LARRY KUDLOW: Democrats are desperate because he's leading right now

Kamala and the Democrats can call Trump every bad name in the book, but they are desperate because he’s leading the race right now coming down the home stretch and that’s the subject of the riff. 

Because Kamala Harris and her supporters don’t want to talk about the numerous policy failures of the Biden-Harris administration, or her far-left views as a senator and presidential candidate, they’re spending most of their time attacking Donald Trump. The latest on the “attack Trump” tape is calling him a fascist, which is almost a meaningless word. It’s not something the voting public really understands or believes in.  

Plus, it’s definitionally incorrect. As the Wall Street Journal points out today, fascism historically means national socialism – government control over much of the economy. Again, turning to the Journal, by that definition, Democrats are the national socialists – using regulations, mandates, law enforcement, and trillions of dollars in spending to force Americans to follow their dictates on climate and culture. Add to that massive Kamala-supported tax hikes. 

AMERICAN CONSUMERS SEE DEBT DELINQUENCY RISK RISING, HIGHER LONG-TERM INFLATION: NY FED 

Trump, on the other hand, is the deregulator, the tax cutter, the Elon Musk spending cutter. If you wanted to get really technical, the Democrats are the big-government socialists – and hence fascist – while Mr. Trump is the free-enterprise capitalist and, talking about defending democracy, it was the Democrats who used a coup d’état to knock Joe Biden off the ticket and insert Kamala, without a single primary vote. 

It was the Democrats who attempted to keep Trump off the ballot this year in at least five cases. It’s the Democrats who have weaponized lawfare against Trump, trying to throw him in jail for 750 years, even though this phony politicalization of the Biden-Harris Justice Department has completely collapsed on appeal. It’s the Democrats, and particularly Kamala, who want to end the Senate filibuster and pack the Supreme Court, thereby undermining the Constitution. 

Yes, it was the Democrats who exploited the Russian collusion hoax back in 2016 until it was finally exposed as a lie financed by Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, it was Trump who was the target of at least two assassination attempts, surviving after miraculously being shot in the head. 

The Trump attack is failing. He is improving in the polls on issues and in the swing states, and even the national count. Polls aren’t votes, but they are a snapshot of what people are thinking and the voters are thinking better of Trump. Byron York points out that, as the attacks intensify, Trump has become more popular.

Barack Obama is out there accusing Trump of being older and loonier. Kamala’s accused him of being unhinged and unstable, but, interestingly, in James Taranto’s Wall Street Journal piece describing the long editorial board meeting with Trump last Thursday, Journal editors specifically mentioned that there are no signs of slippage in Trump’s mental acuity. 

So, give him credit for flipping burgers and working the fries at the McDonald’s drive-thru in Philly. The Journal editors conceded that Trump seems more confident and more knowledgeable about policy than he was when he started out in 2015 and he never appears lost in his thoughts the way Joe Biden repeatedly did in their June debate.

Rich Lowry notes that Kamala won’t talk honestly about the illegal immigration catastrophe because the very first Biden-Harris action was an amnesty bill to promote citizenship among illegals. In other words, she has no good answer.  Beyond that, in her now-infamous Bret Baier Fox News interview, she mentioned Trump 23 times in a 27-minute interview. When Trump spent a couple of hours with the Journal Editorial Board, he mentioned Kamala’s name once.  

In other words, he’d rather talk policy. He’d rather stay on message.  Close the border, stop the crime, grow the economy, end the middle-class affordability crisis, restore American “peace through strength” around the world.  That’s why he’s the favorite coming down the home stretch. Kamala Harris and her Democrats can call him every bad name in the book, but they’re just desperate, because they know he’s in the lead. That’s the riff. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the Oct. 21, 2024, edition of “Kudlow.”