Democrats’ message is clear: Get Trump out
The hoopla may have been missing as the four-day Democratic Party convention had to go virtual in the time of the pandemic but the message rang loud and clear. In just over two months, when the fate of the battle for the White House will be sealed on November 3, it will be most of America versus the Republican President Donald Trump and his running mate who could be his Vice-President Mike Pence. More than seeking votes, the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, made it a mission to capture the heart and soul of the USA. In a pitch perfect speech launching his bid for the most coveted place in the Oval Office, the seasoned politician and former vice-president to Barack Obama aspired to be the white knight on a charger looking to take back America at a difficult time in its history.
A country overrun by three crises all at one time — the worst pandemic in a century, the harshest economic crisis since the Great Depression and the most compelling need in its society for racial justice since the emancipation — seems ready enough for plucking at what is seen as an inflection point in contemporary history. Mr Biden’s appeal for an “American moment” rather than a “partisan moment” could not have been better timed as the Black Lives Matter movement has galvanised USA into examining its racial attitudes and its systemic prejudices against sections of the population that are Black, non-White Hispanic or of Asian descent.
Sharing his Democratic ticket in a changing nation that has become even more of a melting pot of races, cultures and aspirations is the first semi-Black and semi-Indian American senator, Kamala Harris who seems poised to enhance Mr Biden’s candidature with her appeal to that section of Americans identified as racial or ethnic minorities. And, with an endearing reference to her aunts as “chithis”, she may have won over not only 2,40,000 Tamil Americans but also a majority of the 1.8 million Indian Americans with a vote that may count more than ever.
The die is cast but the war is just beginning against a candidate who showed that he would be using every trick in the book, including slowing down the postal service to cast doubts on mail-in voting that Blacks may intend to use more because of their fear of going to the ballot booth. Mr Trump’s support for QAnon, an ultra-Right group that believes in farfetched conspiracy theories like all Democrats are Satanic and into sex trafficking of children, is just the tip of the iceberg as he falls back on his White Conservative vote bank for another term. As Kamala Harris said so pertinently — “There is no vaccine for racism.”
Global interest in the coming US elections seems extraordinary already and not only in India because of the presence of a person on the ticket with roots in Chennai. The election may redefine the very fount of modern democracy where deep-rooted covenants with freedom seem to be in peril from the machinations of an authoritarian President. If Mr Obama was withering in putting down a succeeding President, it only showed the extent of the dubious contributions to a nation in crisis of the most divisive leader who is now fanning the flames of racial hostility as an election strategy.
A country overrun by three crises all at one time — the worst pandemic in a century, the harshest economic crisis since the Great Depression and the most compelling need in its society for racial justice since the emancipation — seems ready enough for plucking