From the WaPo link:
“… Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist, said “the overall vibes right now should not be ignored,” arguing that the Harris-Walz “enthusiasm makes people want to join in.”
…
Legacki said. “After the last 10 years of American politics, people are just exhausted. They’re tired of being angry. And so giving people something to be excited about, telling them there’s a role for you in this space, is hugely important right now.”
The Trump campaign, for its part, began Wednesday morning with a fundraising email titled, “The world has gone to s*** in the last 2 weeks!” Inside, the missive warned that “the stock market is CRASHING! Unemployment is RISING! Wars in the Middle East are spiraling OUT OF CONTROL!” — and all the while “Kamala is asleep at the switch.”
And on Tuesday, as Harris and Walz were making their first exuberant joint appearance, Trump took to TruthSocial, unleashing angry screeds, including one that posted shortly after midnight. In his messages, Trump disparaged ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos as “Liddle’ George” and “George Slopadopolus”; dismissed Harris — whom he called “Crazy Kamabla” — and Walz as “the most RADICAL Left duo in American history”; and claimed, with no evidence, that “Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST president in the history of the U.S.,” was going to crash the Democratic convention and take back the nomination from Harris, which Trump claimed was “Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla” in a “COUP.”
Trump and his aides have closely tracked right-track, wrong-track polling about how voters feel about the direction of the country, and they believe that many people are not optimistic about the way things are heading. One adviser in Trump’s orbit said fundraising numbers go up with more negative messages.
… At his most recent public campaign event, a Saturday rally in Atlanta, Trump painted a dystopian portrait. He described crimes being committed in Atlanta, violent riots in American cities, immigrants killing Americans and a range of other societal ills. He blamed Democrats and, at times, even Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a fellow Republican.
“We are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation. We are a nation that has lost its confidence, lost its willpower and lost its strength,” the former president said near the end of his speech.
…
On Wednesday in Detroit, a Fox News reporter specifically addressed the issue of negativity with Vance, saying that he can look “a little too serious, too angry sometimes” and asked, “What makes you smile? What makes you happy?”
“I smile at a lot of things, including bogus questions from the media, man,” Vance said, forcing a chuckle. “If you watch a full speech I that give, I’m actually — I’m having a good time out here and I’m enjoying this.”
He continued: “Sometimes you’ve got to take the good with the bad. And right now, I’m angry about what Kamala Harris has done to this country and done to the American southern border. And I think most people in our country, they can be happy-go-lucky sometimes, they can enjoy things sometimes, and they can turn on the news and recognize that what’s going on in this country is a disgrace.” …”
——
Dystopian hellscape versus hope for the future is quite the contrast (and a contrast Biden’s message of needing to compromise for an elderly man to avoid authoritarianism wasn’t offering).
.
