You’re reading the David French newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Reflections on law and culture, war and peace, and the deeper trends that define and divide America.
There is a difference between beating a candidate and sidelining a movement. After nine years of confronting Donald Trump and facing a MAGA movement that has remade the Republican Party I once belonged to, I believe that fear may be sufficient to beat Trump, but only joy can push MAGA back to the periphery of American life.
Let me begin with a confession I suspect many of us could make: I did not expect Kamala Harris to do so well, so soon in her contest with Trump.