이번주 시사영어 강의 기사 : 해리스 패배의 원인과 교훈

[조국현]

이번 주에는

11월 미국 대선에서 해리스가 트럼프에게 패배한 원인과 교훈에 관한 내용을 가지고
영어훈련하겠습니다.

한국 정치인들이 꼭 참고해야할 내용입니다.

그것과 함께 창의적인 표현들을 또 저와 함께 공부하시죠.

[빨간색 부분은 강의 듣기 전에 먼저 고민해 보셔야 할 중요한 표현입니다. 치매 예방에 큰 도움이 될 것입니다^^]

[영어훈련 하면서 글쓴이의 논리를 감상하시면, 여러분의 논리력도 강해집니다]

The Miscalculations That Sent Kamala Harris to a Devastating Loss

Her campaign misread an electorate that was more wound up about inflation and immigration than about Donald Trump’s character

By Tarini Parti / WSJ

Kamala Harris’s advisers felt like they couldn’t believe their luck.

Heading into Election Day, Donald Trump kept making controversial comments they thought would play right into their strategy of showing voters he was unfit for another term. They were optimistic the vice president was on the precipice of victory in a race they viewed as on a knife’s edge. Her final campaign appearance, on the iconic Philadelphia steps from Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky,” would cap the arc of an underdog’s rise.

Instead, their optimism was a sign of how badly the Harris campaign misread an electorate that was more wound up about inflation and immigration than about Trump’s character. Trump punched his return ticket to the White House with a stunning electoral romp that batted away Harris’s attacks and lured voters who believed the country was on the wrong track and blamed President Biden, Harris’s deeply unpopular boss. Her inability to separate herself from him and offer her own specific solutions to Americans’ problems, despite a lavish campaign war chest, was a central reason for her loss.

More broadly, the party erred in failing to plan a smooth transition from Biden’s presidency to the next generation of younger leaders despite his pledge to do so. Thrusting Harris atop the ticket in July left her campaign ill-prepared to compete against an opponent with a firm grip on the electorate.

In a 15-week campaign, Harris’s advisers knew from the start the fundamentals of the race were against her, but they eventually came to believe that bringing into focus Trump’s character was the only way to neutralize her headwinds.

Voters’ discontent with the direction of the country—including their frustrations with inflation and record illegal border crossings—meant they were looking for a change agent. Harris didn’t feel comfortable coming off as critical of Biden, despite a push from some allies, and her advisers also didn’t think it would work, given her role in the administration. 

There were also some cracks within Harris’s campaign operation. The outreach to Black, Latino and working-class voters in swing states came too late and her message to those voters wasn’t clear enough, several Democrats said.

Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.) said that Harris and Democrats appeared too close to the party’s progressive flank.

“The extreme left is leading us into a ditch,” Smith said, citing movements to defund the police and to liberalize border policy. “The second problem, of course, is that Harris chose not to distance herself from Biden.”

The political ground that Harris forfeited was expansive. Women as well as men shifted toward the Republican Party, compared with their preferences in 2020. Harris gave up a bit of her party’s advantage among college-educated voters while losing substantially among voters without a four-year degree, who account for almost 60% of the electorate. Black voters doubled their support for Trump to 16%, while Latino support grew by 6 points, to 41%. Harris also lost ground among voters with less than $100,000 in household income while making gains among the smaller group of voters who earn more than that amount.

In Michigan on the eve of the election, one vivid sign the Democrats were in trouble came at a rally thrown by vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, held at downtown Detroit’s Hart Plaza. The venue can accommodate thousands of people, but the crowd filled only a fraction of the space, according to one volunteer. At one point, campaign staffers asked people to cluster in bleachers that were in view of a camera, so it would give the impression of a full crowd.

Walz and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were among those who delivered brief remarks to a lackluster reception. The rally also featured entertainers, including REM frontman Michael Stipe and Jon Bon Jovi, who sang hits that included a 1992 release that served as a rallying cry: “Keep the Faith.”

On Tuesday night, wealthy Democratic donors and operatives, who had been getting positive updates from the campaign throughout the day, watched in horror at the Conrad Hotel in Washington as election results came in. Many who had been invited to a VIP gathering at Howard University, where Harris’s campaign held its election night party, decided to stay at the bar or go back to their hotel rooms to mourn alone.

“‘We just got our asses kicked’ was the sentiment of the night,” one of the attendees said, adding that although some were starting the finger pointing, Trump’s victory was so resounding that most understood it was a larger problem that went beyond Harris’s campaign. “We can’t nitpick.”

Around 10 p.m., when North Carolina and Georgia looked out of reach and warning signs flashed for the other states in Harris’s narrowing path, the mood among Harris aides and allies shifted to dread.