Imani Tafari-Ama | Post-mortem of US presidential campaign

Just over two weeks ago, Donald Trump was re-elected as president of the United States (US). He defied many odds, including two alleged assassination attempts and being a convicted felon. Of course, now that he is the most powerful man in the US, all of those trials and tribulations have flown out of the window. You might say that, for Trump, this election victory was his best survival strategy.

Trump’s also checkmated Kamala Harris with her hopes of leading the Democratic Party to victory. Trump’s reinstatement is also a win for the Make America Great Again (MAGA) doctrine. This slogan is a code for the white supremacist standpoint, which runs through the rhetoric of the Republican Party.

Kamala Harris was so sure that she would win the presidential election that she did not prepare a concession speech. She had to compose herself and wheel and come the next day with the reality check plug. During her campaign, Harris’ political blinkers were so firmly seated that she refused to reckon with the elephants in the room. For one thing, the genocide in Gaza. As a sitting vice-president, she was complicit in the ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians by the USA-backed Israeli army for the watershed Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Trump won significant support in the so-called battleground states in the US where Arab voters punished Harris for her staunch support of Israel. Bread-and-butter issues were also bottom line for many voters who have been battling the high cost of living for several months. Being of mixed race, a woman, and a Democrat were intersectional issues working against Kamala. Hillary Clinton, representing the white establishment, won the popular vote when she ran against Trump in 2016 but could not break the back of conservative electoral college voters’ aversion to the idea of a woman holding the top job. This made it unlikely that Harris would make the glass-ceiling breakthrough.

MISSED PRESSING CONCERN

While spouting feminist rhetoric about abortion rights, Kamala missed the pressing concern of swing states and youth voters. She claimed that, if she were president she would continue the course charted by President Joe Biden. Like, really? The iron-clad commitment to ethnic cleansing, live-streamed on social media?

Now that the campaign dust has settled, Vice President Harris has had time to lick her wounds. As a seasoned prosecutor, she must be reflecting on the factors contributing to Donald Trump’s landslide victory. She must be considering that on the other side of her abortion advocacy were evangelicals and black men. These voters would have felt the need to vote for Trump because Harris’ emphasis on rights-based body autonomy directly challenged their pro-life politics.

Harris’ musings must also make her wonder why the Democratic narrative that she was “the lesser of the two evils” had not worked in her favour. How does Harris contend in her ruminations with her complicity with the crimes discussed in the recently released United Nations (UN) report, which noted that nearly 70 per cent of verified victims in the Gaza genocide were women and children? Official figures of the dead stand at just over 43,000. However, because of the high number of missing, estimates of over 200,000 deaths of civilians have been cited by experts as more realistic figures.

Perhaps when she writes her memoirs, Harris will draw the obvious connections between the extreme bombings that she endorsed and the escalating climate crisis, which falls heaviest on the backs of women and children. The party as a whole must figure out why they so significantly lost voter appeal. It may dawn on Democrats that hawkish foreign policy and double-speak diplomacy are doomed directions to explore, especially when the US empire is in decline.

TREAD CAREFULLY

Donald Trump must also tread carefully in the minefield he is creating in the fraught post-victory atmosphere over which he presides. Trump is also likely to hand Israel a blank cheque, especially in light of Iran’s imminent retaliatory strike on Israel. This could not only ruin Israel but ignite a world conflagration.

Trump has also instigated an imminent and controversial deportation crusade, with even the appointment of a czar to oversee the racist rampage. The American Civil Liberties Association (ACLU) is pushing back with promises to challenge the expulsion campaign in the courts. Those who are not straight must be shivering in their shoes.

The fulfilment of Trump’s promise of ‘Dictator from Day One’ will not be pretty for those not deemed legitimate dwellers by the powers that be. And to think that the US is a settler colony, conquered by European invaders who overthrew indigenous first-nation populations. In the US, Africans and people of colour are still suffering from their historically disadvantaged insertion in the population mix via the vicious route of enslavement. The more things change, the more they remain the same, and all that.

White supremacy continues to be the organising principle when it comes to population rights. And many of the migrants crossing the US’ borders legally and illegally are fleeing conditions that may also be linked to inflamed political scenarios in countries of origin. Cases like Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela show push factors like US interference and blockade being responsible for hardships that fuel migration to the more prosperous North.

Returning to Kamala and the discarded Democratic Party, in conclusion, it is disingenuous to claim that, as Vice President, Harris did not have the power over policy decision-making. She saw it all, so she could have said something. Even if she was obliged to support whatever the president decided. As a vice-president, she had ample opportunity to disagree with immoral decisions to spend billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to support the project of Palestinian ethnic cleansing.

A leaked report from the Israeli Defense Force alleged that Benjamin Netanyahu knew beforehand about Hamas’ plans to attack Israel. He seems to have allowed it to happen as cover for killing his own citizens and blaming Hamas for fictitious crimes of baby beheadings and rape of women. Collective punishment of the entire Palestinian population is framed by Israelis as a part of a plan to create a Greater Israel, without its people.

Now that they are out of office, are the Biden-Harris team vulnerable for prosecution? Or do they benefit from the immunity of presidential office now bestowed on Trump?

Imani Tafari-Ama, PhD, is a Pan-African advocate and gender and development specialist. Send feedback to i.tafariama@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com