2024-08-31 10:57:15
The US presidential election is two months away, but the campaign has gained new momentum in recent weeks. Sally Painter, co-founder of the consulting firm Blue Star Strategies and former adviser to ex-president Bill Clinton, believes that the arrival of Kamala Harris changed everything. She said this in Prague at the Globsec international security conference, where other experts also spoke about the situation in the USA.
President Petr Pavel and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also spoke at the conference, which is being held in Prague for the first time this year. The three-day event will last until Sunday.
Painter explained during one of the panels on Friday that she thinks Harris has a strong chance to succeed. According to her, surveys in key states already clearly show this.
Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO and special envoy for Ukraine under former President Donald Trump’s administration, agrees with Painter. According to him, the candidate for the Democratic Party and former vice president of Biden, Harris, has completely changed the rules of the campaign. However, she does not think that she is certain of victory. She is only at the beginning of the campaign, and her Republican rival Trump is still figuring out how best to attack her, he believes.
Trump is known for calling his political opponents nicknames and targeting them. For him, Biden was “sleepy Joe”, his former opponent from 2016, Hillary Clinton, was “crooked Hillary”. Trump’s attacks on Harris, who replaced Joe Biden on the nomination after he stepped down last month, have so far resembled a fiasco, according to Volker.
For example, he mentions Trump’s claim that Harris is only now emphasizing her black roots because of the presidential election. At the same time, she has proudly claimed her ethnic identity all her life, and even attended a historically black university.
Trump is wanted
“Trump has not yet found solid ground under his feet. Personal attacks, especially on the basis of skin color, will not work on most Americans and are uncomfortable for them,” believes the former diplomat.
For example, he himself called on Trump’s rival Nikki Haley in the primaries to speak out against the former president’s sexist comments and show that they are not funny. According to him, Trump should focus more on the economy, which is a key issue for voters, in his campaign.
Although the economic situation has improved under the Biden administration, Americans are still troubled by high prices. “Harris will have to show that she has nothing in common with Biden in this regard to convince the voters,” emphasizes Volker.
Painter, on the other hand, claims that the economic situation in the United States is very good, and Harris just needs to be able to sell it better. Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, also believes in the current vice president. “From the first moment when Biden announced that he was supporting Harris, I believed in her. In the beginning, people thought I was crazy, but now they see that it is so. Kamala Harris will win the election,” he is convinced.
Hatred and pessimism are not enough
According to him, Trump lacks any positive message. “You’re not going to win on hate and pessimism about the United States going downhill,” he thinks. “Especially not now, when the American economy is doing well and when we are militarily the strongest,” he says.
If Trump ultimately wins, Heilbrunn says he would only change that trajectory dramatically. Although he sees the ex-president as a threat to democracy, he calls on American allies not to take him too seriously and make him stronger than he actually is.
Experts agree that the result of the November election will be close and will be decided by who attracts more independent voters. Harris is being recorded by more and more registered voters from ethnic minorities, while Trump is succeeding in mobilizing those who are dissatisfied with politics and would otherwise not go to the polls.
However, the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs think tank Ivo Daalder emphasizes that the result will be crucial. “This is one of the most important elections since 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected and shortly after the Civil War began,” he says. According to him, Democratic and Republican voters have completely different visions of the United States and the world, and November will show which of them will dominate the next four years.
Video: Trump criticizes Harris for her laugh (29/08/2024)
Trump criticizes Harris for her laugh | Video: Associated Press