The US media narrative is ready, whoever wins

This US Presidential election is much like life. We are guessing and fumbling from day to day, juggling alternative scripts. The smart-button ‘narratives’ experts offer are always ‘after the fact’. To do this, they must shake the tree ‘before the fact’ to collect enough deniability statements, so that they can say in the end, ‘I-told-you-so.’

After the election results, journalists will choose between prefabricated stories depending on who wins. If Donald Trump does, it is because he is hot on immigration. If he loses then it is because the majority, the White population, in places like Minnesota or Montana, do not care. The only Mexicans they have seen are in the movies, who are no match to Clint Eastwood.

Should Kamala Harris come out on top, then it is obviously because Black people, celebrities at that, from Oprah Winfrey to Michelle Obama, stand with her. There is the danger though, that Black men are uncomfortable with an alpha woman leading the pack. Well, nor do they think that Kamala is Black. Isn’t this what Trump has always said?

Again, the majority of the Democrats say abortion should be legal, but only women and a few men would have a dog in that hunt. In case Kamala wins, it would be because at least 50 per cent of Americans are women. And even those beyond child-bearing age have a stake in this issue, as they fought for the 1970s Roe v Wade abortion verdict, which was overturned by Trump.

Certainly, if Kamala wins, it will be because she is collected and calm and articulates her policies clearly. If she loses, it will be because the same taglines leave those in hamburger-and-hot-dog-stands stone-cold. Kamala may think she has more women on her side, but does she know how many of them melt at the sight of a strong Donald John Wayne Trump?

If Trump loses then it is clearly because he badmouths people frequently, has several felony cases against him and allegedly paid off a sex worker with campaign funds. On the contrary, should he win, then it is because he is a man’s man, wore an apron frying chips in a McDonald’s kitchen and uses locker-room language freely.

If Trump gets to the White House, it is because inflation was low during his term and so was unemployment. Towards the end of his term both had spiked, but you can’t blame him; that was because of Covid. Obama argued that Trump’s economy only looked good because he had repaired and made it ship-shape after George Bush had mangled it. The credit, therefore, should go to the Democrats.

Trump’s readiness to raise tariffs, higher than ever anyone dreamt of to protect American jobs, is a one-stop-shop solution whose log-cabin simplicity would have been loved by American pioneers. Kamala juggles with numbers and Nobel laureates commend her but brainiacs and Marvel comic readers are worlds apart.

However, if Kamala beats Trump, then kudos to her planned economic policy, which doesn’t ramble and is interspersed with rock music, unlike Trump’s Philadelphia Townhall event. That man there was like a runaway train, jumping tracks and going through signals. His economics is suspect, because as a billionaire he filed for bankruptcy four times.

Still, ask the person on the street who doesn’t have time to watch CNN debates or 60 Minutes, or any such TV shows, and hear them say that ‘Trump knows.’ They have no idea of the celebrities billowing Kamala’s sails, but their gut feeling is that Trump will fix the Chinese, stop immigrants, give us Americans jobs and make the world alright again.

Surprise! Kamala edges out Trump! Of course, she would. Hiking tariffs lowers efficiency, raises the price of steel used by US manufacturing, and makes America resemble a latter-day Indian licence Raj. All this while Chinese sell goods to our old friends, now enemies, as we no longer buy cars and wines from Germany or France.

Winning over Muslims may be tough for Trump, but Jewish influencers know that he will always stand by Israel’s license to kill. As Kamala waffles on this score, Trump is a winner because many Muslims resent Democrat double talk on Palestine. Should Kamala win though, it is not as if Muslims like her, but they see her as a lesser evil.

If Trump gets in, it is because he is somebody people think they know. He may be that big man with a fancy house and a golf course, but he levels without pretence. Kamala lacks that touch. She grew up in highbrow Berkeley, but presents herself as a girl from beat-up Oakland, California. The poor mom, she goes on about, was actually a scientist.

When journalists use pollsters’ surveys, they remind you that there is margin of error that statistics allows. Moreover, as the numbers are not theirs, they can easily turn around and say that they are not their monkeys and this is not their circus. Experts concur this election is tight, and that their prefabricated texts have been built around it.

These stories are ready and as soon as the result is known, these will be published as if they were the result of months of slogging. However, should the ground shift, and instead of a tight race we have a landslide victory, analysts will have to find new words. Their scripts will have to be re-written because all the old words must now be eaten.

The author is a sociologist