As the sun rose on Tuesday, there was something reassuringly familiar about the rituals that Election Day would bring in America: long lines of voters, candidates casting their own ballots, TV pundits tapping the touchscreens of their election cards and a steady stream results from safe blue states and red states.
But this time there is something different.
The 2024 US presidential election has witnessed a late candidate change, two lopsided debates, two assassination attempts, an intervention by the richest man in the world, a euphoria reminiscent of Barack Obama and a rhetoric reminiscent of Adolf Hitler. It is a campaign characterized by both violence and joy.
Its outcome – essentially a coin flip that may or may not be known on Wednesday – will be equally groundbreaking. America may be about to elect Kamala Harris, the first female president in its 248-year history. Or it could return the White House to 78-year-old Donald Trump, the first former president with a criminal record and two impeachments.
Both sides are utterly convinced that their side must win, that defeat would mean the end of democracy, freedom and the American way of life. They are like two trains getting faster and faster as they rush towards each other, causing an inevitable collision. For almost half the country, the outcome will be devastating. They will have lost what the veteran journalist Carl Bernstein once called a cold civil war.
That’s partly because Trump has spent a decade sowing class and racial divisions. But this election has exposed a gender divide, two years after the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion. Democrats have nominated a woman, while Trump has embraced crude machismo and “bro” culture in a search for new voters.
Both sides are utterly convinced that their side must win, that defeat would mean the end of democracy, freedom and the American way of life
Maureen Dowd, a columnist for the New York Times, wrote: “It’s the ultimate battle of the sexes in the most entrenched election. Who will triumph? The women, especially young women, who are shocked by the cartoonish macho posturing and backward attitude of Donald Trump and his entourage? Or the men, including many young men, union men, Latino and black men, who are drawn to Trump’s boasting, bullying and insults, and see him as the recoiling antidote to shrinking male primacy.”
Consider this part three of the Trump trilogy. In 2016, he was a brash newcomer who thumbed his nose at the political and media establishment, to the delight of supporters who felt the American dream had eluded them. In 2020, he was rebuked by an electorate fed up with his chaos, narcissism and incompetent handling of a global pandemic.
When the history of the 2024 election is written, one week in July will be at the heart of the story. On July 13, at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks took aim with a rifle and opened fire, wounding Trump’s ear and killing one attendee. A photo of Trump standing with trails of blood running down his face as he raised his fist and shouted, “Fight!” shouted. became the indelible image of his campaign.
Read more about the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
Two days later, the Republican national convention opened, with some attendees wearing ear bandages in solidarity. Speaker after speaker emphasized that Trump had been spared by God, a clear sign that his work on this earth was not yet finished. The nominee recounted the episode in a somber opening of his convention speech, but then bungled it by repeating old grievances for more than an hour.
The Democrats had to reclaim the narrative. At the end of that week, on July 21, that was the case. Joe Biden, 81, trailing in the polls and reeling from a weak debate performance, bowed to pressure from his party and announced he was dropping out of the race. It was, said 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, one of the most selfless acts of patriotism she had ever seen.
Biden quickly backed Harris; the Clintons, the Obamas and the rest of the party followed suit. The vice president engaged in “the politics of joy,” naming a running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, who called his opponents “weird.” Now the Democratic national convention in Chicago felt like the happiest place on earth, full of relief, hope, and joy; even the state roll call became a dance party.
The Trump campaign seemed to have been caught on the wrong foot and was unable to trap Harris or find a disparaging nickname. Trump went off the rails with a bizarre, false story that immigrants ate cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Harris, a former courtroom prosecutor, crushed him during their only debate in Philadelphia. With momentum on her side, she seemed to have found the long-elusive antidote to Trumpism.
But there was one final twist, and it was the most unexpected of all: the last two months of the campaign were strangely undramatic, even anticlimactic, as if the cosmic screenwriters had peaked too early. There were no more game changers as the polls stabilized and balance was restored. Harris was so disciplined that she avoided the kind of blunder that animated the last election, although her struggle to distance herself from Biden gave Republicans some fodder.
“Did the fascist win?” had not been asked a question in any of the 59 preceding presidential elections
Trump was so ill-disciplined that many Americans felt numb with indifference. There was no repeat of the 2016 Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals, leading some Republicans to call for him to resign. When he mused about movie character Hannibal Lecter or the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s genitals or a comedian insulted Puerto Rico at his New York rally, Republicans shrugged and moved on.
If there was a surprise in October, it might have been tech entrepreneur Elon Musk giving away millions of dollars in an attempt to help Trump in swing states, or Hitler’s return to the political stage. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, told how the president expressed his admiration for the Nazi generals. General Mark Milley, previously at the top of the military leadership, characterized Trump as “fascist to the core.”
Harris tempered the joy and endorsed this definition about a man who claims undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and threatens to turn the U.S. military against “the enemy within.” It was time, she emphasized, to “turn the page” on Trump’s chaos and division.
Leon Panetta, former defense secretary and CIA director, says: “It’s a very tough choice in this election. In many ways it is a choice between whether we adhere to the Constitution and the rule of law, whether we adhere to a process of free and fair elections, whether we adhere to the truth or whether we make the choice again to principle of choosing chaos over order. .
“Trump will cause chaos. There’s not much doubt about that because that’s the way he operates. He operates in chaos because that’s how bullies get attention and he’s a bully. The question then becomes: Will other leaders allow him to do what goes against the basic tenets of our democracy? I just don’t think a bully like Trump will ultimately prevail.”
“Did the fascist win?” had not been asked a question in any of the 59 preceding presidential elections. But as millions of people head to the polls on Tuesday, following millions of others who have already voted, it is the question that haunts America and the world.
Moe Vela, a former senior adviser to Joe Biden when he was vice president, says: “Every democracy in the world has to be on pins and needles and biting its nails. Not that the US was better than anyone else, but the world has always seen the US as the gold standard of democracies. Because it is so close to collapse and so close to being taken away from us, there cannot be a single democracy in the world right now that is not worried.”
If that fate is avoided and Harris becomes the 47th president, the world will express relief that the populist tide has once again turned. Trump will be seen as the aberration, not the norm. But within the US, deep wounds will remain. The defining characteristic of the Trump era has been division and division: woman versus man, black versus white, urban versus rural, Hollywood versus heartland, liberal versus conservative. This is exacerbated by the echo chambers of social media.
The Pew Research Center found that Democrats and Republicans increasingly view members of the other party as unintelligent, lazy, immoral or dishonest. A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 84% of employees agree that the current political climate causes American citizens to view each other as enemies, and 78% said they have seen people treated poorly because of their alleged political beliefs. .
Johnny Taylor, president and CEO of SHRM, says of the election: “We believe, at least if the polling data is correct, that it will be close, so it’s entirely possible that 49.9% of the population will wake up next time. is becoming. Day was angry that their candidate didn’t win and 50.1 are happy. It’s one thing if my sports team loses to the other team in the Super Bowl. This is so personal to people because of the topics. When it comes to abortion, you think it’s the end of the world if you lose.”
Harris has pledged to work across the aisle and put a Republican in her Cabinet. But there are many on the right who will seethe with resentment at the prospect of a black female president, just as they did when Barack Obama won the White House. Fox News and other conservative media will thrive on fueling hate. A fascism-curious society in which Donald Trump came so close to regaining power will take more than one election to heal itself.
