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Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House
Gregory Hood • April 11, 2025 • 2,600 Words • 70 Comments • Reply

Credit Image: © Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the
White House, William Morrow, 2025, $23.14 (hardcover) 352 pp., $14.99
(kindle)

Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House has a far different
tone than the authors’ last campaign book, Shattered, which was about
the 2016 election. Shattered was mostly about the collapse of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and it was sympathetic towards the former First
Lady. Donald Trump is a slasher villain, an almost unnoticed presence in
the beginning, who gradually takes center stage and slaughters the heroine.

This time, the Democrats suffer from suicide, not murder. The authors
can barely contain their scorn towards former President Joe Biden, whose egotism and short-sightedness may have cost the Democrats a winnable
race. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are somehow both treacherous and
naïve. Kamala Harris comes off far better, a victim of her own loyalty
and decency, but clearly not up to the task.

Conservatives may be surprised by the book’s gentle treatment of Donald
Trump and his campaign team, who are relatable, understandable, and even likeable. Mr. Trump is engaged, focused, and even charming, with a
loyal, professional team that believes in him. It is a major contrast to
the sinister and almost demonic Trump we get in Michael Wolff’s All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, which portrays 45-47 as
borderline insane and his staff as incompetent grifters. That image may
comfort liberal readers eager to believe in their intellectual and moral superiority, but it does nothing to explain how the former real estate
mogul has dominated American politics for a decade. Fight does a far
better job of explaining Mr. Trump’s rise and the incompetence of the Democrats. They face the same insoluble problem America does: race.

The basic problem for Democrats in 2024 was Joe Biden’s decision to run
for re-election. Fight says that his mental and physical decline was increasingly obvious to White House staff. With the President having
good days and bad days, it was both cover-up and work-around. His strong performance at the State of the Union in 2024 turned out to be a
disaster for the Democrats because it convinced many that the President
was fine. Conservatives will remember that most mainstream journalists
treated accusations of Mr. Biden’s mental decline as conspiracy theory
until his woeful performance at the debate with Donald Trump. Illusions collapsed immediately.

The authors begin the book by describing the way powerful Democrats
watched the debate:

In a luxury condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a few blocks from
his favorite cigar lounge, Rev. Al Sharpton held his expectations in
check. The once-chubby radical activist now had a sleek frame and
confirmed status in the political establishment. He had long since
traded in tracksuits for three-piece suits, he counted presidents —
including Biden — as friends, and he had become a fixture on MSNBC.
Though his own presidential ambitions had fallen well short, he was an
astute observer of political talent.

Mr. Sharpton’s lucrative career of racial agitation tells us a lot about
how the Democratic party works. He arguably paved the way for Kamala
Harris’s best moment in her 2020 Democratic primary, when “she painted Biden as a segregationist” and did it “in such a coldblooded fashion
that it almost cost her a spot on his ticket the following year.” The
authors argue that Miss Harris remained loyal to a fault to Joe Biden
after he chose her as vice president, but that Jill Biden never forgave
her. Mr. Biden himself may have had lingering resentment.

Al Sharpton (Credit Image: © Laura Brett/ZUMA Press Wire)
Even on the night of the Trump/Biden debate, Democrats were already
searching for an alternative. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) reportedly
called for Governor Gretchen Whitmer to be the candidate. However, the Congressional Black Caucus immediately “laid down a marker;” it would
not accept anyone but Miss Harris. “I watched the black-white stuff
start on Thursday night [the night of the debate],” said one lawmaker
who was in a group chat. Among the black Democrats who began quietly
discussing alternatives was Jim Clyburn and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY),
now House Minority Leader. “They would not let their party skip over the first Black woman vice president, not without a fight,” write the
authors. (The authors capitalize black but not white.) But at first,
they stuck with Mr. Biden.

The authors don’t discuss this, but black support for Joe Biden among
the old guard shows a strange reality of Democratic politics: within the
party, blacks are conservatives. Bernie Sanders’s socialist movement was almost entirely driven by white voters and met crushing defeat in states
with many black voters such as South Carolina. While Bernie Sanders
built a movement somewhat outside the party apparatus, blacks have taken
it over. Old-fashioned political machines, especially in urban centers
and in supermajority black districts, are now terrain for black power
brokers rather than launch pads for mass movements. The tendency of
blacks to operate as a bloc means they can get their way in intraparty
fights, even when it is politically foolish.

