‘As an American, I have a vote, and as a journalist, I have an opinion’

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL October 21, 2024
kamala-and-trump.jpg

A dear friend in India sent me a note the other day asking if I thought Kamala Harris had “got trapped in her own image”. I guess they asked because as an American, I have a vote, and as a journalist, I have an opinion (lots of them, in fact).

My friend, who is very polite, apologetically added, that the algorithms were pushing stuff that suggested Ms Harris’s campaign was no longer sufficiently different from the Democratic nominee originally at the top of the ticket.

That would be Joe Biden.

I wonder where the algorithms got the idea that Ms Harris is no longer very different from President Biden! If anything, as the campaign has accelerated towards the November 5 end point, she has diverged even more on policies and priorities with the man she served as vice-president for four years.

But my friend’s question made me think about all that we, the media, were doing (or rather not doing) despite having promised ourselves in 2016 that we would be wiser, more savvy and more truthful about the US election. In 2016, we promised ourselves we would be more capable of distinguishing between real news and propaganda.

But still, in August 2023, coverage of Mr Trump’s trials were presented as stories about the man rather than as stories about the rule of law. (Click here for a blog I wrote from back then.)

Better still, go to this fantastic, clear-eyed piece by Jonathan M. Katz. It explains the puzzling disinclination of America’s paper of record, The New York Times, to say the difficult things that need to be said about Donald Trump’s abnormal words, instincts, public promises and behaviour.

Finally, for those interested in my response to my friend’s question, I give it to you in full, below. What would you say, if asked the same thing, Dear Reader?

“I’m not convinced that our tribe – journalists – are fully engaged with all sections of American opinion or are drawing the right conclusions. This is not to say that I’m the ultimate guru who should be giving gyan. Nor is it realistic to expect a full and detailed accounting of voters’ propensities. That’s why opinion polls use samples.

However, my sense is that we, the media, are so afraid that we’ll be wrong again (a la 2016) that we’re drawing the wrong conclusions from what we see in an attempt to over-correct. Yes, Trump is outrageous and makes the news but he shouldn’t be making as much news as he is – and he wouldn’t be (making as much news) if the media were not still fascinated by the gross audacity of this man!

So, where is he at?

Obviously, we know from the 2022 study published by the University of California-Davis’s Violence Prevention Research Program  that self-identified  MAGA Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020 and agreed strongly or very strongly with the statement that ‘the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president’ are estimated as 33.6% of all Republicans and 15% of the adult population of the US.  In real terms that equals the base level of support for Nixon, even after Watergate (incredibly, he retained roughly 20% support even as he resigned!)

I would hope Americans have the good sense to choose Kamala ji and I think we (the media) don’t account enough for basic American shared values – that’s why, despite the famous “polarisation…deeply divided”, you go to America and you can hardly believe that people aren’t killing each other and that peace and civility reigns instead in small towns and neighbourhoods and big cities too.

So, a long way of saying, fingers crossed.

Lotsalov

Rashmee”

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