With Tuesday marking the conclusion of the U.S. elections, here is glossary of terms that have characterized the conflict between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris over the past 100 days:
Abortion
Since the US Supreme Court invalidated national protection for abortion rights in 2022, abortion Democrats have presented the first presidential election as an existential struggle to restore women’s autonomy over their bodies and maintain other liberties. Kamala Harris’s victory would make 2024 known as the election that ended abortion, driven by enraged female voters who oppose the violation of their rights.
An example of how political triumph may be lethal is the abortion debate. It aided Republicans until the subject of abortion was used to mobilize the base. After the GOP achieved its goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, the ramifications were apparent, and the opposition found a topic to unite the base, win over independents, and win over women. Trump notices. Although he wants to claim credit for selecting the judges who rendered the decision, he is redefining it as a matter of state sovereignty, dismissing the Democratic argument that he would sign a national abortion ban, and, in a somewhat odd move, referring to himself as the “Father of IVF” to allay fears that Republicans will next target fertility treatments.
Biden
Joe Biden gave in to the pressure to run for a second term rather than serve as a bridge to the next generation of leaders after the Democratic party’s comparatively successful 2022 midterm election. Substantial legislative achievements on infrastructure, semiconductors, and climate change, as well as an economic record that included post-pandemic recovery, substantial job creation, growth, and support for home manufacturing, attest to his competence. However, his record regarding Gaza caused division within the base, and he had significant issues with immigration and inflation.
Democrats would remember Biden as a transformative leader who eventually made the right decision if Harris wins. Some will criticize Biden for sticking in the race until it was too late, while Biden himself will probably believe that he should have stayed if Harris loses. In any case, the Delaware politician who was America’s youngest senator and then its oldest president must be considered in any history of the 2024 election.
Christian nationalism
The Christian Right has its roots in the Republican Party. However, the separation of church and state is in danger of disintegrating entirely under Trump, whose personal life and deeds don’t exactly conform to Christian principles. The American state has fully thrown its weight behind missionaries overseas, empowered mobs operating under the guise of religion, openly promised various Christian denominations influence over power and policy, allowed fundamentalists to shape law and jurisprudence, and relentlessly attacked Democrats as opposed to Christianity. Seeing a chance to influence politics, they reciprocated by supporting Trump with their network of churches.
The most visible result of America’s far-right religious fundamentalist societal influence during the first era was abortion. With Mike Johnson, who has stated that his political positions are determined by the Bible, as either the House speaker or the minority leader, JD Vance, a newly converted Catholic, as his vice president, and a string of judges appointed to their positions with the support of the religious right, a Republican victory would genuinely turn America into a Christian state.
Democracy
Donald Trump’s conduct and American constitutionalism clashed throughout his first term, resulting in two impeachments. Additionally, Trump’s attempt to obstruct the peaceful transition of power resulted from the collision between America’s democratic outcome and his disobedient behavior following his defeat in 2020.
Democrats are concerned that Trump will be in a unique position to truly remove restrictions if he wins. Regarding it, the previous president has been candid. The federal criminal charges against him will be dropped. He will forgive everyone involved in the mob violence on January 6. He has mentioned deploying the military to target political opponents and will take over the Department of Justice. He has attacked “fake news” with aggressive rhetoric. He will act even more capriciously by utilizing the SC’s enlarged definition of presidential powers. Additionally, he might try to alter America’s electoral laws in some way. Republicans, on the other hand, portray Democrats as the threat to democracy and claim that the cases against Trump amount to the “weaponization” of the legal system against a political rival. Additionally, they charge Democrats with election meddling, speech censorship, and subverting popular will through the “deep state.”
“Enemy within”
Trump has stated unequivocally that he sees internal political rivals—whom he calls “enemies within”—rather than foreign enemies as America’s biggest threat.
According to all accounts and his own interviews, Trump feels like a victim because he believes that the American political and legal system has first ensnared him in an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, then in an impeachment scandal involving Ukraine, then in preventing what he believes to be his legitimate victory in the 2020 elections, and finally in the “weaponization” of the legal system by entangling him in cases.
Felon
In American history, no past president with a criminal record has ever come this close to winning the presidency again. In a New York case, Trump was found guilty of business fraud for allegedly paying hush money to an adult film actress to sway elections. He then falsified business records to hide the payment’s true purpose by falsifying it as legal fees for a lawyer who was receiving reimbursement. Trump is facing several, more serious cases, such as his suspected interference with the certification of the 2020 election results, his choice to remove sensitive documents after leaving office, and his pressure on state authorities to alter election results.
Trump broke the laws of American politics, refused to apologize, turned the cases into a badge of his martyrdom, raised money every time a new accusation surfaced, and utilized his mugshot to pose as a political victim who was paying the price of personal liberty for the public.
