By Iliyasu Gadu, Ilgad2009@gmail.com
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Following the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention last week in Chicago, Illinois and the expected emergence of Vice-President Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee of the party, the die is cast for what promises to be the most interesting presidential campaign and election yet in American political history.
Vice-President Harris, who replaced President Joe Biden after he stepped down from his re-election race, comes against former President Donald Trump in an election that will define the essence of America and possibly define its future.
In many ways the two candidates are a reflection of America. Kamala Harris is a poster girl of the diversity of America; of African, Caribbean and Asian origin. She also represents the changing demographics of America in which it is projected that in the not distant future, the population of American will be made up of people non-Caucasian origins. Harris is also seen as a flag bearer of the growing assertiveness of women in politics in America not just content to be restricted to fringe roles but to aspire to the highest office in the land. Indeed on her way to the present, she had broken many glass ceilings which has led many to believe that she is likely to be the first woman to become the president of the United States of America.
Trump too is a product of diversity, albeit an old world one. He is of German-Scottish origins through his father and mother respectively. Trump also represents a tendency in America that believes the values that made America what it is today are being steadily and dangerously eroded by immigrants from countries whose values are in opposition to America’s. Trump thus sees himself in the vanguard of those who should not just defend those time honoured American values, but should take the fight right to those categories of immigrants.
Thus from their gender to their bio to their age, background and where they come from, Harris and Trump could not have come to the campaign with more interesting contrasts.
Harris is 59 years old soon to be 60 on October 20 while Trump is 78 years old having celebrated his last birthday on June 14 this year. She is female and of African-Asian origin. Trump on the other hand is pure Caucasian of north European descent.
She was born and raised in the city of Oakland on the Pacific coast of America in the state of California while Trump was born and raised in Queens, New York on the Atlantic coast of the United States of America. Coming from California Harris epitomises the free-wheeling frontier spirit of America’s ‘’Golden State’’ while Trump symbolises the old world charm and quaintness of the ‘’New England’’ of America. She comes from a state world renowned as the tech capital of the world where the Silicon Valley is situated, while Trump hails from New York the World’s Centre of finance and capital, the Wall Street.
As a District Attorney, Harris would definitely have crossed paths with Trump if she had been based in New York but not California where she practised as a State Attorney. Trump would have been among those she investigated and found guilty of corporate crimes.
Now that both candidates have found their bearings in the presidential race where will their support likely to come from?
The key areas of voting will come from the Mid-West states both candidates have taken care to choose their running mates from those areas. Trump has picked JD Vance the freshman Senator from Ohio while Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota is the running mate for Harris. Indeed to further demonstrate the significance of the Mid-West to the November elections both parties held their conventions in Chicago, Illinois the biggest city in the region for the Democrats and Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the Republicans also known as the GOP (Grand Old Party).
Another key voting area is the southern former confederate states where feelings still runs deep against the civil war which took place in the 1860s in America.
Going into the elections, Trump is likely to benefit from Americans who believe his rhetoric of ‘’America first’’ and these are the rural folks, the industrial rust belt, the extreme right so-called ‘’rednecks’’ like the Ku Klux Klan and white Christian religious groups.
But Harris will surely garner support from the ‘’deep state’’ of America who are a combination of the military industrial complex of the Lockheed Martins, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon and America’s military-intelligence community. Trump’s rhetoric to withdraw support to Ukraine in the on-going war with Russia, his pledge to lessen American involvement in NATO and to close many US bases around the world is not good news to these manufacturers of weapons. The American military and intelligence community still bear grudges against Trump for the humiliation meted out to top generals during his first tenure. They will not like to see him return and continue the humiliation.
Many Americans are appalled at the prospect of Trump coming to power again against the background of his polarising and divisive tendencies. They are also not sanguine about having someone who instigated rioters to attack the Capitol hill; who was twice impeached and who has a record of indictments as long as the George Washington Bridge.
But despite all these issues against Trump, the Democrats cannot rest on their oars as they did when Hilary Clinton was on the ballot. They would have to double their mobilization and Election Day vigilance and not leave any room for Trump and his supporters to repeat their antics this time around to snatch victory from the imminent jaws of defeat at the November elections.
Iliyasu Gadu, a former Foreign Service Officer who served at the Nigerian Missions in Germany and the United Kingdom (UK), is a columnist with Daily Trust
