It’s Kamala—–for my daughters ’ sake !

By Luke Batsirai Tamborinyoka

Today is Friday the 13th, that mystical day again! But that’s besides the point.

On Tuesday night, I was part of the global audience that tuned in to watch the US Presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

For me, if the battle in this election is about some semblance of clarity on policy and vision and about discrediting the other guy as unfit to be President, then Kamala won the debate hands down and may as well go on to win this plebiscite.

Ordinarily, I would have had no dog in this fight but then I have a personal aversion to incumbents who use violence in order to overturn Presidential election results.

Being a Zimbabwean, what Trump did on January 6, 2021 by seeking to use violence to overturn the results of a Presidential election is exactly what Robert Mugabe did after being shellacked by Morgan Tsvangirai in the historic 2008 plebiscite. It is also what Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa has gone on to do in two successive elections by using incumbency to subvert the will of the people in 2018 and 2023..

So for me, any President who uses, or attempts to use incumbency to trump the people’s will must never ascend to power. Allowing such a guy to preside over one of the world’s superpowers may serve as an incentive to various tinpot dictators and wannabe authoritarian leaders across the globe.

Therefore I am tilted towards Kamala in this election, the other reason being a common and shared ideology of social democracy.

A few weeks ago, despite the distance, I could variously feel the energy at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, having had the privilege to stay for more than a week in that bustling city. I know the warmth and vibe of the city of Chicago on an ordinary day, let alone with a DNC adding colour and sound to Chicago’s naturally wild ambience.

I am also very familiar with the sights and sounds of Democratic National Conventions, having had the privilege to accompany my then boss, Dr Morgan Tsvangirai, to the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina in September 2012 when Barack Obama was President.

At the DNC in North Carolina, I came face to face with the lively, exuberant spirit of the Democratic National Conventions. I was humbled by the citizen-centric thrust of the occasion and the optic showcase of people power.

We missed our plane back home, having been delayed and held rapt by the wonderful sight of a determined people’s unstinting faith that their chosen politics can make meaningful, positive change in their lives.

So given my ideological link with the Democrats, I am rooting for Kamala Harris, even though I am not a voter in the US election.

During the Presidential debate on Tuesday night, I thought Kamala fittingly upped her game, just as the moment demanded.

She also remained cool, calm and collected throughout the debate.

Not only did she enunciate the need to “turn a new page” but, citing palpable evidence, thoroughly discredited Trump as unfit for office.

She successfully executed her game plan and appeared to have come to the debate with a deliberate strategy to taunt and bait Trump by constantly going under his skin so that his demons could come out before a global audience.

And she succeeded in constantly baiting him out of his shell, leading Trump to definingly make his eye-popping claim by repeating before a global audience the already discredited lie that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating our pets; our cats and dogs.”

I have been a political communicator for almost 20 years and I can safely say I know how Trump lost Tuesday’s debate.

At a personal level, I have over the years designed and led various election communication strategies in Zimbabwe. Every political communicator knows that there are four critical message boxes in every political campaign, particularly during elections.

These message boxes are (1) what the opponent says about themselves, (2) what the opponent says about you, (3) what you say about yourself and (4) what you say about the opponent (framing the opposition).

Every communications person who has run a political campaign knows that a balance must always be struck between selling yourself (message box 3) and framing the opponent (message box 4) so that you don’t run a negative campaign that confines itself to discrediting your opponent without selling yourself and what you stand for.

During the debate on Tuesday, Kamala struck the fine balance on all the key message boxes. She not only sold herself and her vision but also successfully framed her opponent as unfit to govern, oftentimes baiting him and deliberately getting under his skin; knowing that by doing so, his demons would come out and he would demonstrate his ill-temperament and his unfitness to govern on live television!

And, as noted by other analysts of the debate on Tuesday, Kamala literally and metaphorically dominated that stage from the outset when she entered the room and practically went to Trump’s space on the podium and greeted him.

Deliberately occupying trump’s space on the podium was a psychological coup in that it enabled her to own that entire stage from the very first instance.

I can relate to what Kamala did on Tuesday night.

