By Rajan Philips –

Rajan Philips

“Marrying spectacle with seriousness” is the essence of the American genius. Both were in full display at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago last week. For four days, the Democrats gathered at the United Centre (home to Chicago Bulls where Michael Jordan once dribbled and dazzled with the basketball) in a carnival atmosphere mixing serious politics with artsy entertainment, culminating on Thursday with Kamala Harris accepting the Party’s nomination as its presidential candidate and delivering the biggest speech so far of her suddenly soaring political life.

The speech on Thursday was fittingly soaring, well scripted, and was delivered in courtroom cadence with aplomb and authority. In the four weeks following Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Ms. Harris has exceeded all expectations and dramatically reshaped the election as a contest between a career prosecutor and a convicted felon.     

On Wednesday, Kamala Harris’s Vice Presidential pick and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made his acceptance speech and delighted the crowd. Although Mr. Walz has been a highly successful state governor, he is not cut from the elite cloth of American politics. From small town origins, he had been a high school teacher and football coach with many stints in China, and served in the Army National Guard, before retiring and entering politics. Humorous and jovial, with folksy wit like former President Truman, Mr. Walz has proven himself to be a fitting partner to Kamala Harris with her own signature laugh. They have brought laughter into American politics against an opponent who neither smiles nor laughs.        

Six months ago, the Democrats were fearing the worst – that the 2024 Convention could turn out to be a disaster like the 1968 one, also in Chicago, when anti-Vietnam protesters rocked the  Convention and the City. The Party was bitterly divided and its eventual nominee, then Vice President Hubert Humphrey, went on to be defeated by Richard Nixon. A 27 year young Bernie Sanders was a protest leader on the street in 1968. Now 83 and Senator, Sanders was fully inside the tent this week as he has been since 2016.

Sanders is the progressive flag bearer in American politics and was given a prime time speaking slot along with the Party grandees – the Bidens, the Clintons, the Obamas, and its younger upstarts including the grandsons of John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. Unlike the Republicans where future potentials have been crowded out by Trump and his godling worshippers, the Democrats boasted an impressive array of young political stars with potential for a higher calling in the future.

Presidential Line

One of them is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the 35 year young Congresswoman from New York and the youthful face of progressive politics. AOC was given speaking time on Monday, immediately before Hillary Clinton, signifying the Party’s long generational span and its vulnerability to ideological shears and stresses right through its length. As omens go in the Democratic Party, giving a speech at the convention has been a recent pathway to candidacy and even victory at a future presidential election.

Bill Clinton was the chosen speaker at the 1988 convention and went on to be elected president in 1992; Barak Obama made his splash in 2004 and was president in 2008; Kamala Harris had her opening in 2012 and now has her chance to be president in 2024. Time will tell if AOC would join the select line and she has time on her side in a country that for all its warts is also the world’s biggest fountain of opportunities.

The theme of this years convention was freedom and its message unity, both a foil and a response to Trump. Trump has become the glue that holds the multihued Democrats united with a single minded purpose: defeat Trump. They survived the deep divisions and protests over the crisis in Gaza and put on a united show because nothing else would be a greater suffering to them than a second Trump presidency.

A ceasefire announcement at the Convention would have the been the ideal swan song for President Joe Biden, but that was not to be. Both Israel and Hamas stuck to their guns refusing to cross the ‘bridging proposal’ that the US had come up with to break the current deadlock. A direct call on Wednesday between Biden and Netanyahu was not enough to nudge the latter to the final step. Significantly, Vice President Harris joined the call showing her involvement in official business while campaigning for her election as president in November.

A Close Election

Looking presidential while campaigning for the future has enhanced her mojo as a candidate. Even as it has driven Trumps nuts. From the time Donald Trump started his presidential campaign in 2015 preparing the primaries and presidential election in 2016, Trump’s method of choice has been to insult and injure his opponents through name calling and slandering. He called Hillary Clinton “crooked Hillary,” and it stuck among Trump supporters and voters even though there was no substance to it. Strangely, or not, Trump has not been able to come up with anything stickable against Kamala Harris.

For one, Ms. Harris has no baggage like Clinton; more importantly, people have got tired of Trump’s name calling and invectives. Equally, the Democrats are turning the tables on Trump and returning the favour by mocking everything about him. Speakers at the convention took turns mocking Trump, his lies, his inconsistencies and his plain narcissism. Unlike in 2016, Trump is now very much a known quantity with an indefensible  record, and a majority of Americans do not want another four years of or with Trump. In her convention speech, Kamala Harris asserted that as a public prosecutor and political leader she has had only one client: The People. She contrasted her with Trump, who has had only one client all his life: Himself.

