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Last year, 66.1% of students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year’s days.

Last year, 66.1% of students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year’s days. The number of chronically absent students went down slightly compared to the prior year, but it remains 22.2% higher than in the 2019-20 school year.

The problem of chronic absenteeism is especially acute in Detroit and other urban districts. Students who are chronically absent are less likely to reach academic milestones, keep up with their peers or graduate from high school on time.

One key to ensuring academic success and reducing absenteeism is to provide families with a variety of educational options. But the state is moving in the opposite direction.

Despite Michigan’s progress in recovering from pandemic-related absenteeism rates, the state is unable to reach or improve upon pre-pandemic levels, especially in urban areas. Districts that serve a higher proportion of low-income students struggle more to keep students in school and have worse academic records.

Various factors influence student attendance, including mental health issues. Students may also be deterred from attending class if they experience bullying or harassment. Some factors, however, disproportionately affect lower-income families.
Many students need to stay home to care for younger siblings, while sick or incapacitated parents are often unable to take their children to school.

Empowering parents with access to better educational options can improve their children’s attendance and academic outcomes. Michigan does give parents some options. The state’s Schools of Choice program allows parents to go beyond their resident district’s boundaries to select a public school that’s a better fit for their children. Parents interested in transferring their kids to the Oxford School District, for example, can do so as long as they live in a neighboring district or intermediate school district, provided the district has openings.

Many parents also choose to send their kids to charter schools because they offer a setting that fits their family’s needs. Charter schools especially improve academic outcomes for students from low-income and minority backgrounds. These urban districts are more likely to have unreliable or insufficient school transportation. Bus routes in the Detroit Public Schools Community District are limited, for example, and many families don’t own cars. Expanding available school options helps families find ways to get their kids to school every day.

Online schooling alternatives can also help students avoid chronic absenteeism. Many students choose virtual schools because social or health issues make it challenging for them to attend an in-person school. Cyber charter schools serve a higher proportion of at-risk students than most conventional public schools. Students who attend these schools often overcome many of the barriers that prevent them from attending classes.

Michigan can learn from the ways other states give parents still more choices. School choice programs such as education savings accounts and tax-credit scholarships give parents access to more educational options. With more options, parents are more likely to find a school that’s a better fit for their kids. When parents are in the driver’s seat, they can combat obstacles to regular school attendance.

Chronic absenteeism still afflicts the state’s public school system. Ensuring parents have educational options is a key part of the solution. Policies that empower disadvantaged families to access the best school for their children would be even better.

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Olivia Michiels is an education policy intern at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

In the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of U.S. Congress on July 24, 2024, the nation he leads continues its slide away from democracy.

(THE CONVERSATION) — In the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of U.S. Congress on July 24, 2024, the nation he leads continues its slide away from democracy.

Even before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the country was engulfed by an intense debate over government-led reforms aimed at limiting judicial power, which sparked massive and sustained public protests for months.

Following that debate, for the first time, a leading democracy index demoted Israel’s classification from a “liberal democracy” to an “electoral democracy.” The new classification noted the erosion in judicial and legislative constraints on the government, along with less protection of civil liberties.

Israel is not alone in finding its democracy under threat: A recent report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance finds that the global state of democracy has been declining for the past six years.

Democracy is associated with three key elements: leadership, institutions and citizens’ values. When they appear to be deteriorating, a democracy is said to be backsliding.

Historians and social scientists have found that a country’s democracy tends to get weaker during a prolonged war. For instance, citizens may lose faith in civilian institutions, like the courts, the police and the military. And militaristic values, such as support for the use of force, and political extremism often become more widespread in society.

Shortly after Oct. 7, there were some modest expectations that the attack would lead to less internal political partisanship and perhaps reverse course on Israel’s democratic decline. But as the war against Hamas has continued, the country’s democracy has continued to weaken.

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Israel’s democratic backsliding

Most assessments of Israel’s democratic decline tend to focus on Netanyahu’s criminal trial for corruption, which is ongoing, and his government’s efforts to strip the judiciary of its power to review and restrict government actions.

But there are longer-term trends of illiberal legislative initiatives, limitations on civil society organizations and the erosion of underlying democratic values that have been more significant.

For instance, in 2018 the country’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law declaring that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and omitting the principle of civic equality for the 21% of the population that is non-Jewish.

