But at this point, it’s basically all about get-out-the-vote efforts. The reporting on the polls has been confusing. Some polls are better than others and some polling methodologies are more to be recommended than others. This is one of many things the mainstream media could do a better job parsing for a general audience.
But the race looks to be close. The only thing that I find surprising about that is that Trump’s obvious cognitive decline and his increasingly fanatical and, yes, weird statements haven’t turned off more habitual Republican voters. Which is one thing that tells me that their really is a “cult” aspect to Trump’s support.
But most voters are not hardcore political junkies. (And those of us who might fall into that category can’t help but envy them sometimes!) And there typically is not a lot of party-switching in Presidential votes, so the actual number of “swing voters” who switch their Presidential party preference from one election to another is relatively small. But approval or not of one’s habitual party’s Presidential candidate can affect turnout in decisive ways.
The filmmaker and political activist has been reminding people for the last eight years that in swing-state Michigan, whose 2016 Electoral votes went to Trump when if they had gone to Clinton would have made Hillary Clinton President, there were tens of thousands of ballots in Michigan that selected Democrats in the “down-ballot” races but simply left the Presidential choice blank. Had they voted for Clinton, the last eight years would certainly have been different.
One feature of the commentary in these last weeks is that the American electorate is “moving right.” But since one of the most important issues in the Presidential race is abortion, and the Democrats’ position in favor of abortion rights is highly popular and has benefitted Democrats in elections since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision of June 2022 overturned the abortion rights secured 50 years earlier in the Roe v. Wade decision.
That issue certainly doesn’t look consistent with the momentarily popular theme of “the electorate is moving right.”
But one obvious possibility could be a shockwave for the election, even his close to Election Day: the outbreak of a full-scale war between Israel and Iran, to which Joe Biden would surely respond by declaring his unlimited support for Israel.
Biden’s foreign policy failure
The essentially uncritical support Biden has given to Israel’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war in Gaza and now in Lebanon and his targeted-assassination strikes on Iran, which Iran could have legitimately claimed as acts of war, is a real weakness for Kamala Harris’ campaign. Traditionally Democratic leaning Arab-American constituencies in the critical swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania could decline to vote for her based on Biden’s horrible policy on the current Israeli wars.
If she wins, the abortion issue will probably prove to have been decisive, to the extent that the effect of one discrete issue can be measured. If she loses because of defections or non-participation by Arab-American voters and others in the Democratic base who are disgusted at Biden’s war policy in the Middle East, Biden’s foreign policy will have put Trump back in the White House.
Polls don’t seem to be showing Jewish voters, who typically lean distinctly Democratic, deserting from the Harris-Walz ticket over Netanyahu’s war. Jewish voters are not a one-issue bloc, though Donald Trump has invoked the anti-Semitic trope that identifies all Jews with Israel to threaten Jewish voters:
Former President Donald Trump said at an event in Washington aimed at fighting antisemitism on Thursday that if he loses in November, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss.”Trump’s comment that “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss” was widely regarded as a threat, an anti-Semitic threat. There doesn’t seem to have been much attention to his suggestion that Democrats have put a “curse” on Jewish voters that makes them favor Democrats.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Trump said of Jews who vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. “Any Jewish person who votes for her should have their head examined. I find it hard to believe, part of it is a habit, I think.”
Trump said he should be polling at “100” percent with Jewish voters. “It’s going to happen. It’s only because of the Democrats’ hold or curse on you.” (1)
It’s America. An important Christian nationalist leader, Lance Walnau has also invoked magic as a tool of the Democrats:
Senator [and Republican Vice Presidential candidate] JD Vance of Ohio campaigned Saturday in Pennsylvania at an event organized by Lance Wallnau, a self-described prophet who has said that former President Donald J. Trump was chosen by God, defended the Jan. 6 attack and described Vice President Kamala Harris’s debate performance as “witchcraft.” …Yes, we have self-described religious “prophets” in the US who accuse the Democrats in also serious of using “witchcraft” against Republicans.
Mr. Wallnau, an evangelical influencer from Dallas, has become a big name in the charismatic movement of Christianity. A corporate marketer who became a celebrity prophet, he applies his marketing skills to push prosperity gospel teachings and products .He is especially well known for the belief that Christians should influence or even rule society, from politics to media to culture to the economy.
In a recent online conversation about Ms. Harris’s performance at the debate earlier this month, Mr. Wallnau said that she could “look presidential.”
“That’s the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft,” he said. “That’s the manipulation of imagery that creates an impression contrary to the truth, but it seduces you into seeing it. So that spirit, that occult spirit, I believe is operating on her and through her, similar to with Obama.” [my emphasis] (2)
And, yes, it’s something of a (forgive the phrase) miracle that the US has survived as a nation as long as it has!
But its foreign policy is pretty battered at the moment:
President Joe Biden has called America “the world power,” and has referred to his “leadership in the world.” If Biden does indeed see himself as a, or the, world leader, then he has been disappointing in his job and has mismanaged it.Trump is reckless and corrupt, and has no real concept of foreign policy beyond cutting deals for his personal benefits with autocrats he admires. But, despite surprises that his quirkiness may bring, he can be expected to essentially continue Biden’s unlimited backing of Netanyahu’s war – just as Biden continued sticking to Trump’s Middle East party which effectively gave up on any actual solution to the Palestinians’ chronic dilemma:
The world today stands on the brink of larger wars, even potentially world wars, on two fronts simultaneously. That is, perhaps, a more precarious position than the world has found itself in in over half a century, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and perhaps longer. Then, the danger came from a single front: today, there is danger on two or even three.
