By Latif Bolat
The political arena in the US has started to become clearer after a few weeks that jumped straight out of a Hollywood political-adventure movie. Donald Trump raised his fist defiantly, laying on the ground after the shots. As if it were the next scene in the script, Biden suddenly announced his withdrawal from the election. To make the script even more dramatic, he declared his own Vice President, Kamala Harris, as the candidate. In fact, it is not that surprising, given how much of American political life has resembled scripted films.
Growing sympathy for Trump
Due to Biden’s age and his gaffes, Trump began to gain much in the political chess game. So much so that many of my friends from the Democrats were on the verge of falling into deep depression. And then the assassination attempt on Trump. All political analysts agree that the incident would generate great sympathy for Trump, as it reminds the American people of John F. Kennedy.
The leading Neocons and Harris
In the midst of the chaos within the Democratic Party, the major move from the leading Neocons was to sideline the increasingly unpopular Biden and find a candidate appealing to the urban, educated, relatively young, mostly women base of the Democratic Party. The military-industrial establishment that supported Biden during his four-year presidency did not hesitate to advance Vice President Kamala Harris in the chess game. Harris is precisely the person to address Biden’s shortcomings. And being a woman, black and of Indian descent makes her the ideal candidate for the Democrats who identify as “leftist”.
Vance vs. Harris: inward-looking vs. globalists
After the assassination attempt, Trump now is a point arming with legitimacy for a new move. And his first move was to announce J.D. Vance as his Vice President candidate. In new players in the chess game, Vance and Harris, we can watch the latest example of the polarization within American society and system as both joined the game with the support of different forces in American capitalism.
From the beginning, the globalist capitalist Neocons backing Biden and Harris were the forces behind the Democratic Party. Being determined to continue global hegemony, they are so blinded by greed.
On the other side, Trump and Vance represent the factions recognizing that the American Empire cannot continue on its current path. These “inward-looking” capitalist circles are ideologically different from Biden’s team.
A representative of rural America
J.D. Vance is a senator from the agricultural Midwest region. Vance as a typical poor rural youth from Ohio is a genuine representative of rural America which has been consistently voting for the Republicans. His life of poverty, recounted in his book “Hillbilly Elegy” and the subsequent movie, has been an inspiration to American youth in recent years. In the crucial states for the November presidential election —Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania— Vance, as a senator from a neighboring state, is expected to easily appeal to voters in these “swing states”.
Just as in Harris’s nomination, the “inward-looking” class behind the Republicans must have taken “Vance as a young and successful representative of rural America” where rural population could see their own story in into account.
Additionally, Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri, has roots in India and Hinduism. She is a lawyer educated at Yale and Cambridge, and worked in the US Supreme Court. She can also be seen as a figure to attract the minority votes.
The fact that Vance, who has been a staunch “Never Trump” until recently, has become Trump’s vice-presidential candidate is seen as a positive message to the fairly neutral faction distant to Trump: “If even a former Trump opponent like Vance can become a Trump supporter, you too can help Trump become president”.
The November 5th election, which seemed bound to be lost with Biden’s candidacy for the Democrats, is now moving into a new stage with the endless maneuvers of the Neocon think tanks. However, given the deepening class differences and conflicts of interest, it seems impossible for Trump and Vance not to win the presidential election. American voters’ grievances are too much and deep.