Also concerning is the growing share of the population, especially among the young, that supports these exclusionary policies. According to a 2016 report, nearly 40% of Israelis aged 15 to 24 believed that political rights should be withheld from Arab citizens.

Another example is the 2016 NGO Transparency Law, which requires human rights and other groups that receive half their funding from abroad to disclose the sources, increasing the administrative burden on these organizations.

Moreover, each of these factors are happening in the context of Israel’s continued occupation of and control over the Palestinian people and territories. Netanyahu’s populist rhetoric and leadership style have long focused on the conflict between Arabs and Jews. He uses language that highlights threats posed to Israelis and to the state by Palestinians both within and outside Israel, such as his 2015 election day “warning” that “the Arabs are voting in droves.”

Not surprisingly, the war has amplified this rhetoric.

Similarly, and as the examples above illustrate, attempts to undermine democratic institutions and values have often centered on Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, both within Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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Limits on free speech

Since the war began, the situation has only gotten worse as the coalition government has introduced several pieces of legislation limiting civil rights, most especially freedom of speech.

For instance, a law passed in April allows the government to suspend the operations of a foreign news outlet in Israel if the prime minister or the minister of communication determines it poses a security threat. Using this law, Israel shut down Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based television channel, in May. And when The Associated Press provided media services to Al Jazeera, the Israeli government seized the AP’s equipment. Although the equipment was returned following widespread outcry, including from the White House, this illustrates the impact on freedom of the press of this law.

A June legislative proposal would require the dismissal of academic professors who allegedly incite or support terrorism. The bill would impose a punishment without a trial for an offense that is vaguely defined and without due process. Critics argue it could be used to silence the opposition.

Another law, currently awaiting a ruling from Israel’s high court over its constitutionality, would give the far right national security minister broad powers over policing. Critics fear that it could be used to crack down on people who protest government policy.

This direct ministerial intervention in police affairs has already had a chilling effect on free speech, as people say they have refrained from joining public protests over fears of police violence. What is more, this legislation appears to politicize the police, which is supposed to be an independent institution in a democracy.

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Illiberal sentiment

Even before the war began, a growing share of Jewish citizens of Israel believed they should have more rights than non-Jewish citizens, and wanted a strong leader not easily swayed by media or public opinion.

The shock of the surprise attack and the brutality of Hamas’ actions unleashed a surge in militarism and illiberal sentiment. In the first month of the war, for example, there were 18,000 calls for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased” or “destroyed” in Hebrew posts on the social media platform X, The New York Times reported, citing FakeReporter, an Israeli group that monitors disinformation and hate speech.

This sentiment hasn’t subsided, as the fighting has progressed and Israelis in general have united around the war and its aims. A February 2024 poll found that two-thirds of Jewish Israelis oppose humanitarian aid to Gaza, while 42% say Israel shouldn’t follow international humanitarian laws or abide by the international laws of war.

While Israeli protests and global media coverage focus on Netanyahu and claims that he is prolonging the war to remain in power, I believe the main risks to Israeli democracy are the increasing restrictions on freedom of speech and growing illiberal sentiment among Israelis. These, I fear, will outlive Netanyahu and the war.

Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, community leaders, clergy and politicians including President Joe Biden have called on Americans to tone down white-hot political rhetoric. Some have invoked the words of one figure in particular: Abraham Lincoln.

(THE CONVERSATION) — Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, community leaders, clergy and politicians including President Joe Biden have called on Americans to tone down white-hot political rhetoric. Some have invoked the words of one figure in particular: Abraham Lincoln.

As a scholar who has written about how American politics became so deeply polarized and teaches a course on Lincoln, I’m not surprised.

Lincoln eluded an assassination plot as he traveled to Washington to assume the presidency in 1861, and he took the oath of office when the nation was even more deeply divided than today. As president, he brought a bitterly divided North together to wage a protracted, costly war that saved the Union. What’s more, his ability to make prose poetic resonates across the centuries – making him the obvious source for politicians and pundits looking for emotive language in times of crisis.

Few of Lincoln’s aphorisms have been quoted more than his appeal to “the better angels of our nature” in his 1861 inaugural address. Liberals, conservatives and those in between have invoked the phrase to decry the intractable partisan warfare that has escalated over the past decade and call for a return to civility.

