The much anticipated U.S. presidential election debate face-off between Vice President Kamala Harris (Democrat) and former President Donald Trump (Republican) finally held on Tuesday, 10th September, 2024 at 9.00pm EST (2.00AM , Wednesday, September 11, Nigerian time) It was to be a make or break encounter but it turned out a substantially subdued, cautious jousting.
The lavish laughter that had been Kamala Harris’ trademark on the campaign trail took a leave absence on Tuesday night. Apparently, she realized it was not a laughing matter, a presidential debate is not the same as giving titillating addresses to partisan crowds at campaign rallies. And it was a wary Trump that mounted the debate rostrum, no tantrums, his trademark aggressive disposition subdued , seemingly conscious that vibrant, energetic Kamala is not the ‘sleepy’ Joe Biden he knocked out in the earlier debate. Rather, he was the one that risked being knocked out by Kamala, the courtroom prosecutor from Oakland, California.
In a way, the Trump-Harris match up is a Coast-to-Coast encounter, New Yorker Trump from the Atlantic east coast versus Californian Kamala on the Pacific west coast. Incidentally, I visited Nigerian boxer, Bash Ali, later World Cruiserweight champion, in Oakland in 1980, after watching that year’s Presidential election debate between candidate Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter in nearby San Francisco, famous for its Fisherman’s Wharf and having the most crooked cobbled street in the world!
The Trump-Harris debate centred mainly on four issues — the economy, immigration, abortion, and foreign policy. On the economy, Trump indicated he handed over a healthy economy with low inflation but that the Biden/Harris presidency has brought the highest inflation rate on the country, an assertion that Harris only parried. Trump also warned that a Harris presidency will continue the Biden policy of making America a dumping ground for products from other countries, citing motor vehicle plants being established in some South American countries but which he said were targeted at the American market, the implication being loss of jobs for Americans. Harris did not respond to this, apparently because it is part of the Democrat’s liberal economic policy of building friendship with nations by accommodating their exports , even if at the expense of American business interests.
On immigration, Trump charged Biden/Harris administration of allowing millions of illegal immigrants he described as criminals, rapists, and drug dealers , to swarm the U.S., endangering the security and way of life of Americans. Trump declared that America will be lost with the influx of millions of illegal immigrants, adding a comic aspect when he noted : In Springfield, Ohio, the immigrants are eating the dogs and pets of the people. He vowed that if elected, he will limit the flow of immigrants to protect American jobs , ensure public safety and guarantee American way of life.
On abortion, Harris highlighted the need for women to be free to take decisions on their health, what she described as reproductive freedom, and that women should be able to get abortion easily, especially in cases of rape and incest. She accused Trump of endangering women’s lives with his position of a ban on abortion, an assertion Trump disputed by indicating that it was abortion at late pregnancy – 8th, 9th month that he objected to . While Harris harped on freedom of choice on abortion for women at the debate, she conveniently skipped her other frenetic advocacy – the rights of gays, lesbians and transgender people, perhaps not to alienate some voters.
But at her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 23, 2024 as presidential candidate of the Democratic party, Kamala Harris had expansively and enthusiastically celebrated the rights of gay and lesbian people to love whoever they like and to flaunt it without inhibition. This should be a red flag for Africa considering that successive Democratic administrations in the U.S. have continuously pressured African countries to endorse these deviant sexual orientations and same sex marriage and threaten African countries with anti-gay laws, including Nigeria and Uganda, with sanctions if such laws are not repealed!!! Gay evangelism is one of the dubious legacies of President Barack Obama in Africa. The other is the Arab Spring that swept away the leadership of North African countries, including the killing of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.
It was in the segment on democracy and foreign policy that the debate got animated. On democracy, Harris highlighted the storming of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2020 by pro-Trump supporters as proof of Trump being anti-democracy, warning that a second coming of Trump to The White House may be the end of democracy in America. The male anchor of the debate joined Kamala to pin Trump down to accept responsibility for the January 6 Capitol Hill storming. After twice failing to get Trump to accept responsibility, the anchor came on once again: I want to ask again, do you regret your action on January 6, 2020 ? Trump, again, parried : I wasn’t responsible. I am not in charge of security. The Mayor of Washington failed in his job to provide security.
Kamala Harris accused Trump of hobnobbing with dictators like President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Kim Jong Un of North Korea while willing to abandon America’s traditional allies in Europe/NATO and other countries. She further accused Trump of being unenthusiastic in promoting and defending democracy abroad. As president, she affirmed her readiness to stand up to dictators, that she was in Ukraine just before the Russia-Ukraine war broke out and assured President Zelensky of Ukraine of American support and accused President Trump of committing diplomatic sacrilege by bringing Afghanistan’s Taliban to Camp David to negotiate peace to end America’s war in that country. In response, Trump had noted that if he had been the president, he would have prevented the Russia-Ukraine war by talking to both parties unlike Harris who went to Ukraine and Europe to fan the flame of war, noting that millions are being killed or displaced and that President Biden is not inclined to end the war.
On Afghanistan, Trump explained that he inherited the war but negotiated with the Taliban to stop the killings of Americans; “The Talibans were killing our soldiers. I got involved. We negotiated (America’s withdrawal) and the killing of American soldiers stopped”. Although Kamala admitted the war in Afghanistan was going badly for America in spite of spending $300 million daily, she insisted that “Trump negotiated a bad deal “apparently to justify the chaotic and humiliating withdrawal from Kabul implemented by the Biden administration.
On Europe and NATO, Trump had re-stated his position that Europe must contribute more financially to NATO, and stressed : I tell Europe to pay for NATO protection , and not leave the burden of its protection to America. Kamala Harris’s counter was to the effect that as allies, America will continue to carry the financial burden of NATO, adding: we cannot abandon our friends. Harris projected that America will continue to defend friendly countries , whatever it takes, in its drive to promote democracy. This disposition is indicative of a Kamala Harris as an Evangelist of Democracy, ready to go to war for its propagation. It is instructive that America nearly succeeded, but for massive anti-war public opinion, in goading President Bola Tinubu, as chairman of ECOWAS, to go to war against Niger Republic to restore democracy following a military coup in that country.
ECOWAS had given the Niger junta a 7-day ultimatum to restore President Bazoum or face military invasion by ECOWWAS. It did not occur to impulsive Tinubu that the same America instigated a coup against a democratically elected government in Egypt in 2011 with then President Mohammed Morsi dying in captivity while the coup plotter, Gen al-Sisi remains Egyptian president till today. The gung-ho attitude displayed by Kamala Harris at the debate is symptomatic of a warrior for democracy and against any country not in America’s good book. We need to be reminded that for past 32 years, since 1992, every American president had fought a war somewhere in the world, except former President Donald Trump.
Trump’s world view of live and let live disposition, first enunciated in his 2016 presidential campaign was again projected during the September 10 debate. Harris, on the other hand, is following in the Democrats’ war agenda as symbolized by her principal, President Joe Biden. ‘’Sleepy’’ Joe, it would seem, only comes awake when edging a Zelensky on in his suicidal war with Russia, and while condoning Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
The September 10, 2024 U.S.. Presidential Election Debate has shown Americans and the world a snippet of the characters of the two contestants for the most powerful office in the world. While the final decision of who goes to The White House lies with American voters, the world can take a cue from the debate to proactively formulate a relational engagement with either a Trump Presidency or a Harris Presidency .
- Dr. Bisi Olawunmi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Adeleke University, Ede, is a former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria. Email: [email protected] Phone (SMS ONLY) 0803 364 7571.