Gaza
Following the October 7 terror attacks, Israel’s campaign against Hamas escalated into a conflict against the Gaza-based Palestinian population, leading to accusations of genocide. America, Israel’s main supporter, was equally accountable for the war, according to many who opposed it (and justifying the deaths of nearly 45,000 people, half of whom were children, is untenable and immoral). The Biden administration was heavily criticized by the Jewish-American community for not doing more to defend Israel and fight anti-Semitism, while students, progressives, and Arab Americans protested its involvement in the conflict. Harris carried this burden into the election. To maintain the support of Jewish Americans and allay the ire of the Left and Muslim voters, she has tried to strike a balance between her criticism of Israel and her support for it.
Housing
Housing prices have caused the most ire and turned off a significant portion of younger voters from Democrats, even though inflation is still a major issue in the election. The Fed increased interest rates in response to rising prices. Loans became too expensive. The housing market did not move as fast as it usually does in American cities. Rent increased. Additionally, young and middle-class Americans were forced to forgo their aspirations of home ownership or saw a significant amount of their income go into paying rent.
Considering this, Trump has used house prices to illustrate how the Biden administration made the American dream unreachable. Considering this, Harris has attempted to explain why home ownership was so significant to her family and how her administration would provide $25,000 in down payment aid to first-time homeowners.
Immigration
Building the wall to stop the influx of immigrants from the southern border was Trump’s 2016 campaign theme. An appeal against the “invasion” of “illegal aliens” is his defining message for the 2024 election. He has asserted that many of them are from “mental institutions” and prisons, that the Biden administration allowed millions of these individuals to enter the country, and that Harris, as the border czar, was to blame for the catastrophe. In addition, Trump has pledged the biggest mass deportation operation in US history, which, if carried out, would undoubtedly result in human rights violations as well as severe disruptions to the US business and society.
Harris pledged to sign the border bill if elected. While all of these are significant milestones toward Harris’s shift to the center of the issue and alignment with mainstream American opinion, Trump will have an advantage in this election if immigration is the topic that most Americans care about the most.
Judiciary
America’s judicial system is shaped by the legislative branch’s makeup and the election of the political administration. The most significant change to American jurisprudence was from Trump’s nomination of three justices to the Supreme Court, which was approved by a Republican Senate. In addition to overturning abortion rights, six justices—from the conservative to the extreme right—have defeated three liberal justices. They have also weakened regulatory bodies, stripped the executive branch of its authority to enforce environmental regulations, and increased the president’s authority to effectively shield him from criminal prosecution.
This election is about the future of the Supreme Court. If Trump wins and Republicans take the Senate, which seems highly likely, two of the more senior right-wing judges may be persuaded to leave their positions by the White House after lengthy tenures. This would allow Trump to select two younger judges who share his views, which the Republican Senate would then confirm.
Kennedy Jr
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Bobby Kennedy’s son and John F. Kennedy’s nephew, has been the most fascinating candidate in this election. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to get out of the race and support Trump gave Republicans the opportunity to say that, aside from one awkward detail, a member of the most powerful American political dynasty—a Democratic one at that—was on their side. Every other Kennedy relative has turned away from RFK Jr. and supported Democrats. More importantly, Trump offered RFK Jr. power over health agencies and a substantial role in U.S. health policy.
Latinos
About 15% of voters are Latinos, who make up a significant voting group in swing states like Arizona and Nevada. Conventional political wisdom would have predicted that the community’s support for Democrats would only grow in response to Trump’s anti-immigrant comments. Furthermore, this base would only be strengthened by the bigoted attacks on Latinos by members of Trump’s inner circle. Indeed, a significant portion of Latinos continue to support Harris. Nonetheless, polling and previous political history indicate that there is a churn in the community and that younger males have shifted toward Trump. A complex number of factors are involved in this. The illegal immigrants are not well-liked by the legal migrants. Community members share a certain level of religious conservatism with other white conservatives. Hispanics are also motivated by the same economic factors that are driving others to support Trump, as they believe that under him, prices were cheaper, and business was better.
Manufacturing
Over the past ten years, manufacturing has been the primary political economy subject that has shaped American politics. Trump’s economic argument played a major role in his ascent; trade and globalization had depleted American manufacturing, American elites were content to earn a quick profit abroad at the expense of domestic jobs, China was the main antagonist, and high tariffs combined with a business-friendly policy would be used to restore jobs.
With the Biden administration adopting Trump’s worldview, the reasoning for this was so strong that it is now considered common sense in America and a topic of bipartisan agreement. Biden can legitimately assert that he has done a better job of reviving industry with his clean energy, infrastructure, and semiconductor laws. Political rivalry exists today, particularly in important swing states, over who should bear the responsibility for trade agreements that may have resulted in deindustrialization.
Never Trumpers
In this election, the Harris campaign is counting on a segment of the older Republican Party—many of whom call themselves “Never Trumpers”—who may be conservative but are repulsed by Trump to support the Democratic ticket. The Cheney family is the most well-known illustration of this. Dick Cheney, who served as Gerald Ford’s chief of staff, George H.W. Bush’s secretary of defense, and George W. Bush’s vice president, was more closely linked to the Republican establishment than anybody else. He is with Harris today along with his daughter, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who participated in the House committee probe against Trump on January 6.
To this change, the Trump campaign has a straightforward reaction. It holds that Harris has brought about a realignment of politics and a positive transformation of the Republican Party, as the older members of the Republican elite who had guided the party toward free trade agreements and foreign conflicts have turned to him. The Trump campaign hopes the larger conservative voter group stays with him and that the portion of the electorate that will switch to Democrats is too tiny.
Omaha
In the American electoral system, where candidates must receive 270 electoral college votes, the Omaha area, which is Nebraska’s second congressional district, is special. Nebraska divides its electoral college votes in this way, in contrast to other winner-take-all states. Should there be a tie, which is not completely out of the question in a contest this close, and is conceivable if Harris wins Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and just needs one more vote, the second congressional district will ultimately wind up being crucial.
Prices
If Trump prevails in this election, he may blame it on the exorbitant costs that American consumers faced for most the previous four years in supermarkets and gas stations. Inflation arose from the pandemic-induced supply chain shocks, inflationary stimulus measures, and the instability of the world’s oil markets brought on by worldwide unrest and wars. The Fed and the Biden administration achieved a unique economic achievement by controlling record job creation and growth, then gradually reducing inflation to avoid a recession.
This is the fundamental rage that Trump is appealing to. And even while all the macro arguments will be valid, many voters will support him based on the straightforward premise that Trump deserves another shot because his reduced prices under Biden demonstrated his economic acumen.
Queer Rights
The broader issue of lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights is undergoing an intriguing change in American politics. In recent years, Democrats have continuously defended the autonomy and rights of sexual minorities, but Trump’s Republican Party platform has subtly softened its hostility to the gay movement – regarding same-sex couples. This year, the party spoke about the “sanctity of marriage,” but it left it open to interpretation that it also referred to same-sex couples, unlike in the past when it specifically stated that marriage was between a man and a woman. This was improvement, according to homosexual organizations connected to the party, since the party was pushing for a ban on gay marriages twenty years ago.
They warn of the possibility of vigilante violence against same-sex couples if Trump is elected. The right-wing SC justice Clarence Thomas’s ruling in the abortion case is cited by them to support their argument that the right to privacy and, consequently, the right to have sex with someone of the same sex may be subject to the Right’s legal hammer.
Race
In America, race continues to be a key indicator of political division. Black voters naturally gravitated toward Democrats following the realignment of political forces during the civil rights struggle. As the first Black woman to be nominated by a major party in this race, Harris gives the community an opportunity to be represented in the nation’s highest office. Furthermore, it is highly likely that she will receive the backing of most Black women and men. Harris seems to have a significant advantage over Trump among Hispanic and Asian American voters, and surveys show that Trump leads her among White voters.
A startling number of young men of all races, including Black and Hispanic males as well as Indian American men, have defected to Trump. This indicates that mobilizing these voters may no longer be possible through identification appeals based on perceived identity-based complaints; Democrats will need to consider newer methods of appeal.
Swing States
Due to the country’s deep-rooted political division, most states are either blue or red. Because of its distinct electoral system, candidates from both parties may confidently count on receiving electoral college votes from the states where their parties hold a majority. This makes the result reliant on a group of swing states and frequently on swing counties inside swing states. Seven states are crucial because a contender needs 270 votes in the electoral college. Often referred to as the “blue wall” states—Wisconsin (10), Michigan (15), and Pennsylvania (19 votes)—were reclaimed by Biden in 2020 after Trump flipped them in 2016 to win an unexpected election. This route represents Harris’ best chance of winning. Georgia (16) and North Carolina (16) in the south, and Arizona (11) and Nevada (6) in the west, make up the remaining four states. As dramatic as it seems, the future of the globe will soon be decided by the voters in these seven U.S. states.
Trans rights
The Republican Party’s core campaign message is based on the idea that liberals and Democrats have promoted a dangerous, overly permissive, and extremely permissive climate and pedagogy surrounding sexuality in sports and schools. This specifically manifests in the form of portraying transgender rights issues as one in which men participate in women’s sports, a topic that elicits strong and visceral opposition, or in which children are brainwashed and permitted to have gender reassignment surgery without parental consent, a claim that is unsupported by evidence. However, this is one of the reasons why the Trump agenda is appealing.
Democrats, who are dedicated to trans rights, show sympathy with trans individuals, and have worked to redefine policy to consider sexual variety, have mostly remained silent in response. The LGBTQI community as a whole is overwhelmingly supportive of Harris.