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Edits for the ages

Lincoln didn’t coin the phrase, as noted by David Blankenhorn, a political activist who founded “Braver Angels,” a nonprofit aimed at overcoming polarization. It appeared in Shakespeare’s “Othello,” and Charles Dickens observed that “our own desires stand between us and our better angels” in his 1841 novel “Barnaby Rudge.”

Although Shakespeare was a favorite of Lincoln’s, the president took the phrase from another politician, William Henry Seward. The former New York governor and U.S. senator was far better known than Lincoln and had been his chief rival for the Republican nomination in 1860.

Lincoln realized that in order to govern, he needed to calm factional conflict within his own party. So, he brought his principal rivals into his cabinet, appointing Seward secretary of state. When the New Yorker suggested extensive revisions to Lincoln’s inaugural address, the president-elect took note.

Lincoln believed that the speech was perhaps the last hope of averting civil war. By the time he took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, seven states that permitted human bondage had seceded from the Union. Secessionist forces were at work in eight others.

Seward’s influence was most notable in the critical closing paragraph. Lincoln had ended his draft by explaining that he hoped to avoid war, but the ball was in the Confederacy’s court. The secessionists had no binding obligation to destroy the government, Lincoln asserted, while he had taken the constitutional oath to “preserve, protect and defend” it. While his language was temperate, logical and lawyerly, it was abrupt. There was no olive branch held out to southerners who feared his leadership, no appeal to shared history and values.

Seward urged Lincoln to appeal to Americans’ “bonds of affection” that grew from “so many patriot graves.” The “mystic chords” reverberating in all Americans’ “hearts and hearths” would “again harmonize” when touched “by the better angel … of the nation.”

Lincoln took Seward’s advice but gave his language a poetic turn that has echoed across the centuries:

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

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More than words

It was graceful and moving, but it didn’t bring the Union back together. Nor did it prevent four other states from joining the Confederacy, or a civil war that took almost three-quarters of a million lives.

Yet the address spoke volumes about Lincoln’s qualities as a leader. He was open to advice, even from those who had been rivals. Though he took decisive and divisive actions when necessary, he tried to be a unifier.

The Emancipation Proclamation that declared slaves in Confederate-controlled territory free, for example, was highly controversial. By framing it as a measure necessary to defeat the Confederacy, Lincoln appealed to abolitionists and radical Republicans on the left, as well as conservatives who cared little about slavery but were committed to preserving the Union.

To defeat a determined South, Lincoln first had to unify a fractured North. That began with calming divisions in his own party and ensuring that critical border states such as Kentucky and Missouri, where secessionist sentiment was rife, stood with the Union. It also meant outreach to members of the Union’s Democratic opposition who supported strong measures to win the war. In 1864, for example, he appointed a Tennessee Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as his running mate.

Today, the U.S. is bitterly polarized, only four years removed from an insurrection to stop the peaceful transfer of power. It may seem naive to hope leaders will do more than appeal to “better angels” – to hope they’ll walk the walk.

Lincoln sought to unify in part because more division would make victory impossible. If voters punish appeals to hate and division, politicians may be forced to discover their better angels, rather than merely talk about them.

For weeks in July 2024, a mix of journalists and academics lamented the news media’s relentless coverage of President Joe Biden’s age since his disastrous debate performance on June 27.

(THE CONVERSATION) — For weeks in July 2024, a mix of journalists and academics lamented the news media’s relentless coverage of President Joe Biden’s age since his disastrous debate performance on June 27.

“The New York Times et al wish Joe Biden would go gentle into that good night,” wrote Jeff Jarvis, the director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at City University of New York.

“The scale and persistence of this editorial blitz means that the Times, and all the other media that have followed, are both causing and covering the pressure,” wrote Melanie Sill, a former vice president of Southern California Public Radio.

Now, after relentless news coverage focused on both his diminished health and on the pressure he faced from his colleagues, donors and staff, Biden has dropped out of the race.

This raises the question: Are journalists to blame?

“It really looks like Biden was driven out of the campaign by the press,” wrote Dan Kennedy, a professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.

Dan Gillmor, a former journalism professor of practice at Arizona State University, similarly commented that the news media “played a central role in hounding him off the ticket.”

