US Election: Toxic Division

The United States election once again demonstrates all the things that don’t help in fighting against Trump. Anyone who responds to his lies is already falling into a trap. A sociocultural battle is taking place in a deeply divided country.

There is something agonizing about the extreme tension before the election in the United States. Many Germans are sighing too, these days: Why does everything come down to the wire? Kamala Harris, who started radiantly, has fallen into the twilight of new doubt, even among her own ranks. Did she talk a few too many times about abortion instead of economic issues? Did she herself contribute to the phenomenon that mainly young men with a lower education level have recently quietly flocked to Donald Trump’s camp?

In any case, all the things that don’t help in fighting Trump have been proven once again. Anyone who responds to his lies and intends to refute him with a grand gesture is already falling into a trap. Trump’s statements unfortunately have an effect in the bubble of his fans, even when they are not true.

When Trump spoke of immigrants who are eating the cats and dogs of locals, many believed that he had now permanently disgraced himself. But such fact-based thinking is found only in one half of America. In the other, where fiction or truth is not so important, vague messages to the subconscious are enough to influence moods. Trump’s — likewise false — accusation that the government had too little left for American flood victims in North Carolina “after it paid billions to foreigners,” also resonated here.*

How do you overcome such a machine of lies? Signaling to the center has helped Democrats: down-to-earth Tim Walz’s selection as a vice presidential candidate, Harris’ 80-page plan for tax relief for young families, which is available to download, appearances by Republicans turned Harris fans.

Harris and her aides have done many things right, but not everything. All too often they have criticized the isolation of the Trump camp — without realizing their own. What good does a debate on fascism between bright minds from liberal coastal regions do if people from rural areas respond that shopping at the supermarket was much cheaper under Trump?

A majority of educated Americans recognize that inflation after the pandemic was an international phenomenon — and that the United States has reenergized its economy better than all other G7 countries since then. Among white voters with a college degree, Harris currently leads Trump by 18 points. Joe Biden was ahead by nine points with this group in 2020 and Hillary Clinton by five points in 2016. These numbers are giving Democrats hope for the final mile.

At the same time, they mark another dividing line. Educated and uneducated people are living increasingly apart politically; the same goes for people living in urban and rural regions. But above all, men and women are voting differently than ever in this election. One poll showed a 53-36 majority for Harris among women and a 53-37 majority for Trump among men. This striking difference recently increased even more — as did the uncertainty of polling, which emphasizes the unpredictable factors of this election.

There is a colossal sociocultural battle in which both sides are deploying everything they can muster mathematically. Democrats must not misjudge the toxicity of it: Battles along identity lines — origin, gender, education — will exacerbate all the fissures of American society beyond Election Day. Political opinions can change; identities cannot. Harris, if she’s lucky, will become president of the never more deeply divided states of America**.

*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.

**Editor’s Note: Donald Trump was elected president for a second term on Nov. 5, 2024.