Don Watson, Quarterly Essay: High Noon: Trump, Harris and America On The Brink

• This Quarterly Essay by well known author and respected political insider Don Watson is not just about the upcoming US election. It’s essentially a sociological read of today’s America. Watson imbeds the campaign in the nation’s history, its full political and cultural character, and how so much has changed for the worst for so many people over recent decades. Detroit being so representative of all that has happened to the struggling working class. ‘If you want to know America, know Detroit. If you want to fix America, fix Detroit’.  

• The central focus is on Trump and why he appeals to so many of the disaffected class.  

• Kamala Harris barely gets a mention until the last few pages. The essay ends with Biden’s resignation and Harris’s official nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Then, obviously, Watson had to submit his manuscript. Unfortunately the turning point, the debate, came afterwards. 

• However Watson absolutely nails what Harris’s weakness is, and how she needs to do a lot more than offering ‘joy’ to win the election. ‘…keep the love but temper the joy. The people whose votes [Democrats] need see nothing to be joyful about. Stop talking about the middle class, as if working people have only themselves to blame for low wages, and rents and mortgages they can’t afford’.

• ‘Once the Democrats allow themselves to be defined by their opposition to Trump, the fight is as good as lost.’ 

• Watson continually demonstrates his insightfulness. He talks to a number of people he meets on the streets, and visits various towns and cities to assess their economic circumstances. 100 miles west of downtrodden Detroit is Kalamazoo, a city of 75 thousand people, which is absolutely thriving. 

• ‘Sometimes the hoopla makes you wonder if Americans will ever grow up, and if we don’t have more in common with the village people of Albania, or Mars. What is it about their longstanding love of marching and mass rallies? Their hand-on-heart, flag-waving patriotism?’