A Harris Honeymoon or A New American Weltanschauung?

We are indeed at a pivotal moment in the history of the US

By Anil Madan

President Joe Biden’s performance at the so-called “debate” with Donald Trump left little doubt in the minds of American Democrats that he just had to go. Trump was one of the few who hoped that Biden would stay as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Eventually, the message was delivered, received and understood. It was time to go. The Democratic Party rallied and coalesced behind Vice President Kamala Harris in short order and with unbounded enthusiasm.

As speculation mounted about whom she would pick to run for Vice-President, it was clear that, standing alone, she had ignited a spark across America. In due time the spark had become a wildfire that gained momentum at every step, from her choosing Tim Walz as her running mate, to her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.Despite a barrage of denigration, name-calling and personal insults hurled daily by Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, momentum continues to build.

The obvious question is whether all this reflects a Harris Honeymoon that will soon fade and put Trump back in the driver’s seat, or are we seeing an evolving new American Weltanschauung*? Has America grabbed onto something that rejects the alternative Trumpian Weltschmerz*, a worldview of a painful and troubled world that he alone can command and fix?

Criticism has piled on, mainly from Trump, his base of MAGA supporters, and from his acolytes. For the most part, they complain that she has not had a full unscripted interview with the press and that she has presented no concrete policy proposals. Trump and his MAGA followers have been somewhat restrained in speaking about her race, because Vance’s wife is of Indian extraction. Nevertheless, Trump makes it a point to mention that Harris is a Black.

Harris’ speech – A tour de force

Harris gave an exceptional speech at the Democratic National Convention. It was a tour de force, not for anything of substance, but for its structure and cadence. Every good political speech has a cadence.

Think of JFK: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Or: ‘We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light a candle that can guide us through the darkness to a safe and sure future.” Or: “Give me your help. Give me your hand, your voice and your vote.”

Think of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” Or: “So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. … I have a dream today.”

Harris’ speech began with thanks to her husband and partner, and an expression of love. Then there was gratitude to President Biden and his wife Jill, and an expression that her pick Tim Walz is going to be an incredible Vice President. Note the projection of victory in that simple statement.

The speech took off from there as she introduced herself as the product of the American Dream, a daughter of two immigrants, a mother from India, a father from Jamaica. She then brought an echo of prescience, recalling that her father had said to the little girl Kamala: “Run, Kamala. Run.” “Don’t be afraid.” “Don’t let anything stop you.”

Harris then reprised her role as a fighter for justice, a prosecutor. In a poignant moment, she declared that charges she brought against those who perpetrated violence and injustice, were brought in the name of the people. “In our system of justice, a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us.” The contrast with the felon and sexual predator Trump could not have been more devastatingly drawn. And she cast his transgressions against his victims as transgressions against us all.

The contrast with Trump was then exalted when she declared that she would be a President who could be trusted to hold sacred America’s fundamental principles. From the rule of law. To free and fair elections. To the peaceful transfer of power. All these have been Trump’s shameful failings that have denigrated the majesty and meaning of America’s foundational values.

She ended her speech with the admonition that this election is not only the most important of our lives — something that all politicians say at every election — but the most important in the life of our nation. She cast Trump as an unserious man, but the consequences of putting him back in the White House as extremely serious. And she reminded her listeners that he failed the essential test of leadership on January 6, 2021, when he failed to intercede but instead fanned the flames. And for an entirely different set of crimes, he has been found guilty of fraud, and separately found guilty of sexual abuse. She warned of an unrestrained Trump after the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity from prosecution and of the far-out rightist cult agenda known as Project 2025.

America, we are not going back, she declared. We are charting A. New. Way. Forward. And, in broad strokes, she spoke of building an opportunity economy, of giving back to women the right to control their reproductive freedom, of creating jobs, giving all a chance to compete and succeed, grow the economy, providing access to capital for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders, and of ending America’s housing shortage and protecting Social Security (retirement) and Medicare (healthcare). Harris ended by promising to protect voting rights and to lead the world with strength, and to win the competition in advanced technologies, and geopolitical security.

She ended, pretty much as she had begun, with an expression of love, but this time for her country, for America. She called on this nation, with a final bit of cadence: “America, let us show each other — and the world — who we are. And what we stand for. Freedom. Opportunity. Compassion. Dignity. Fairness. And endless possibilities. We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and grandchildren, and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment.”

Again, the contrast with Trump the insular, the self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, lying, abuser, felon, could not have been starker. But enough, can she win the general election?

There is, at one level, clearly a change that has overcome America. The Republicans successfully portrayed Biden as an old man unable to perform as President and indeed, raised the fear that he would be a liability if this nation faced a geopolitical crisis. The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan has allowed the Republicans to gloss over the fact that it was Trump who negotiated the surrender deal with the Taliban. It was Trump, who abandoned the Afghan government. His former National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster has stated: “We threw Afghans under the bus.” McMaster also says: “We negotiate with the Taliban without the Afghans present. Remember, we forced the Afghans to release, you know, 15,000 of some of the most heinous people on Earth, and these prisoner releases and so forth. And so, I think that it was really tragic. It was completely avoidable.” And he declares that Trump’s withdrawal agreement was not necessary because America’s presence in Afghanistan was “totally sustainable”.

The Republicans have also, for decades, portrayed themselves as the party of American patriotism. Perhaps it is Trump’s dastardly performance after the 2020 election, his horrendously anti-American attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, his obsequious pandering to Vladimir Putin, his disgraceful disavowal of Ukraine’s sovereignty, or his abusing of America’s allies, that have led Americans writ large, with the exception of Trump’s MAGA base, to question his judgment, his commitment to American values, and indeed his sanity. But clearly, there was a shift as the Democrats embraced America and America’s values of freedom and Democracy as symbols of their patriotic love.

Nonsensical policy proposals

Republican complaints that Harris does not have cohesive and comprehensive policy proposals are nonsensical. Trump offers no cohesive policies but does have a smorgasbord of impractical and unfulfillable “promises” that he cannot keep or has no intention of keeping. For example, his promise to undertake the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, will run smack into due process limitations when deportation orders are sought in the courts. Deporting ten or twenty million people is a logistical nightmare, a task that with the current number of judges and immigration courts, could take more than 30-40 years.

Trump’s promise to add a 10% tariff to all nondomestic goods sold in the US is a nonsensical tax on the American public. He promises to end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours. Surprisingly, for a man who claims to be against wars, he has not disclosed to the world how this might be achieved and thereby brought an end to the war. There is little doubt that his idea of ending the war is getting Ukraine to capitulate to Putin’s demands.

Trump’s promise to provide a “big tax cut” depends on whether the Republicans gain control of both the House and Senate. Otherwise, there is no chance of that happening. Perhaps the only thing Trump could accomplish is his promise to pardon the criminals convicted of storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021. That would be the most shameful act by any American president in our history.

Tied national polls

national polls on the presidential race remain essentially tied

The national polls on the presidential race remain essentially tied. Some polls are at 50-50; some at 46-50 in favour of Trump; others at 49-47, 47-45, 44-42, 39-36, 47-46, and 46-45, for Harris.

All these polls are within the statistical margin of error. More importantly, they do not reflect how the Electoral College will play out and that is how the presidential race will be decided.

One question that remains open is whether there is occult support for Trump. These would be the voters who still have a modicum of self-respect left and do not openly want to declare that they will vote for Trump. My sense is that self-respect about support for Trump is long lost in America and there is no hidden or undisclosed support for Trump.

The wildcard issues are that women in general are rallying in support of reproductive rights and abortion access, Black men and women are surging to get registered to vote, and young people are flocking to the Harris-Walz ticket.

Harris must win Pennsylvania and some of the other swing states to collect enough electoral college votes to get to the necessary winning margin of 270. There are some murmurs that Florida, Georgia, and even Texas may be in play. True, the Harris campaign has raised over $500 million in donations, and this suggests that donors will be committed voters. The registrations of young Black women have almost tripled compared with the same period in 2020. The registrations of young Hispanic women are up by 150%. Heather Cox Richardson, a well-known historian and blogger quotes a source: “Democratic registration has increased by over 50%, as compared to only 7% for Republicans. These new registrants are modelled as +20 pts Dem, as compared to +6 during the same week in 2020.”

On the other hand, Republicans are doing their utmost to suppress the vote. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that in 2021 alone,19 states passed 34 laws that restricted access to voting. In Nebraska, some 100,000 people are caught in uncertainty about whether their attempts to register to vote will result in baseless criminal prosecution. The Governor of Texas announced that more than one million voters have been removed from the registration rolls. In Georgia, the responsibility for certifying the vote is controlled by three members of a panel who are Trump MAGA supporters.

We may well have to write Georgia and Texas off for Harris. Texas was most likely going Republican anyway but recalling that Trump called the Secretary of state of Georgia Brad Raffensperger to ask him to find some 11,000+ votes to tip the Georgia election, one gets and idea of how close it will be.

We are indeed at a pivotal moment in the history of this nation. Underscoring Harris’ mantle of prosecutor and Trump’s of a convicted felon who has yet more crimes to answer for, the Special Prosecutor filed a Superseding Indictment on August 28, to conform to the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. This is a reminder that Trump attempted to defraud the United States, engaged in a conspiracy to deny the votes of millions of Americans, and conspired to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

Perhaps the new American Weltanschauung is the realization that America needs a president committed to the founding principles of this nation and not to some bizarre personal agenda.

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 30 August 2024