Will the real Kamala Harris please stand up?

About five minutes ago, the one Democrat more certain to lose to Donald Trump than Joe Biden was his widely ridiculed vice president. Party wonks despaired that their elderly candidate was handicapped by a veep whose prospective ascendence to the presidency terrified voters. Dems anguished about needing to sideline an unpopular ‘woman of colour’. Remember the many theories about how best to get shed of the woman – perhaps with the booby prize of a Supreme Court seat?

Five minutes ago, Republicans gleefully celebrated that, by honouring the crude rubrics of identity politics, Democrats had burdened themselves with an incompetent diversity hire. I, too, briefly shrugged off Biden’s endorsement of his VP to replace him atop the 2024 ticket. ‘Right, buddy,’ I thought, ‘and she’ll lose.’

For these puppet masters, Harris is the ideal candidate: out of her depth and easy to manipulate

I greatly underestimated the awesome power of the Democratic Medusa, whose snakes writhe into, wrap around and infest nearly every American institution, particularly the press. Being in the US the past month or so – I wouldn’t have missed the spectacle for the world; Europeans can have the Olympics, a distant second-order entertainment at best – has provided quite an education about American power, with which progressives are so obsessed.

For a moment (the horror), the Medusa lost control of the Dems’ beloved ‘narrative’. Irresponsibly allowed access to original sources, the audience of June’s Biden-Trump debate couldn’t be bullied into unseeing what they saw. Literally overnight – the New York Times demanded Biden leave the race a mere 20 hours after the debate revealed the very cognitive decline the Times itself had long concealed – the Medusa set about Biden’s merciless political assassination, less like death by sharp-shooter than a three-week tribal clubbing. It worked.

Yet even more staggering was last week’s makeover of Kamala Harris, transformed within hours from a babbling, giggling, dim-witted electoral ball and chain to a smart, inspiring, forceful and eloquent standard bearer for freedom, justice and democracy.