WHAT a difference a day makes!
Imagine even more what a difference two weeks make.
I can’t help but be drawn, every day, to news media outlets covering the dash to the finish line for the US presidency. With elections scheduled for November 5, the first Tuesday of November, the Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to bring their message to every corner of the United States as they fight to nail down the 270 electoral votes out of the 536 needed to put a candidate over the top.
‘… what looked like an election in the bag for Trump is now a battle royale, with momentum and excitement on the side of the Harris-Walz tandem that preaches joy during their stump speeches.’
Three weeks ago, it seemed like November was shaping up to become a walk in the park for Donald Trump and the Republicans. His rival, Joe Biden, the incumbent President, turned in such a disastrous debate performance that even before the debate was over there were already rumblings within the Democratic Party asking Biden to step aside. But Biden remained adamant: not only had he been overwhelmingly chosen by party voters in every Democratic primary held to choose the party standard bearer, he also drew on his political history as someone who always came back from being behind or down to surprise everyone and emerge victorious.
Then things got worse when Trump survived a crazy assassination attempt right before the Republican Party convention. Many saw that as the event that sealed the win for Trump, who emerged from the shooting with blood streaking down his cheek and fist pumping in the air. There was an air of inevitability, perhaps the reason why Trump chose as his running mate the young and telegenic Senator JD Vance of Ohio, a rabid Trump supporter (albeit a late convert) instead of someone who could have reached out to the independent-minded voters.
Game over it wasn’t, though.
Just as Biden tried to parry critics from within his party, COVID-19 struck. And I suspect that it was the combination of all of that — the rumblings, COVID-19 — and an honest assessment of his frailties that led Biden to pull off a surprise that upended the playing field and reset the game.
Now Kamala Harris, Biden’s Vice President, is set to accept the party nomination in two weeks at a convention in Chicago. In the meantime, she and her choice for running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (pronounced as Walls), are barnstorming seven key states that could very well determine which of the two parties will win the White House — and perhaps wrest control of the Senate and the House of Representatives as well.
And the Harris rallies are packed to the rafters, so to speak, in a manner not seen by the Democrats since Obama first campaigned in 2008.
So what looked like an election in the bag for Trump is now a battle royale, with momentum and excitement on the side of the Harris-Walz tandem that preaches joy during their stump speeches. Against them, Trump-Vance appears, yes, weird — an old man who is getting hysterical by the day and a young man who would sell his soul to the devil.
Game over? Not yet. There are still 90 or so days to go and so many factors can still affect the results. Like the US economy tanking — of which a scare raised its head earlier this week when global stock markets seemed in a free fall. Or a major conflagration in the Middle East, which seemed a growing possibility after a Hamas leader was assassinated in Tehran, much to the anger of Iran’s fundamentalists who threatened Israel with retaliation. As of this writing, the stock market dip has corrected itself — despite Trump trumpeting a “Kamala Crash” and a new “Great Depression”; in the Middle East, on the other hand, regional leaders plus the United States and its European allies have been burning the midnight candle to defuse tensions and prevent a widening of the conflict.
Indeed, the last two or so weeks have seen a sea change in US politics, which is what makes monitoring developments so addictive. For the political types who love studying elections and campaigns as conducted in America, there is always so much to learn from every election cycle, this one even more so.
But, in truth, every resident of planet Earth, no matter how politically detached, should be taking notice of what’s happening in the U.S. And this is because no matter what you do or where you live, how the Americans decide on November 5 will impact all our lives.
The sea change impacts us as well.
