“When we fight, we win.” This familiar campaign chant is triggered nowadays when Kamala Devi Harris, US vice president and presidential candidate, arrives at rallies in step with the tune of Beyoncé’s song ‘Freedom’. Harris defines the mood and the message with questions: “Do we believe in freedom, do we believe in opportunity, do we believe in the promise of America? Are we ready to fight for it?” When she sets up the cue, “And when we fight…”, the crowd chants “We win”.
Beyoncé croons, “Tryna rain on the thunder.” Harris has rained thunder on Donald J Trump’s party. A little over six weeks back, punditry predicted a second Trump presidency. The ex-president took it as a foregone conclusion—and then everything that could have gone wrong seems to have gone wrong. Harris, in contrast, got it right—starting with the presentation of her identity. She scripted her acceptance speech to pivot the narrative to the centre as she called on Americans to “move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past”.
It was a calculated move to get the attention of ‘Rockefeller Republicans’ and disaffected Trumpians. If Obama presented the audacity of hope, Harris deployed the Kamalaism of ‘what can be, unburdened by what has been’ to signal change. With over 50 days to go, it’s still early days. Meanwhile, Harris has redefined campaign chemistry and revived hope for Democrats. A win seems to be a possibility: polls inform us Harris now has a 3-point edge over Trump, with leads in four of the seven battleground states. Winning requires a playbook for victory. It’s often said that if a campaign is poetry, governance is prose.
Tuesday is the next moment of reckoning for Harris and Trump as they face off in a presidential debate in Philadelphia. Harris, who arguably turned her conspicuous invisibility in the Biden regime to her advantage, must step out of the veil of ambivalence and present her script—the prose and the playbook. Trump squandered his early-mover advantage in a debate with his self, wallowing in claims of not losing the 2020 polls. To reclaim hope, he must start from scratch.
The term ‘tabula rasa’ is Latin for blank state. It owes its popular usage to an essay on human understanding by John Locke, where he argued that at birth the human mind is a blank slate on which experience writes. Trump and Harris have revelled in constructing ambiguity around their policy choices. The contest for Americans and the world is one of known unknowns, a blank slate that awaits answers on policy prescriptions.
The state of the economy—along with immigration and abortion rights—is a top concern of Americans. Harris and Trump have promised sops to assuage sentiments. Trump has promised to exempt tips and social security from taxes, expand child tax credit and tax private university endowments. Harris has promised to exempt tips from taxes, expand child and earned income tax credits, fund first house purchases and give other incentives for housing. There isn’t much detail on how the sops will be funded. US fiscal and monetary policies travel through the financial markets of the world. The US’s gross debt is at $35 trillion and a trillion dollars are added to it every 100 days; high interest rates worsen debt service costs.
At the Economic Club of New York, Trump said he would impose new tariffs (60 percent on Chinese imports) that would bring down inflation; deficits can be reduced with spending cuts via a government efficiency commission headed by Elon Musk. Harris has spoken about a 25 percent minimum tax on corporations and total income and has flirted with the idea of a tax on unrealised gains on assets over $100 million. The prescriptions have already met with studied criticism and are bound to face push-back.
Presidential polls in the world’s largest economy and biggest military power are consequential for the world. It is said that America has no permanent enemies or friends and, as Henry Kissinger observed, it has permanent interests. But the definition of interests is just as impermanent. In 2016, Obama authorised a nuclear deal with Iran that was disbanded by Trump in 2018. Trump threatened to pull out of NATO and Biden strengthened it. Global warming is a reality—this summer was the hottest recorded in the northern hemisphere. In 2019, Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement and the Biden regime re-joined it in 2021. Such flip-flops ricochet on relations.
Do the candidates have a plan to end wars? The seemingly endless Ukraine-Russia war, prosecuted by the Zelenskyy regime and funded by NATO, has enriched the military-industrial complex. Trump claims he can end the war in a day. In West Asia, the bludgeoning of Palestinians continues as Benjamin Netanyahu and Yahya Sinwar parry peace and spew death; they mock humanity held hostage by history. In Israel vs Hamas, the candidates are different without a distinction. What about China’s plans to annexe Taiwan? While Harris will continue with the Biden approach, Trump wants Taiwan to pay the US for its defence.
Tuesday’s tabula rasa will see the questions being raised. As for the answers, remember that ambiguity is weaponised in close electoral contests. The world will most probably fill the blank slate assuming meanings in what is said—and in what is not.
Shankkar aiyar
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India
(shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com)