This way of thinking assumes that the power of the press is significant and straightforward: If journalists report on an issue in a certain way for an extended period of time, they will ultimately shape how people feel about it.

In reality, journalists’ influence is far more limited.

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The (limited) power of the press

“Media effects” research, which, as the name suggests, “refers to the many ways individuals and society may be influenced by both news and entertainment mass media,” has long discredited the idea that people passively and predictably accept media messages – what’s referred to as the “direct effects” model.

Instead, media effects tend to be much more indirect. One of these indirect effects is “agenda setting,” which is the idea that journalists can increase the amount of time people spend thinking about a topic but not how people feel about the topic.

“The mass media set the agenda of issues for a political campaign,” write Maxwell McCombs, a professor emeritus at University of Texas at Austin, and Amy Reynolds, a dean and professor at Kent State University. The media does so not by telling people what to think but by telling them what to think about.

When The New York Times decides to place a story on the newspaper’s front page, Reynolds and McCombs point out, that decision implicitly legitimizes a topic as “newsworthy.”

There are exceptions. Investigative journalism, which reveals new information to the public, can indeed shift public opinion on a topic. For example, the political scientists Frank R. Baumgartner, Suzanna L. De Boef, and Amber E. Boydstun found that when journalists changed the way they framed news stories about the death penalty in the U.S. to emphasize the possibility that errors in the criminal justice system had resulted in the executions of innocent people, public support for the death penalty declined.

Generally, however, calling public attention to a topic isn’t the same as persuading the public what to think about that topic.

For example, public sentiment toward climate change has been fairly consistent. Between 2016 and 2023, about half of Americans reported that they think global warming “will pose a serious threat to their way of life in their own lifetime.” This consistency exists despite the fact that the number of news stories about climate change nearly doubled between 2016 and 2021.

The same is true when it comes to Biden’s age.

Polls show that people have thought for years that Biden was too old to run again. That’s despite the fact that news organizations by and large did not cover Biden’s age-related issues nearly as much before the debate as they began to after, with the exception of The Wall Street Journal.

If the press truly was powerful enough to shape public opinion, you would expect to see the concerns surrounding Biden’s age intensify in tandem with the coverage surrounding Biden’s age.

Instead, the concerns predated the coverage. In hindsight, it seems like the public was paying more attention to Biden’s age than the journalists charged with covering him.

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Journalistic humility

This mismatch, between what the public thinks and what journalists do, is consistent with my own research into the relationship between journalism and the public that suggests journalists’ influence over the people they hope to reach is far more limited than conventional wisdom suggests.

As someone who studies the relationship between journalists and the public, I have found that journalists tend to struggle when it comes to engaging with the public. That engagement ranges from seeking more input from the public, getting the public to support the news via subscriptions, donations or memberships in news organizations, to simply competing for public attention in an increasingly overwhelming media environment.

I believe that, taken together, these limitations suggest journalists can never fully understand or control their audiences’ behavior.

It seems less likely that the news coverage alone is what pushed Biden to end his campaign. The coverage clearly got under his skin – in the weeks after the debate, his criticism of the press provided an uncanny echo of the media bashing that the country has gotten used to hearing from Trump.

But it’s more likely that Biden’s frustration with his coverage was less about the journalists than it was about the accurate reporting they provided.

Contrary to the complaints, I believe journalists’ coverage didn’t persuade the public to change its views on Biden so much as it offered the public a close look into the mounting pressure he faced to reconsider his viability as a candidate.

Journalists find themselves in a frustrating position. Their industry has been in financial peril for decades. Most people don’t trust them. Yet there’s this seemingly contradictory sense among the public that journalists are powerful and influential “elites.”

I’ve written before that journalists – as well as the people who study them – should embrace what I call “journalistic humility,” the acceptance that how audiences think about and interact with the news will always be, to some extent, outside of journalists’ control.

Perhaps it would be helpful if those outside of journalism accepted these limits of the press as well.

Over the past few months, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been locked in a court battle with Annunciation House, a network of shelters in the El Paso area that assists migrants with basic needs and legal aid. On July 2, 2024, district court Judge Francisco Dominguez issued a ruling denying Paxton’s attempt to shut down Annunciation House.

