When Americans go to the polls on November 5, they will be choosing their favourite candidate in a truly historic election. It is so historic that it is nearly impossible for us to ever see one more like it in our lifetimes.
Until the 2008 election cycle, American presidential elections have involved two white men competing for the top job since George Washington took office in 1789. The 2008 election became historic when Barack Obama won the presidency, the first Black man ever to do so. The 2016 election became historic because the first woman candidate, Hillary Clinton, came very close to winning. But she lost to Donald Trump, who, as a businessman, had never run for political office.
While all the above facts are interesting for a history buff, this year's elections are no comparison for anyone keeping score of firsts.
Kamala Harris is the first Black woman to be on a major party ticket. Kamala and her sister Maya were born in Oakland, California, to a biracial couple: Shyamala Gopalan, a Tamil Brahmin woman who was a distinguished cancer researcher, and Donald Harris, a Jamaican man who continues to serve as an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford. As is the American custom, the children took the father's last name, and Kamala's full name became Kamala Harris.
When the parents divorced, the father lost custody of the children in court. Kamala was five years old. The mother raised the children first in California and later in Canada. But Kamala kept her father's last name. When she ran for the United States Senate from California in 2016 (the equivalent of running for the Rajya Sabha, although in America, members of the Upper House are elected by popular vote as though it is a Lok Sabha election), she conveniently identified herself as Asian American.
California has a large and wealthy ethnic Indian population, which contributed heavily to her campaign. She won as the first Asian American woman ever to go to the Senate.
Once in the Senate, Kamala began identifying herself as Black, although she had never lived in a traditional Black family nor experienced any of a typical Black family's problems. It was a clever move on her part because Blacks have been underrepresented in American politics for 250 years. In doing so, she became the second-ever Black woman in the Senate. [The first traditional Black woman was Carol Moseley Braun (Illinois), who served from 1993 to 1999].
In 2020, Kamala entered the Democratic primary race to become the party's nominee to take on then-President Donald Trump, running as a Black woman, but she lost so badly that she dropped out of the contest before winning a single vote. When the eventual nominee, Joe Biden, was looking for a Vice President, he chose Kamala Harris to make history. When they won, Kamala Harris had become the first Black woman to become Vice President of the United States, in a fantastic ascent to political power.
Joe Biden dropped out of the race but continues to serve as President. Until June 27, 2024, the world assumed that Biden and Harris would go up against Trump and Vance in November. Biden had again run in the Democratic primaries and, for four months, campaigned across the country, winning more than 98% of the delegates. His nomination was assured.
But, in a presidential debate between Biden and Trump, Biden appeared clueless most of the time, blabbering away incoherently. Democratic Party leaders quickly acted. They forced him to announce that he would drop out of the race. It was the first time in American history that a party nominee had voluntarily agreed to withdraw from the race.
Then, something even more unbelievable happened. Biden said that he wanted Kamala Harris to be the nominee. In a matter of days, most Democratic leaders had agreed to support her, and in less than a month, she became the Democratic party nominee. It was the first time in American history that party leaders had selected a nominee. It was the first time in American history that someone who had never won a single vote or delegate, going back to 2020, had suddenly become a major party nominee.
If Trump becomes President again, he will be making history, not since 1892. Trump was president from 2017-2021. Then Biden took over. Now, Trump is on the cusp of winning again. If he does, he would be making history, not since 1892. Only one former president has returned to win non-consecutive terms — Grover Cleveland in 1892. Cleveland won the presidency for the first time in 1884, lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and came back to win the presidency again in 1892. It is unlikely we will ever see this feat repeated in our lifetimes.
Trump has been shot at, not once, but twice. While Trump is extraordinarily popular with his base, many Americans, including several world leaders, do not like him. They think he is too harsh with his words, is racist, and a threat to democracy because of his actions on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the parliament, although Trump never advocated for violence. Trump, at the time, was protesting that the 2020 election results, which certified that Biden and Harris had won, were fraudulent.
As a former president, Trump is guaranteed Secret Service protection for life. Thanks to that Z-level security protection, Trump narrowly escaped being killed by an assassin's bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was speaking at a political rally and looked to the right to read from a chart on a big screen. At that instant, shots rang out when a young man fired his AK-47 assault weapon.
A Secret Service sniper heard the shots and took the shooter out in under five seconds, killing him from over 400 yards in what has been described as a perfect shot. During those five seconds, bullets were flying all over Trump's head, although other Secret Service personnel had surrounded him, risking their lives, and had brought him to the floor. The last time anyone tried to shoot someone who had occupied the White House was on March 30, 1981, when then-President Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt by John Hinckley. Reagan survived the attack.
As though one assassination attempt wasn't enough to make history, another shooter, Ryan Routh, an ardent Ukrainian supporter, waited for more than 12 hours with an assault weapon by the tree line of Trump's golf course in Florida. As Trump was playing, a Secret Service agent doing a security sweep a hole ahead spotted the barrel of a rifle pointing in the agent's direction. The agent fired, the shooter fled, and was later caught in a chase. Unlike in the previous attempt, the shooter had not yet fired on Trump.
No matter who wins on November 5, they would have made history. These are fascinating times.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of ETV Bharat)
