White Knuckle Ride: The Election Edition
White Knuckle Ride: The Election Edition
Tuesday's vote is more than just about who becomes POTUS
Happy birthday Minh-Thu!
Happy Diwali! ✨
And good luck to all the NYC marathon runners, including my sister! 🏃🏻♀️
I want to believe James Carville when he says that Kamala Harris has it in the bag. Ditto Allan Lichtman, who has called Tuesday’s matchup for Harris — and has successfully predicted the winner of the US presidential race since 1984. (Well, sort of). And Selena Wisnom, whose sheep’s liver predicts a Trump loss.
But I am a woman in America.
Being a woman anywhere is a challenge. Regardless of geography, worldwide women continue to earn less than men, have fewer legal rights, hold less power, and, in far too many instances, face violence.
In the US, women still earn only 84 cents for every dollar a man does for the same job. While female representation has increased over the past several decades, it makes up only slightly more than a quarter in Congress and state legislatures. The highest office a woman has reached in the US is the vice presidency. We have never had a president who is a woman, despite being the most “advanced” country in the world. (Sixty countries have had a woman as a head of state.)
In 2016, the world watched the more competent and capable Hillary Clinton concede to Donald Trump, even though she won the popular vote. It is possible that Harris will meet the same fate, in a dead heat competition. It is possible she will win.
A Harris win, however, will not necessarily mean Trump has lost. Trump’s presence on the political stage for nearly the past decade has been a setback in considerable ways.
For women, reproductive rights are the most apparent. Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court. In 2022, that court overturned Roe v. Wade, setting off abortion bans in 13 states. Since then, an Alabama judge has ruled that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. IVF is now banned there and the GOP blocked legislation that would have protected IVF nationwide.
More broadly, Trump has impacted American policy, at home and across the globe. The Economist notes, “no matter who wins…Donald Trump has redefined both parties’ agendas.” He and his toxic masculinity have moved the Democrats and Kamala Harris to adopt more “Trumpian” positions — positions that run counter not only to women’s rights but progress.
Trump’s vituperative rhetoric “otherizing” migrants and minorities have made immigration a bogeyman and pushed the Democrats, including Harris, to back a “tough” border policy that restricts asylum applicants and turning them away.
Trump’s claims about “anti-white” racism along with another Supreme Court decision that struck down racial quotas in college admissions, turned DEI into “woke” kryptonite. Diversity at a number of higher educational institutions is down. Elevating women and people of color to key leadership positions has become something to forgo. Keep ‘em down.
Since the end of July, when she hit the campaign trail, Kamala Harris has avoided focusing on her gender or mixed-race heritage. She, as Jessica Bennett writes, “aspires to be the first postgender POTUS,” noting that many Americans “loathe” assessing candidates “through the lens of gender and race.”
The unfortunate reality is that many Americans are loathed precisely because of their gender and race. That has been a through line throughout US history — along with efforts to marginalize and oppress them. That certainly sums up the Trump campaign. Sadly, it also explains the robust male support it has.
Tuesday’s election is more than just about who will become president. It’s about who gets a say and who gets to participate in the next four years. Trump has already infected a number of Harris’s positions and has sowed mistrust and doubt across the country. If elected, Harris will have to work to heal the country and to steel herself from the attacks and forces out to tear her and what she represents down. If she loses, that burden will fall back on those she represents, who are well versed with being on the ropes. The fight will go on.
It will be a white knuckle ride not just til Tuesday, but for the next four years.— Elmira
I’m opening up my column to others. Please pitch me your op-ed idea/perspective. Let’s get more female perspectives. Email me on endeavoringe@gmail.com or respond to this post.
Elsewhere in the World.....
On our radar...
The US election and the world
While Americans brace for Tuesday, so, too, do many others across the globe. What does America’s vote mean for the rest of the world?
Foreign Policy recorded a series of podcasts this week, with experts from various regions:
On the Middle East with Sanam Vakil and Steven Cook, who note that Harris and Trump are not far apart when it comes to US policy in the region.
On Europe, the two candidates are most definitely at odds, as Nathalie Tocci and Mark Leonard point out, which will have big implications for Ukraine’s war with Russia and Europe itself.
Africa has long been a place that US presidents neglect. Harris has recently said she would “upgrade” US relations with the continent. Zainab Usman and Martin Kimani discuss how the next US president should handle this large, young, and diverse region.
On Latin America, Catherine Osborn and Moisés Naím discuss US relations with its southern neighbors.
On Asia, Lynn Kuok and Ryan Hass consider America’s global power competition with China and its impact on Asia.
