Kamala Harris must win, to purge America of the Trump delusion

The Democrat isn’t a ‘communist’, and her victory would force Republicans to re-engage in serious debate

It is now absolutely imperative that Kamala Harris wins the US presidential election. This is essential for the survival of America’s sense of itself as a rational nation, as well as for its continued role in Nato and the free world which relies on it. But, paradoxically, the most immediate and necessary effect of her victory would be to cause the Republican Party to begin the post-Trump reconstruction which will be needed if it is to return to its proper role as a responsible opposition.
That implosion of the Trump phenomenon and the consequent revival of the Republicans as a legitimate player in the constitutional dialogue which is the basis of democratic life in the United States may turn out to be the greatest achievement of a Harris administration. Because only unambiguous, definitive defeat can undermine the bizarre Trumpite delusion that he is somehow the anointed saviour of a nation whose founding principles he does not appear to appreciate or even understand.
That cataclysmic event – which Trump himself now seems to be anticipating in his rambling, self-pitying public outpourings – will put an end to what will be seen by future generations as one of the ugliest aberrations in the nation’s history. (In his bitter desperation, Trump has now taken to referring to his predecessor in the White House as “Barack Hussein Obama”. What is this supposed to mean? That the ex-president is a secret Islamist?)
So forget about the dangers that a Left-wing Harris administration is supposed to represent. If the fears prove realistic, it will become even more necessary for the Republicans to force themselves out of the Trump miasma and start engaging in serious political argument again.
And they will do that, I promise you. The implementation of what the American Right sees as alarmingly “progressive” measures will bring about a resurgence of tough-minded, well-argued Republican critique – as opposed to Trump’s obnoxious bluster – much of it quite possibly from new players on the scene who are as yet unheard of. They will pull themselves together and regroup in good time for the midterm elections in two years, and then, if the Harris White House really has tried to trample over sacred economic freedoms and governmental principles, it will be blocked by a Republican-controlled Congress. But I am getting ahead of myself.
At the moment, the anti-Harris rhetoric seems to be making two contradictory claims. One is that she has yet to make any substantive policy pronouncements. Her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, it is noted, was lacking in any specific promises or detailed plans for her presidency. It consisted almost entirely of sentimental autobiography and vague gestures to both sides of contentious issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict. Therefore we must conclude that she is an empty vessel with no actual programme for government.
Speaking as one who has listened to more presidential nominee speeches than I can count, I would say that this is pretty much par for the course. The orations may vary in their eloquence and their effectiveness at rousing inspiration – John Kennedy’s “the torch has been passed to a new generation…” has yet to be beaten – but they almost never commit the candidate to concrete objectives. And given the circumstances of Harris’s nomination, using her convention address to introduce herself and describe her personal background seems perfectly appropriate. Presenting herself as being prepared to listen to both sides of a deeply divisive subject like the war in the Middle East does not seem unreasonable either, given the diplomatic delicacy of that crisis.
But then there are the domestic proposals which she appears to endorse. Surely these are outrageously Left-wing (or “communist” in Donald Trump’s assessment). The least credible of them, which addresses supposed profiteering (“price gouging”) on the part of retailers, seems to amount to price fixing, so that will never get off the ground. Market forces always win through in the United States for good reason – because everyone wants them to work.
Then there are some suggestions which would only appear alarming to a peculiarly reactionary American audience: the right for employees to take medical and maternity leave is shocking only by its present absence. There is virtually no modern democracy which does not offer working people such rights.
And what of her suggestion that “seniors” (pensioners) should get a better deal on the price of their prescription medications? Where else in the developed world would this be considered controversial? There are almost no other Western countries which would expect elderly people to pay the full market price for the medicines they need to sustain their lives. Note that Ms Harris is not even suggesting anything as radical (“communist” in Trump’s parlance) as having the federal government subsidise the purchase of such drugs. All that she proposes is that the state Medicare programme negotiate a better bargain with the pharmaceutical companies to bring the price of their products down – which is a perfectly sound market-based approach.
At the heart of all this noise and fake controversy is something real: a fight for the most fundamental sense of what American politics is about and the beliefs on which it relies. America reinvents itself all the time by finding new ways to present its founding principles. Among those inextinguishable beliefs is the idea that everyone is entitled to self-determination. That is what this extraordinary Democratic convention meant by endlessly repeating its commitment to “hope”.
This can be rather difficult for the sardonic British – who regard optimism as rather gauche – to understand, but the idea that life offers possibilities which you are morally obliged to embrace is essential to the American dream. Having no hope for the future, failing to take advantage of the opportunities that are available to you, is a sin against the national faith. It is a betrayal of your forebears who risked everything to come to a new world so that you could escape from the limitations with which you might have been born. The message may sound absurd to an Old World audience but it reaches the hearts of American voters for whom hope is a sacred duty.