By Laura E. Alexander
University of Nebraska Omaha

(THE CONVERSATION) — Over the past few months, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been locked in a court battle with Annunciation House, a network of shelters in the El Paso area that assists migrants with basic needs and legal aid. On July 2, 2024, district court Judge Francisco Dominguez issued a ruling denying Paxton’s attempt to shut down Annunciation House. Paxton appealed two weeks later.

In his original suit, Paxton sought to rescind Annunciation House’s ability to operate as a nonprofit in Texas, alleging that its efforts to assist migrants amount to “human smuggling.”

Dominguez stated in his ruling that Paxton’s demands for documents from Annunciation House were simply a pretext to achieve a predetermined outcome of closing the shelter and that, rather than gathering evidence first, Paxton had assumed a crime and then sought evidence for it.

The judge stated further that Paxton’s appeals to immigration law were unenforceable since immigration is a matter for federal law, and that the state had violated the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act by unfairly burdening Annunciation House in its religiously inspired humanitarian activities. Paxton has now appealed to the Texas Supreme Court to take up the case.

This case has drawn media attention to conflicts between religious communities that assist migrants and the goals of political authorities. Religious leaders came to the defense of Annunciation House, citing religious principles and a tradition of hospitality. Even Pope Francis weighed in on the controversy in an episode of “60 Minutes,” condemning the lawsuit. “That is madness, sheer madness to close the border and leave them there,” the pope said. “The migrant has to be received.”

As a scholar who studies these types of conflicts, I believe this situation highlights the enduring and evolving engagement of faith-based groups in supporting vulnerable populations, despite legal and political challenges.

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Teachings on migration and hospitality

Religious leaders and communities often look to texts and traditions to guide their actions toward migrants. For instance, the late Jonathan Sacks, the United Kingdom’s former chief rabbi, noted that the command to “welcome the stranger” is found at least 36 times in the Torah, more than any other directive.

Many Hindu families practice unconditional hospitality, honoring guests in their rituals. The late scholar Alfred Hiltebeitel noted that the “Laws of Manu,” a foundational text for dharma or ethical action in the Hindu tradition, commands hospitality as a fundamental aspect of proper action. According to Hiltebeitel, the epics “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” show how in worshippers’ devotion to God, God is both host and guest. Thus, hospitality is a central feature of worship for most Hindus.

Christian scripture emphasizes kindness to strangers. Both Jesus and the apostle Paul encouraged early Christians to welcome outsiders. Paul wrote that some people who show hospitality have “entertained angels without knowing it.”

Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs and other faith traditions also uphold hospitality and remember the migratory journeys of their founders. These teachings have historically inspired religious communities to help immigrants.

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Aiding fellow migrants

Acting on these faith principles, new migrants have historically established religious communities to serve as support networks for newcomers from their home countries, preserving their languages and cultures.

This has happened across the country, from Italian Catholic migrants in New York to Buddhist migrants in San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere.

As one example, in my own state of Nebraska, German, Swedish, Czech and Danish immigrants created ethnic and religious communities in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Churches and church-affiliated organizations offered a way to preserve community and culture. Swedish Lutheran immigrants, for example, established Luther Academy in Wahoo, Nebraska, in 1883, and the language used in its catalog shifted from Swedish to English and back again for at least the first decade, reflecting their shifting linguistic and cultural identity.

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Charitable organizations for migrants

Religious communities in the U.S. have often drawn on principles of neighborly care by founding institutions to support vulnerable populations, including migrants.

For example, Catholic Charities, founded in 1910, began providing assistance to displaced people after World War II. It now aids refugees and immigrants with social and legal services. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, now called Global Refuge, started its refugee relief program in 1939. In the 1940s, its mission expanded from helping Lutheran refugees to anyone fleeing war or persecution. The refugee resettlement organizations HIAS, rooted in the Jewish tradition, and World Relief, rooted in evangelical Christianity, have their own histories of reaching out to displaced people from many religious backgrounds.

These long-standing commitments to helping immigrants and refugees explain why religious groups often challenge laws that penalize such aid. In 2018, volunteers with the Tucson, Arizona-based nonprofit No More Deaths successfully appealed convictions for littering and driving in protected areas, arguing that their religious values compelled them to leave water and supplies in the Arizona desert for migrants.

