Analysis: Trump vs. Harris magnifies America’s generational and cultural divides

Donald Trump walks onstage to the 1984 Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA,” cheered on by a roaring crowd that skews older and White.

“We will make America great again!” he promises.

Kamala Harris walks out to Beyoncé's 2016 hit “Freedom” and leans into internet memes - addressing more racially diverse audiences dotted with chartreuse shirts and pins that pay homage to a 2024 pop album called “Brat.”

“We are not going back,” she says.

The split screen reflects two presidential campaigns that embody two very different cultural, generational and social identities, setting up a stark contrast for voters. The divide is clearer than ever since President Joe Biden quit the race - upending a campaign that had long featured two White men born in the 1940s and allowing a younger, multiracial woman to take his place.

Now the candidates, their rallies and their movements are showcasing two sides of America split by demographics and cultural touchstones, not just party and policy.

Trump’s grievance-fueled movement is full of nostalgia for past generations and his own term in office - and fear and anger about how undocumented immigration and secularization are changing the country, interviews with many supporters show. At rallies, Trump offers apocalyptic warnings about the southern border, promises to crack down on “transgender insanity,” re-litigates his 2020 election loss, belittles his critics and vows retribution on his perceived enemies, making many false and baseless claims in his lengthy speeches.

Harris, meanwhile, is drawing new energy from young voters and people of color who say they worry that Trump will take America backward to a place where women, people of color, LGBTQ+ Americans and others face more challenges. She delivers tightly scripted speeches that prompt her crowds to boo at Trump but also strike sunny tones, such as pointing toward “the future.”

Earlier in the campaign, voters struggled to connect Biden with the future, according to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who worked on the Biden campaign and supports Harris. Younger voters would say that Trump and Biden both represented the past.

“Now, people clearly see Harris as change - demographically, stylistically, culturally, age, gender, just in every way,” Lake said.

Trump, meanwhile, is seeking to brand Harris as more of the same from Biden and trying to convince voters they were better off during his time in the White House.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt also suggested that Harris represents the past, criticizing inflation and “chaos around the world” during her and Biden’s time in the White House.

“President Trump’s forward-looking agenda will save the economy, stop the crisis at the southern border, and restore peace through strength,” she said in a statement.

‘Contrasting herself with both Biden and Trump’

The divides between the two candidates’ supporters reflect long-standing differences in race, geography, religion, education and more. Republicans’ support base in the Trump era skews White, working-class, male, rural and evangelical. Democrats’ support skews college-educated and urban and draws more on women, young people and voters of color, especially Black Americans. Political analysts have talked for years about Republican-leaning “Cracker Barrel voters” versus Democratic-leaning “Whole Foods voters.”

Now Trump, 78, and Harris, 59, personify the contrast in striking ways.

Harris was born in the 1960s on the cusp of Gen X, and her campaign has leaned into the jokes and references of Gen Z. When singer Charli XCX declared the day that Biden dropped out that “kamala IS brat”' - delighting TikTok users and baffling the older and less-online - Harris’s team immediately embraced the term, which has come to mean something like messy but bold. The campaign began to use the font and Shrek green of Charli XCX’s album cover.

“She’s contrasting herself with both Biden and Trump,” said Sally Friedman, a University at Albany professor who has written about generational differences in politicians.

Heather Beard, 43, was picking up her granddaughter last week when she noticed a Trump rally setting up at Montana State University. She showed up later to protest, upset that her granddaughter has less “bodily autonomy” than she did growing up, now that the Supreme Court - pushed rightward by Trump - overturned Roe v. Wade.

She hadn’t brought a sign but made one quickly on the spot: “NOT GOING BACK!” it read.

“We have been so sad for so long, and suddenly we feel joy and we feel hope,” said Kimberley Colbaugh, 64, a Harris supporter who attended her recent Las Vegas rally. “Women will not go back to being subservient citizens,” she said, speaking about what Harris’s not-going-back message meant to her. “We don’t want to go back to the kitchen and be barefoot and pregnant again. I already lived through that back in the ‘70s.”

Harris supporters arrived at her first big rally in Atlanta last month to see signs like “Kamala Harris is my sorority sister,” printed in the colors of historically Black fraternities and sororities called the “Divine Nine.” They wore “Divine Nine” colors, hoodies representing historically Black colleges, and Harris swag, such as a shirt that said, “This momala is voting for Kamala.”

Inside the Georgia State Convocation Center, Pretty Tammi the DJ played thematic hits like “Welcome to Atlanta” and Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.” The crowd swayed to “Swag Surfin’,” which often plays at Black gatherings.

