Of narratives and narrative settings: How Kamala Harris may not be good news for America, India and the free world

As per modern military theory, wars are no longer won on battlefields; they are won in people’s minds — through narratives and narrative settings. Those managing the US presidential elections seem to be following a similar military manual in the electoral battlefield. In the process, one is witnessing one of the sharpest U-turns made in the history of narrative settings. Not long ago, she was projected as a liability for the party and the government. Today, she is seen to be the only hope for democracy and liberalism.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential pick, is already on the Time magazine cover — a clear indication that she has arrived on the big stage. Explaining how Harris “has pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history”, the magazine writes: “Over the span of a few weeks in late July and early August, Harris became a political phenomenon.”

Harris’ transformation into a “political phenomenon” has been sharp and swift. For, not long back, she was seen as a liability, a failure. Her approval ratings among voters had always been strikingly low. In fact, as per a November 2021 survey by the USA Today, Harris’ public approval rating was as low as 28 per cent, making her one of the least popular vice-presidents in modern history — even lower than the much reviled Dick Cheney, the architect of the Iraq war debacle.

Most of the media houses that are today showering praises on her were extremely critical of her. Harris was openly called names, from being termed “incompetent” and “bully” to a “soul-destroying boss”. Her perceived incompetence was so legendary that Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, warned his colleagues that impeaching Joe Biden meant getting Harris. “The only short-term consequence of a successful impeachment is (Vice President) Kamala Harris (becoming President), and Kamala would be such a total disaster for the country that Biden’s corruption is probably preferable to her incompetence,” Gingrich was reported as saying by the Washington Post.

Her apologists are ready with the excuse: “Oh, but she was not allowed to work. And instead kept her as a showpiece by the Biden administration!”

There’s no denying Vice Presidents are expected to live under the President’s shadow. But Harris had her chances. In fact, he was given the responsibility to handle one of the most pressing issues of the Biden era: Immigration. The number of immigrants from Central American countries into the US had seen a surge during the first year of the Biden presidency. She was asked to address this. It was her failure to deal with the sensitive immigration issue that has given Donald Trump the longest electoral handle to put the government on the mat.

If Harris’ perceived incompetence were not bad enough, there are two other factors that make her presence in the high office both difficult and dangerous — for America and the rest of the world. The first is Harris’ tendency to remain generic on issues of great importance.

Vagueness in her stand — maybe due to the desire to maximise electoral gains and also the result of her innate ‘progressive’ outlook — was apparent recently when a section of Arab-American voters, who were running a campaign to withhold their support for President Biden due to his pro-Israeli stand on Gaza, met with Harris and asked her to consider an arms embargo on Israel. Harris assured the group that her campaign would continue to engage with their concerns. A typical Harris response that left enough room for interpretation! On Kashmir too, she took a similar line when asked about the situation in the Indian Union Territory after the scrapping of Article 370. In October 2019, she said, in her typical generic style, but enough to unsettle people in the Raisina Hill: “We have to remind the Kashmiris that they are not alone in the world. We are keeping track of the situation.”

This generic style of speaking stands in sharp contrast to that of Trump: The former President is unambiguously direct, often in your face, and is never afraid to take a stand. One may or may not agree with Trump, but one knows what he stands for and what is in store if he comes to power. Kamala Harris remains an enigma. Now, that’s a dangerous proposition, especially for someone vying to become the President of the United States.

When one combines this with Harris’ innate ‘progressive’ outlook, the scenario looks grimmer. Her candidacy gives a strong indication that the power apparatus within the Democratic Party is shifting towards the progressive wing, led by people like Bernie Sanders and Ilham Omar. This should raise alarm bells in countries like India and Israel. Sanders had not long ago compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hamas leaders, calling him a “war criminal” and questioning US support for Israel. Similarly, Ilham Omar, who recently urged the “progressives to vote for Harris”, didn’t just boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s joint address to the Congress during his state visit to the US last year, but also introduced a resolution condemning the alleged “religious freedom abuses” in India. Last year, she also visited Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and, as later reports suggested, her visit was sponsored by the Pakistan government.

Harris may keep things vague and generic, but her alignment with these controversial figures raises severe concerns about the direction of US foreign policy under her leadership, especially vis-à-vis India and Israel. Of course, this would be the best-case scenario for countries like China and Pakistan, which would again hope to escape the close scrutiny for their glaring omissions and commissions.

This brings us to the last aspect of the article: The growing misuse of narratives and narrative settings, especially in a democratic setup, by global powers and players — both state and non-state — to get a result favourable to them. So, when Trump looked unassailable, not just the internal forces but also external elements, which saw his rise unfavourably, joined hands to launch a narrative war. Since Trump has not just taken on the establishment within the country but also threatened to disturb the status quo on the international front, anyone likely to challenge him becomes the hero — or the heroine.

Thus emerges Kamala Harris. And when the narrative setters realise the unease her ‘progressive’ stand may arouse among American voters, they come up with distractions. JD Vance’s old “childless cat ladies” remark (without doubt, a stupid, insensitive comment) is a classic example. Bring up these issues, often invent them if need be, and then divide people in class, gender, colour. In the process, the real electoral issues get obfuscated. Soon emerges an Instagram story, this time from a Hollywood star, saying: “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of the United States.” And everyone is talking about cats and dogs!

Soon, it is advantage Kamala Harris. At least that’s what one is made to believe now. But then one realises that a similar game was played in Bharat too, which had seen its national elections this year. And the narrative setters did sway some voters, but not enough to dislodge the government. Maybe Trump will scrape through, too. Maybe not! But either way, the world is in for intense times ahead.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.