US Election Countdown: The Candidates And The Issues

Kamala Harris, who is running for president on behalf of the Democratic Party, did not even contest the primaries.  President Joe Biden did, and he won easily.

In a stunning turnaround, however, he handed the mantle over to Ms. Harris, his Vice-President, following his disastrous debate performance against the Republican Party’s Donald J. Trump in July, which threw Democrats into a panic over his prospects.

They immediately united around the former Senator from California, officially endorsing her in August as the party’s nominee.  For his part, Mr. Trump triumphed over a broad group of Republicans, most of who appeared to have little stomach to challenge the former president.

In theory, US presidential elections are defined by the traditional values of the leading political parties.  This means that the Democrats would be found on the lines of liberal and progressive ideological thought, and the Republicans by conservatism, traditional values and diminished government.

That was before two things happened.  First, in 2020, Mr. Trump, who had already become the first US president to be impeached twice, lost his bid to remain in office.  Second, he decided he would contest again in 2024.

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Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept his loss in 2020 led to a well-documented assault on the US Capitol, by well-armed supporters he had summoned, as Congress met in January 2021to certify the results of that election.  Five people, including one Capitol Police officer, were killed.

Trump’s full criminal profile in the past year is as follows:

• In March 2023, he was indicted by the Manhattan, New York, District Attorney on state charges involving alleged hush-money payments to an adult-film star in 2016. The jury found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.
• In June 2023, another indictment, by a federal grand jury in Miami, for illegally taking classified national documents from the White House and resisting official efforts to retrieve them.
• In January 2024, a New York jury ordered Trump to pay a total of $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll, a writer, for ruining her credibility when he called her a liar after she accused him of sexual assault; in 2023, another jury had separately ordered him to pay her $5 million.
• In February 2024, Trump was found guilty by a court in New York in a civil fraud case and ordered to pay over $450 million, among other penalties.
• On August 14, 2023, a jury in Atlanta indicted him and 18 others on state charges over their alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat.
• On August 27, 2024, Special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment in his investigation of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, affirming that he had acted not as president, but in his private capacity as a candidate.

This blizzard of legal issues has not only seen some of Trump’s closest supporters going to jail but also his hiring of a succession of lawyers. Some of those lawyers then required their own lawyers and suffered disbarment or lost their law licences.

This cache of character and legal issues for the Republican candidate has changed the 2024 presidential campaign into a contest where the principal issue is Trump himself.

As the 45th president, Mr. Trump deserves credit for some leadership and advancement, notably in the COVID-19 response, because he was constrained to act within the boundaries of existing US power and systems.

The problem is that from the moment he inflicted the January 6 attack on the Capital to halt the transfer of power to his successor, he became THE ISSUE.

This Trump is a different man.  His voice is singularly Trump: inflammatory, unstable, scornful, selfish, defensive, accusatory, even violent.  His policies—to flatter them as policies—are transactional, divisive, and shallow.

Trump wields anger and vengeance like a badge, threatening anyone and any institution that appears to be in his way.  He openly advertises his second term, should he win, as retribution.

With all the patriotic, responsible men and women who restrained him now gone—and warning voters against him—Trump is a danger not just to his country, but also to the international order, American allies, and democracy itself.

This is why Tuesday’s election is more of a referendum on the future of America than an election.

At the worst, Kamala would maintain Biden’s America.  Not Trump, who demonstrates neither understanding of, nor allegiance to, the Constitution.  He has openly stated that he will be a dictator and promised a bloodbath should he lose.

This is understandable: He is playing the lottery of his life. If he wins, all his troubles disappear.  Bonus prize: he will preside over which enemies go to hell and when.