Some waved homemade signs with messages pulled from the memes and viral moments that took off online when Harris rose to replace Biden. There were nods to a Harris riff on coconut trees that puzzled and then delighted people: “Georgia is coconuts for Kamala.” There were green shirts and buttons with Harris’s name in the blurred font of “Brat.”

In Atlanta, the crowd’s excitement reached new heights when rapper Megan Thee Stallion took the stage. A banner unfurled: “Hotties for Harris.” The rapper highlighted Harris’s barrier-breaking potential, saying, “We about to make history with the first female president. The first Black female president.”

Rapper Quavo, an Atlanta native, endorsed Harris and her work preventing gun violence by saying, “She always stands on business.” Then Harris came up and deployed a Quavo line against Trump: “He does not walk it like he talks it.”

“Say it to my face!” the crowd shouted just before Harris used those words to criticize Trump for briefly pulling out of an ABC debate. Her signature line about not going back drew loud cheers, and supporters chanted it throughout the event.

It was hard for some of them to imagine the same special guests and scene for 81-year-old Biden, let alone Trump.

“I don’t see Biden twerking to her music,” said Jakky Tucker, 39, who attended from Powder Springs, Ga. She had planned to vote for Biden but “wasn’t super excited about it.” Now, she said, “I just feel the wave.”

The nods to a more youthful coalition continued at Harris’s joint rallies last week with running mate Tim Walz. Fans swarmed influencer Jack Schlossberg - a grandson of John F. Kennedy known for his social media presence - and buzzed online about an appearance by the comedian Ziwe.

Some Harris voters were conscious of the demographic divide between supporters of her and of Trump - and tried to counter it. At least two men wore a T-shirt that read, “OLD WHITE MEN FOR HARRIS AND FREEDOM.”

‘God, Guns and Trump’

Trump supporters queue early up for his events in shirts like “God, Guns and Trump” and “Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President.” Some camp out all day with folding chairs. As they finally filter inside, the speakers blast classics such as “Rocket Man” (1972), “I Will Survive” (1978), “Dancing Queen” (1976) and “Memory” from the musical “Cats” (1981).

As they wait for main show, there are teaser videos of Trump (“We will expel the warmongers!”), patriotic rituals and dire warnings about where the country is headed if Trump is not elected. There’s always a Christian prayer.

Four days after Harris’s Atlanta event, Trump rallied at the same venue. Pastor Jentezen Franklin, one of Trump’s staunch evangelical allies, led the prayer. The crowd stood, and many removed the red MAGA caps from their heads.

“Somebody asked me, do you think he’s a prayerful man?” Franklin said. “I don’t know. But I know he puts a lot of people around him in every position he has that do a lot of praying, and that matters.”

“How many of you believe in the power of prayer this afternoon?” he asked. Hands shot up.

He began: “Father, we come to you today in the mighty name of Jesus. We thank you for President Donald Trump.”

Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper came up to the podium next to lead the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance. But first, he fired up the crowd. “The train’s going down the wrong track, folks,” he said.

If Trump wins in November, he promised, “we won’t have illegals crossing the border. We’ll ensure that Americans stands strong. American First agenda will always rule. And we’ll ensure that our country heads down the right path. A God-fearing path.”

The night ended with Trump’s usual drawn-out riff on his MAGA mantra. “We are one movement, one people, one family and one glorious nation under God, and together we will make America powerful again. We will make America wealthy again! We will make America strong again, we will make America proud again …”

He held out his arms for the final words: “And we will make America - "

" - great again!” the crowd chanted with him.

The audience was whiter than the crowd that gathered earlier in the week for Harris. But Trump made an effort to highlight his Black support.

“MAGA Black, MAGA Black, I love them!” he said after pointing out people in the crowd.

In interviews across rallies, Trump supporters said their way of life was under attack. They worried about the undocumented immigrants coming into their communities. They worried about “indoctrination” in schools and kids learning they could be transgender. They said the country was growing more racially divided and sometimes argued it had grown more racist in recent years - against White people.

At a rally in St. Cloud, Minn., James Moore said the country was straying from its Christian values. “Jesus Christ, that’s what our country was originally built on,” he said.

“We need morality back in our country,” echoed Nancy Vergin, 79, at the same rally. “It’s bad. I believe in marriage between a man and a woman. I don’t believe in the lesbians and all that other stuff.” (The official platform Republicans approved at Trump’s nominating convention does not weigh in on same-sex marriage, departing from prior opposition to it.)

Other Trump supporters were less concerned with religion or social issues - for which Trump is an imperfect conservative champion - but shared a sense that something in the country had gone horribly wrong.

“She has destroyed our country,” Trump said of Harris in Atlanta. “We’re going to bring it back.”

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Knowles reported from Bozeman, Mont., and St. Cloud. Wells reported from Atlanta and Las Vegas.