Every election, we hear about a certain kind of American. They are very, very important, a statement that is both true and often infuriating.

The people I am talking about are known as the “undecideds,” the “moderates,” the “centrists,” the “independents,” and too often the “real Americans.” I call them Hallmark Americans. One of my favorite writers, A.R. Moxon, calls them “Seagulls.”

You might be a little confused at the moment as to why I call them Hallmark Americans and why Moxon refers to them as “Seagulls.” I refer to them as Hallmark Americans because their view of the nation tends to be underinformed and simplistic, clinging to a notion of America that was probably taught to them in school and often is as shallow as what you might find in a greeting card. America is always The Good Guys, racism is exaggerated, the U.S. is somehow both The Greatest Country in the World but also Not Like It Used to Be, and perhaps most important to their philosophy, Both Sides Are Just as Bad.

Moxon’s definition is similar. The reason why he refers to them as seagulls is similar to how those tricky birds can swoop in and steal a boardwalk snack you waited in line for, these low-information voters can swing an election that some of us worked hard to win, with very little effort.

That leads me to the current election. The race is still very close right now, at least in polls. I have a hunch that the polls are under-measuring Democratic support again, but not certain. So, it goes without saying given the stakes and the tight race, Kamala Harris needs as many Hallmark American votes as possible.

Getting their vote can be a challenge because understanding them can be difficult. I talked about one form of them in a slightly different context back in March, i.e. Biden had not dropped out yet. I volunteered for a variety of campaigns canvassing undecided voters back in the late 80s/90s, and often their views were contradictory. This made them very hard to figure out where they stood. Their confounding nature was often due to not being able to make connections based on how our society works, such as being anti-pollution but also anti-pollution regulation.

Harris is a South Asian/Black woman, and that is a bit of a challenge for the Hallmark American. As Moxon writes in his Seagulls post, the Hallmark American/Seagull is looking for permission to hold some not-great views, including some that are at least semi-racist. They are the people who base views on immigration that do not fit current realities such as the fact rates at the border are down but instead views driven by right-wing media that fit a less than savory world view that they quietly hold. Let’s just say some of the Hallmark Americans would state in 1933 Germany: “Well now let’s be honest some of those Jewish shopkeepers can be a little rude!”

So, if there’s a crisis at the border and immigrants are causing a crime wave (that doesn’t exist), then it must be okay to be a little mean about Hispanic people. Harris is kind of a challenge because if you express that you are not sure you are going to vote for Harris because of her race/gender, it’s very hard to explain away the idea that you are in fact choosing instead to vote for the guy ending democracy.

This folds nicely into the underinformed aspect of the Hallmark Americans. Going back to Moxon’s piece, being informed can be a threat to the permission to hold racist or semi-racist views. The Hallmark Americans may not be aware of just how serious Trump is at ending democracy. Marci Wheeler writes about how Trump is flat-out saying that if he wins, his voters won’t have to vote ever again, which is about as anti-democratic as one can be. But as Wheeler noted, the horse-race journalists in the media shrugged it off. If the Hallmark Americans don’t have to confront Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, then the Hallmark Americans can feel free to express doubts about voting for the Black/South Asian woman. Because, you know, Americans are “not ready” for a woman of color to be president, whatever that means. Again, the Hallmark Americans tend to prefer shallow thinking and don’t like to consider what they are really saying because that is also a threat to permission, so woe be it to anyone who asks for any deeper analysis.

Republicans try to reach the Hallmark Americans by muddying the waters as much as possible and by spreading misinformation. They are, as they often do, taking the low road, and many of them, as any woman of color who has reached a position of leadership knows, are attacks on Harris’s qualifications. There are shady claims that somehow Harris slept her way to the top because she is an attractive woman and how else might a Black/Asian woman make it to the top? There is also an old standby, an especially loathsome style of racism that has taken several forms over the years. It started with Political Correctness Is Out of Control, then evolved into Woke, and now is known as “DEI.”

These can be attractive to Hallmark Americans because Woke/DEI means nothing at all and therefore can mean whatever one wants, and flips racism to a “question of fairness.” The effectiveness is in question and varies. I have encountered Hallmark Americans who strongly believe that the Harvard affirmative action controversy is about Ivy League schools just randomly picking kids of color out of poor neighborhoods while much more deserving white people (i.e. People Like Us) get screwed, as if ANYONE who is being considered for Harvard is not an impressive young person. Related, to claim that Harris is a “DEI candidate” is especially rich to anyone who has even given a cursory glance at her CV.

But again, these are underinformed people with deeply engrained false views who get fussy when challenged, and could potentially end up voting for Trump because their coworker or poker buddy told them that their cousin’s hairdresser said she heard Harris screwed her way to being a DA. How does Harris counter this?

For starters, I think she should keep up the good vibes of last week as best she can. She’s a happy contrast to dour Trump, and I think the GOP actually mocking someone because they, um, laugh is a weird strategy. People want something positive, and Kamala’s mixed-race background isn’t the only thing that reminds people of Obama – it’s her outlook. She should also continue giving speeches and getting out there. The woman really does have charisma and is a great public speaker, despite this bizarre period in the first three years of Biden’s presidency where people seemed to believe she was unappealing.

I’d also steal a page from the Labour playbook in Great Britain, where Labour candidates talked about economic issues in the context of dignity, such as stating people deserve an economy that allows them to live a dignified life. Another good strategic play, which the Democrats seem to be carrying out right now, is just stating that the GOP is deeply weird right now. This is based on what Harris said about how she’d respond to Trump’s weird stalking behavior during his 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton. She said she’d turn around to him in mid-sentence and say “why are you being so weird?” Trump still, as you may have noticed, very weird and people around him like JD Vance are also very weird. Hallmark Americans might be a little weird themselves, but they most certainly do not think of themselves that way and do not like anything they might consider weird.

The Hallmark Americans are shallow, misinformed, confounding, and kind of infuriating. We also probably need them to win in November. The last thing we need them to do is be Seagulls who swoop in and give votes to Trump.

The last word goes to The Flock of Seagulls, who are a little weird for A.R. Moxon Seagulls but kind of fits this post.