democrats, which is generated by AI, it’s going to be a very simple election,” he says. “That’s not how you’re going to win as Trump.”
Happy campaign
Buck, an EW reporter, has seen Harris and Walls’ tone noticeably upbeat in recent days. That’s a contrast, he said, to when Biden was still the candidate. “The undertone was that if you vote for Trump, you’re risking democracy,” he said. “It was a somewhat pedantic tone, which made it very dangerous.”
Buck asserts that Democrats under Harris and Walz haven’t changed their minds on this. “But instead of saying you’re not in the mood if you’re thinking about voting for Trump, Walz in particular is trying to put that in a kind of cheery tone. They’re weird and you really shouldn’t do it.
Walz was the first to describe Trump as an “outsider,” a term that has since been adopted by many other Democrats.
Focus on the content and stop making personal attacks.
Buck is looking forward to Trump’s reaction to the new enthusiasm among Democrats, including during his scheduled conversation with X CEO Elon Musk on Monday night. “Although I expect Musk’s questions to Trump to be nonsense, and it will become something of a spectacle.”
The American expert advises Trump to focus on Harris's political ideas in the conversation rather than attacking her personally repeatedly. For example, he might question whether her proposals are not very progressive.
“Because the skeptical voter is really interested in the content,” says Buck. “They’re not interested in personal attacks, like when Trump recently questioned whether Harris is really a black woman or if she’s just using it for political gain.”
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