As is so often the case in the  strum und drang of pol­i­tics, the cry that the U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is about the “future of democ­ra­cy” per­verse­ly both empha­sis­es and hides anoth­er seri­ous mat­ter; a nation­al iden­ti­ty crisis.

For a sig­nif­i­cant seg­ment of MAGA-world denizens, racist and misog­y­nis­tic slurs pass for wit and wisdom.
Don­ald Trump saw it as a cam­paign plus to tell a group of Black jour­nal­ists “I didn’t know she (Kamala Har­ris) was Black until a num­ber of years ago when she hap­pened to turn Black. So I don’t know,  Indi­an or is she Black?”
In a world where job appli­ca­tions, sur­veys, gov­ern­ment forms and I know not what else pro­vide an ever-grow­ing list of  “gen­der iden­ti­ty” options, which West­ern soci­eties are  being encour­aged (nay ordered  by some “activists”) to allow one to change on a dai­ly basis, what dif­fer­ence does racial iden­ti­ty make?
As far as I know, gen­der, eth­nic­i­ty and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion have no bear­ing on intel­li­gence, char­ac­ter, hon­esty, gen­eros­i­ty, man­ners, tol­er­ance or any­thing else that mat­ters in assess­ing a person’s worth as a human being.
Why is it that a per­son of mixed black and white her­itage must inevitably and only opt to be black?
That Har­ris would be the first female pres­i­dent is sig­nif­i­cant, but needs to be seen in the con­text that she would not be the first female head of state in the world.
While (some) Amer­i­cans might ask why it took so long for them to catch up, in the end it’s real­ly just an affir­ma­tion of the quote by Ann Richards, the sec­ond female gov­er­nor of Texas: “Gin­ger Rogers did every­thing Fred Astaire did. She just did it back­wards in high heels”.
To gild the lily on that: Mar­jorie Tay­lor-Greene, and sev­er­al of her Repub­li­can cohorts aren’t clue­less mere­ly because they’re white females. They’re demon­stra­bly, incon­tro­vert­ibly crass, clue­less human beings.

                COUNTER MEASURES

Demo­c­rat oper­a­tives might view the almost inevitable knee ‑jerk, rote ref­er­ences to Harris’s black and Asian eth­nic back­ground as an elec­tabil­i­ty plus. But U.S. pol­i­tics need less empha­sis on that and a lot more on lead­er­ship encom­pass­ing com­pe­tence, intel­li­gence and decency.
Treat­ing slurs that she is a “DEI” (Diver­si­ty Eth­nic­i­ty Iden­ti­ty) can­di­date choice with dis­dain, coun­ter­ing florid rhetoric with facts, bal­ly­hoo and bom­bast with rea­soned argument,and ver­i­fi­able acts, vit­ri­ol with humour, deri­sion and class will dri­ve Harris’s oppo­nent to distraction.
Words like “gal­vanised” and “spec­tac­u­lar trans­for­ma­tion”, floods of cam­paign cash com­pli­ment­ed by “an out­pour­ing of vol­un­teer ener­gy, a rebound in the polls” are all use­ful ways to help put the oppo­si­tion off-kil­ter, but as an indi­ca­tor of poten­tial if not immi­nent vic­to­ry for Har­ris, they hov­er dan­ger­ous­ly on the edge of delusional.
It’s made all the more dif­fi­cult to over­come by Trump’s almost patho­log­i­cal fas­ci­na­tion with the term “fas­cist”.
His “base” seems bliss­ful­ly unaware that cheer­ing for Trump’s promise: “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote” is iden­ti­fy­ing with fas­cist-style ideology.
In author­i­tar­i­an states 99,9% per­cent of the votes will go to the ego already in charge, no mat­ter how many oppo­si­tion can­di­dates are on the bal­lot paper, or who turns up at the polling stations.
Per­haps as a cam­paign gim­mick the Democ­rats could hand out free Mer­ri­am-Web­ster dic­tio­nar­ies, with the def­i­n­i­tion of fas­cism book­marked and high­light­ed: “Fas­cism: a polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, move­ment, or regime…that exalts nation and often race above the indi­vid­ual and that stands for a cen­tral­ized auto­cratic gov­ern­ment head­ed by a dic­ta­to­r­i­al leader, severe eco­nom­ic and social reg­i­men­ta­tion, and forcible sup­pres­sion of opposition”.
Copy Num­ber 1 could go to J.D. Vance who, being in thrall to the man he once equat­ed as the equiv­a­lent of Hitler, would seem to have an iden­ti­ty cri­sis that requires pro­fes­sion­al help.

          AS FOR WHAT IT ADDS UP TO

What­ev­er peo­ple tell poll­sters or shout in pub­lic, truth abides in the cur­tained secre­cy where a pen or an elec­tron­ic device marks their real choice.
The best sum­ma­tion of that I know is from – of all places – the very unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic days of apartheid-era South Africa.
Eng­lish speak­ers were gen­er­al­ly lumped as being more benign than Afrikan­ers when it came to belief in a more equi­table soci­ety (although not nec­es­sar­i­ly total racial equal­i­ty). The Pro­gres­sive Fed­er­al Par­ty (the “Progs”) were the local equiv­a­lent of lib­er­als. The Unit­ed Par­ty, (the “UP”) was  kin to cen­trist U.S. Democ­rats (with­out the num­bers). Pow­er was firm­ly held by the Afrikan­er-dom­i­nat­ed Nation­al Par­ty (the “Nats”) which invent­ed apartheid and held the reigns of pow­er that main­tained it.
When it came to vot­ing, how­ev­er, the say­ing was that Eng­lish speak­ers “talk Prog, vote UP and thank God for the Nats”.
That “iden­ti­ty cri­sis” was even­tu­al­ly resolved at the bal­lot box.
To get over the Amer­i­can one, it seems Kamala Har­ris will have  to come up with a “one size fits all” identity.

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