by Miceál O’Hurley
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The last two-weeks in the United States has seen a whirlwind of activity, developments, change and the staking of flags in the status quo. Beginning with the assassination attempt on Donald Trump which no matter how he tries to shape it in campaign stump speeches as an attempt to thwart his policies and vision for America it appears increasingly likely that the gunman was a ‘lone wolf’ who like so many American mass-shooting murderers before him sought fame and the settlement of personal vendettas by using an all-to-easily accessible gun to kill his fellow Americans.
A 20-year old kitchen worker, Thomas Matthew Cook, attempted to kill Trump while he gave a speech in a town approximately 1-hour from Crooks’ hometown. While he staked-out and positioned himself in an ideal spot for even the most un-skilled assassin to achieve his goal, Crooks selected the wrong weapon, even in a region where a deer rifle more suited to the task would have been equally accessible to him instead of the civilian model of a military assault rifle he chose.
All evidence to date points towards Cook having sought notoriety and revenge in one, fell-swoops by his attempted assassination of Trump which would catapult him into be a person of national consequence after having been treated as inconsequential by his high school peers who found him a nerd and the gun club that rejected him for being a poor marksman. This is not a story of a Gavrilo Princip or Lee Harvey Oswald who harboured political motives but of a emotionally if not psychologically disturbed Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme or John Hinkley. Still, Trump has embraced Mark Twain’s adage of never letting the truth getting in the way of a good story and he is milking the attempted assassination as a way of inflaming the passion of disgruntled Republicans and engendering the idea that his survival was a sign of divine blessing and endorsement. Trump supporters seem more adamant than ever that his multiple criminal convictions, findings that he raped a woman, and his continuing to face myriad other criminal charges are inconsequential where the divine has supposedly staked his flag squarely in the Trump camp.
As if an assassination attempt wasn’t enough fodder for headline banners there was the “Will he, or won’t he” toing and froing over US President Joe Biden remaining in the race to remain president following his disastrous debate performance last month. Biden’s increasingly public displays of frailty, forgetfulness and fraught confrontations with even members of his own party concerning his ability to be the best Democrat frontrunner to oppose Trump was finally resolved. Despite a week of adamant assertions of him being the best person to beat Trump and claiming polls showed him winning the contest (they didn’t), Biden reluctantly admitted there were other capable Democrats and then finally succumbed to pressure from the highest ranks of the party who finally joined the chorus of Americans hoping Biden would step aside after a successful term of office. In the end, Biden who began the with his aides trying to have him featured on everything from network, cable and radio news programmes to appearing as the missing child on the back of a carton of milk finally announced his withdrawal from the race not in person but by social media message. He is expected to address the nation within the week.
Now the contest seems likely to be one of pitting Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden has signaled his endorsement of Harris and she seems to have secured enough votes from party delegates to synch the nomination. This might not be to her advantage, however, as there is an increasing backlash against the party leadership who kept Biden in the race despite the public voicing their concerns over the last year. Harris might be better served by ascending to be the Democratic party’s nominee the old fashioned way – by a vote of party stalwarts at a convention. Once the mechanism for both Republicans and Democrats to win their party’s nominations to obtain the party’s endorsement in the race for the White House, conventions where rank-and-file democrats from the grassroots have given way to Primary elections in which party activists like ultra-conservatives and progressive-liberals have seized outsized voices in the party’s selection process resulting in the alienation of what were once considered bedrock party members and centrists.
Harris’ candidacy provides the Democrats with an opportunity to re-set their political ethos and return to serving their core constituency – everyday Americans who are more concerned about “bread and butter” issues than virtue signaling and “luxury values” that don’t directly concern most working-class people. While Harris has the opportunity to return the Democratic party to its roots and its core voters Trump continues to detach the Republican party from its bedrock corps of traditional party faithful and allow special interests and ultra-conservative party activists to solidify their growing grip on the once noble ‘Party of Lincoln’.
Given how the party’s are being shaped and re-shaped by what may well result in a Trump-Harris election contest, and considering their campaign rhetoric, it appears that both sides continue to be caught-up in an endless cycle of believing the contest is about left or right politics, conservatism versus liberalism or democratic versus republican values. All are worthy of consideration but none define what is truly at the heart of America’s 2024 presidential election contest.
Democracy is truly what is at stake. For the first time in America’s history children born in this generation will have fewer rights than did their parents. Likewise, there are fewer opportunities in terms of education, job outlook, financial security, home ownership, civic integration, national security, affording and accessing health care and other critical aspects of quality of life. Beyond domestic concerns, America’s standing in the world as a real or even moral leader is at stake. Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA while he was in the White House, threat to diminish if not withdraw from NATO, claims the US would not defend Taiwan from China if he were in office and his “not one penny more” claims about future US support for Ukraine if re-elected to a second term of office would put America at odds with their most traditional and enduring allies and wholly realign American foreign policy.
A Harris presidency risks extending a focus on America’s failure to properly regulate immigration, claim support for Ukraine while restraining their ability to strike at Russia where it would make a difference, effectively bring about a resolution to the crisis in Gaza or build improved relations with the ‘Global South‘. Domestically, Harris faces addressing the growing concern with growing prison populations, failures to stem the flow of drugs like fentanyl and more traditional drugs from entering the US and restoring American’s confidence in public institutions after decades of failures and opposition attacks. Chief amongst Americans most significant concerns remains confidence, or a lack thereof, in the judiciary which is increasingly seen as party-political and blind to the realities of American modernity.
There remain less than 100-days until America goes to the ballot box to determine not just who their President will be, but what America will be in the next few years and for decades to come. It remains to be seen if either candidate truly comprehends the enormity of what is at stake and if they are capable of persuading Americans to look beyond their parochial needs and acting in the best interests of the nation as their forbearers once did. It is not lost on the more mature members of American society that the “Greatest Generation” chose to fight against fascism while the present American generation is showing increasing signs it is prepared to vote for it.
