A Harris victory is critical. But sadly it won’t end the madness.
Twenty-four hours is a long time in politics when you’re an American Democrat.
In that time, the party managed to move from despair at Joe Biden’s embarrassing stubbornness to private elation at his departure and the crowning of Kamala Harris as nominee designate. Donors opened their wallets once again.
The rush of blood to the head caused by Harris’ elevation seems to be accompanied by some worrying complacency that the party is now on its way to victory over Trump.
Make no mistake. The Democrats have taken a huge step forward and do have a fighting chance of retaining the White House. Biden was clearly not up to the task. Many of us were warning that he needed to be replaced long before the debacle of his debate encounter with the Republican nominee. Harris, on the other hand, is thankfully 100% compos mentis and has competence, relative youth and some meme mojo on her side.
The things that her campaign needs to do now are fairly obvious and have been much discussed. She must pick a running mate to ‘balance’ the ticket — assumed by many commentators to be a white male, who’s probably a governor of a swing state. A Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly. They’ll provide reassurance to some of the more traditional party supporters.
At the same time, she must motivate Democrats who have become diffident about supporting the party — particularly younger people alienated by the administration’s stance on Gaza. She will also surely do her best to make this a feminist election — rallying women to reject the sleaze of Trump, as well as the right-wing agenda to further curtail rights in areas such as abortion.
If all of this comes together, there is a real prospect of stopping the Trump bandwagon, which has gained considerable momentum because of Biden’s feeble performance and the painful inadequacies of the American judicial system in holding the former President to account.
But there are lots of reasons to be cautious.
The Republicans will run a vicious campaign, mired in racism, misogyny and crackpot conspiracy theories. While this will probably not sway any swing voters, it may well ensure a maximum turnout of Trump enthusiasts. So then it becomes a numbers battle. A turnout game.
There is probably still a majority in the USA for democratic politics over demagoguery and for tolerance over hatred. But the electoral system does not always respect majorities in the popular vote.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton ended up around three million votes ahead, but still lost the electoral college. If we saw a similar situation in 2024, it would be an absolutely sickening and disastrous result for America, but we have to be prepared for it. I wonder, in fact, if it’s the most likely outcome. You can stack up votes among progressives in California and New York and Massachusetts, but lose by a whisker in much more finely balanced states.
If Harris does win in the electoral college, as any thinking person must pray she does, the result will be challenged. Even before the descent into populist extremism in recent years, we saw the knife-edge contest in 2000 between Al Gore and George W Bush going to the Supreme Court. We all know what happened in 2020 with endless challenges, refusal to accept the result and the January 6th insurrection attempt.
I made the point on X the other day that although a Harris victory is an absolute prerequisite for salvaging American democracy, it is in itself not enough. She will have to fight in the courts and we may face the prospect of serious unrest at the behest of Trump and his anti-democratic lackeys. In the days immediately after the election, Joe Biden will still be technically at the helm and may have some very tough choices to make.
So the battle for the soul of the USA — its institutions, its sense of predictability, its normalcy — doesn’t start and finish with the ballots being cast or counted. It is a process that will be drawn out and may yet turn very ugly, even if the election technically goes the right way.
Trump is particularly dangerous as an individual, for sure, and this is probably the last election that he will personally contest. So it would be wonderful to see him defeated. But the GOP is captured by his brand of conspiratorial, aggressive right-wing politics. And that is sadly here to stay.
