After President Biden withdrew from the 2024 US presidential election and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris to run instead of him, the question on the minds of millions of Americans is, “ Is America ready for a female president?” In 2016, Hillary Clinton tried to win the White House, but she could not! Since then, it is true that the situation for American women has changed. Now, for the first time, the workforce has grown to include more college-educated women than college-educated men.
But, this is only a worldwide phenomenon. We cannot forget the fact that Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2017 was,” The Silence Breakers.“ In response to the # MeToo movement, 19 states enacted new sexual harassment protections for victims and more than 200 bills were introduced in state legislatures to deter harassment. According to the reports, there were more than 1 million tweets and 12 million posts on Facebook regarding the abuse that women had suffered in America in the past. Its effects were not only in the movie industry but also in the media and the political field. Maybe because of this misogynistic attitude, people ask, “ Can Kamala Harris win? “
Now, American women have strengthened their positions. More than 140 women hold federal political office in the United States, including 25 senators and 120 members of the House of Representatives.
Women from both parties help craft key legislation on reproductive rights, immigration, equality and inclusion. So, people, especially the youth, feel that Kamala Harris’s path to the White House is paved!
Observers point out that her combination is peculiar: She is not a typical American, not a historical Yankee. She is the first South Asian woman of immigrant parentage. She doesn't have the political legacy or the transnational community networks that Hillary Clinton did, but it is fair to say that Harris
has a number of other advantages. She is decades younger than Trump, accustomed to the demands of public office, likely has the energy and ability to campaign and serve a four-year term, and is seen as the first woman elected as vice president.
Although Harris is indeed socially intelligent and has served as a public prosecutor, older white men still want to stop her because she is a woman. So, the American people in the street ask: Does Harris really have any chance in the face of Trump’s overwhelming presence and the millions of supporters who want his return to the White House?
They whisper whether Harris is really capable of sailing America's ship in this anxious and turbulent global political climate, given America's tense and deteriorating social conditions at least! Another aspect that detracts from Harris’s credit as a woman is her lack of any military experience. How could she react to the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the Iranian attack on Israel, or perhaps the Tsar’s new adventure in one of the Baltic States? Trump, as we know, will ignite and fan the flames of such a campaign and influence the Americans who are hesitant to support women.
Recalling Ronald Reagan
The major obstacle in Harris’s gender path is facing a white male, whose followers believe that heaven has prepared him to save America, especially after his miraculous escape in Pennsylvania. Trump's supporters and followers today approach this as similar to what happened to the former Republican President Ronald Reagan on 30th March 1981.
Reagan, shot by John Hinckley was saved by a divine power to be the man who could later destroy the evil empire, in his estimation, represented by the Soviet Union. American democracy is about to enter a real “ gender and racial “ democratic test, related to the new distinction between women and men. Though America claims otherwise, it is observed that there is a great deal of media attention that works against black women, in addition to a greater degree of bias and stereotypes that play a role in harming black women in particular, especially when they compete for a general post of administration, let alone the presidency.
Trump’s unprecedented courage on the podium, after the bullet hit his ear, was a turning point in his life, giving him great sympathy and confidence among those who were sceptical and hesitant to choose between him and the withdrawn candidate, Biden. Each candidate has his own base, and each party has its loyal followers. Electoral competition is usually focused on the sceptical and hesitant, who are the audience of the central region.
The Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris comes from a legal background, while Trump is a real estate developer. It could be noted that 26 of the 46 presidents who have ruled the United States came from a legal background as law students and lawyers. Harris was the attorney general of California and before that the city of San Francisco for about 13 years.
Four more important years could be added to her record as she reached the Senate; the upper house of US Congress. Yet, the people ask whether Harris can become a shining star next to a giant figure like Trump. If she wins the race, it will be a major event. Some analysts do not rule out her victory for reasons, the most prominent of which is not love for Harris, but because of the sharp division among American voters.
The US elections, in terms of follow-up and interest, are a global affair and not a local issue, due to the influence and supremacy of the major power. But, contrary to what some believe, foreign issues are not the decisive factors in voting. The priority of the American voter is domestic issues, often those that dominate the electoral programs of the panties. This has to be added to the importance of the internal forces such as the Jewish, Armenian, Turkish, and Latin American lobbies.
Domestic issues in focus
But, more important are the livelihood economic issues such as jobs and the high cost of living, and societal issues such as the possession of weapons by the youth, safety in the educational institutions, right to abortion etc. It is natural that voters focus more on learning about the political programs of the candidates and parties. This makes the debates between the candidates important. They discuss domestic issues as well as international relations. Former US President Barack Obama endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris's bid for the White House. It has given a major boost to her campaign to defeat Donald Trump.
Obama wrote on X, “ Michelle and I called our friend Kamala Harris over the weekend. We told her we thought she would be an excellent president of the United States and that she had our full support. “
The influential former president 0bama's stance gives further momentum to Harris’s campaign. Support also came from the Paris Olympics, with American track and field legend Allyson Felix saying a Harris win in November would be “huge .“
During her campaign in Texas, Kamala Harris outlined the broad lines of her platform: education, abortion rights and affordable health care.
She spoke at the American Federation of Teachers convention, the first union to endorse her candidacy, in Houston, where she warned that the country was witnessing a ‘full-scale assault’ by Republicans on ‘hard-won, hard-fought freedoms’.
“ While you are teaching students about democracy and the representative government, extremists are attacking the freedom to vote,” she said to applause.
“While you are trying to create places that are open to our children and provide safe environments for them to learn, extremists are attacking our freedom to live free from gun violence. “They have the audacity to ask teachers to have guns in the classroom while refusing to pass common-sense gun safety laws, “ she stated.
Referring to the Conservative states that have banned books that address gender or even racial themes, she declared, “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books”.
This was a retort for the rhetoric by Trump who called her “ a radical leftist lunatic.” Hours later, during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she highlighted her differences with Joe Biden by promising not to remain “silent “ in the face of civilian suffering in Gaza. Donald Trump, in turn, received the Israeli official at his residence in Florida.
We know that more defensive military capabilities are deployed to the Middle East to bolster force protection for US troops in the region and to defend Israel. This was stated by Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh on 2nd August 2024. Whether Harris or Trump, whoever occupies the White House, American foreign policy is not going to change.
The genocide in Gaza is taking place and can happen, only with the wholehearted support of the United States. Trump and Harris, both depend on the outcome of about 100,000 votes in a handful of key states. It is about those independent voters who are undecided. Inflation, immigration, the economy and crime rates are what they are concerned about. Republican strategist Matt Tyrrell told BBC, that according to him Trump would be handling these issues well. Naturally, the election will be a referendum on the competing candidates.
It is the economic battle that appears to be a broader struggle between Democrats and Republicans. While America is fighting internally, China is growing and rising in the orbits and paths of global economic polarization, by threatening America with monetary deterrence, not nuclear.
All was not well with the U.S. economy even before the stock market recently started acting strangely, which is why about 62 per cent of Americans, according to Gallup polls, see inflation as one of the biggest problems facing the nation. One in three Americans is struggling financially after living in an economy that has been inflated since the Covid-19 pandemic. Harris’s ideas, no matter how hard she tries to change her positions, lean too far to the socialist left, while millions of American voters see their own money and job security as a priority above all else, and therefore vote for the candidate they believe can fix the economy. Anyway, the speculation is that in the context of a free, liberal, capitalist economy, the comparison between Trump and Harris never seems in favour of the latter!