It can be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump: will the American establishment change after the polls? No, the American establishment will never ever change, even after the polls!
By Ramsharan Joshi
The American people will vote in the first week of November, 2024, to elect their 47th president. From the indications emerging from the election campaign so far, Indian-African origin vice president and Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, is likely to emerge as a history-maker. Indeed, former vice president, and once a hardliner of the Republican Party with George Bush as president, Dick Cheney has announced that he will cast his vote for Harris. He will not vote for his party’s candidate, Donald Trump.
This kind of political shift within the Republicans, days before the polls, will definitely have an impact on the voters. Anyway, the inclination towards Harris is increasing among many leaders and young supporters of the Republican Party, though several male voters seem to have become fans of the ‘male chauvinism’ of Trump.
Trump’s path to victory is no longer easy. He will try to activate the extreme Right-wing and white supremacists for victory.
Remember, in 2020, when Trump lost the presidential election to Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, he incited his supporters to attack the US Parliament located at Capitol Hill in Washington. This controversial case has reached the court. Trump is facing many allegations.
This is one aspect of the election. The first debate between the two candidates was an indication that Trump seems to be losing ground.
However, we should clearly understand certain crucial aspects about these American elections.
In this election, no matter who wins, America’s policy of ‘global dominance’ will remain the same. There is little possibility of any fundamental change! The winning candidate of any party will neither have the ability, nor the will to bring any qualitative change in America’s current geopolitical-economic-strategic situation.
The reason for this is clear. America’s dream of global dominance is an old one. It started preparing to become a ‘world conqueror’ with the end of the Second World War, though it was the Soviet Union which defeated Adolf Hitler’s fascist army after a long and difficult war, in frozen landscapes, in their own ‘motherland’. The Siege of Leningrad and Stalingrad, and the valiant and protracted fight of the Soviet people, including, mothers, daughters and children, will always remain etched in history.
More than 20 million Russians sacrificed their lives before the Red Army conquered Berlin. The US, geographically located far away, joined the war much later, and that too peripherally; practically, it made very little sacrifices on the ground, even while France had surrendered to Hitler in what is called ‘the phony war’ and the British had little or no infantry, whatsoever, to fight on the ground.
The US executed its strategy during the Cold War period (1945-1991), and unleashed multiple, hegemonic, direct or proxy wars in many parts of the world, including the infamous war against the people of Vietnam, then led by great communist leader, Ho Chi Minh. The world would still remember the My Lai massacare on March 16, 1968, when American troops butchered innocent villagers for no rhyme or reason. Bombing villages and killing people were the hallmark of the US troops in the invasion.
A small, unarmed, poor country, surrounded by humble villages, with its resilient and brave guerilla army, decisively defeated the world’s mightiest military and economic power. American troops, traumatised and defeated, had to run for their lives as they left Vietnam. It was a great and glorious victory of the Vietnamese people.
However, with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 and after, the world turned into a unipolar power. The balance of global power shifted towards the US and its Western allies. In other words, America’s one-size-fits-all global dominance was established. Or, it seemed to be finally getting established. However, with the rise and rise of China, as an economic giant and military power, and Russia flexing its muscles yet again, this does not seem totally correct in the contemporary era.
In the last three decades, there have been three Republican and three Democratic presidents (Bush Senior, Bush Junior, Trump; Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden). During the rule of all these presidents, there has been no change in America’s foreign policy and economics; its obsessive quest for world dominance, and bloody wars, has remained the same.
For example, NATO is intact while the Warsaw Pact has become history. The second Gulf War got over, but the war in Afghanistan continued from 2002 to 2022. West Asia remains turbulent with war between Hamas/Hezbollah and Israel’s genocide in Gaza; Israel is in conflict with Iran; the Russia-Ukraine war is still on after almost two years.
All this points to the impossibility of a bipolar or multi-polar world, with the US chasing its ugly dream sequence of total domination with its allies, such as Israel — even at the cost of innocents dying in distant parts of the world — as in Palestine and Lebanon now!
It does not appear that any US president has had the audacity to change this geopolitical-strategic scenario. By the way, it is simply impossible.
This is because America’s infamous ‘Military Industrial Complex’ is dependent on this syndrome. The life and death of millions of Americans is linked to this private sector industry. The direct result of cutting it will be inviting employment and political crisis in America. No president will want to take this risk.
Therefore, regional wars and local fights will continue in the name of terrorism. If needed, America will not hesitate to open new fronts because it has to maintain its global dominance at all costs, and thereby follow the insatiable demands and desires of the arms and armament industry.
However, the economic, political and diplomatic reality is that in the first quarter of this century, China has posed an impenetrable challenge to America. The American economy itself is seriously dependant on Chinese business and trade. Its effect is visible in South Asia, including in India. It is in this background that the latest US polls are going to be held.
It is worth mentioning in this context that the candidates of both the parties have raised slogans of ‘America is a great country’ and it is ‘America’s century’, etc, in their speeches. Trump coined the slogan last time — ‘Make America great again’ — with strong racist, anti-immigrant and white supremacist undertones.