U-turns
Kamala Harris sought to outlaw hydraulic fracturing when she entered the 2019 Democratic primary and unsuccessfully ran for the party’s presidential nomination. She is in favor of fracking now. She backed parts of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the Left’s defund policy chant back then. She draws heavily from her experience as a prosecutor to present herself as a law-and-order candidate today.
However, the Trump team has utilized it as a powerful tool to portray Hillary as either a radical who is merely concealing her ideas for political reasons or as someone who has no beliefs at all. Harris has retorted that her principles have not changed. It remains to be seen whether the U-turns weaken the electorate’s faith in her.
Violence
A former American president and the presumed presidential candidate of a major party was shot on July 11 of this year in Butler County, Pennsylvania, bringing political violence to the forefront of American democracy. The assassination attempt did not kill Trump. A few months later, the Secret Service was able to apprehend a second assassin on his Florida golf course. However, the risky situation that America is in was reflected in both offers. Violence has become widespread because of polarized politics, the portrayal of every political conflict as existential, and easy access to firearms.
However, there is no denying that Trump and his far-right network have played a role in creating this violent atmosphere, which was most evident on January 6, 2021. Trump cannot avoid responsibility for his role in making America and American politics more violent because he encouraged a mob to go to the Capitol to block the certification of results, refused to ask them to stop while watching the attack on television, gave them a clean sheet even when the mob was perceived to be using violence, gave political patronage to such elements, used violent rhetoric in his speeches, promoted guns and blocked any attempt to have gun safety laws.
Although the 2024 election won’t fix this systemic issue in American politics, it will decide if violence gains political legitimacy or if the government cracks down on it, regardless of the offender or the political motivation.
Women
The turnout of women and the degree of the gender disparity in support for the two candidates are the only questions that will determine the outcome of the 2024 election. Many Black, Hispanic, Asian American, and even older White women back Harris, according to all surveys and reports, giving her a significant lead among female voters. This is mostly because of the upset over the abortion decision, which women blame on Trump, and the concern that if Trump wins again, women’s rights will be further violated. The Republican campaign’s complete hyper-masculinity may be to blame for making at least some women uneasy. And maybe that’s because America has an opportunity to start over and elect a female president for the first time.
However, this does not imply that Trump lacks a base of female followers, particularly White women. Trump has an alluring dominant persona that appeals to females.
X
In this election, the Elon Musk-owned X platform has become the most potent venue for political speech of any single digital business. This is where Biden posted his letter of withdrawal and endorsement of Harris; where Harris’s team reacts to Trump in real time; where Musk and Trump had their pivotal discussion that paved the way for Musk to be named the czar to overthrow the government in the event that Trump prevails; and where Trump has partially returned after being banned, frequently by importing his posts from Truth Social.
Naturally, Musk’s use of X is representative of his broader participation in this election campaign. Since publicly supporting Trump in July, Musk has used every resource at his disposal to aid Republicans in winning. Additionally, it has manifested as Musk directly endorsing Trump. There has never been a more obvious connection between politics, capital, and technology.
Young voters
Young people came together in enormous numbers to support the candidate who might beat Donald Trump, which propelled Biden to victory in 2020. Harris also looked to these young voters for support. However, things have gotten more complicated.
Trump’s concentrated attempt to appeal to young people is the main difference between his 2024 campaign and the 2020 campaign. His messages to young men, which include more than a hint of masculinity, center on the economy and the money that is wasted on conflicts elsewhere. All of this seems to have weakened the Democratic base among young people, as more young men of all races are leaning toward Trump than ever before. For women in particular, Trump represents a danger to their own bodily autonomy. There is a greater likelihood that more young voters will support Harris on election day the more Trump’s radicalism has been exposed, particularly in the latter phases of the campaign. One important determinant of the 2024 contest will be the voting habits of the youth.
Zelensky
While all foreign leaders are keeping a careful eye on the US elections, Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine may be the one who is most eager to see the results. Not only is his future at risk, but also the future territorial unity of his nation, its sovereignty, and the character of its relations with Russia and Europe.
The Republican campaign’s central tenet is that Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine under Trump, and that the Biden administration squandered valuable resources on the country. Prior to taking office, Trump had also pledged to terminate the conflict.
If Trump is elected, Kyiv would probably lose access to NATO, and Ukraine will be pressured, if not forced, to cede territory to Russia, including Crimea and portions of the Donbas, by the clear danger of losing US backing. Peace with Russia will be Trump’s top priority. Though it is uncertain if even a Harris administration can maintain the same levels of support given the decreased hunger for it within the US and how it intends to change battleground dynamics and truly achieve peace, Ukraine may anticipate continuous backing if Harris wins, as per the reports we studied by Hindustan Times.
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