Sunanda K. Datta-Ray | Trump or Kamala: Divided America now on knife edge
If American Presidents were elected by a global, not local, vote, Donald Trump of Trump Towers fame might have had a chance of towering over the world on Tuesday, November 5. As things are, he will have to be content with the greatest trick-or-treat selection on earth. While his return to the White House might be a cruel “trick” for many, the choice of the part-Indian Kamala Devi Harris, whom he faces because the sitting President, Joe Biden, pulled out of the race after intense pressure following his disastrous first debate, could mean a worldwide “treat”.
Although the Anglo-spheric countries like Britain, Ireland, the United States and Canada observed the trick-or-treat Halloween ritual on October 31, the analogy remains relevant for an election that is still poised on a knife’s edge of uncertainty.
Ms Harris leads by less than a percentage point one day; Mr Trump crawls ahead the next. This tantalising cliffhanging holds the world spellbound.
Young people in fancy dress travelled from house to house on Halloween night confronting unwary hosts with their trick or treat alternative. The “treat” is usually some form of confectionery, although some cultures give money instead nowadays. The “trick” means a threat, usually good-natured, to perform some kind of mild mischief on the person or his/her property if there’s no treat.
The practice has not yet spread widely to aspirational India, whose the upsurge of billionaires under Narendra Modi celebrated the Dussehra-Diwali festivities with single-malt whisky pairings, masquerade balls and “pub quizzes”. But it has spread to Mexico where it is called “calaverite” (Spanish diminutive for calavera, “skull” in English), so that, instead of “trick or treat”, children ask for a little skull. It sounds macabre but “calaverite” now means a miniature skull moulded in chocolate.
The November 5 victor will have to win seven critical states, including Pennsylvania (with 19 electoral college votes), Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, which Mr Biden narrowly carried in 2020. Florida and Ohio were once considered marginal but are now safe Republican territory. However, nothing is set in stone as 1948 famously showed. Every pundit had predicted a landslide victory for New York’s Republican governor, Thomas E. Dewey, until a former Missouri farmer, Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, proved them wrong by becoming the 33rd President of the United States.
This election threatens to be even more portentous. Americans are divided as never before, with Mr Trump constantly proclaiming that what is at stake is the soul of America, no less. “We’re just not running against Kamala. I think a lot of our politicians here tonight know this”, he bellows. “She means nothing, she’s purely a vessel.” Shades of McCarthyism’s witch-hunt, he elaborates: “We’re running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious radical-left machine that runs today’s Democratic Party.”
Presenting his supposed threat to liberal values as the sinister future looming ahead can exaggerate the danger. Like comparing the Republicans’ October 27 Madison Square Garden rally with the notoriously pro-Hitler German-American rally on February 20, 1939, seven months before Germany invaded Poland. Choosing George Washington’s birthday to parade their vision of an Aryan Christian country dedicated to white supremacy and American patriotism, the October 27 organisers flanked a giant portrait of Washington with swastika flags and the Stars and Stripes. More than 20,000 American Nazi sympathisers, many disguised as storm troopers giving the Sieg Heil salute, heard that America would be “returned to the people who founded it”, despite the “Jewish controlled press”.
Hillary Clinton noted similarities between the two events. So did Ms Harris’s vice-president-elect, Tim Walz. “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden”, he said, accusing Mr Trump of calculated emulation. Republicans who rejected the charge must have been relieved when the legendary icon of American professional wrestling, Hulk Hogan, emerged to wrestling music, spent several seconds struggling to rip off his shirt, and then claimed: “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis here!”
Nevertheless, anger and vitriol did take centre stage at the Madison Square Garden rally which was marked (like many other Trump events) by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants.
Repeating his claim to be fighting “the enemy within” and again promising to launch “the largest deportation programme in American history”, Mr Trump spoke amid incoherent ramblings about ending a phone call with a “very, very important person” so that he could watch one of Elon Musk’s rockets land.
Although Mr Walz’s claim of a “direct parallel” between the two events and allegations that Mr Trump had “praised Hitler” were not substantiated, reports indicate that the hours-long rally had a dark tone. A radio host described Hillary Clinton as a “sick bastard”; Ms Harris’ racial identity was mocked; and a crucifix-wielding childhood friend of Mr Trump’s called her “the anti-Christ”.
One speaker described Puerto Rico, home to 3.2 million US citizens, as an “island of garbage”. Ironically, both sides are trying to woo Puerto Ricans.
The majority of Pennsylvania’s 580,000 Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent as is Ricky Martin, the pop star with more than 18 million followers on Instagram, who wrote in a post: “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.”
Continuing his frequent rants about immigration, Mr Trump claims that a “savage Venezuelan prison gang” had “taken over Times Square”, a claim that surprised people who have recently visited the New York landmark. The former President also states, wrongly, that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina because “they spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes”.
However outrageous his comments, Mr Trump himself is in demand. The craving for luxury properties bearing his brand is reportedly skyrocketing in not just Mumbai and Pune but also in Gurgaon and Kolkata. It’s aspirational, especially among those who have come newly to wealth. The Adanis and Ambanis can’t ever spurn anyone who fulfils aspirations.
Nevertheless, the responsible consensus would appear to be that even if Kamala Harris doesn’t make a brilliant President, she will not make a disastrous one.
