This editorial is due on Tuesday 5 November, and published on the morning of Thursday 7 November – leap-frogging the US presidential election. In other words, you know something I don’t, sitting back here in the past.
A lot just happened, I know. The world is, right now, reeling from the impact of an election with a significant impact on US women, American LGBTQ+ rights, labour laws, public health, freedom of the press, the economy and the environment. Globally, the US election will affect international strategic alliances, economic and financial systems, the climate crisis, international aid, support for international science networks and the arts, and scary but quietly important stuff like technology safeguards on AI.
It’s a nail-biter. Most experts predict that just seven hard-to-predict states will decide the election: Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan. That being said, even a ‘safe’ state is capable of confounding the experts: Obama won Iowa twice, in 2008 and 2012.
Thanks to the oddities of the US Electoral College system, the president-elect doesn’t need to win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton demonstrated this in 2016 by beating Trump by more than 2.9 million votes but losing the election. Donald Trump became President after the US Electoral College gave him 304 votes, 77 more than Clinton. This represented a decisive victory under US law, and one she didn’t contest. Why would she? It would be like the All Blacks pretending they had won after losing.
Such post-toddler logic hasn’t prevented Trump from clinging onto the Resolute desk with the unblinking entitlement of a crocodile wedging himself into a life preserver. This is a more appropriate metaphor than you might think – the chunky piece of Oval Office furniture was made from the timbers of an abandoned ship (the British vessel HMS Resolute, stuck in Arctic ice in 1854, refloated by an American whaler).
This time, Trump might (I expect) once again lose the election. He will rage, he will moan, he will struggle, and he will sink, slowly, before popping back up in the headlines like a rotting corpse as his court cases play out.
Even his supporters admit he is a hopeless campaigner. His gaffes come so fast, reporters long ago gave up trying to cover them all. Two days before the election, he told a rally in Pennsylvania that he regretted leaving the White House, joking he wouldn’t mind if the journalists working dutifully in front of him were shot.
Most of us understand by now that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. The results were confirmed by more than 60 court cases, several overseen by judges Trump appointed himself. So, Trump makes no sense. Usually, people who make no sense do not get elected president.
Trump will also lose because abortion is on the ballot. American women have, in many states, lost the right to choose. The enormity of this is often overlooked, especially when a man is doing the talking.
Harris will win, and not only because she has been endorsed by the likes of The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The Plain Dealer, Las Vegas Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Tribune, Houston Chronicle, The Economist, Vogue, and Scientific American. (The last endorsement, only the second in Scientific American’s 179-year history, is a humdinger).
Harris will win because she has run a much better campaign than Trump. Despite all the talk of a hopelessly divided nation, in just three months Harris has gathered a coalition ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Liz and Dick Cheney, a dazzling vapour trail across the political spectrum. “It is the broadest [coalition] we have seen in modern political history,” notes elderly strategist James Carville, who knows a few things about politics and coalitions. Carville, aka ‘the Ragin’ Cajun’, famously worked for Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992. Equally famously, he remains happily married to one of Republican President George H. W. Bush’s top political advisors.
The ruby-red Bush dynasty has produced two Republican presidents, as well as a Florida governor. And then there’s Dubya’s daughter Barbara, who was interviewed door-knocking for Harris in Pennsylvania a few days ago. “I’m hopeful [Harris and Walz will] move our country forward and protect women’s rights,” she told a reporter.
Carville, the old rainmaker, is in awe of Kamala’s skill at fund-raising. “Money matters in politics. If this weren’t the case, somebody would be wasting an awful lot of time raising it. Take it from [Republican senator for South Carolina] Lindsey Graham, who is whining that Republicans are getting creamed in fund-raising. He’s not wrong to complain, since Ms. Harris is processing Cheddar like a Wisconsin cheese factory.
“Since joining the race, the vice president has raised an eye-boggling $1 billion, and last quarter one of her fundraising committees reeled in $633 million — dwarfing what Mr Trump raised with two committees combined.
In any event, “Mr. Trump is a repeat electoral loser,” Carville concluded. “This time will be no different.”
Was the Ragin’ Cajun’ right? You tell me.
• Jenny Nicholls
© Waiheke Gulf News Ltd 2024
