What a week it’s been for Kamala Harris, propelled towards the US presidency by Joe Biden’s decision to accept the inevitable and withdraw from the race.
Even her admirers have been surprised by the momentum she has generated in a very short time. Such was the slickness of its execution, a conspiracist might suspect that replacing Biden had been meticulously planned. But politics is not that tidy.
On the face of it, her speedy adoption by Democrats was driven by relief that Biden, hobbled by old age, had fallen on his own sword voluntarily. But that is not the full story.
Much is due to the quality of Harris herself. The vice presidency is often consigned to the shadows, and she has had the additional burden of being dismissed by the multitude of racists and misogynists who pollute American politics.
But she is now free to be herself. And what we have seen thus far is a very human and confident woman, unafraid to face down begrudgers who seek to put her in her place.
Not only has she neutralised the Republican strategy built around a Biden candidacy, she has taken their ‘failing/ageing’ attack line and thrown it right back at Donald Trump.
No amount of fake tan will cover up the fact that Trump represents the past, and Harris the future.
Not everyone sees it that way. His bedrock of support cannot be wished away, and it is clear that he has persuaded a substantial number of Americans that he holds the answer to their problems.
But a greater number are repulsed by his sense of personal entitlement, his criminality and sordid private life, and his unacceptable attitudes to women, disabled people and the dispossessed.
The problem is that the United States’ inadequate electoral system, which gifts the final choice of president to individual states, gives the Republican Party and its candidate an unfair advantage.
Five presidents have been elected while losing the popular vote, two of them in recent history, both Republicans. In 2000 the Supreme Court handed ‘loser’ George Bush the presidency. Hands up anyone who remembers ‘hanging chads’.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton secured three million votes more than Trump – yet that was not reflected in the Electoral College where Trump had a comfortable victory – 304 votes to Clinton’s 227. As a miscarriage of electoral justice, this outstripped even Bush’s victory.
The consequential benefit of that anomaly gave Trump the opportunity to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues who sit there for life. His malign influence on the court has continued under Biden’s presidency, and it will infect the American body politic for a generation.
In 2016 Clinton was clear about what was a stake in the election. The roll-back of women’s rights, in particular, has come to pass; as has the aggrandisement of big business (there is a reason billionaires support Trump); the othering of vulnerable groups, and support for the gun lobby.
The stakes in this election are even greater. Emboldened by his control of the Supreme Court, Trump is plotting to further increase presidential powers.
Project 2025 proposes a ‘unitary executive’, with agencies currently independent – such as the Department of Justice – under direct presidential control; the replacement of civil servants by political appointees; and the closure of the education department in a ‘war on woke’.
It also wants to put the ‘family’ at the heart of American life. This is shorthand for subjugating women, regulating reproductive health, and marginalising members of the LGBTQ+ community and other groups which don’t conform to so-called ‘Christian’ values.
The list of proposed changes does not stop there. Expect the roll-back of action on climate change, more tax breaks for the rich, an attack on healthcare, and a denial of rights for the victims of human trafficking and migrants seeking asylum.
No amount of fake tan will cover up the fact that Trump represents the past, and Harris the future
A lot then is riding on Harris getting this campaign right. There can be no question that she is better placed than Biden in building the movement necessary to triumph over Trump and the imperfect electoral system.
A week into her campaign, Harris’s voice is resonating with key groups who make up the Democrat coalition. This election will be won or lost by her effectiveness in consolidating and broadening that coalition, and by her ability to build on the middle ground – an area of US political geography Trump is incapable of reaching.
If she wins, revenge will be sweet for those ridiculed as “childless cat ladies” by the Republican Party, and for all who are repulsed by Trump’s divisive and hateful form of politics.
