By Kenneth Tiven
Could you have imagined that the daughter of a woman who emigrated to America from Tamil Nadu and married a black American while both were university students would then have a daughter who may become president of the United States of America?
Today this is reality as US President Joe Biden has withdrawn from the election, supporting his Vice President Kamala Harris. He says she is the logical replacement candidate to give Donald Trump his second consecutive loss to regain the White House.
The Trump campaign was happy to denigrate Biden for being old and verbally slower than Trump. The old timer is now Trump, a man who has lost a steps verbally and physically claims an impossible golf handicap. The randomness of his extemporaneous speech becomes more obvious each week. The intellect and logic in his speeches are difficult to find, but obviously, this doesn’t bother his most loyal MAGA fans. They believe he escaped death only by the grace of a Christian god.
And there is the problem. While they make a great deal of noise about Trump, they are outnumbered by Democrats, Independents, and undecided voters. Trump has never won a nationwide majority in the national election except in the second phase of the Electoral College, which is based on who won in each state. These so-called swing states, with majority conservative voters, barely edged Hilary Clinton in 2016.
Trump and Vance will campaign as if it were 2016, amping up the racism and misogyny for a candidate of Indian descent. The MAGA faction was aghast that JD. Vance, his vice president, is married to a woman of Indian descent. Republicans prefer disparagement over policy as a campaign theme.
One political consultant warned me that many voters enjoy disparagement. While Trump wanted a rematch with Biden. Even more he wants his old job back and may stop at nothing because to lose would mean facing criminal trials for the unofficial act of inciting an insurrection in 2021. If he wins, he tells the Department of Justice to forget about it
Democrats will stress women’s rights, family planning, criticize the Supreme Court’s inability to resist political ideology, not case law, reductions in crime, and increased wages and employment. They will also argue the Ukraine-Russian War and US support for Ukraine against Russia is crucial to Europe and the world. This hot topic may influence the selection of a vice presidential candidate to run with Harris. Military experience makes Sen. Mark Kelly a likely choice. Not only did he win reelection easily in Arizona, but he is a former Navy combat fighter pilot and NASA astronaut, bringing the military background that neither Harris nor Trump has. Vance did serve a tour in the Marines as a journalist.
The Democrats have succeeded in shifting about $100 million in donations from the Biden campaign into a status that Harris can use. Democratic supporters opened their wallets as soon as Biden announced he was leaving office on Jamuary 20, 2025 and hope to welcome Kamala Harris to her new digs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The failed assassination of Trump at a Pennsylvania rally by a lone teenage gunman turned the just completed political convention into a love-fest for Trump. He proudly wore a bandage on his right ear. This helped mask the scarier aspects of the GOP policy platform and approach. He spoke of unity for less than 15 minutes and then launched into taking credit for things he did not accomplish. There was no mention of Trump’s baseless claims that he actually won the 2020 election; Vance called him the “once and future President” at one point, but most speakers ignored Trump’s 2020 loss entirely.
Usha Vance, a lawyer who clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, introduced her husband, one of the most rhetorically right-wing members of the Senate, as a “meat and potatoes guy” who still learned to cook vegetarian Indian food for his mother-in-law.