It’s an all-out electoral conflict between identities, not ideologies. The colour and contours of the 2020 US Presidential campaign have been dictated by the names and the surnames of the candidates.
When Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate Joe Biden announced California-based 56-year-old Kamala Devi Harris as his running mate for the office of Vice President, the entire attention was diverted to her rather than to Biden.
It was for the first time in the US elections that a person nominated by a Presidential aspirant was seen as the game changer.
Biden has been Vice-President and been in the party much longer than Harris. Yet, he needed a name with a distinct identity to ensure his entry to the White House in January 2021.
Harris wasn’t that safe password for him, but her first name Kamala Devi was. For Democrats, grey haired Biden was a chill and Harris a duende. Biden now enjoys higher popular ratings than his rival Donald Trump. Her nomination has been hailed as a “Triumph of Diversity”.
Yet, he was looking more for colour and racial additionality to his numbers rather than mere statecraft.
The descriptive diverseness of Kamala Devi was seen as a factor which would deliver the maximum electoral dividend. Kamala’s origin is so varied that it left even the enlightened voter looking for her real roots.
Even Encyclopedia Britannica termed her as both Indian American and African American. Other media organisations rediscovered her multiracial identity by calling her an Asian American woman.
From the media coverage both in the US and India, it’s evident that it is Kamala, and not Biden, who is crucial for the final verdict.
It is also obvious that electoral battle isn’t about making America great again. It is aimed at polarisation along communal and racial lines.
Vote banks politics which was, for the Liberals, the bane of Indian politics has become a virtue for the most “liberal” Democratic Party in the US and its concomitant Indian megaphones.
Undoubtedly, Trump has disrupted the political dialogue in the US by his excessive Islamic phobia. He won the 2016 election by playing on the Muslim factor and blaming the Democrats of flirting with those who condoned terrorism.
During his campaign in 2015, Trump promised “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”.
Since then, he has been pursuing policies which have sharply divided the American voters. In addition, he has been wooing the Indian diaspora at home and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India. Indian Americans are not only wealthy, but they also carry their Hindu affiliation on their sleeves.
In fact, before Kamala was chosen as VP candidate, the election was centered around a floundering Trump who was failing on every front, from the economy to the pandemic.
The brutal killing of a black man turned a large part of the black community against the Republican Party.
In 2016, Trump polled quite a large junk of votes from all communities, including the blacks. He defeated glamorous liberal female candidate Hillary Clinton who was seen to be soft on Islamic terror. Her plenteous personality couldn’t ensure her victory over a boisterous Trump.
But 2020 has changed not only the rules of the game, but also voter perceptions about their political leaders.
America, a global leader as marketeer, is hawking ethnic and colour differentiation as unique selling points in promoting its lawmakers.
Kamala is the natural byproduct of those sociological convulsions. Known as a fighter for human rights, she hasn’t lost any opportunity to flaunt her origins. Only a year ago, she decided to publicise her Indianness.
In her autobiography ‘The Truths We Hold’, Kamala disclosed how her Tamilian mother raised her by telling her about Indian food, jewellery and culture.
Yet Kamala concluded: ‘’My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.”
But like a true politician, she once again invoked her Bhartiyata by talking about chithis (aunties) while making an acceptance speech at the Democratic Party Convention. She has also asserted her black identity by choosing a university like Howard and joining a black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.
But she also knows that she needs more than just black label to survive and thrive in US politics. She has been connecting with the Muslims too by taking an anti-India stand on Kashmir. In one of her statements, she assured: “We have to remind the Kashmiris that they are not alone in the world. We are keeping a track of the situation. There is a need to intervene if the situation demands.”
When it comes to Islamic demography, both Biden and Kamala speak the same language.
While addressing a Muslim gathering recently, Biden said: “I’ll be a president who recognises and honours your contributions. These contributions go back, by the way, to our founding fathers. I’ll be a president who seeks out, listens to, and incorporates the ideas and concerns of Muslim Americans on everyday issues that matter most to our communities. That will include having Muslim American voices as part of my administration. If I have the honour of being president, I will end the Muslim ban on day one, day one. I’ll work with Congress to pass hate crime legislation like the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act and end the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act.”
Biden and his party are convinced that without a solid social and racial reengineering, he can’t become the US President.
That precisely appears the logic behind Biden decision to drop Tulsi Gabbard, a four-time Congress representative from the Democratic Party campaign team.
Gabbard, 39, chose Hinduism as her faith and has been active in Democratic and liberal politics since the age of 21. She was the first to announce her candidature and last one to opt out in favour of Biden.
In 2016, Tulsi was picked to nominate Bernie Sanders as the official second place finisher in Democratic Party Convention. Tulsi was one of the seven candidates who earned delegates and was eligible to speak at the DPC. It is for the first time in history that a qualified person was not invited to speak at the Convention. Her fault: she isn’t ashamed of calling herself a Hindu.
When she announced herself as Presidential candidate, she proudly claimed: “I am proud to be the first Hindu-American to have been elected to Congress, and now, the first Hindu-American to run for president.”
But she is deeply committed to other ethnic groups and religions. In fact, Tulsi’s interfaith and multiracial identity is the true reflection of what the Democratic Party swears by.
The inclusion of Kamala and exclusion of Tulsi has exposed the vulnerability of American democratic and liberal foundations.
Whatever may be the final verdict, it is the Statue of Liberty standing majestically on the river front whose foundations would be shaken.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla