By Pyero Olurin
Caption:Olurin
Ordinarily the presidential, the House of Representative and the Senate election in America shouldn’t so much concern us in Nigeria, nay Africa.
Unfortunately, it should. First and most important is that Dollar is the dominating form of exchange for goods and services globally. Secondly, one of the two major contestants is a mixed blood woman of African and Asian descent. The color of her skin and her gender is the crux of the matter.
It is perhaps for the second reason that many American big media houses are biased against her candidature. Pecuniary considerations may be part of it as well but it is not the main reason.
The commissioned opinion polls in the last one month respectively post “Neck and Neck” figures. The first detected bias are the question asked by the pollsters. The second bias is the sort of backdoor built into the algorithm used and the third is the type of pundits and surrogates used by the media houses, both the print and the electronic (TV & Radio) to analyze the election trends.
Kamala Harris the Democratic Party nominee entered the Presidential election race about 100 days to the election while Donald Trump, a billionaire and a convicted felon has been on the scene for over a decade. What must have irked the popular media at the inception of her campaign effort was that she and her highly experienced campaign Organization (drawn largely from Obama Coalition, Hillary Clniton and Joe Biden coalitions) chose to concentrate on rallies than sitting down for interview with one of their presenters. The economic advantage for each media house would have been high ratings because of exceptional large number of viewers which means revenue.
Another vex point with the media was advertisement placement. Kamala Harris campaign organization made a decision to patronize social media largely. The rallies were been streamed and podcast personalities were well patronized. They simply asked the question: where can we meet the voters? In 2024, it is obvious that preponderance of voters are on the social media non-stop. They are certainly not glued to their seat in front of the television at home nor were they studying the Newspaper who wouldn’t endorse Harris, who were too quick tell to their limited audience that Kamala Harris the sitting Vice President of USA is unknown to voters.
Traditionally, during elections in America, the Radio and Television house profit largely by reeling out the results of opinion polls organized by themselves or by independent pollsters. In this particular election most of their polls were fraudulent.
For example, how is it possible that a national poll put Harris and Trump at 48:48? This gimmick pushes their audience to be eager to see the next polling result.
Meanwhile, in this campaign the Harris/Walls organization has managed to put abortion and Freedom of women on the ballot in many states. Is it not obvious that gender of voters will play a pivotal role?
Today, America has a larger female population than their male counter parts. Some of the polls that addresses the gender gap put Kamala Harris at having 53% of registered women voters supporting Kamala Harris while Trump has 45% of registered men voters supporting him; even at their so-called electoral college.
On this score alone, if every women and every men polled turned out to vote, women would carry the day.
More importantly, women always vote in large numbers while men are prone to procrastination when it comes to election and as such many don’t always vote. Also, in under a week after the star singer and performer Taylor Swift who has about 552 million followers endorsed Harris, over 350,000 followers, mainly young ladies registered to vote on the bases of Freedom of women over their bodies the second day! Guess who they will vote for.
Another consideration in favor of Harris which is extremely important is money. Kamala Harris has raised over $1 billion from about 4,900 donors out of whom 60% are Millenia and Gen z males and females who are first time voters. Compare that with the Trump’s donation amounting to about $388 million. Over $100 million came from Elon Musk alone while the rest came from about 1,700 other donors mainly billionaires.
The implication of this is commitment to see the election through and chiefly enthusiasm, you only put your money where your mouth is. Enthusiasm leads to getting people out to vote therefore this will also impact on winning the election in favor of Kamala Harris.
Chief in any election is the Ground Game and it is usually heavily funded by a lot of money. One needs to pay core staff, transport and feed volunteers and in some rural areas one has to provide feeding and transportation for committed voters. Tons of advertising spaces must be paid for. Local Television and Radio in each of the states gulps money and targeting registered voters on the social media cost money.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walls Campaign are playing the game effectively and successfully. On the other hand, Trump was alleged to have diverted over $100 million he initially collected to private use. Most of it went to Lawyers handling his many cases in court. He is paying debts or being sued for due payment for his rallies. Local officials of his campaign organizations are angry even in Pennsylvanian, about lack of fund for ground game play. In other words, they are not well mobilized and, in some cases, not mobilized at all.
Elections are numbers game anywhere in the world where democracy is being practiced. In a situation where the Republican Party of which Donald Trump is the flag bearer are openly endorsing Kamala Harris, is it not obvious that a house divided against itself cannot hold. Immediate past Senator Cheyney and her father; a one time Vice Precedent of United States began the move.
Former members of the House of Representative and Senate have joined the pitch against Trump leading to the formidable group in the battle ground states called “Reupblicans for Harris”. If this is not a formidable group working assiduously to defeat Trump and take back their party from him, it’s a bit of wonder to think what is it.
Donald Trump himself has not been helping his own situation. In the past two days, he has “thrown two bombs” towards his own campaign efforts for no good reason at all. First, he never worked back the statement by one of his cohorts that Pueto Ricans are Island of garbage and continually affirm his committment to a deportation plan en masse.
That has now energized over half a million Pueto Ricons and Latinos to get out and vote against him.
On top of that he stated on television just under 6 days to election that he will become the protector of women “whether they like it or not”. This statement Is now a deep-seated anger among all women, in the Democratic party, Republican party and the so-called Independents.
So why are the American media so bullish and unrepentant about the false and cooked up figures they show to their viewers every day? Why are they lying that majority of black men are voting for Trump? Why have they failed to grant interviews to any of the 23 Nobel prize-winning economists who called Harris economy plan “vastly superior” to that of Donald Trump?
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I will leave the reader to ponder on the questions above. However, it is my believe that two things stand out; despite the fact that Kamala Harris is perhaps the most prepared and the most qualified person to ever run for President in America, the color of her skin and the fact that she is a woman stands in her path.
The media for reason of pecuniary considerations and revenue worked against her and perhaps a pertinent point to have in mind is that many billionaires including Jef Bezos and Elon Must, with the exception of Billy Gates and perhaps Warren Buffet are all against her.
To African leaders especially the progressive ones who were not enthroned by foreign powers, l think time is now to query why Africans are demeaned because of their color. We need them to put racism on the agenda in the world space now!
Elon Musk is yet to wean himself from the apartheid system practiced erstwhile ago in South Africa from where he emigrated to the US. Trump a descendant of German parents is being called out for his love of Hitler. Should it surprise us that such people aspire to lead the most important country in the world?
Yet come Tuesday November 5th, Kamala Harris will be pronounced the 47th President of the United States of America. And we Africans should be glad and warm up to the coming great news. It is settled.