One of the important narratives in the speeches given in the conventions of both the parties was that the present century will be the ‘century of America’. That its so-called global dominance will not be affected. It will be kept intact, at any cost!
That is, the real and mythical war against terrorism will continue. And so will the mass murder of women and children in Palestine and Lebanon, with the powerful Israeli lobby calling the shots in the American establishment.
The worrying thing is that no party or its candidate has even promised to apologize, or, rectify the grave mistakes of the past. The innumerable war crimes in the two Gulf Wars; the huge mistakes like leaving Afghanistan and its helpless people in a lurch, at the hands of a fundamentalist, anti-woman, Taliban regime, and, now, the Genocide in Gaza, executed by Israel with American bombs and guns worth billions.
It is clear that America and its NATO allies have no regrets for the Gulf War or the Afghanistan fiasco. It can be Harris or Trump, as the next occupant of the White House, but it seems unlikely that there will be any change in the basic character of the American power establishment.
Incidentally, this writer has covered the American polls three times — 2007, 2012 and 2016. The atmosphere seems more or less the same. The candidates of both the parties (Barack Obama, John McCain; Obama-Mitt Romney; Hillary Clinton-Trump) did not announce any radical change in America’s foreign policy.
No one has ever promised that the United Nations would be made more democratic and powerful, that its most important institution, the Security Council, would be democratically expanded. Will the twisting of the arms of poor and developing countries through international financial weapons (World Bank, IMF, World Trade Organization) stop? No.
Rather, the same, obsessive, regressive cliche was heard all the three times — America is great…America is great…America is great!
Therefore, the people of the third world, including developing nations like India, should not live with the illusion that if Kamala Harris of Indian/Asian/African origin, or Trump with his white, supremacist ideology, becomes the president, America will become more generous towards them, or the strategy of invisible neo-colonialism/neo-imperialism will be buried. There will be no change in the character of the American State and its bullish foreign policy. Its interference in the internal and external affairs of nations will continue.
Whenever any nation goes against its ‘vested interests’, it will not hesitate to punish it. It is noteworthy that while America talks of soft nationalism and liberal democracy, Trump raises slogans of extreme and blind nationalism, mixed with strident anti-immigrant rhetoric. His slogans smell of the concept of ‘clash of civilizations’, though he claims that he would stop the Russia-Ukraine war in one day.
(Besides, it’s a fact, unlike other presidents, including the Democrats, no war was waged during the term of Trump, and he insisting on stopping funding to NATO.)
This is the concept that American scholar Samuel P Huntington presented in his much discussed book Clash of Civilizations — A New World Order Emerging. He first presented this concept to the world through an article in 1989-90. After this, in 1995-96, it was given the form of a complete book, in which he presented the ideology of conflict between countries of different and opposite civilisations, inheritance, ethos and culture.
Predictably, Christian and Islamic nations have been placed at the center of this polarizing concept. Should this be called a coincidence that while the debate on the concept began, the background for the Gulf War was being prepared by the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and his Right-wing, extremist, think-tank, for the Republican regime of George Bush.
The clash was also camouflaged for what was clearly a war waged with the hidden motto of ‘blood for oil’ and US hegemony on oil in the Middle-East. Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed, museums and homes were looted, Saddam Hussein was hanged after a Kangaroo trial, a civil war was engineered, the entire country was ravaged — and they found not one Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMDs)!
After the publication of the book, the crisis in Afghanistan deepened. The Taliban and Al Qaeda begin to acquire devilish characteristics — both were creation of the CIA to counter Russia. Two buildings in New York were attacked by hijacked passenger planes in 2001, Afghanistan was invaded in 2002, and Iraq was invaded in 2003. Destruction and death followed.
Should all these incidents be considered mere coincidences?
In the background of these incidents, Trump keeps raising Islamophobic rhetoric in his speeches, due to which lines of hatred against the Muslim community emerge in other communities, especially among Hindutva NRIs, who are fanatic supporters of Narendra Modi and Trump. This author has seen these tendencies in Boston, New York, New Jersey, Jackson Heights.
The same tendencies were seen in the author’s visit two years ago. Whenever Trump speaks against Muslim terrorists, these people feel so happy. They are confident that Trump’s arrival will put a check on Muslim immigration. It was also seen that in the areas adjoining New York, there is discontent among the non-resident Indians, especially the lower classes, about hardworking Bangladeshi immigrants.
The scenario of the current elections has definitely changed, compared to the past. Americans have immense love for liberal democracy and individual freedom. They do not want to lose it at any cost.
It is interesting that whatever the American power establishment does on foreign lands, whether it keeps bullying other nations, or, shedding the blood of innocents through manufactured conflicts or wars, or, backs the Genocide in Gaza with weapons and bombs, most of the American people seem to care two hoots about it. However, it is a fact that thousands of students protested for months against the mass murders in Gaza.
However, on the domestic front, the character of the government must remain democratic, or, ‘appear’ to remain democratic, as Machiavelli would state. From this point of view, today, there is a war between ‘liberal democracy vs conservative democracy’ in America. Kamala Harris is being seen as a strong representative of liberal democracy, while Donald Trump is the face of autocratic and conservative democracy. Perhaps, that is why Dick Cheney says, “In the 248-year history of our nation, no single person has posed as big a threat to our republic as Donald Trump.”
