By Kenneth Tiven
Indian-American Kamala Harris has excited Americans in ways that have caused high anxiety for ex-president Donald Trump, who two months ago believed his MAGA movement had another four-year term nearly guaranteed.
Trump had argued that President Joe Biden was too old to withstand the MAGA movement’s right to reign. The old expression, “be careful what you wish for” applies here. Trump is old and not the sharpest brain on stage, just the loudest and angriest. Biden’s low-key and underwhelming debate performance against Trump caused Democrats to pressure Biden to drop out of the election race. In July, he announced his retirement when his term ends in January 2025.
That thunder-clap political moment may have altered American history for the next several decades:
- If Harris becomes the first female president in US history when abortion and a woman’s right to control her own body is a big issue, the relationship of the government to its citizens will be different.
- History can be ironic: a similar history-changing result comes with the election of Trump. His right-wing, nearly fascist, desire is to restore male dominance as the key element of a nation run by oligarchs, a democracy only in name.
No one anticipated what would happen after Biden chose Harris as his replacement. Within days, almost all elements of the multifaceted Democratic Party coalesced around her candidacy. She raised nearly half a billion dollars war chest within four weeks, dramatically outraising Trump. His reaction was venomous, calling Harris a “bitch” and tweeting sexual innuendo against her. His attitude towards women has always been flawed, but being beaten by a black woman for money-raising has been difficult for him to accept. This week, the Harris campaign announced that it was investing $25 million in helping Democrats seeking office in state and local races. In contrast, Trump’s takeover of the Republican party management (his daughter-in-law leads it now) meant almost all national fundraising was for his campaign and not for Senate and House races in the states.
The majority of the popular national vote will not necessarily decide the November 5 outcome. Blame it on an 18th-century Constitutional provision creating the Electoral College. The intent was to even the playing field between low-population agrarian states versus large urbanized states. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by nearly three million votes, but she lost in the electoral college. States with single-party dominance gain power because all the electors go to whoever wins the majority of the popular vote in that state. Pre-election polling indicates direction, not outcome. Harris is several points ahead of Trump, including several states that went Trump’s way in 2016.
The fear that Harris may take the White House has Republican political consultants stressing the need to prevent Democrats from winning control of the Congress. Independent election experts and Republican veterans warn Trump and his MAGA allies who are preparing now to claim the election is rigged if Trump loses.
Former Republican congressman Dave Trott of Michigan said: “Trump continues to encourage his supporters to question the integrity of our elections. He has no evidence or basis for claiming fraud and is only perpetuating these lies, so he has a plan B to disrupt democracy in the event he loses.” Other critics and experts agree. “A lot of false claims are masquerading as efforts to change policy to improve election integrity when in actuality they’re just designed to sow distrust in our system if Trump loses,” said David Becker, who leads the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “This is all designed to manufacture claims that if Trump loses, the election was stolen and to sow discord, chaos and potential violence,” he added.
Trump faces trial for indictments related to election interference. He continues to claim he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 election. Harris’ campaign spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika, said this past week, that “everything Donald Trump has promised on the campaign trail—from ‘terminating’ the Constitution, to imprisoning his political opponents and promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’—makes it clear that he believes he is above the law. Now, Trump is claiming he had ‘every right’ to interfere in the 2020 election. He did not.” Trump has also attacked Harris baselessly for spearheading a “vicious, violent overthrow” of Biden to replace him as the party’s nominee, and insinuated that Harris and Biden intentionally failed to provide proper security for his rallies that spurred the assassination attempt against Trump.
In five weeks, Harris had advanced to a three- or four-point lead in national polls, effectively a shift of seven or eight points in Democrats’ direction, where she more or less remains. At the state level, Harris is now ahead or roughly tied in all the swing states. North Carolina, meanwhile, is now firmly in the swing state group, where it really had not been under Biden. The thrust of the Trump campaign going forward is to denigrate Harris, aware now that she is likely to win the popular vote, hoping the Republicans can gain an electoral college win as they did in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, make a team that has recaptured the political imagination of American voters not married to the MAGA message. In her initial sit-down interview on CNN, the first question was how did Harris respond to Trump’s allegation that she was an Indian who turned black for political expediency. Harris, who has been ridiculing Trump, responded she would not fight on his level of juvenile bully-boy taunts. “Same old tired playbook. Next question, please.” A startled interviewer moved on.
I believe she made it clear in one sentence—to Trump and the news media—that she would avoid being dragged down to his level of behaviour. The echo many of us heard was her immigrant mother telling her to ignore any insults as the child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels