By Dr A D Amar
At a time when newly emerging powers are fighting for American markets and global influence, the country needs a confident and experienced person to lead as its president.
Things have changed a lot for the 2024 presidential election since the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s official Presidential candidate for challenging former President Donald J Trump. She took it in a way that not only resulted in her catching up with Trump’s lead but by several measures has surpassed him and is still not looking back. It has become a new ballgame that needs a new look at the two to make sure that we make the correct decision when voting to ensure that Americans remain happy and prosperous, keep peace at home and abroad, and continue to be the global leaders for the next four years, until we are ready to pick another president.
Avoiding the impending recession
The current state of the American economy is very tender which, if not effectively managed, will set a recession, probably, starting right from the second quarter of 2025. Therefore, the next president will have to have an excellent understanding of economics, business needs, and employment creation to be able to work to thwart recession right after taking the oath of office.
Comparing Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, one finds that the latter, who received an MBA from Wharton and built a fairly large construction and hotel business from scratch, understands business, economics, and employment and labor dynamics. Having served as the President of the United States for four years, he has acquired a wealth of experience. He enacted tax cuts for all Americans with the main goal of stimulating the economy. These will end next year, and Harris has announced that she will let them expire because they do not help the working class.
Many Americans fear that this expiration will weaken the economy which is already hanging by a thread. In a broader comparison to Trump, Harris has held several important positions in the American legal system and has been Vice President of the United States for almost four years. On the other hand, she has never held a regular job or operated a business. She will be developing an understanding of this overly complex American economy in a highly competitive globalized world while she is holding the President’s office.
President Joe Biden, during his time in the White House, supported the labor unions and mostly shirked business. He did not pass along much to Harris. This is not how a mature economy, like that of the US, grows. It needs assertive, affirmative acts specifically designed for growth. That is why a US President has to have the knowledge and conviction to grow the economy.
A tax structure to help just the middle class, or government handouts designed to help consumption, will grow demand and encourage unions to fight for higher wages that will add to inflation. These have been the policies of the Biden administration and are the promises of the Harris campaign. It is because of the above arguments that I believe that the Trump presidency, with a focus on increasing domestic supply to meet the growing demand, will do a better job for the economy.
Social needs of the people
It is clear that, to women, having the right to reproductive freedom is especially important. However, America is deeply divided on this. Simply taking it as a political choice, Trump says he will follow the Supreme Court ruling and give states the power to control their right accordingly. Harris will assure the right to reproductive freedom by a national act that Trump will not support.
Further, she will support lowering medical and healthcare costs, and enact tax cuts for lower and middle-class Americans. This will result in $25,000 for first-time homebuyers and a $6,000 benefit at the birth of each child. She will also pardon all student loans without any condition. Harris will be the better choice for president based on her meeting the social needs of Americans.
Preserving American democracy
Harris, like many other Democratic Americans, did not accept Trump as the 45th American president after he was declared winner in 2016. There were open demonstrations opposing his election. Some had alluded to even murdering him. America’s cities in the Blue States, in particular, were echoing slogans: "Not My President”. There are many other Democrats who believe in adopting any means to help Harris win the White House. This included the weaponizing of the Department of Justice and the state legal systems in an attempt to disqualify or bring down the opinion of the independent voters for Trump. One finds that both Republicans and Democrats will hurt the preservation of democracy to some extent as all newly elected past presidents have done.
Achieving foreign policy success
An open accusation made on Trump during the 2016 election was that he would cause the "Third World War". In actuality, his four years in the office were so peaceful for the world. He connected with all rogue and authoritarian regimes who, either out of regard or fear of Trump’s unpredictability, did not cause any trouble. On the other hand, the Biden-Harris policy — from the botched Afghanistan withdrawal to the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars — has sown the seeds of a real Third World War. The Israel-Hamas
war players are waiting for the US election and Trump's intervention. Russian President Vladimir Putin is waiting for Trump to win so that he can negotiate peace between Moscow and Kyiv.
Almost all Americans blame Biden-Harris for permitting many million migrants to pass at will, without any check, through our Southern borders. That included all kinds of criminals — many from prisons, drug pushers, human traffickers, terrorists, murderers, and agents of ISIS, Venezuela, and China, among others. Biden made Harris the border czar who never cared to stop it and didn’t even visit the border for years.
The irony is that eventually Biden unreversed border policies imposed by Trump’s executive orders that he had reversed when he became president. Now, Harris has promised to build Trump’s border wall, have asylum seekers remain in Mexico until their cases come up for hearing, and impose deportation. Overall, the Biden-Harris period was not as good for foreign policy as it was in Trump’s presidency.
Facing the world with confidence
When someone needs her subordinate or boss to accompany her when things are expected to be tough, like press conferences, interviews, or meetings, as Harris has done, it conveys that she lacks confidence or knowledge and will become panicky and make suboptimal decisions. America cannot have such a person as its president, especially at this juncture in the world when many newly emerging powers are fighting for American markets and global power. America needs a confident, experienced person to lead as its president. Trump is expected to do a better job of representing America with confidence in the world.
---------------------------
(The writer is a Professor of Management at Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University. His areas of interest are strategy, knowledge, and operations. He can be contacted at: [email protected])