For example, Gretchen Whitmer was a favorite of many Democrats,
including Barack Obama, who worried about winning white voters. However,
her relationship with Kamala Harris was strained because of what had
happened in 2020. According to this book, “She felt burned by what she
saw as a racially charged behind-the-scenes campaign by Harris’s allies
to portray her in a bad light.” She quickly told Miss Harris she was not running for president “under any circumstances,” but also did not offer
a quick endorsement when President Biden dropped out. Senator (a
representative in 2020) Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) wanted Gretchen Whitmer
but said there was no real choice. “If you want to break the Democratic coalition for a generation,” she said, “try to skip over the first
African American vice president.”

Gretchen Whitmer speaks at a rally in support of Harris for President,
July 29, 2024 (Credit Image: © Lev Radin/ZUMA Press Wire)
G
President Biden’s hold on the nomination was strengthened because the
party machinery was full of his loyalists. Many were black, however, and
thus quick to switch to Kamala Harris when the time came. For example,
Donna Brazile (a well-known pundit and campaign manager) and convention
chair Minyon Moore were “part of a larger group of Black women
operatives — calling themselves ‘the colored girls’ ” — who had helped
convince Biden to pick a Black woman vice presidential candidate in 2020.”

The authors write that this group, along with Joe Biden and the
Clintons, had worked hard to rebuild the party machinery in their own
image. Miss Brazile and former state legislator Bakari Sellers both
called party delegates throughout the South (many were black or from
black constituencies) and found that they were loyal to Joe Biden but
would switch to Kamala Harris if she took his place. Miss Harris was
also the only candidate who could legally inherit the money that the
Biden campaign had already raised.

The striking exception to black support for Kamala Harris was Barack
Obama. The authors claim he never had much faith in Joe Biden or Kamala
Harris. After the debate, he called Nancy Pelosi to talk about whether
the incumbent could still win, and pressed Mr. Biden himself in a tense
phone call about whether he still thought he could win. Mr. Obama, the
authors claim, did not believe in the party, and built up his own
organization during his political campaigns. He favored Gretchen Whitmer
or at least an accelerated primary to find a new candidate. Neither he
nor Nancy Pelosi believed in Miss Harris, and even the former president
was remarkably slow to endorse her after the switch.

None of this is very surprising. Mr. Obama was never a typical black “machine” politician and famously lost to Bobby Rush in an early congressional race. The secret of his appeal was that he was
“post-racial,” an illusion that did not die until his second term. His (white) former staffers on the influential Pod Save America podcast were
the key figures who set off the flood of criticism that eventually drove
Joe Biden out of the race, and it is hard to believe they did not
reflect their former boss’s views. Barack Obama could appeal to white
voters in swing states and keep an iron grip on blacks — a trick Miss
Harris could not manage.

Joe Biden eventually decided not to run because he felt the party was
divided, not because he didn’t think he could win. However, his ego is staggering, perhaps larger even than Donald Trump’s. At first, he balked
at endorsing Miss Harris because he wanted the headlines to be about
him, and he told his vice president that there must be “no daylight,
kid” between her campaign and his record. With Mr. Biden already
trailing Mr. Trump even before the debate, this crippled her campaign
before it started.

At the same time, though the authors (dubiously) claim that Miss Harris
did not want to be known for her race and sex, they point out that Mr. Biden’s insistence on “no daylight” meant that those were all she could tout as reasons to vote for her. Though Miss Harris prepared hard for
her debate with Donald Trump and arguably defeated him, her interviews
were often disastrous. The most damaging moment came in what should have
been a softball interview with “The View,” in which she said she could
not think of anything she would have done differently from Joe Biden.
The Trump campaign made it a campaign ad.

The authors write that Kamala Harris’s “sugar rush” surge after the nomination was real but hit a ceiling. She took a narrow lead in some
polls, but it was statistically insignificant and driven by positive
media. Aside from the debate, there were no key moments on which to
build momentum. JD Vance’s easy defeat of Tim Walz in the
vice-presidential debate robbed the Harris campaign of perhaps its last
chance to save the campaign.

Racial politics may have been the main reason Tim Walz was picked. The
Trump campaign feared that Miss Harris would pick popular Pennsylvania
governor Josh Shapiro. However, Governor Shapiro is Jewish and
pro-Israel, and the Democrat coalition was already divided over the
Israeli response to the Hamas attack. Mr. Shapiro himself also may be
preparing to run in 2028, and didn’t seem eager to join the campaign. In contrast, Tim Walz practically begged for the job, only to flub the debate.

However, the authors resist the idea that Miss Harris was doomed from
the start. Her surge was real, and the Trump campaign (and its volatile
chief) came dangerously close to tearing itself apart, with the
candidate showing signs of panic and almost turning on campaign heads
Susan Wiles and Chris LaCivita. What doomed Miss Harris, according to
the authors, is what they say doomed Mrs. Clinton in Shattered: There
was never a compelling reason for her candidacy or a central message.
Miss Harris was tied to Joe Biden and never explained why she was running.

In contrast, Mr. Trump’s message was clear. He stressed economic safety (fighting inflation) and physical safety (fighting crime and illegal immigration). The authors heap scorn on his infamous “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” claim about Haitians, but they concede it still spoke to a basic worry about safety. Most people thought they knew
what Mr. Trump would do back in office.

Tactically, Mr. Trump’s campaign showed a flexibility that Miss Harris’s lacked. With policies such as abolishing taxes on overtime and tips, and
stunts such as the McDonald’s photo op, Mr. Trump stayed in the news in
ways Miss Harris could not match. The Harris campaign could not seem to
operate without a script and seemed afraid to let its candidate speak off-the-cuff. The Trump campaign (notably after some advice from son
Barron Trump) put the candidate on podcasts with Theo Von and Adin Ross, appealing to independent male voters. The Trump campaign got some help
from Mr. Biden, who called Trump supporters “garbage.” That meant the
Trump campaign could turn the stupid joke at Madison Square Garden in
which a comedian compared Puerto Rico to floating garbage into another
chance for Mr. Trump to tout himself as a friend of workers.

Theo Von and Donald Trump
Exit poll results pose some challenges to white advocates who believe demography is destiny. Mr. Trump’s share of Hispanic voters grew from 42 percent to 46 percent and Asians from 34 percent to 40 percent. He lost
women by only eight points, compared to 15 points in 2020. President
Trump also increased his rural base, doubling his margin to 30 percent.
He won a narrow victory in the suburbs, an improvement over 2020. His
gains among blacks (12 to 13 percent) and black men (19 to 21 percent)
were marginal.

Yet the real story of the Democrats is the story of the “black vote.”
Many Democratic politicians saw the problem emerging, but the Democrat dependence on black politicians crippled them. Mr. Biden initially felt confident about running again because most blacks in the party supported
him. Near the end of the book, Mr. Biden thanks Mr. Sharpton for his
stalwart support, before calling Nancy Pelosi a traitor. Because the
Democrats are so beholden to blacks, there could not be an alternative
to Miss Harris once Mr. Biden decided not to run. Indeed, the main
reason Miss Harris was even vice president was because black activists
(notably the “colored women” party workers) demanded that he pick a black.

However, Mr. Biden gave her unattractive jobs (such as trying to stem immigration). Biden aides even used her unpopularity as a reason to keep
their man in the race. And then, remarkably, Joe Biden offered her as
the only alternative. After the election, Mr. Biden was arguing that he
could have won. The friendships between Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama, and Miss
Pelosi were destroyed; Mr. Biden thought he had been betrayed.

Did Kamala Harris ever think she was betrayed? Even I winced at Mr.
Biden calling his vice president (who is not a young woman) “Kid” and giving her orders to remain loyal when she had never been disloyal.
Maybe the authors are missing something. They concede that Miss Harris
is very ambitious and had attacked Joe Biden in the past. It seems too
simple to think she sabotaged her own race because she was just too darn
loyal. Whatever the truth about her, Mr. Biden, far from seeing himself
as the “bridge” and transitional figure he promised to be, thought he
was a leader for which others should sacrifice. They didn’t, and he
destroyed the party.

The GOP’s future depends mainly on whether President Trump succeeds on immigration and the economy. There is reason for hope on the first and
fear for the second. In either case, race will continue to cripple the Democrats. The unwieldly coalition of non-whites with a thin layer of
white professionals on top will be hard to unify, especially if blacks
continue to insist on a privileged position. The Muslim-Jewish divide
over Israel could also prove disastrous, not least if Governor Shapiro
runs in 2028. The GOP faces demographic doom in the long run if mass immigration continues. However, the racial divisions within the
Democrats threaten a party fracture at worst, and political incompetence
at best. The GOP may be the Stupid Party, but that may still be better
than being the Black Party.

(Republished from American Renaissance by permission of author or representative)
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Stephen Paul Foster says: • Website
April 12, 2025 at 10:55 am GMT • 3.3 days ago • 100 Words ↑
During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Trump showed himself to be
spontaneous, genuine and connected to real people. He was enjoying
himself in contrast to the completely scripted Harris whose only
appearances were before audiences packed with her sycophants, where,
even so, she always looked dazed and dumb founded. Harris was as
deadly-dull, uninspiring and disconnected from her supporters as Trump
was an energized force always on the move, just like the Road Runner,
leaving the Vice President looking perpetually confused and headed for
the cliff. https://stephenpaulfoster.substack.com/p/donald-trump-the-don-rickles-of-american

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