The same statement can be applied in the Indian context as well. Perhaps that is why the collective need to protect our secular democracy and the Indian Constitution enacted by Dr BR Ambedkar, with the values and essence of the non-violent freedom movement.
In the context of Trump’s statements on Muslims and other immigrants, such as from Mexico and Latin America, let us not forget that Obama was half-Muslim/African, so he was considered ‘soft’ towards Muslim immigrants. Hillary Clinton was considered ‘liberal’, while Trump has been strictly anti-immigrant. He had promised to create a wall at the border.
He won, defeating Hillary Clinton, who, too, had a terrible record of creating wars in the Middle-East, and was seen celebrating the ghastly murder of Muammar Gaddafi in the tribal hinterland of Sirte, East of Tripoli, when his convoy of cars were heavily bombed and targeted by American and French forces.
Some of the Trump supporters, like most of Modi’s fanatic followers, hate Muslims. Trump stated that Clinton’s immigration policy would benefit the South Asian society. Then some magazines wrote that Trump’s policy is not only against Muslims, but also against the American Constitution. It was stated that under his rule, the life of American-Indians is in danger.
The rich section of the Indian community in America seems to be inclined towards Trump, mostly Gujaratis, who flock to see Modi whenever he visits the US. This section is a supporter of Hindutva forces. In the previous elections, the question of Islam and the Muslim community was not raised at such a level as it has been in this election.
It seems that the Indian community is divided on this question. Still, Kamala Harris is considered to be a few steps ahead of Donald J Trump in terms of her secular and multi-cultural credentials.
It is true that the competition between Harris and Trump is tough. Harris is an intelligent political player and is equipped with administrative experience. On the contrary, Trump is standing for the third time. No one had imagined that an arrogant businessman/real estate tycoon with dubious credentials, and a terrible record with women, would emerge as an important figure in American politics.
In fact, the issue of protecting liberal democracy has emerged prominently in the US elections. Harris has raised basic problems, which include unemployment, abortion rights, housing, living standards of the middle class, health benefits, etc. The interesting fact is that Trump, while criticizing her, has said that she wants to bring in ‘socialism’, and that she represents the radical Left. He even spoke about Karl Marx. He labeled her as a Marxist.
This is ridiculous propaganda. The reason for this is that even today, socialists, communists or Leftists are considered untouchable to a large extent in America. Senior Democrat leader, Bernie Sanders, and his progressive squad of Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and others, are also branded as communists. They are all forthright in their pro-people, pro-working class and anti-capitalist public positions. They are also strong critics of Joe Biden when it comes to the Genocide in Gaza.
Indeed, whenever a leader, or, public figure, in the US, talks about the interests of the common people, or, rights of the poor, students and the working class, she/he is immediately branded as a Leftist. This is the infallible weapon of the extreme rightists. Trump has been using this weapon routinely against his opponents. Kamala Harris is now his latest target.
Surprisingly, the NRIs are getting divided now. A huge section is leaning towards Harris. If she wins, then, while she will create history by becoming the first woman president of America, she will also become the first American president of Indian/Asian/African origin.
This will increase the dignity of India and Indians in America and the West. Her victory will especially be celebrated in South India, especially in Tamil Nadu, the homeland of her mother and grand-parents, and where she has spent a lot of time in her childhood.
In India, every other day, BJP and other Hindutva elements, attack ‘infiltrators’ and Bangladeshis. They used to earlier speak derogatorily about the Italian origin of Sonia Gandhi, though she has married into an Indian family of repute, and has been an Indian citizen, and a highly respected political leader for decades. After the victory of Harris, these foul-mouthed fanatics will get a taste of their own medicine.
Certainly, the impact of her victory will go beyond American borders. The wind blowing for liberal democracy will get some strength. She has said that she would like to continue those policies of Obama and Biden, which directly benefit the middle class and the common people.
Interestingly, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi went on a US tour during the polls out there. His presence there, in the initial phase of the election campaign, is important because he is also a supporter of liberal, secular democracy and is constantly fighting against fascist forces. Obviously, a section of the expatriate or non-resident Indians will definitely be influenced.
However, Modi’s recent visit to the US was lackluster; political observers consider it almost a failure. His love for Trump is well known. But, it is unlikely that the slogan ‘Abki Baar Trump Sarkar’ will reverberate now. It was a big tactical mistake and a clear violation of protocol. No head of state of one country backs a presidential candidate before the polls in another country! The Democrats, obviously, will never ever forget this direct support for Trump.
Already defeated in the parliamentary polls of 2024, surviving on crutches, and psychologically and politically demolished, ‘achche din’ seems to have finally arrived for the non-biological ‘messenger of God’. Besides, his foreign policy, with all the hugging in miscellaneous foreign lands, seems to have yielded nothing. Gone are the days when India could stand on its own in terms of an independent foreign policy. Even in its neighbourhood, it has lost the ground beneath the feet, with China calling the shots.
In other words, if Kamala Harris wins, this is real bad news for Modi.
Ramsharan Joshi is an eminent journalist, author and academic.