As in Britain, Americans Seem to Want a Decent, Unflashy Leader to Repair their Nation
Orcas Island, Washington State. Is America poised to follow Britain in rejecting rule by nationalist, racist ideology and instead opt for cautious reformist government that looks for international partners to tackle the many problems the world faces from wars in Ukraine and Gaza to mass people movement to accelerating global warming?
There are uncanny parallels between Keir and Kamala. Starmer like Harris is a cautious one-step at a time lawyer. She was a state prosecutor and then like Starmer she entered national politics in her 50s becoming a Senator in 2017.
Again like Starmer she loyally served her party leader. Unlike Starmer her four years as Joe Biden’s Vice-President was a thorough education if she does become President as a vice-president. She participated in many of the meetings leading to decisions the President has to make.
Keir Starmer entered Downing Street with less than a decade of political experience. If Kamala becomes president aged 60 she will have had better preparation for the top job in the democratic world than the British prime minister.
The question is can she get there and dump Trump in the dustbin of history and work with European leaders including Starmer on a common world agenda?
Meeting with senior Democrats on Orcas, a small Pacific coastal island off the Washington State coastline on the border with Canada I heard a cautious but positive yes.
They included two who had run Kamala Harris’s presidential candidate bid campaign in 2019, a top trade union lawyer, a head of a state environmental commission, the former international and government affairs head for the powerful United Auto Workers union, a wealthy investor and all were cautiously optimistic that Harris could win.
The caution is understandable. They were all burned when Hilary Clinton was defeated in 2016 by the macho, racist, populist nationalist Donald Trump. The final round of opinion polls showed Clinton leading Turmp by 1 to 7 percentage points in the national popular vote.
But on the night every Democratic activist remembers Trump won. Today the mood was different and they now think Harris can win. Ten reasons were given.
1) Joe Biden. The Bible tells us “Greater love has no one than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends.” Biden sacrificed his political life and hopes of winning two terms by standing down for Harris. The decision transformed the morale and confidence of Democrats. The rightest US politician and Trump’s United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said in February both parties had candidates that were too old and the first party to stand down its elderly candidate would win. Biden has down that for Harris.
2) Donald Trump. Watching evening news shows on American TV presenters have lost all fear of Trump. He is presented as an ageing, rambling, at times borderline deranged political village idiot.
3) Money. In July Harris raised $320 million, about half coming in small donations. It is impossible to log on to social media in the US without endless appeals to donate. Now big money from Hollywood and billionaires from financial, and hi-tech industries is flowing in to the Harris campaign.
4) Organisation. Trump has only a minimal field operations promoting his candidacy. The Republican Party is present in every state but although Trump is the official Republican candidate many in the party remain burnt by the 6thJanuary 2001 attack on Capitol Hill when he incited an armed mob tried to over-turn the election result.
5) Women now fear that under Trump right-wing religious males will control their bodies and their right to determine their fertility. Trump appointed three hard right-wing judges to the Supreme Court. They overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme court ruling making abortion legal. Several right-wing states where evangelist and ultra-catholic ideologues are strong have now made abortion a crime returning the US to a dark age when women were made to have children or seek illegal underground terminations threatening their health.
6) The Democratic National Convention. This event 19th-22nd August will provide four days of not-stop anti-Trump festivities and a platform for all big Democratic names to rally around Kamala Harris.
7) Tim Walz. The teetotal Minnesota Governor named as Harris’s Vice-Presidential candidate is the politician everyone loves to love. He is a 60-year-old ex-schoolteacher who served decades in the National Guard including a stint overseas. His work on the US Congress House Veterans Committee when he was in Congress 2007-2019 made him popular with military veterans. Raised a Catholic he then became an Evangelical Lutheran – covering the two biggest religious communities in America. He and his wife own no stocks or securities. His last tax return showed an annual income of £129,000 in contrast to the opulence life-style of Trump and his acolytes.
8) Comparatives. While Harris made her name prosecuting crooked property developers, sexual predator, and white-collar financial industry criminals Walz as a governor was bringing in free school meals, gun-control, abortion rights, and free university tuition for low income families Trump was cosying up to Elon Musk whose Twitter platform was encouraging far-right attacks on British police officers.
9) Ukraine. When Putin invaded Ukraine, Trump said “So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that? …That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. … Here’s a guy who’s very savvy. … I know him very well. Very, very well.”
10) Truman. America has lived with charismatic presidents from Republican Reagan to Trump or Democrats like Clinton and Obama. Now as in Britain, there is sense that both nations need repair and renewal. Harris like Starmer are not big egos or self-proclaimed commanding leaders. They are close in style and purpose to Clement Attlee and Harry Truman who after 1945 rebuilt Britain and America following the stupidities of rightwing isolationist national and global economic, trade and security policies of the interwar years.
I met some of the same friends including senior Democratic campaign organisers in Orcas in 2019. They were pushing Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate for the 2020 presidential contest. But I sensed their hearts and minds weren’t fully convinced she was a winner then. Today Trump can no longer makes promises as he broke so many as President 2016-2020. He is old, full of grudges, lies, and manic idiocies that social media spread far and wide.
Kamala Harris just seems normal by comparison. There are ten long weeks to go to Election Day but as in Britain earlier this year Trump like Boris Johnson cannot run on his record of lies and corruption.
America stands a fair chance of having its first woman president and one whose Afro-Indian parentage represents all that the 21st century far right from Farage to Le Pen to Putin to Trump do not consider equal to their worth and value.
Leaving Orcas Island from its tiny airport Saturday I asked fellow passenger who would win. A 70-year-old in jeans and denim jacket who was asking about the price of farm-land locally said “If they let Trump live, he will win. If not then it’s the communist woman. She’s been a communist since way abck when.” A fellow passenger, a retired businessman, in his eighties said “ It will be the girl.”
Denis MacShane is the former UK Minister of Europe.