Regardless, the November election will be a close race, and because of the Electoral College system and the party affiliations of the States the election will be decided by the results in the seven swing states by margins that could as low as a few thousand votes. Three of them, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are in the rustbelt, the old industrial areas in the Midwest with disaffected white working class communities; and four of them, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada are in the southern sunbelt where increasing numbers of African and Latino Americans are changing the electoral dynamic of what have been traditionally rural white American majority states.

Voter mobilization and turnout will decide the results in these states and ultimately the winner in the November election. To mobilize their supporters and persuade the independent voters, the Democrats are asserting to be free from government control over women’s rights and sexuality rights, on the one hand, and asking for government intervention, on the other, to help the middle classes and the marginalized to have adequate housing, secure jobs and affordable prices for essential goods and services.

They are openly and joyfully contrasting the reality of American diversity and immigrant attraction with the racial bigotry of Donald Trump and the Republican Party that he has hijacked. It is a cultural campaign for America’s “better angels,” which Abraham Lincoln invoked in the 19^th century fight against slavery, to triumph over the nation’s ugly demons that Trump has come to personify in the 21^st century.   

A Different Election

The presidential election in Sri Lanka is a different animal but no less critical for the country’s immediate and long term future. The Americans have been curating the presidential system for over two centuries. Sri Lankans have significant doubts about it even after living with it for over four decades. At least two candidates, Sajith Premadasa, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, are on record that if elected they will proceed to have the elected executive presidential system abolished. But they cannot do it by executive order, and will require an act of parliament and a constitutional amendment.

There has been no indication by any candidate of what they will do with the current parliament, or for how long they will keep it going. Rather, how soon they will dissolve it. No candidate has issued a manifesto yet. And there is no 100-day programme like what was presented in advance of the January 2015 presidential election, when Maithripala Sirisena was the common candidate for all three of the main candidates in the current election. They were on the same team then and are offering contrasting perspectives now.

The voters do not seem to be overwhelmingly persuaded by anyone of them. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has released the results of a survey called the “Confidence in Democratic Governance Index,” that asked respondents as to who among the three presidential candidates is best suited to address their current needs. In addition to the three candidates, the survey also included the none-of-the-above or “No One” option. Not surprisingly, at the national level, nearly 30% (28.8%) of the respondents picked the No One option – i.e., none of three is best suited for the job. In the preference for individuals, Ranil Wickremesinghe registered 24.3%, followed by 19.3% for Sajith Premadasa, and 15.5% for Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

The breakdowns along ethnic lines are instructive. Among the Sinhalese, the No One option ranks the highest with 33%, but individual candidates fare better among the Tamils, Muslims and the Malaiyaha Tamils. As well, Ranil Wickremesinghe (24.1%) and Anura Kumara Dissanayaka (18.4%) score better than Premadasa (15.8%) among the Sinhalese, while Mr. Premadasa tops the list among all three minority communities who also show little support for Mr. Dissanayake.

The above results are an interesting snapshot and nothing more, but they do say something about the uncertain state of mind among the voters, both nationally and ethnically. The candidates do not seem to be helping anyone with certainty on anything. Mr. Dissanayake seems to be the most confident among the three candidates, but there is no way of knowing how his confidence resonates with the public. And the survey results show that he still has work to do among the minority communities.

Sajith Premadasa, although he has been striking alliances with other political parties (some of them multiple times), he does not seem to be able to hold his own house (SJB) in order. The very timing and the very public resignation of Parliamentarian Thalatha Athukorala is quite a blow to SP’s campaign, and it has been the only drama in a rather lacklustre election campaign so far.

Ranil Wickremesinghe continues to be inexplicable. Why would he let the government decide that every MP should be given additional guns for protection? Is he selectively applying to Sri Lanka’s parliamentarians the Second Amendment from the US – the right to keep and bear Arms?  And the Supreme Court is not letting the President easily off the hook with its new ruling on the Local Government elections. For someone who wants the people to vote for him on his economic record, Mr. Wickremesinghe keeps inviting and receiving new strictures over his hopelessly woeful political record. Stranger days are still ahead.