General News
4 November, 2024
Harris flaws small set against Trump's
There are fears of civil unrest in the event of a narrow win.
Although voting in the US election doesn't close until November 6 (Australian time) the result has almost certainly already been decided.
Voters have taken up pre-poll and postal voting options in record numbers and, as one comedian quipped, given the polarising nature of the candidates there can't be any undecided voters left.
Any US citizen who votes between now and Wednesday has already made up their mind which way they will jump. It's unlikely many will be influenced by the argy-bargy over a Trump-hired comedian calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage or President Joe Biden's riposte that the only garbage he could see was Trump's fans.
That said, Biden's gaffe is further proof the Democrats did the right thing in pressing him to stand down as the candidate.
But did he leave it too late? Harris's honeymoon was brief and she may not have done enough to sell herself to the electorate.
And, despite her best efforts to distance herself from Biden's record, she carries a lot of baggage - including on immigration.
While Harris has strong support from women voters on abortion rights, she is not performing as well with men.
Barack Obama chided black men for not supporting her, suggesting they were sexists and did not want a woman in the Oval Office.
That aside, despite all the hyperbole on both sides, most voters are focused on illegal immigrants, the cost of living, the management of the economy, housing (sounds familiar), national security, and defence.
The bad news for the Democrats, in a race that has been too close to call for weeks, is that according to the polls Trump is seen as stronger than Harris - or Biden - on almost all of these.
There is an argument, for example, the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which saw billions of dollars worth of military equipment left for the Taliban, emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine in 2022.
It is also apparent Biden's decision to return billions of dollars in seized and frozen assets to Iran gave the Ayatollahs the wherewithal to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, and its other proxies.
Would October 7 have happened when it did if that money had stayed in escrow? That is a question commentators - and voters - have been asking.
The illegal migrant crisis, a big issue in the crucial "swing" states, has seen millions of people from all over the world swarm across the Mexican border since 2020.
Trump went big on illegal immigration in 2016 and he has done the same again. He knows it is his trump card and he has pledged to finish his wall. All of that said, Harris and the Democrats are comfortably the lesser of two evils - not just for America but also for the rest of the world.
It would be a grave mistake to give "the great disruptor" a second term at a time when the world stands on the precipice on so many fronts, including climate change.
If Trump wins he will undo all of the good work Biden and Harris have done by flipping the switch from emissions reduction to peak fracking, mining, and fossil fuel use. It will be "burn, baby, burn".
He is also beholden to billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. These men have their own agendas. Their interests are not in the best interest of ordinary people anywhere in the world.
But a Trump victory is not the only worrying scenario. The other would be a wafer-thin and therefore contestable Democrat win. Trump is already setting the stage to claim yet another "stolen election".
Fears the US could experience civil unrest on a scale that far exceeds the events of January 6, 2021, in the event this happens are not without foundation.