Even at a micro level, the dynamic remain the same.

Many a time in my journalistic, academic and political lives, I have addressed various platforms, including international platforms, as an underdog. But I know that ultimately, at all those platforms, I successfully managed to confound critics and observers who had initially under-estimated my stage presence, my aptitude and my grasp of the critical issues.

And I can tell you there is always less pressure on you when you climb up that stage as an underdog, as Kamala did three days ago.

The pressure is never on the underdog; it is always on the overdog, as Trump fancied himself to be after having trounced Biden in the earlier debate!

The critical issues in the US election are already in the public domain. They include the economy, immigration, abortion and foreign policy.

Being a lawyer, Kamala, as she had promised earlier, successfully prosecuted Trump on his record and put up a nice argument in support of maintaining Roe v Wade, the locus classicus on reproductive rights that every law and political science student is familiar with.

In terms of the four message boxes, Trump’s folly on Tuesday night was that he spent his time fending off the deliberate taunts from Kamala.

He spent the night not articulating his own policy and vision but defending himself from how Kamala framed him to be, itself a cardinal error in political communication.

Trump therefore spent the entire evening inside one message box where his opponent had deliberately locked him. He spent the entire night, in the dock, fending off taunts and accusations on the defence stand as an accused person!

And in politics, when you start defending and explaining yourself all the time, then you must know you have lost the battle!

And when it comes to framing her opponent, Kamala sought to convince US voters on the three main pillars that set the stage on how she sought to frame her opponent. She sought to prove that (1) Trump was a liar and a racist, (2) that he sucks up to dictators and (3) that he does not care about the ordinary American voter.

Whatever Kamala said about Trump during the debate fell into these three categories and Trump spent the entire sight in the defensive message box, fending off Kamala’s spirited accusations.

However, for me, the best line of the night was when, after invoking Trump’s battered record, Kamala reiterated her line and exhorted the American voters to imagine Trump in the White House “with no guardrails.”

Kamala also found time during the debate to frequently quip in with her favourite punch-line in this election; “We ain’t going back”; a taunt for what she believes to be Trump’s desire to drag America back to its tortuous past under his Presidency.

When Trump started rambling on about Biden who is not his opponent in this election, Kamala tauntingly brought him to the reality of the political moment: “But you’re not contesting President Biden in this election. You’re contesting me!”

I am quite aware, dear reader that winning a Presidential debate, as Kamala did on Tuesday night, is no guarantee for winning the actual election. Hillary Clinton won all three Presidential debates against Trump but went on to lose the election.

But I have shared with you why my sympathies lie with Kamala Harris in this election.

It is not only because of my ideological relationship with the Democrats, whose Conventions I have attended due to shared and common ideology of social democracy.

The other reason is that the Democrats, having given the US its first black President in Barack Obama is on the verge of scoring yet another first by giving this gigantic superpower its first female President, who happens to be black.

As a proud black African myself, my natural sympathies are very clear in this election, even though the election itself might have no direct impact on me and my life.

My other big reason for rooting for Kamala is that at a personal level, I believe her victory as a black woman will be an inspiration to my own four lovely children, particularly my two lovely daughters, Lynn Tsungaimunashe and Lee-Anne Tapiwanashe.

Kamala is a daughter to a Jamaican immigrant father and an Indian immigrant mother.

Kamala’s victory will be a lesson to my two daughters that your background must never define you.

Her victory will be a cardinal lesson to my two girls that anything is possible in this life.

Indeed, I believe that a Presidential victory by Kamala Harris, daughter to a Jamaican economics lecturer and an Indian nurse, will teach my lovely daughters that even if they are simple girls from Tamborenyoka village in Shumba ward of Domboshava, anything is possible in their lives.

Nothing is impossible on this earth and anyone can carve out their own destiny, even in this unkind and cruel male world.

So come November 2024, for the sake of my two daughters, Lynn and Lee Anne, I am looking forward to the prospect of Her Excellency, President Kamala Harris!

Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is a journalist and a political scientist by profession. You can interact with him via his Facebook page or his X handle @luke_tambo.

About Post Author