Kamala Harris has orchestrated a brilliant launch to her foreshortened campaign. Her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as running mate proved brilliant. The energy of the Chicago Democratic National Convention was contagious. Harris presented herself as the agent of change and Trump as a relic of the failed past. In their debate, Harris eviscerated Trump, goading him into exposing just how delusional and demented he is. Taylor Swift’s endorsement followed, with celebrities, pundits, comedians joining in. She’s consolidated the support of Democrats, and roused energy among the young, women, and minorities.

Yet, with all this, with less than 50 days left, the election is still a toss-up, with Trump and Harris virtually tied in the various swing states. And now Harris must fight her way out of the Trump derangement trap (TDT).

The trap is that Trump’s grotesqueries enrage his opponents, consume the media, and make the campaign about him. “They are eating the dogs,” he says in the debate. The media goes into hyper-frenzy. He and his noxious running mate feed the libel they know to be false. The haters make bomb threats; schools close in Springfield. Pundits denounce his racism. Harris almost literally disappears from the news.

Inevitably, she is forced to respond to his outrages. He becomes the issue. In the debate, in the face of his provocations, Harris called out his racist history. “We are not going back,” she said, “It’s time to turn the page…. and to end the chaos.”

But for most voters, the election isn’t about Donald Trump. It’s about their own struggles. Americans know Trump; they are only now learning about Harris. With over 60 percent of the country convinced the country is on the wrong track, they care less about what she thinks of Donald Trump. They want to know what she is for, whom she will fight for and whom she will fight against, and how she plans to help with the challenges they face. The TDT drowns out her efforts to answer those questions.

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign fixated on Trump’s preposterous lies and antics and slighted the justified anger of working people left behind in the neoliberal economy. In 2020, in the wake of the pandemic and the economic collapse, Trump’s trap didn’t work. Joe Biden won, promising to end the chaos of Trump’s presidency and return calm and competence to the White House. But today, calm represents more of the same. Voters—particularly working-class Americans who rightly feel that this economy doesn’t work for them—want change, not calm. A major reason the race is still a toss-up is that Harris is trailing among those that pollsters describe as non-college-educated, particularly among white men.

Many of these voters now are full MAGA. Some are put off by Trump’s malevolence but believe that at least he will take on the powers that be. He rails against the failed establishment, the “deep state,” the “loser” generals. As he sows division with his race-baiting politics, he declares himself their champion, offering sweeping economic promises: imposing across-the-board tariffs to force companies to build in America, ejecting millions of immigrants to open up jobs and housing. He’ll “drill baby drill,” and repeal the “green scam,” lowering energy prices and ending inflation. And of course he promises lower taxes, less regulation, and stronger growth. In this cycle, he has larded on specific promises targeted at people struggling paycheck to paycheck—no taxes on tips, overtime, or Social Security income. Establishment economists may rightly point out the poisonous effects of this brew—but they have far less credibility with those struggling than Trump does.

Attacking Trump as unfit is not an adequate response. Nor are vacuous political brand names—“a new way forward,” an “opportunity economy.” Falling into Trump’s trap and endlessly responding to his transgressions is a loser’s game. With little time left, Harris needs to find her populist voice—and remain laser-focused on addressing what working people need, not Trump’s latest outrage.

She’s set the frame for it. By emphasizing her experience as a prosecutor, she described whom she fought for—“Harris for the people”—and whom she fought against—big banks defrauding homeowners, private universities scamming veterans, foreign cartels trafficking in drugs, guns, or humans. She’s put forth new plans on basic kitchen-table concerns: vowing to go after price gouging by grocery-store oligopolies and Big Pharma, offering a plan to build affordable housing. She’s promised help for young families with a tax break for first-time homeowners, a renewed child tax credit, affordable day care, a tax break in the first year of a newborn. She’s offered up a $50,000 tax break for small-business start-ups. And she’s made herself the champion of personal freedom—most notably, of course, a woman’s right to choose.