With promises and dirt into the White House

The Democratic Party convention was vague in content, but all the more aggressively directed against Donald Trump. The election autumn is likely to be uncomfortable.

People vote for people, not party programs. Elections are won with promises, not with concrete proposals.

The Democratic strategists obviously understand this. They deliberately kept the content of their party convention in Chicago last week vague. Even after more than 100 speeches over four long evenings, it is not clear what President Kamala Harris (59) plans to do in the White House, how she plans to finance it, what she promises.

Instead of ideas for the future, a gloomy impression remains of Chicago. The Democrats demonized their opponent. Speech after speech, they attacked a Republican who wasn’t even there: Donald Trump (78) was evil, dangerous and unelectable. Which seemed unimaginative in this concentration.

Harris allowed herself to be labelled as “a president of joy” rather casually. She wants to be a cheerful president who inspires people. It is not her political programme but the promise of a triumph over Trump that is sweeping the Democrats along.

This means that the autumn election season is likely to be all the more uncomfortable. No party says it openly, but everyone knows it: personal attacks work in American election campaigns. That’s why Harris and Trump will throw even more dirt at each other in the 72 days until election day, plastering social media and television channels with negative commercials.

Whoever does this most relentlessly gets the lifeblood of politics: power. And the people who are actually at the heart of a democracy? They get nothing out of it.