United States Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate amid a tumultuous summer in American politics. U.S. history, in fact, is rife with long, hot summers featuring civil unrest, racial turmoil and widespread urban protests.
Probably the most serious was the summer of 1967, at the height of the insurgent 1960s. Demands for radical racial reforms were rocking the nation in the wake of under-recognized civil rights reforms, dissension over the devastating U.S.-backed war in Vietnam and severe urban unrest as protests raged in more than 150 American cities.
The summer of 2020 featured a redux of this sort of justified outrage, sparked in large part by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., by police officer Derek Chauvin — and countless other Black Americans who suffered similar fates at the hands of police.
Over decades, these events certainly expanded the public’s understanding of racialized violence and related forms of ongoing systemic racism. But populist unrest is not just a feature of recent decades.
In the early to mid-19th century, there were riots against Catholic immigrants and Black Americans during successive summers in the 1830s and 1840s in cities like Philadelphia, Boston and New York. Many died in events equally catalyzed by misinformation, panic and racial paranoia.
Summer 2024 drama
But the summer of 2024 seems to be ranking high in terms of drama, debate and as one of the hottest — if not the most contentious — summers in U.S. political history, and not just because of the effects of global warming.
It follows an eventful spring that featured prolific campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza and its western backers, including Canada and the U.S.
The summer kicked off with a political “debate” — actually an incoherent standoff between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — over the fate of the world’s most powerful “democracy.”
More than a few memes covered the debacle, and sadly, Biden looked worse despite Trump openly lying in front of a global audience.
Things got even more chaotic when Trump held a MAGA rally a couple of weeks later in Butler, Penn. — a major battleground state heading towards the November presidential election. Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old registered Republican, eluded the Secret Service and managed to fire multiple shots at Trump from a relatively close and elevated range before being killed himself. A spectator died, two others were injured and Trump suffered a minor wound to his ear after the bullets barely missed his head.
Trump appeared to have the perfect photo-op for his campaign, complete with a defiant facial expression and a fist raised in the air to galvanize his megalomaniac appeal to his base.
Republican convention
Trump’s survived assassination attempt seemed like it might guarantee a Republican victory this fall. Yet the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, held in mid-July, applied the brakes to that momentum.
In scenes that were reminiscent of the 2006 cult-classic film Idiocracy, the public was treated to a geriatric Hulk Hogan tank-top tear — leading to countless memes comparing Hogan to President Comacho from the movie — and an underwhelming performance by the 1990s rocker, Kid Rock.
Add to this Trump’s pick of JD Vance, a Yale law school graduate who campaigns as a working-class populist, as his running mate, and the momentum all but stalled.
Shortly after the convention, Vance’s past misogynistic comments were quickly revealed — showing him to be a solid ally to Trump, given his own long history of misogyny — including past remarks he made about the “childless cat ladies” of America.
The convention was highlighted by exaggerations of America’s descent into a dystopian future. It featured claims of unfounded historic crime rates, yet reflected a very real bipartisan understanding of the ways global instability remains acute in an era of vast income gaps between the haves and have-nots.
Only a few days after the end of the Republican convention, Biden finally announced he wasn’t running for a second term amid a lacklustre and uninspiring campaign.
The announcement of the decision to end an incumbent presidential campaign was historic, with only Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson doing the same (in 1952 and 1968, respectively) in the second half of the 20th century.
Read more: Biden steps aside, setting in motion an unprecedented period in American politics
Harris’s rise
Biden’s announcement ushered in the presidential candidacy of Harris, a former Montréal high school student, as he quickly endorsed her.
Harris’s current momentum may keep Trump and Vance’s MAGA agenda out of the White House and could result in the U.S. electing the first Black woman president in American history. However, her candidacy hasn’t yet fully addressed the interests of younger or marginalized voters, who have been highly critical with the party’s domestic and foreign policies, including the situation in Gaza.
Read more: Race, gender and politics: Is the United States ready for a Black woman president?
Democratic elites like James Carville and George Clooney withdrew their support for Biden due to a failed debate rather than pressing issues, such as the ongoing problems in the Middle East and failed domestic policies, illustrating a disconnect from issues considered critical to many in the party’s base.
Harris’s nomination will be ceremonially confirmed at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in the coming days. She could face scrutiny due to her prosecutorial record as California’s district attorney, which had an impact on her 2020 run for president. Advocates are wary about her impact on police reform and mass incarceration in her home state.
What is certain is that despite the progressive enthusiasm for Harris’s potentially historic victory, the Democratic Party must address core constituencies alienated by the Biden administration, particularly young voters.
A shift towards leftist economic populism could be crucial for Harris and help secure her victory while addressing the broader state of American democracy.
Time will tell how the summer of 2024 in U.S. politics will fully play out. But there is no doubt that it will remain among the hottest politically, if not in terms of climate, on record.
Ian Rocksborough-Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
