James Lynch writes for National Review Online about mixed messages from Kamala Harris’ campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris pivoted to a message of unity in her closing argument to the nation on Tuesday night, after having spent the last weeks of her campaign insisting that her opponent is a fascist whose election poses an existential threat to the future of the nation.

Addressing a crowd of supporters from the Ellipse in downtown Washington, D.C. — the same spot where Trump, on January 6, 2021, infamously urged his followers to march on the Capitol — Harris cited the Capitol riot as the primary example of her opponent’s unfitness for office. …

… Harris coupled her description of Trump as a “petty tyrant” whose election would spell doom for the country with an appeal to unity and a pledge to seek consensus with those who disagree with her. She touted the America capacity for intellectual debate and said those who disagree are “fellow Americans” rather than enemies to fight.

In the closing weeks of the campaign, Harris has leaned into the charge that Trump is a “fascist,” going so far as to hold a rare press conference outside of her Naval Observatory residence to warn reporters about her “increasingly unhinged and unstable” opponent.

During the brief address, Harris cited recently reported comments made by Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, General John Kelly, who called Trump a “fascist” and said that Trump had praised Hitler in private conversation. Harris’s running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, has compared Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last weekend to a Nazi rally that took place there in 1939.

Catering to moderates and swing-state voters, Harris attempted to distance herself from the intensity and divisiveness that have characterized American politics for the better part of a decade. …

… She identified herself as being part of a “new generation” of leaders and touted her prosecutorial record against banks and sexual predators.