The Biden administration seemingly subscribes to a foreign policy doctrine of nurturing wars while attempting to manage them so that they remain confined to America’s foreign policy interests and do not spill over into wider wars. But such fine calibrations are not easily done. War is sloppy and unpredictable. Though a nation’s plans may be well understood by its planners, calibration of what might push the enemy too far and cause a wider war depends equally on your enemy’s plans, calibrations, passions and red lines: all of which are harder to profile or understand.
What is more, the contemporary culture of the U.S. foreign policy establishment seems dedicated precisely to excluding the kind of knowledge and empathy that allows one to understand an adversary’s mind, and instead to fostering ill-informed and hate-filled prejudice. [my emphasis] (3)
Trump ended his first year in office with a landmark foreign policy move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The decision broke from a decades-long bipartisan policy for US presidents to abstain from making the assertion, and the move was met with outrage from segments of the international community, including the Arab and Muslim world.Trump’s foreign policy, to the extent it has any coherence at all beyond enriching himself, is basically a fairly primitive unilateralism and militarism.
The businessman-turned-president then capitalised on this move months later by moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
In March 2019, he signed an executive order recognising Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
His policy shifts on Israel didn't just focus on Israel's claims on occupied land either, as the Trump administration also withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, citing that the international body showed negative bias when it came to Israel.
One of his last moves in favour of Israel was to declare that products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank had to be labelled "Made in Israel".
Trump also moved to further weaken the position of Palestinian leadership. …
After leaving office in 2021, reporters released snippets of Trump's conversations within the White House, which painted a picture that made it seem Trump had more scorn for Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu than Palestininian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Yet the policies pursued by Trump broke away from decades of American precedent, in order to aid Israel, as it continued to breach international law with the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. [my emphasis] (4)
And to the extent he has any strategic perspective on nuclear proliferation at all, none of it involves improving the arrangements nuclear proliferation:
While in office, Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea and then tried (and failed) to get a nuclear deal with its leader, Kim Jong Un. Trump walked away from a successful deal with Iran, only to see Tehran then accelerate its nuclear program. He withdrew from one arms control treaty with Russia and then refused to extend another. He considered resuming US nuclear testing, which would have violated yet another global pact. In short, Trump did on nuclear policy what he did on so much else: create chaos and undermine the rule of law. [my emphasis] (5)Kamala Harris has given no clear indication that she will depart from the Biden Administration’s foreign policy on Ukraine or the Middle East. Although in both cases it’s urgent that the US adopt a more constructive and peace-orientated position. And in both those cases, it would make good, hard-headed practical sense to do so.
As Tom Engelhardt recently observed:
[I]f you want a measurement of just how far the Lone Superpower [the US] has fallen, keep in mind that, once upon a time not so terribly long ago, an Israeli leader like Benjamin Netanyahu would never have dared to pay so little attention to the desires of Washington when it came to his actions in the Middle East. Once upon a time, a figure like Netanyahu couldn’t have ignored the wishes of the top officials of the very country still arming his own in a staggering fashion, while doing whatever he damn well pleased to tear his region to shreds. (6)And it’s hard to argue with this conclusion of his:
Trump’s very victory in 2016 should … have instantly been seen as the functional definition of American imperial decline — a crucial sign of the weakening and potential collapse of this country’s position in the world translated into domestic politics. And an election victory this November could, in the end, mean both the figurative and literal bankruptcy of the American system, while his defeat, in a nation now armed to the teeth, could give chaos a new name in the imperial homeland.Notes:
(1) McCraw, Meridith (2024): Trump warns Jewish voters they’ll be partly to blame if he loses Político 09/19/2024. <https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/19/trump-jewish-voters-blame-00180177> (Accessed: 2024-25-10).
(2) Dias, Elizabeth & Cameron, Chris (2024): Vance Appears at Event of Evangelical Leader Who Spoke of Harris’s ‘Witchcraft’. New York Times 09/28/2024. <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/28/us/politics/vance-lance-wallnau-witchcraft.html> (Accessed: 2024-25-10).
(3) Lieven, Anatol & Snider, Ted (2024): Biden's 'leadership' is blowing the lid off two wars. Responsible Statecraft 10/23/2024. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/joe-biden/> (Accessed: 2024-25-10).
(4) Farooq, Umar A. (2024): Donald Trump: His diplomatic legacy in Israel, Palestine and the Middle East. Middle East Eye 10/25/2024. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/donald-trump-middle-east-foreign-policy> (Accessed: 2024-25-10).
(5) Collina, Tom Z. (2024): What Would Donald Trump Do on Nuclear Weapons? The National Interest 08/01/2024. <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/what-would-donald-trump-do-nuclear-weapons-212136> (Accessed: 2024-25-10).
(6) Engelhardt, Tom (2024): The Empire Is Going Down: But What Isn't? TomDispatch 10/20/2024. <https://tomdispatch.com/the-empire-is-going-down/> (Accessed: 2024-25-10).
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