What does the outcome of the US election mean for the many global conflicts around the world? Lyse Doucet takes a look. (BBC)
If Harris wins, her gender would have more than just symbolic significance, writes Linda Robinson. (Foreign Affairs)
How’s the isolation of Russia working out? Given the turn out at the BRICS summit in Kazan last week, not well. And that’s something we should worry about, says Lydia Polgreen, noting that the rules-based order could be slipping from the West’s grasp. (NYT)
US
Both the owners Washington Post and the LA Times blocked their editorial boards’ decisions to endorse Kamala Harris — which might not directly impact the impending US election…but could foreshadow its declining democracy, writes Rachel Kleinfeld. (Just Security)
Kamala Harris has embraced calling Donald Trump a fascist, but does that label actually dissuade voters? Susan Glasser discusses. (New Yorker)
Africa
Botswana is Africa’s longest serving democracy and, generally, considered stable. This week’s general elections have everyone on edge however. Shola Lawal lays out what’s at stake, who’s on the ballot, how Botswanans elect their president, and the potential for post-election violence. (Al Jazeera)
An independent UN inquiry report on the civil war in Sudan released this week has found that women face sexual violence and gang rapes, writes Sondos Asem. (Middle East Eye)
Related, that same UN report recommends the “deployment of some form of impartial force to protect civilians.” Yet, UN Secretary General António Guterres has resisted doing so, saying that the conditions in Sudan aren’t right. Maria Luisa Gambale asks, how can we protect civilians? (PassBlue)
Also Guterres, you showed up at Putin’s confab last week? WTF?
Asia
In Japan, voters told the ruling party that they weren’t happy last weekend. For the first time in 15 years, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its outright majority. How will the LDP form a coalition with other parties? Will the prime minister keep his position? Sheila Smith digs in. (CFR)
Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto has a dark and complicated past full of questionable human rights violations. Carolyn Nash explains the ways his past will cloud his presidency. (WPR)
As North Korea deploys soldiers to fight on behalf of Russia in Ukraine, there is growing concern that that conflict is morphing into a global one with what Darcie Draudt-Véjares calls “stark implications for the Korean peninsula.” (Carnegie Europe)
And China is scared of Halloween. Oiwan Lam writes about how Chinese police are cracking down on “weird costumes” and parties. Boo. (Global Voices)
The Americas
Uruguay’s presidential elections are headed to a runoff. Nayara Batschke and Isabel Debre say the stakes are low as both front-runners broadly share the same feelings on continuing the business-friendly policies of the current president. (AP)
LUCKY YOU URUGUAY.#jealous
At the UN, the General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to end the US embargo on Cuba. That included Argentina, which angered Javier Millei, the country’s president. He sacked his foreign minister, Diana Mondino for not siding with the US. Sorry, no link, just the news!
Europe
Election results in Georgia, the country, are being disputed. Last weekend, the country’s election commission announced that the ruling Georgia Dream party, which is aligned with Moscow, won. Opposition parties are contesting the results. Most of the EU and the US have expressed concern about the allegations and have not recognized them. Good ole boy Viktor Orbán was an exception. He landed in Tbilisi to congratulate the ruling party. Tamsin Paternoster outlines four key takeaways. (Euronews)
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, where things are not going well…. Maryna Domushkina recommends that Ukrainian President Zelensky modify his “victory” plan, which she notes is really a plan to deter further Russian advancement, to waning Western support. She encourages Europe to sort out its security posture and keep in mind the danger of allowing Russia to succeed in its efforts to redraw international borders. (ECFR)
Middle East
Israel’s Knesset voted to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from operating in any Israeli territory, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For 70 years UNRWA has assisted Palestinian refugees, delivering much needed aid. Tania Krämer worries for the future of the organization and what this could mean for Palestine. (DW)
Hezbollah named a new leader, Naim Qassem. Nadeen Ebrahim fills us in on who he is and how he’s likely to rule. (CNN)
Narges Mohammadi, jailed Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Laureate, has been hospitalized after months of requests for proper medical care. Yasmeen Serhan clues us in on Mohammadi’s health conditions. (Time)
Science and Climate Change
COP29 is set to take place in Azerbaijan this month, which as Andrea Parson points out is a country that commits serious human rights abuses. COP risks losing all of its legitimacy without clear human rights criteria for host countries. (Inkstick Media)
Spain is facing its deadliest flooding in years, with almost 100 people reported dead and dozens more missing in Valencia. Bethany Bell and Frances Mao with the details. (BBC)
Opportunities
CFR is hiring a Newsletter Editor, in NYC. (Tell ‘em how much you love Interruptrr.)
Foreign Affairs has three vacancies: Deputy Editor, Associate Editor, and Senior Editor.
The White House Fellowship has opened.
In DC, the Korea Economic Institute of America is on the hunt for a Director of Public Opinion and External Affairs.
Editorial Team
Elmira Bayrasli - Editor-in-Chief
Editors:
Catherine Lovizio
Emily Smith