At the Republican’s event in NY, insults rained down on Latinos, Jews and Afro-Americans // The Democrat remains unconvincing in key states
▲ The candidates for the presidency of the United States continue their campaigns, one week before the election. Republican Donald Trump was in Atlanta yesterday, and Democrat Kamala Harris visited Michigan.Photo Ap
David Brooks and Jim Cason
Correspondents
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, October 29, 2024, p. 21
New York and Washington. One week before the elections, the two presidential candidates continued to proclaim that if the other wins it will be the end of the United States; Donald Trump reiterates that radical left is he internal enemy of the country that, with the help of immigrants, is destroying and poisoning the country, while Kamala Harris assures that her opponent is the greatest threat to American democracy in modern history.
Trump’s dark and threatening vision was displayed in full color and volume at his great rally in Madison Square Garden – a venue that is proclaimed as the most famous arena in the world–, where the messages of political revenge, racism and of course the anti-immigrant message that has been marking his campaign were not hidden. The 20,000 attendees and thousands more who stayed outside, around the arena, seemed to enjoy and celebrate the rhetoric that included insults to Latinos, Afro-Americans, Jews and, above all, the opponents.
It was so extreme at times that the Trump campaign tried to cushion the damage, especially for Latinos, whose votes could be key, after the first speaker, a comedian, joked that There is a floating island of garbage in the ocean, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.and another guest commented that Latino immigrants “like to procreate… they don’t take it out after putting it in, just like what they have done to this country.” There were references to elbows to Jews and throw stones to Palestinians. Another speaker suggested that the Democratic candidate was a prostitute managed by her fathers and a friend of the former president described the Democrat as the antichrist. When the star finally arrived showTrump again referred to his message that the greatest threat to this country is the enemy within –has repeated during this final stretch that that enemy is the radical left headed, first, by President Joe Biden and now by the Marxist, communist, fascist Harris and his party. He declared in his chaotic – as always – speech, that his election would mark the liberation day and the end of the invasion of the country by immigrants.
Musk, among the speakers
The lineup of speakers included the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who has invested nearly $120 million of his personal fortune in Trump’s campaign, and Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies when he was president and who is engineering what the tycoon says will be the largest mass deportation in history if he wins the election.
Miller assured the public that Trump is the only one who guarantees that “America “It is for Americans and only Americans.”
But the center of the message is in what is called the misfortune of the economyand it is that issue – from which the anti-immigrant message is also derived – that continues to explain why Trump, with all his history, crimes and scandals, remains tied with Harris. His first question upon reaching the podium was: Are they better now than four years ago?
Vice President Harris, whose campaign was launched just at the end of July (presidential elections usually start more than a year in advance) after replacing her boss on the Democratic ticket, is still not losing, as was the case with Biden, but Nor is he winning in a contest in which the polls continue to register a technical tie at the national level, and even more importantly, in the five and seven states considered key that will determine the final result.
Perhaps the most mysterious thing is that Trump’s economic message is so effective, despite the fact that in the Biden and Harris government, the United States achieved an expeditious recovery from the economic crisis caused by the covid epidemic, reducing unemployment to its lowest levels in recent years and generating the best economy among the countries of the developed world, all nourished by social support programs and massive investments in infrastructure and in promoting the sectors green. It was said that the state of the economy was the most determining factor in a presidential election, almost guaranteeing victory for those in the White House.
But Democrats have failed to convince broad sectors that economic conditions have improved. Yesterday a Politico/Morning Consult poll found that less than 3 in 10 voters believe that Biden and Harris’ economic initiatives and measures have improved their lives and communities. Although the inflation triggered by the economic growth of the recovery has been contained in recent months, Trump and his allies insist that for the majority everything is worse and more expensive than ever.
The popular vote does not win here
For now, Harris and her representatives – like Trump and his people – will continue to focus on encouraging the vote of their bases and possible, although very few, undecided voters in the seven states. keys that will determine the national result. Due to the aberration of a democratic system without a direct vote for president, and where the winner is determined by the so-called electoral college (delegates are awarded by whoever wins each state) and not the popular vote, a national election is reduced to a few states who are no longer in the column of one party or another. In the final stretch of this last week and the remaining week, almost all campaign events take place in: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona. It is possible that only a few thousand in each of those entities will decide the outcome.
And it will be in those states where the greatest electoral conflicts and disputes are expected, although acts of intimidation, even death threats to officials and volunteers, accusations of fraud and the participation of immigrants illegal They have already started. US intelligence agencies have warned local and state police departments that domestic extremists who accept conspiracy theories about electoral fraud promoted by their political adversaries, could trigger violent acts, and who could terrorize and interrupt voting on election day and from there until the inauguration in January. They identify as possible targets candidates and elected politicians, election workers, journalists and judges in electoral disputes, and that the threats include physical violence in polling stations, vote deposits and electoral offices, NBC News reported.
There are already reports of threats against some officials and at the beginning of the week the authorities are investigating a couple of incidents of burning deposits of early voting ballots (some entities open the voting process days before the national election date) in Oregon and the state of Washington.
At the same time, the election is made with low levels of confidence. Almost half (45 percent) of Americans believe that the political system does not work to represent the people; and 76 percent believe that American democracy is under threat, a survey by the New York Times/Siena College issued yesterday.
