Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump shakes hands with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris during an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon/File)
America is on a knife-edge and the knives are out. Elections are just days away, and the outcome is anybody’s guess. After the initial surge that wiped out the Joe Biden enthusiasm deficit, a disciplined campaign, free of major gaffes or scandals, and a billion dollars in the bank, the Kamala Harris “vibe” seems to be running out of battery power. As Harris and Donald Trump make the final push for the undecided votes that will decide the next President of the United States, we are down to middle-school-level name-calling. Harris says Trump is unhinged and unstable, while Trump calls Harris “retarded”, “stupid” and is not above reaching for an expletive to describe her.
For a nation that ought to know better about how easily violent rhetoric turns into lethal violence (look up rioters storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021), the threats are getting increasingly ominous. Election officials get messages threatening violence. Trump has said he will send in the military after his opponents if he’s elected. State troopers had to be deployed to guard students going to school in Springfield, Ohio, after Trump and his sidekick J D Vance spread the canard that Haitian immigrants in the city were eating their neighbours’ pets. Of course, we should not forget that Trump himself was the target of two assassination attempts during a single campaign season.
The nuttiness is not just in the streets. The hallowed halls of justice are teeming with it as well. The 2024 election is shaping up to be the most litigated election in US history; lawsuits are being filed almost every day to pre-emptively cast doubt on any unfavourable results. The government has also jumped into the fray: The US Department of Justice has sued the state of Alabama’s top election official for illegally removing voters from its election rolls. From the Supreme Court providing Trump a cover of immunity protecting him from the many cases against him to the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, giving away a million dollars a day to a randomly selected registered voter willing to sign a petition, the law is being bent in increasingly creative ways.
Serious policy issues don’t seem to be much of a factor. How will America ever pay for its massive debt, for example? A $3.5 trillion hole is expected by 2035 under Harris’ plan and $7.5 trillion is expected under Trump’s — these numbers are somewhere between all or twice all of India’s current GDP. The enormous burdens being dropped on future generations don’t appear to be a worry on anyone’s mind — be it candidate or voter. The media may be getting muzzled already: Even the august Washington Post that ran the banner “Democracy Dies in Darkness” after Trump’s 2016 election has gone dark and decided not to publish its previously planned endorsement of Harris.
Therefore, let’s sum it all up. Harris’ closing argument is, effectively: Trump’s a fascist; I’m not Trump. Trump’s closing argument: He has one, but neither he nor anyone else can remember what it is since he moves from mendacity to other meanderings.
Meanwhile, the campaigns are engaged in a frenzied endgame to the very finish. Three notable groups could tilt the balance.
Muslim and Arab voters, in critical swing states: These voters — traditionally Democrats — are deeply upset over the yearlong flattening of Gaza, the opening of a new front in Lebanon and the Biden administration’s unwavering support of Israel. Harris is pledging an end to the war if she is elected but is not signaling how and whether she would make a break from Biden’s position. Trump’s past record suggests that he is no friend of Muslims, unless they are connected to the Saudi royal family. But an August poll from the Council on American-Islamic Relations had data that ought to give Harris the heebie-jeebies — 18 per cent of Muslims in key swing states supported Trump while the corresponding support for Harris was 12 per cent, with 40 per cent going to a protest vote.
Men: This key demographic seems less than enchanted by Harris and Trump persists in enchanting them with a mix of machismo and profanity. In particular, the enchantment gap among Black men is a problem for Harris. Is this because they “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president” as Barack Obama said in a recent scolding aimed at Black men? Is this because Harris has been walking a tightrope of being a tough-on-crime prosecutor in the past to please White men (and women) while battling rumours that she put large numbers of Black men in prison? With both candidates eyeing them, Black men have never felt so wanted and with this much attention paid to their hopes and dreams.
Republicans who must hold their noses to vote for Trump: These are the Nikki Haley supporters who might be feeling a little marooned. The Pew Research Center found that Haley’s support base grew from 11 per cent late last year to 18 per cent this year. While Harris does not have Haley batting for her, she has recruited prominent Republicans, Liz Cheney, daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and Jimmy McCain, son of the former Republican presidential candidate, the late John McCain, and a bunch of former Trump staffers and others doing their darndest to get the nose-holding Republicans to defect.
So, here we are. The world’s most powerful nation, collectively gnawing on its fingernails. Comic relief comes from the fake Kamala Harris played by the brilliant actor, Maya Rudolph, on the weekly font of satirical relief, Saturday Night Live; or from the sight of Trump swaying to his music playlist at a political rally for a full 39 minutes while those around him wonder what the heck is going on. Maybe there is hope for America after all if that most American of institutions, McDonald’s, will give a convict like Trump a chance to serve fries even before he’s served his own sentence.
Other than these few notes of hope, America stares at the abyss as it prepares for two possibilities: A convict is elected president or he’s not, but close to half the country would wish that he were.
The writer is dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and senior (non-resident) fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress
