By Kenneth Tiven
When India awakens on November 6 in two weeks, the results of the American presidential election will be as unclear as they are today in this battle over how democracy should work in a divided nation. Indian-American Kamala Harris leads the Democratic Party, which is expected to win the popular vote by a reasonable margin. But, Republican candidate Donald Trump might win another term in the White House because of a 18th-century constitutional compromise called the Electoral College that gives added value to winning in states with small populations against those with mega populations.
Unlike India, the US national elections are conducted by state governments with differing regulations. Immigration, the economy, and family planning as a personal right are the key issues. The two candidates differ substantially on the problem and solution to each issue. Trump, whose first and now third wife were both in the USA on visas for modelling work, is vociferous in his desire to deport all immigrants without legal standing. He has loudly denounced Haitian immigrants here legally with a false story that they steal cats and dogs to eat.
Vice-President Harris made a rare appearance on the partisan Fox News channel, which offers Trump unquestioning support. Asked about immigration, she said the system in America is broken and needs to be fixed, but the Fox interviewer interrupted her to insist it was all about how many immigrants had been admitted since Joe Biden took office. It was more debate than an interview. Harris remained unflappable for half an hour despite sustained interruptions to her answers. She called out Fox for using a clip of Trump with his harsh language edited out about the “enemy within” America he blames for many things. Bret Baier, rather than Harris, was the one doing the post-interview spinning.
Writer Peter Wehner, who worked for presidents Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W Bush, wrote: “Bret Baier has rarely looked as bad (or tendentious) as he did in his interview with Kamala Harris. On the flip side, this was one of her best interviews. She dominated Bret. All in all, it was quite a bad day for MAGA world’s most important media outlet.”
Americans view political opinion from different perspectives. What many believe depends on which end of the telescope they use. This has split up families and friendships across the spectrum. My doctor is in his late 30s, and when our recent appointment drifted from medicine to politics, he said he can’t talk to his father, a dentist, anymore because his father supports Trump.
Political pundits seemed impressed when Harris said her administration would not be the same as Biden’s, reading into it whatever they wanted to believe.
Polling is done by a half dozen firms, which are very neutral and data-focused. Another dozen or more polls are produced by companies with some political involvement. The serious polls are very close; those with Republican connections also are close, with each side hovering just below 50% of the voter sample. What this means is that the people undecided or uninterested up to now are going to be a key to the winner, especially in the seven states considered to be “swing” states in terms of who gets their electoral votes.
Trump began his campaign four years ago after losing the White House to Biden. His immediate claim of a “stolen election” launched an insurrection on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to stymie the electoral college vote count. Despite significant legal problems, 34 felony convictions and multiple impeachments that narrowly failed, he is trying to come back for a second term.
A troubling event while at a rally is laughed off by his campaign as Donald being Donald. During a typical unscripted and meandering rage-filled attack on everything he doesn’t like or understand, two people in the crowd collapsed and needed medical attention. Medical attention came to help. Trump stopped speaking, his campaign played music. He, meanwhile, stood there mute for 30 minutes, long after the ill people had been helped, while his personal “hitlist” of songs played. Given that his health and speech patterns have declined perceptibly as compared to four years ago—and he is 78 years old—there was instant speculation about what medical condition he has. Startled by the interruptions, he appeared to lose his train of thought and could not find it, so he just swayed to the music and then walked off stage.
While the festival of Diwali is colourful and joyous, America is fixated on Red for Republican-leaning states and Blue for Democratic-leaning states. This has not been a joyful period as the campaign has evolved into a battle over what form
democracy should take, or more troubling, whether it should be replaced with an authoritarian system.
Looming over it is the awareness that if Trump wins, his health may make him susceptible to a palace coup in the form of the 25th amendment, which spells out how to replace a medically-disabled president. In that case, JD Vance, his 40-year-old running mate, would become the president. Vance is a US Senator with less than two years of political experience. He has extremely close ties with wealthy hi-tech entrepreneurs who make no pretence about their Libertarian philosophical desire for less government regulation everywhere.
Harris points pridefully to how the Biden administration’s policies made America’s economy the greatest in the world, according to the Economist magazine’s recent issue. Vance takes credit for “making up” the story about Haitian immigrants, claiming it was to get media attention.
In her Substack column, Trump’s estranged niece Mary L Trump said her uncle is “decompensating before our eyes”. We can see it. Trump’s behaviour suggests he knows it as well.
Does the future of the US as a democracy depend on the undecided, who may or may not know it?
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels