Kamala Harris’ final appeal to America’s higher ideals may have come too late

To say that we the American people still believe that there is more that unites us than divides us sounds very fine. But is it true?

The most striking difference between what was explicitly characterised as Kamala Harris’s final argument and what we must assume will be Donald Trump’s concluding utterances – which can scarcely be regarded as arguments – is that hers were all about her audience and his are all about himself.
She had plenty to say about him, of course, but far, far more to say about the people of the country and what she saw as her obligation to them. She spoke about his overwhelming vindictiveness and bitter resentment against his many enemies on whom he would seek vengeance, making use of all the power another presidential term would provide.
But there was a larger theme in this. She presented Trump as the ultimate voice of division and chaos: of hatred and resentment. The only possible outcome of this incitement had to be a bitterness which would be destructive of the American ideal of a national unity that transcends differences of origin, belief and attitude.
It is a convincing picture which makes use of Trump’s own words and behaviour. To say that he is “unstable” and “obsessed with revenge and grievance” scarcely needs to be proven: he provides the evidence for it with every speech he makes – including the latest one in which he could not even be bothered to distance himself from appalling remarks made in his name by an obnoxious comedian.
The country, she said, needs to repudiate the Trump message in order to save its true spirit from the corruption of the great idea on which it was founded: that people can disagree without becoming enemies (or, in Trump language, the “enemy within”). That a national identity can survive in spite of disputes and passionate debate. (“Stop pointing fingers and start linking arms”.)
But maybe, for all its idealism and fine intention, it is too late for this. The bitterness of Trump himself has struck a chord with too many. Perhaps the appeal to the middle class (which, in America, means the respectable working class) for common sense no longer convinces. To say that politicians should not be using the issue of immigration as a way to stir up fear might not sound convincing to those who live in fear.
To say that this is not us: that we the American people still believe that there is more that unites us than divides us, sounds very fine. But is it true? We will know soon enough.