How Kamala Harris Can Beat Donald Trump in the Debate

Julian Zelizer : Kamala Harris emerged from the Democratic National Convention on a roll , fueled by America ’s desperate need to find a parent figure who can be trusted to bring the American people back to reality.

He says the cultural unconscious is impatient; she has a very short timeline in which to demonstrate to Americans that she is up to the job.

Donald Trump has capitalized on a sense of isolation by mobilizing in his followers the most primitive psychological beliefs about loss and loneliness: what Freud called the “sibling complex.

For Trump , the American epidemic of loneliness is seen to be the result of unworthy interlopers who unjustly monopolize parental attention.

For Democrats , the unconscious sibling rivalry is the envy of the privileges of the firstborn son.

Harris ’ job is to recognize the struggles of those Americans and all working Americans . She needs to bring America into emergency therapy, to lift up and not beat down, unite and not separate. And if, to accomplish that, she draws on the trust that Americans unconsciously give to the fair-but-tough mother, so be it. “It’s a shortcut, but we don’t have much time.”.