Is it possible to win an election on ‘vibes’?

Forget the criticisms about Kamala Harris’s lack of policy – US elections are impossible to predict and there’s still everything to play for

Will Oasis endorse Kamala and does it even matter? So much has changed since all those months ago when Trump nearly got shot and Biden was insisting that he was at the top of his game. Well, it certainly feels like months, doesn’t it? But I wonder where the huge whoosh of energy of last week’s Democratic convention will go and will it manifest in actual votes?
It’s certainly made for a great show, including the VP pick – and that is what really matters. All the guff from “serious” political commentators about this being all “vibes” and not enough policy makes me laugh.
Have you been to America? Have you been to a convention, or have you even seen how politics works there? The Reform Party is nothing but a vibe – and a nasty one at that. There is no real substance other than getting rid of immigrants. Trump is only ever a vibe, the main one being carnage.
The Harris and Coach Walz (an inspired choice) pairing is just a funkier vibe, that’s all. 
I took a road trip during the first Obama election campaign and went to lots of Republican rallies in Kentucky, where the big draw was Sarah Palin. Remember her? Every time her name was mentioned the crowd started yelling “Drill, baby, drill”. That vibe? Like Trump, she wore her ignorance about almost everything as a badge of honour. Meanwhile the local radio stations were openly racist and saw Obama as basically a communist Muslim.
But Obama understood vibes almost as much as anyone. He promised more than he could deliver – but he knew how to talk to people. The only one that could surpass him was his own wife.
I watched her speak once too, and though Michelle can get a bit schmaltzy, she is as tall as a tower block and gives the most amazingly genuine hugs. The crowd who came out for her were black women done up to the nines; they had put on their best clothes for Michelle. That was so moving. That’s the sort of vibe that a 90-page manifesto never produces… and anyone who says it doesn’t matter doesn’t understand how politics works.
The questions are going to stack up for Harris, of course, and the big one remains Israel/Gaza and how much she will break from Biden on that. Not enough for many, though she will hint at it. It already looks as if Trump will pull out the debates, which is a shame, because I would have paid actual dollar bills to see her tear him to pieces.
The issue is not whether her campaign can sustain the vibes for 70 days but whether his can actually find any consistent tone whatsoever. Harris has him beaten on abortion rights. But one of the things I know from living in the States is that the relationship between people and the state is so entirely different to anything that we have here or in Europe that any straight read-through is impossible.
Vast swaths of people live outside the system and want nothing to do with the government, never mind elections. In fact, the last thing they want is to be governed at all and you can have Beyoncé singing about freedom all you like, but until enough people feel that vibe, it’s still all to play for.