This week, the ruling Democratic Party of the oil-rich North American republic of the United States, one of the world’s largest banana exporters, held a convention in Chicago, the country’s third-largest city, to nominate its candidate for the presidential election due in November. The convention comes months after ageing ruler Joe Biden, who heads the country’s internationally recognized regime, was forced to drop out of the race following a disastrous debate with opposition leader and former President Donald Trump, who is three years his junior.
Biden’s attempts to stay in power despite his growing unpopularity had raised concerns among many in the ruling party that the white Christian Orthodox opposition – which already controls the House of Representatives and has packed the Supreme Court with hardline religious extremists – could regain control of the country and pass draconian laws that would further restrict the rights of women and non-white asylum seekers.
Biden, who is white, has already named his vice president, Kamala Harris, who is Black, as his preferred successor to lead the former British colony, which is riven by ancient ethnic and racial hatreds. It was therefore a foregone conclusion that she would win the nomination. Still, the convention offered Harris an opportunity to win back the support of groups Biden had alienated, including those who oppose Israel’s policy of arming the extremist regime in Israel that is carrying out a brutal genocide in Gaza. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been designated a terrorist by Pakistan and indicted by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.)
With international media spotlighting the convention, the regime was forced to allow protests by hundreds of anti-genocide activists demanding an arms embargo on Israel. However, protesters were confined to certain areas outside the convention grounds and intimidated by a heavy police presence. Inside the arena, party delegates who unfurled a banner demanding the same thing as Biden’s speech were physically attacked and had their banner confiscated, reminiscent of the violent crackdown on students who set up camps at universities across the country earlier this year to demand divestment from Israel.
In addition, while the conference was the first to recognize that Palestinians have human rights and even allowed a panel to discuss them, ethnic Palestinians were not allowed to speak at the main event, prompting some to stage a sit-in.
But the genocide in Gaza was overshadowed by the panic that Trump might win the election in November, with many party speakers warning that this could destroy the country’s fragile democracy. Once seen as an island of democratic stability in a troubled region, the US is still trying to recover from the contentious and chaotic 2020 presidential election that finally ended Trump’s blood-soaked, four-year reign of error that left hundreds of thousands dead. Many Americans are still traumatized by the storming of parliament, the Capitol, on January 6, 2021, by an extremist mob trying to keep Trump in power. That mob included members of the country’s numerous armed white Christian militias, who were riddled with weapons.
Over the past four years, the Biden regime has implemented few reforms to bolster the credibility of the country’s violence-plagued elections, which are regularly rigged through gerrymandering and voter suppression. This has led to fears of a repeat of the violence after the 2021 election and the resulting political instability, with some even openly talking about civil war.
Americans’ fear of a Trump return to power is so great that even some prominent members of the opposition Republican Party spoke at the convention and pledged their allegiance to Harris and her vice president, Tim Walz. In addition, several former presidents, including the black Barack Obama, as well as other local celebrities, including musicians and television stars, were present to appeal to voters to unite to prevent a Trump presidency.
In addition to concerns about democracy, many have also been keen to downplay the problems facing the heavily indebted country’s economy. These include the fact that inflation is 18 percent higher than when Biden took power, and many weekly household expenses have risen far more. This has led many Americans – nearly 40 million of whom live below the poverty line – to lose faith in the Biden administration, despite his attempts to blame Trump for the economic chaos. The country’s vast inequality and corruption are reflected in the organization of the convention, with donors paying up to five million dollars for a seat in the venue’s luxury suites. The event’s $85 million budget is almost entirely funded by the super-rich and influential big business groups, in what one prominent journalist described as a “pay-to-play” system.
Although Harris, at 59, is two decades older than the median age of the U.S. population, her supporters have sought to portray her nomination as a kind of passing of the torch to a new generation. But it is unclear whether it will fundamentally change the country’s gerontocratic politics, in which the young struggle to break through while the elderly cling to offices well into old age. The median age in the U.S. Senate is over 65, and concerns about aging have plagued several senior politicians even before Biden. In the 2020 election, only half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 voted, though that’s an 11 percent increase from 2016. But the country will need to do more than simply get rid of an octogenarian incumbent if it wants its politicians to reflect the nation’s demographics.
Indeed, in her speech accepting her nomination on Thursday, Harris called the upcoming election a “chance to forge a new path forward” but said little about how her policies would differ from Biden’s. The convention’s theme was “For the People, For Our Future,” but she offered few concrete proposals for cementing democracy, healing the country’s ethnic and racial divides, addressing poverty, police brutality and blatant inequality, and bringing the country into line with international law. Instead, her speech was marked by vague promises and appeals for unity, as well as dire warnings about what would happen if Trump was reelected. She led the crowd in declaring, “We will not go back.”
Throughout the convention, Harris was branded a “joy” candidate and there were attempts to differentiate her program from that of the more authoritarian Trump. But it seems that the political instability and economic uncertainty that have rocked the crisis-ridden country will continue regardless of who wins in November.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
