This week the American presidential race has moved on to a new stage, with the Republican convention to formally select a candidate currently being held, and that for the Democrats to take place next week – all in preparation for the presidential election on November 8. It is a truism to say that these processes are of worldwide interest, given the significance of the United States as, in effect, the dominant global power.
After much speculation, the main contender among the Republicans, businessman Donald Trump, selected a running mate for the vice presidency, Governor of Indiana Mike Pence who, unlike Trump himself, has had prior experience in the political life of the country; and the expectation is that the selection of the Democratic vice-presidential candidate will shortly follow suit.
As has been much observed, the Republican Convention is marked by the peculiarity that this is the first time since the nomination of General Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, that a candidate without previous experience in direct participation in party politics has been chosen as a candidate for the top political job in the country. Though Eisenhower, by virtue of his experience in international military activities, and direct continual interaction with senior global political figures during the Second World War, was accepted as having had sufficient political, even though not electioneering, experience to be a viable candidate.
In facing this apparent predicament, Donald Trump has sought to turn the tables on critics emphasizing his political inexperience. He has been insisting that those who have claimed to be viable candidates by virtue of their direct political experience have not, in recent years, indicated that their apparent qualifications have taken the United States on a course that has provided confidence to the American people that their country has been particularly safe and secure in the face of global contentions and threats.
In this connection, therefore, Trump’s campaign has taken two courses. The first has been to insist that recent presidencies have failed to ensure the safety and security of the country, leaving the United States presently in a situation of insecurity. In proceeding in that way, too, he has paid little attention to the criticisms of his opponents, both inside and outside the country, that the apparent insults that he has extended to countries like Mexico, a geographically contiguous country, or to Muslim-dominated countries further afield, have actually been endangering either United States security, or the longstanding empathy towards the US, of those states.
In a similar way, in his domestic campaigning he has been particularly critical of those who have suggested that his direct political experience has been minimal. He has insisted that those who claim to have had, unlike himself, substantial political experience, have not been able either to secure the country from widespread immigration, a factor, in his view, particularly detrimental to the country’s security. And further, he has insisted that they have also not been able to ensure that investment remained in the United States, rather than going to countries, particularly in Asia, that have now, in his view, become substantial economic competitors to the United States.
In relation to his opponents outside of the Republican Party, Trump has taken direct fire at the putative Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Clinton, unlike Trump, has had over the last few months to be vigorously fighting not only Trump, but also her internal contender, Bernie Sanders, a Senator of extensive experience. As such, she has had to be debating, directly or indirectly at different times, allegations about her conduct as American Secretary of State in the first Obama administration, which emanated from both Sanders and Trump, and for the most part, recent criticism from governmental enquiries into her use of private email not approved by the State Department when she was Secretary of State that would appear to have substance.
While the Democratic Party will undoubtedly be putting its full force behind Clinton as its formal candidate, she would seem to be facing a predicament of having to defend the Obama administration which Trump has had little hesitation in attacking. As mentioned earlier, Trump has, in fact, (and this is to be expected) been strongly critical of President Obama’s diplomacy towards various countries, particularly in Asia, but also in Latin America, on the ground that American policies have assisted these countries to be, in particular, economic competitors of the United States.
And now, there can be little doubt that Trump will be using the present contentions relating to police-African American interactions, to support his view that such contentions are threats to domestic security which President Obama has been unable to inhibit.
As the campaign moves to its more formal stage of direct preparation for voting for the two nominated candidates, we are left to see how the Democratic, or Clintonian approach to campaigning will be aimed at responding to Trump’s strategy so far. Next week’s Democratic Convention should give us some clues.
