Americans make up their minds

But will they ever get peace of mind?

All eyes this week will be on the US election.

As we wait to see if they’ll give him a second term in the White House, let’s remember that Donald Trump isn’t America’s first morally flawed president. Take for example Lyndon B. Johnson (Pres. 1963–69): an incandescently obnoxious, bullying, (literally) dick-swinging man who waged a horrific war on the Vietnamese – and, to give him some credit, war on poverty too. That contrary character was followed by the scandalous Richard “Watergate” Nixon (Pres. from 1969 until his impeachment and resignation in 1974).

The most compelling reasons not to vote for Trump come from Trump’s own mouth. His suggestion, egged on by Tucker Carlson, that Republican Liz Cheney should face enemy fire was, to put it mildly, well below the bar of reasonableness. Trump’s comments are being investigated by the State of Arizona’s attorney-general (who happens to be a Democrat) to determine whether they were protected free speech or possibly a criminal death threat. (Either way, any comment on my substack that suggests violence against political opponents will get deleted – and that doesn’t take away your freedom to say such things elsewhere.)

In my efforts, as a political theorist, to understand why people vote for Trump, I came across an op-ed written by Ingrid Jacques, a self-identified non-MAGA conservative. She complains about “sanctimonious liberals” who make her want to vote for Trump. She says that neither she nor the men she knows care about Harris’s gender or race. They do care about policies, but:

“Harris has so poorly defined what her presidency would look like and what she actually believes, she’s resorted to focusing squarely on Trump and what’s happened in the past.” 

Or try this longer piece by biologist Heather Heying. She says, for example, that Trump is “his own man” and is never insincere. While she’s aware of some well known character flaws, her opinion is that Trump is “better for women”.

Harris’s campaign started out with joy and laughter but couldn’t help scaremongering about fascism. Meanwhile, children are being slaughtered in Gaza – military actions which those non-fascists, Biden and Harris, have supported. In her acceptance speech, she described the genocide in Palestine as “heartbreaking” – reminding me of crocodile tears. Arab Americans face very difficult choices – if they vote at all – but some are vocally supporting Trump in the (possibly forlorn) hope that he’ll help end the ongoing atrocity. (The US election has swept Palestine and Lebanon off the headlines, and I rely on Al Jazeera for updates, even though their journalists have been banished by the Israeli government.)

Harris does actually have policies, by the way, and anyone can read about them here. The focus is on lowering costs, investing in small businesses and manufacturing, notably semiconductors, plus important things like affordable childcare. She and Biden have been campaigning lately among unions and on workers’ pensions, for example. Millions of Americans have already cast their ballots, however, and the Democrats’ turn to policy may have come a bit late.

Harris wasted time attacking an opponent who’s perfectly good at ruining his own reputation. These attacks only strengthen some people’s (or, remarkably, some women’s) inclination to vote for Trump.

Harris finds herself in a bind: she wants to represent something new, and yet she can’t clearly define how her platform diverges from Biden’s, as that would be taken as admitting that the policies she upheld as his VP were somehow wrong or inadequate. On the other hand, she hasn’t claimed enough credit for policies, such as infrastructure funding, that arguably favoured unions and labourers. Drawing attention to her race and gender – which self-evidently distinguish her from Biden – can’t be guaranteed to win over many undecided voters this late in the piece.

Both sides claim to be defenders of freedom; both seem to understand that making a big issue out of “identity” isn’t a winner.

There’s a lot of tea-leaf reading going on, and I won’t make predictions about the results. The opinion poll numbers are finely balanced and may (again) prove to be inaccurate, but on either side. Polling analysts still haven’t figured out why the Trump vote was so underestimated in 2020. (Biden’s margin was 4 points narrower than expected.) Adjustments made to polling methodologies since 2020 may be correcting for the wrong factors, then.

The trend in polls, however, suggests that support and approval for Harris peaked in late September, and she’s now back into “net unfavorable” territory. It looks like she lost the momentum generated by her nomination, while Trump has been gradually narrowing the gap. There are numerous factors that may have made a margin of voters reconsider an initial enthusiasm for Harris. And it seems that some people who don’t even like Trump are nonetheless willing to vote for him.

A lot depends on turnout. It’s one thing to respond to an opinion poll (which hardly anyone does, even when asked) but quite another to show up for “the only poll that matters”. So far, the early-voter turnout is relatively high.

An update on biased reporting (2:20pm): RNZ has rerun a CNN report on a poll in Iowa that’s put Harris ahead of Trump in Iowa – a state that’s considered safe for Trump – by three percentage points. But even a quick glance on the RealClearPolitics polling site shows that, on the same day, another poll came out with Trump 10 points ahead in that state. Never draw such conclusions from a single poll!

Let’s wait and see, shall we? It’s going to be a long week, as the election’s integrity is already being called into question, with or without tangible evidence, and we can expect delays and disputes.

In the meantime, I’ll let you have your say:

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A majority (52%) in my (completely unscientific) straw poll of readers last week were in favour of allowing Candace Owens into NZ. Only 20% said No. That doesn’t necessarily mean, of course, that people were endorsing her opinions. Many were only supporting her right to express them and the right of people to hear her.

I don’t endorse her views. But protesting against her is effectively supporting her, as it brings her publicity, right-wing credibility and more subscribers. If you don’t like her, just ignore her. Use your energy to advance the causes you care about.