The Tribune

By SIMON

In the contest to succeed former UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, as leader of the Conservative Party, two of final three contenders were black, including former Home and Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, and former Business and Trade Secretary, the British-Nigerian, Kemi Badenoch.

Yesterday, the 44-year-old Mrs Badenoch made it to the final round, which will be decided by a vote of the broader party membership and announced early next month. It is remarkable, though no longer surprising that a black woman may soon become opposition leader in Britain.

Two Tory women, Margaret Thatcher and Teresa May, became prime minister after their party was elected to office. Liz Truss succeeded Boris Johnson, though she quickly flamed out and departed 10 Downing Street after 49 days because of catastrophic fiscal errors born of hubris.

There are four great offices of state in the UK: prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, foreign secretary and home secretary.

In recent years the Conservatives have had a steady and significant number of women and non-white politicians serve in these offices. Mr Sunak was the first Asian and non-white prime minister.

To their credit, the Tories have had more gender and racial diversity in these offices, though the Labour Party has had more women and minorities serving in the House of Commons, numbers which increased at the recent election.

With the election of Labour to office some weeks ago under Sir Keir Starmer, two of three great offices are held by women, Rachel Reeves is chancellor of the exchequer and Yvette Cooper is home secretary.

Serving as foreign, commonwealth and development affairs secretary is David Lammy, whose parents were born in Guyana. Angela Rayner is deputy prime minister.

With exalted jingoism, political leaders in the United States often brag of American exceptionalism. America is ironically exceptional in being out of step in a number of ways. It currently stands alone as one of the major democracies never to elect or have a woman serve as head of government.

This past June, Mexico finally elected a female head of government, joining the ranks of countries including: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, several Caribbean and Central American countries, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, several Northern, Central and Eastern European states, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Korea, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and a number of Pacific states.

In the more misogynistic countries in the Near East and Africa, the election or selection of women as head of government will likely remain a rarity for some time.

Like the heavily male-dominated Japan, America has yet to have a female leader, though it finally elected a black man as president, which given the pervasiveness and cauldron of racism in America, was exceptional in significant ways.

In less than a month the world will see if America can again do something exceptional that is becoming less uncommon globally, ie electing the first woman and Asian-America’s president and the second black American to its highest office.

There are many who are understandably highly skeptical that America has changed enough to accomplish this dual feat. Many cannot understand why the polls appear tight, especially given the diabolically poor character, pathological lying, gross indecency, democratic threat of Donald Trump.

A caveat: there is only so much that polls may capture and they may be underestimating votes for both presidential contenders. Further, by sheer votes alone, rather than the antiquated Electoral College system, Harris would likely easily win.

Yes, America’s xenophobia, racism and sexism is so deep that a man like Trump may be reelected. The country is significantly more diverse in myriad ways. Still, has America changed just enough to elect Kamala Harris?

As former Trump supporter turned Harris supporter Anthony Scaramucci continues to note along with others, approximately 20 million baby boomers have died since 2020 and a combined total of 40 million Gen-X and Y-ers have been added to the voting rolls.

What will this mean for the 2024 US election? What will be the rate of turnout for the various cohorts? What will be ethnic, gender, and economic voting patterns, especially in key counties in battleground states.

Doug Sosnik is a former top advisor to Bill Clinton. In an interview with Ryan Lizza a few weeks back, Sosnik spoke about the role of gender in the upcoming election: “The first factor is Donald Trump and the nature of his candidacy. His presidency is a very masculine, kind of aggressive, approach to politics… So it’s been a very sort of testosterone-filled candidacy and presidency.

“…This really started at the beginning of the century. Women are now far overachieving compared to men. So you’ve now an entire generation of achievers of women compared to men.

“So you’ve got the problem for the emerging generation of men who not only feel like they’re being outperformed by women, but I think a lot of them also feel they’ve been somewhat of a target of society and villainised in terms of their behaviour.”

Depending on how one defines masculinity, Donald Trump is one of the more non-masculine and unappealing men to seek and win the presidency. He is a parody of masculinity and strength: bellicose, vulgar, obnoxious, sexist. Many men admire his luxury lifestyle, his sexual appetite, chest-thumping, strutting, and his appeal to primal instincts.

There has been a large gender gap in elections between the Republicans and Democrats for some time. Will this gap widen among younger female voters, especially college-educated voters in the upcoming vote.

There has been a surge in younger voters during this cycle after Harris became the nominee. How many of them will vote? Are the pollsters capturing them, especially in key states? Will the conflict in the Middle East cause some of them to stay home because of their disagreements with President Biden’s policies?

Trump’s parody of masculinity works for many men who see him as strong, despite him seeming like a toady to strongmen like Vladimir Putin. Many men see him as being able to dominate women, to get what he wants. He is a stock figure who has successfully sold his image through TV and social media.

Many view him as an exceptional businessman despite his many bankruptcies and business failures. Though Trump is no intellect, he is exceptional at performance, artifice, make-believe, playacting, celebrity politics, all of which work for various audiences. He is brilliant at manipulating certain mindsets, often among the very adoring crowds he reportedly mocks in private.

It is telling that he outperforms with many non-educated voters in various demographic categories whom Trump ably appeals to with certain explanations including blaming migrants for most of America’s woes. Growing numbers of Latino non-educated men, particularly those under 50, support Trump.

Reuters reported a few weeks ago: “Over one quarter of younger black men say they would support Republican candidate Donald Trump in this year’s US presidential election, an NAACP poll showed…”

To appreciate certain elements of the electoral contest in the United States, look at the attitudes toward Trump and the Republican Party in The Bahamas. Many Bahamians buy the cliché that the Republican Party id best for The Bahamas. Are they referring to the president or the Congress?

This “Republicans are best” cliché is loudly proclaimed absent any evidence. What is best for The Bahamas, is when the US economy is doing well, no matter who is president.

It appears that most black Bahamian women would vote for Harris, while most white and black Bahamian men support Trump. Why this gender divide? Many women find Trump’s crudeness, harness, racism, and other pathologies unbearable.

But these same traits are not deal breakers for many Bahamian men, even those who dislike these qualities. Black Bahamian men are a majority racially in their country. They do not fully understand nor have they experienced the brutality of racism in America.

Despite the black American men voting for Trump, the majority of them will vote for Harris because they know viscerally the history of slavery, lynching, economic and social inequality, police brutality, and other open wounds and scars of racism black Bahamian men only know a little of from afar.

Conservative black Bahamian men cite their opposition to homosexuality and abortion as reasons they support Trump. Many like how harshly he speaks about migrants, including Haitians legally in America. Trump’s xenophobia in America matches their nativism here at home.

Many admire Trump’s self-proclaimed business acumen despite voluminous evidence that he has so often been a dramatic failure at business and is mostly a huckster.

Above all, they like that he is a “man’s man”. Many of them do not believe that a woman has the strength and character to be President of the United States of America.

Some of these men buy the “identity politics” argument of the Republican Party. Of course, it is laughable and disingenuous when a white Christian nationalist, who is intent on preserving their privileged identities – which may include their Irish, Italian, Polish or German ancestry – claim that those who may be black, Bahamian, Mexican, etc. in the US, pay too much attention to “identity politics”.

The world is changing. The new president of Mexico is female and of Jewish heritage. A younger generation of Americans and Bahamians, male and female, will help to accelerate the changing ethnic and gender complexion of political leaders.

America will have its say on this in just a few weeks. But do not expect a female prime minister anytime soon in The Bahamas.