America 2024: The election that will end the ‘undecided voter’ lie

The Democratic National Convention ended last week, weeks after the Republican National Convention concluded. To many observers, neither of the two conventions brought any surprises, even after the Democrats’ candidate, President Joe Biden, withdrew from the race and the vast majority of his delegates shifted their support to Vice President Kamala Harris. Indeed, the DNC amounted to little more than a coronation of Harris, with figures endorsing her as the candidate to win the party’s battle against the Republican nominee, former US President Donald Trump, in November.

No reasonable analyst can disagree, after both conventions concluded, with the claim that the American electorate has never had to choose between such starkly different candidates.

The contrast between the two parties, their candidates, platforms, broad values, political cultures and ethical standards has never been as overwhelmingly clear as it is now. This extreme divergence is evident in everything from the speeches of party figures at the two conventions to the positions both parties’ supporters share on social media.

This should be enough to dispel the lie of undecided voters.

Indeed, if any voter remains confused or undecided, despite everything they heard and saw in Milwaukee and Chicago, then they quite frankly do not deserve the privilege of exercising their right to vote in an election that determines who will become the most powerful leader in the world.

Throughout my life, I have learned a great deal about the pivotal historical moments that have redefined the identities of the two major American parties.

I learned about the Democrats’ rural base in the so-called Cotton Belt and Tobacco Belt of the Southern states, where owners of large agricultural estates relied on the cheap labor of slaves brought to the country from Africa. On the other hand, industrial, financial and scientific revolutions in the cities of the north and northeast produced one Republican leader after another, elite after elite, who were unequivocal about their conviction that a strong central state serves the national interest.

This America underwent decisive turning points that redefined the two parties’ political identities, beginning with the American Civil War (1861-1865), which the federal government of Republican President Abraham Lincoln waged against insurrectionist Southern states that sought to perpetuate slavery under the guise of states’ rights within a federal polity — the fundamental premise of Southern Democrats’ argument for secession.

The contrast between the two parties and their candidates has never been as overwhelmingly clear as it is now

Eyad Abu Shakra

This war highlighted, in blood and arms, the difference between the Republican notion of a strong central government and its legitimacy and the Democrats’ prioritization of states’ rights. After the Southern secessionists, led by conservative Democrats, were defeated, Republican support in the Southern states continued to wane until the mid-20th century.

This period witnessed the First and Second World Wars, as well as the Great Depression (1929-1939), which spurred the “New Deal” that crystallized a new approach to the economy that incorporated limited state intervention. Following the New Deal, the intensification of the Cold War in the 1950s and the emergence of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, a geographical, political and ideological realignment reshaped the two parties.

The conservative Southern Democrats gradually dissipated as the Democratic Party transformed into a centrist, liberal and anti-racist party that was broadly supported by minorities and people of color, and whose voters were concentrated primarily in cities, particularly in the north and west.

Conversely, the Republican Party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, the presence of “liberal” Republicans in the northern states has diminished, except in rural areas and the Rust Belt (where unskilled labor unemployment is prevalent). The Republicans are now the party of the white Christian right, with its economic, social, racial and religious conservatism allowing it to dominate the Southern states.

The conventions in Milwaukee and Chicago left this matter beyond doubt. Trump accused his Democratic opponent of being a dangerous “communist,” while 40 out of the 44 key figures from Trump’s previous administration, including his Vice President Mike Pence, did not attend the Republican convention, laying the political contradictions bare.

There is no longer any ambiguity and there is certainly no justification for confusion or indecision.

• Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat. X: @eyad1949. This article first appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat.