Kamalamania, Trump and the vibes election

On the eve of the US presidential election, listen to our discussions on everything America related from the past three years of the Battle of Ideas festival.

Tomorrow, America heads to the polls in what has been one of the most bitter – and closely fought – election campaigns in living memory.

Whatever the electoral outcome, the ramifications – for America, and the world – are obviously enormous. But this has been a strange election campaign, with the candidates seeming to compete more at the level of feeling than of policy.

Of course, on some central issues – like tax, migration and the role of government – there are some dividing lines. But most of the race seems to have focused on questions of emotions. At times, it seems that Harris is not so much promising better lives for Americans as offering ‘good vibes’ while Trump is pitching himself less as a leader than a comedian.

But as the race has tightened, so the rhetoric has escalated. Trump is painted as a fascist threat to democracy, Harris and the Democrats as vote-rigging traitors to America. But what is really at stake in the election? Who poses the bigger threat to democracy – Trump with his off-colour remarks or the Democrats with their dismissal of Trump voters as ‘garbage’? And what has been missing from the race altogether?

With the vote too close to predict, we are delighted to share this discussion from the Battle of Ideas festival, ‘Kamalamania, Trump and the vibes election’, which I was lucky to chair. Do stay tuned right until the end, where I ask the panellists to reflect on what happened to the American dream – can America, caught as it is in such a bitter culture war and sense of stagnation, still inspire? Is America still that shining city on a hill? Could it be?

We’ve also included two previous Battle of Ideas debates - on Trumpism from 2023 and the Culture Wars from 2022 - that help to give a broader view on the state of US politics today.

Battle 2024: Kamalamania, Trump and the vibes election

Dr Cheryl Hudson, Dr Richard Johnson, Jacob Reynolds, Stan Swim, Nick Dixon.

SPEAKERS:

• Nick Dixon, comedian; presenter, GB News; host, The Current Thing

• Dr Cheryl Hudson, lecturer in US political history, University of Liverpool; author, Citizenship in Chicago: race, culture and the remaking of American identity

• Dr Richard Johnson, writer; senior lecturer in politics, Queen Mary, University of London; co-author, Keeping the Red Flag Flying: The Labour Party in Opposition since 1922

• Stan Swim, chief program officer, Bill of Rights Institute

• Chair: Jacob Reynolds, head of policy, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas

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Battle 2023: Still in the race: understanding Trumpism

SPEAKERS:

• Mary Dejevsky, former foreign correspondent in Moscow, Paris and Washington; special correspondent in China; writer and broadcaster

• Matthew Feeney, writer; head of technology and innovation, Centre for Policy Studies; former director, Cato Institute’s Project on Emerging Technologies

• Michael Goldfarb, journalist and historian, creator, FRDH Podcast; documentary maker, Evangelical or Political Christianity?; author, The Martyrdom of Ahmad Shawkat

• Dr Cheryl Hudson, lecturer in US political history, University of Liverpool; author, Citizenship in Chicago: race, culture and the remaking of American identity

• Chair: Jacob Reynolds, head of policy, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas

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Battle 2022: US midterms: can America survive the culture wars?

SPEAKERS:

• Yaron Brook, chairman of the board, Ayn Rand Institute; host, The Yaron Brook Show; co-author, In Pursuit of Wealth: the moral case for finance

• Jack Garland, student, University of California, Los Angeles; writer and editor, Bruin Political Review

• Dr Richard Johnson, writer; lecturer in US politics, Queen Mary, University of London; author, The End of the Second Reconstruction: Obama, Trump, and the crisis of civil rights

• Helen Searls, chief operating officer, Feature Story News; founder, Washington Hyenas book club; Ulysses enthusiast

• Chair: Fraser Myers, deputy editor, spiked; host, The spiked podcast

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