THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
By any standard, Donald Trump and the Republican convention to nominate him as candidate for president failed. In matters of foreign policy, his MAGA show depicted every problem in the world as easily bent to his alleged “strength”, as contrasted with the putative weakness of Joe Biden. As politics goes, it was primitive.
The Democratic convention for Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, was all about showing they could do better. On issues of national security, they can show they are sophisticated as well as strong, making her more qualified than Trump. They can also signal that they’re a new generation, with a more up-to-date worldview than Biden’s. Already they are attracting young women, Blacks and GenZ to their call.
The Democrats can bring not only internationalism, but worldliness, as opposed to the Republicans bringing nationalism and provincialism. Harris and Walz look beyond the water’s edge through a more nuanced prism than any that’s available to Trump.
To Trump, the world consists of fellow strongmen (such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin) to schmooze with and wayward allies (such as Germany) to browbeat on suspicion of stealing from the US.
During his debate with Biden, Trump jeered that “Putin is laughing at this guy” (meaning Biden) and is “probably asking for millions of dollars for the reporter” (meaning Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist the Kremlin had incarcerated as a hostage). “I will have him out very quickly,” Trump boasted. “As soon as I take office. Before I take office.”
In the real world what happened was Biden got Gershkovich out, and several other American detainees. But he did so in a discreet and complex deal that involved multiple nations, including Germany, which did its part largely against its own national interest in order to help its long-time ally, the US.
When Biden and Harris greeted Gershkovich and the others on the tarmac outside Washington, they didn’t gloat as a reality-TV president would have done. And, yet, it was their diplomacy and finesse that made the exchange possible.
Trump’s running mate JD Vance turned his speech in Milwaukee into a nativist cri de coeur, claiming to speak for the hillbillies he once elegised. As to Putin’s invasion, Vance has said: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.” On China he channels the new Washington groupthink, according to which the “commies in Beijing have it coming”.
While Walz, also a mid-westerner, in contrast has done a bit more carefully considered research.
Harris, a former prosecutor and senator, has less experience abroad, although she has compensated with a busy travel schedule as vice-president. In that role, she has had no choice but to represent the foreign policy of Biden. And she has been good at that. At the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, she presented a clear vision, broadly in line with Biden’s and antithetical to Trump’s. She sees America as a global leader working with allies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere to maintain the international order. By temperament, she stands for engagement rather than MAGA isolationism.
Harris promotes her middle class roots. Many Americans know who she is, but not many know what she believes in or details of her background. Her convention speech recounted her motherʼs journey as an immigrant from India. She spoke about how her parents met – and ultimately divorced. She talked about her childhood upbringing in a working-class neighbourhood in Oakland, California.
She also spoke of why she chose to become a lawyer – and a prosecutor. She drew a line from her early days in the courtroom to her public services as a politician. “My entire career, I have only had one client,” she said. “The people.”
Harris’s speech included calls for unity and a pathway beyond the “bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles” of modern American politics. The US had a “precious, fleeting” opportunity to “chart a new path forward”. But she was vague on details.Vague calls for unity and a path beyond partisanship are rhetoric that many presidential hopefuls have used in the past.
However, when Harris did turn to policy details, she spoke in generalities. She would be focused on lowering the costs of :”everyday needs” – including healthcare, housing and food.
She specifically called out abortion rights – as a means of preserving freedom.
“America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives, especially about matters of heart and home,” she said.
It’s still a close call but the swing states could swing it for Kamala Harris.
