Kamala Harris for President

Are we witnessing a Kamala Harris phenomenon? Is this a new movement that will last and gain traction?

By Anil Madan

Kamala Harris will not be the first person of partly African ancestry to become the President of the United States. That was Obama’s breakthrough. Harris is not the first woman to be a major party’s presidential nominee. Hillary Clinton holds that distinction. Obama won, Hillary Clinton lost. Harris is the first person of partly Indian origin to be a major party’s nominee.

There have been two women vice presidential nominees, Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin. Neither was elected. There have been two Catholic nominees, John F. Kennedy and Joseph R. Biden. Both were elected. Mike Pence, a Catholic was elected Vice President.

There is a tendency for those euphoric about such achievements by nominees to project victory. Often that is more hope than reality. In the 2024 election for President, the race is so close that it is difficult to say which side, Trump’s or Harris’s, is more about hope than reality.

What is significant is that Kamala Harris’s campaign has become a movement and that since President Biden withdrew and endorsed her as presumptive heir, she has soared in the polls, caught Donald Trump, surpassed his numbers and then, … well, we don’t know quite what.

National polls in the US show that Harris is ahead by as much as 4 or 5 points. National polls also show that Trump is ahead by a few points. Which poll(s) should we believe? Well, that’s hard to say for four reasons:

1. We don’t know how the polls were conducted, i.e., what is the demographic that makes up those surveyed? It is easy to get skewed results if one selects a cohort of voters who are in groups tending to favour one candidate or the other. Many pollsters are for hire, so caution is the watchword.
2. How does one accurately find a “likely” voter at this stage of the campaign? Most people when asked, will say they intend to vote. But reality is another thing. Voter turnout in US presidential elections is notoriously low. In presidential election years, the turnout is in the low 60 percents, with 2020 hitting 66% of registered voters. If those who profess to be likely voters are no more likely to vote than the historic voter turnout shows, the margin of error of the polls is probably as high as 40% and not the 3-5% that we often are told it is.
3. What are the specific questions asked? It is well known that polls results can be skewed by how questions are phrased.
4. National polls don’t really mean anything because ultimately, the presidential race is decided by the electoral college. It is well known that there are many states that are solidly leaning Blue or in favour of the Democratic nominee, and many that are solidly leaning Red or in favour of the Republican nominee. This leads to the oft-repeated caveat that the presidential race will be decided by the so-called swing states or “purple” states. Here “purple” conveys the notion that the state is neither solidly Red (Republican) nor solidly Blue (Democrat), but a mixture and hence, purple.

The result in these swing states often depends on voter turnout, or, in other words, how many of the “likely” voters turn out to be “actual” voters. A few thousand votes in Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona, could make the difference. And this is true regardless of how the vote goes in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma … well, you get the idea.

A woman of colour

Kamala Harris’s candidacy is notable because she is a woman of colour running for the highest office. She has both an African American and an Asian background. She has experience as a prosecutor in California, as Attorney General of California, as a United States Senator, and as Vice President.

But she must also contend with those who claim that these accomplishments are not adequate preparation for being President, as well as with those who diminish her achievements by suggesting she obtained them through favoritism or chicanery.

Clearly, Kamala Harris has struck a chord with the American people. Or to be more precise, with the Democrats and a fair number of women, Independents, and a cohort of Republicans who believe that Trump is reprehensible and a threat to American Democracy and to America’s security. To the extent that her candidacy indeed represents a movement, it is about women’s rights.

As one listens to the campaign rhetoric of the two candidates, Trump presents a dark, dystopian view of today’s America, along with dire predictions of decline — and worse, an American Armageddon, if you will — should he be defeated. This American Armageddon is augmented with his dark and dystopian view of a worldwide Armageddon, as he predicts World War III. Much of his rhetoric is laced with the same old xenophobia and hate mongering. The recent false accusations that Haitian immigrants were eating the cats and dogs of their neighbours have caused many to observe that these types of accusations have their roots in the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis. Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance has added false accusations that HIV and tuberculosis cases are “skyrocketing” in Springfield. There is no empirical data to support these.

Trump’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election was built on racist and xenophobic rhetoric with outlandish promises about what he would be able to achieve. He continues to promise housing and jobs for all, and even happiness to women.

As in 2016, his supporters are oblivious to the daily mouthfuls of falsehood that Trump and Vance emit.

In contrast, Harris has offered messages of hope and a future of opportunity for all Americans — a message of equal access to opportunity. More importantly, she has cast herself as a fighter for freedom for all Americans, and by implication, for all people in the world. Freedom includes the rights of women to make their own decisions about reproductive choices. The abortion question looms large in this election. But it must be remembered that in many Red or Republican states, whereas women may well vote to protect abortion rights, Trump remains to have a stranglehold on the Republican vote.

Is it important that Kamala Harris is a woman or a person of colour with African and Indian heritage? Her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention is instructive. She did not mention her sex or her ethnicity. Some have observed that it was necessary to state the obvious. But not running as a woman candidate, or as a Black or Indian, is smart. Trump’s efforts to smear her for only recently having claimed to be Black fell flat. He has not attacked her personally based on her gender, but he has falsely claimed that Democrats welcomed the overruling of the Roe v. Wade case which established a woman’s right to abortion.

The economy, and foreign policy

Two other areas need mention: the US economy, and foreign policy.

Every presidential election turns, to some extent, on the economy, or more precisely pocketbook issues affecting the voting public. There are some polls suggesting that more people have confidence in Trump to handle the economy than in Harris. There is little empirical data to support such a contention. The economy has been doing quite well under President Biden with steady growth of GDP, the boiling rate of inflation reduced to a simmer, almost 16 million jobs created, and the Fed finally lowering interest rates while the stock markets continue to soar. Trump’s plans for the economy include imposing tariffs on all imported goods and another tax cut for the wealthy and for corporations.

On foreign policy, Harris’s experience includes multiple engagements with foreign leaders. But most of this has been invisible to the American public and she gets no credit for it. Trump’s record on foreign policy is abysmal, but he doesn’t get enough blame for it.

Trump’s efforts to dismantle NATO and rupture America’s alliances with European nations seem to have been forgotten as Biden has strengthened those ties and worked with NATO countries in supporting Ukraine.

Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan masked the fact that it was Trump’s Secretary of State who signed the agreement to withdraw American troops from that country. Trump’s inexplicable embrace of Putin and his opposition to American support for Ukraine should disqualify him from the presidency, but his supporters seem not to care.

Perhaps the American public has grown weary of conflicts all around the world and the sad reality that America’s influence has waned to the point that we cannot do much about what is happening whether we are dealing with our allies or adversaries. The realization that Trump’s pronouncements on foreign policy are bluster and that Kamala Harris is not likely to be any more effective than Biden suggest that there is no clear winner on this score.

So, are we witnessing a Kamala Harris phenomenon? Is this a new movement that will last and gain traction? For a time, right after Biden announced that he would not run for reelection, it certainly seemed so. But lately, the lotus blossom has faded somewhat.

We have an old-fashioned horse race for President. It is just too close to call today.

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 27 September 2024