Similarly, a Florida law passed in May 2023 that cracks down on both undocumented immigrants and employers was modified after religious leaders voiced concerns that its bans on transporting undocumented immigrants would penalize people for driving migrants to church-related activities. One pastor argued that the law would put churches in an “untenable” position by forcing them to choose between following the law and obeying biblical mandates of compassion.

In the Annunciation House case, the Catholic bishop of El Paso and other religious leaders have defended the shelter’s humanitarian mission. They emphasized that Annunciation House neither enforces nor breaks immigration laws but focuses on providing aid and legal advice.

In citing religious principles that motivate them to provide this aid, staff and supporters of Annunciation House are the latest in a long line of religious people who have said the same.

Public opinion polls suggest that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is doing slightly better than Joe Biden was against Donald Trump, but Republican attacks against her are only now ramping up.

Stephen J. Farnsworth
University of Mary Washington

(THE CONVERSATION) — Public opinion polls suggest that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is doing slightly better than Joe Biden was against Donald Trump, but Republican attacks against her are only now ramping up.

Even as a candidate for vice president, Harris was the target of an intense barrage of conservative attacks that claimed, among other things, that she slept her way to political prominence, a common slur against women in power. The anti-Harris rhetoric is part of what a report by the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank, described as a broad pattern of gendered and sexualized attacks on prominent women in public discourse.

More recently, those comments were joined by conservative attacks branding Harris as the “border czar,” part of an effort to tie her to immigration, a hot-button topic for conservatives.

The intense attacks so far are only a fraction of what will come. Trump is skilled at both character assassination and political self-defense. Together, they translate into an exceptional ability to defeat his political rivals once they enter the presidential campaign arena.

But Harris also has sharp rhetorical skills that could make this a fierce election fight.

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Trump’s alternative facts

As I discuss in my book “Presidential Communication and Character,” Trump is highly skilled at both channeling white working-class anger into political support for himself and at convincing his supporters to disregard the former president’s own well-chronicled professional and personal failings.

Trump’s character generates enduring contempt among liberals, but those voters will back the Democratic nominee.

In 2016, Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. He also defeated several well-known Republican presidential hopefuls in the primary race, including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas and former Governors Jeb Bush of Florida, John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

Earlier in 2024, Trump easily dispatched another round of highly experienced Republicans, most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Like those other opponents, President Biden has long endured Trump’s personal attacks. But in 2020, Trump’s original nickname of “Sleepy Joe” failed to become as effective as his insults aimed at other politicians, and Biden’s election marked Trump’s only electoral defeat.

As the 2024 election approached, Trump and conservative voices once again demonstrated their immense influence in shaping political narratives. They have convinced many voters this year to absolve Trump for his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, ignore that he designed a Supreme Court majority to overturn Roe v. Wade and agree with him that the 2020 election was stolen.

In an even more powerful demonstration of Trump’s skills at political marketing, polls show that many voters follow Trump’s lead and condemn Biden for U.S. economic conditions that in fact are quite good.

Unemployment is low. Job growth is booming. Infrastructure projects are underway. Inflation is much lower now than it was earlier in Biden’s term, and individual retirement accounts are flush thanks to large stock market gains.

Given Trump’s public relations mastery – and the great susceptibility of many voters to his false narratives – one can marvel about how the Biden campaign had been able to endure the never-ending rhetorical assault and keep the contest as close as surveys show it had remained until recently.

During a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 20, 2024, Trump attacked both Biden and Harris, repeatedly calling Biden “stupid” and insulting his IQ. But Harris, Trump said, was “crazy.”

“I call her laughing Kamala,” Trump told the crowd. “You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts.”

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A former prosecutor against a convicted felon

With Biden dropping out of the campaign, political developments suggest Trump may be in for a taste of his own medicine.

Harris’ previous career as a U.S. senator who challenged Trump administration officials and the former president’s judicial nominees demonstrates that she is among the most effective Democratic officeholders when it comes to holding Republicans accountable.

Her career as an attorney general and a prosecutor also allows her to use law-and-order themes to fight back against America’s first convicted felon former president.

Biden’s departure may provide another major opportunity for Harris to reset the character assassination narrative, as the focus on age can now boomerang against Republicans. Trump now holds the record as the oldest major-party nominee for president, and a key issue that he used against Biden is likely to be turned back toward the former president.

For voters, it promises to be a scorched-earth campaign season.