Opinion: The American Political Crackdown on Europe and Queer People

By Miruna Tiberiu

When President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race, it took an excruciatingly glacial long 11 minutes for the CNN network to go live with the news. The New York Times, by contrast, proved its centrality: The Times’ Ezra Klein shaped the conversation about replacing Biden back in February, and its opinion page gave the first hard, post-debate shove. In the meantime, internet culture pivoted around TikTok and its short-form video counterparts, Reels and Shorts. These platforms became a hub for the diverse and sometimes paradoxical support for Kamala Harris as Mr. Biden’s potential successor. Fans and critics alike resurrected various clips of Harris – from her infectious laughter and cooking tips to her dance moves and occasionally perplexing speeches – creating a unique, coconut-themed surge of online content that shaped public perception. Remember our newsletter motto? “Your weekly guide to the queer media circus.” It was a circus indeed.

Illustration by Sasha Brandt/GAY45

Marking a historic moment in US political history, President Joe Biden announced on the 21st of July that he is stepping down from the presidential race, formally endorsing his Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement Democratic candidate. This announcement comes as the culmination of what Robert Tait at The Guardian called ‘the wildest three weeks in the history of the US presidency’. It has spurred a slew of questions regarding Harris’s potential against Republican candidates Donald Trump and his recently-announced ticket companion JD Vance come the November election. All eyes are turning to the US once more, raising questions on a possible Harris presidency and what it would look like for the LGBT+ community, as well as the potential waves it could unleash onto the future of Europe.

The Build-up to Crisis Point

As the oldest president ever sworn in US history, Joe Biden has faced criticism regarding his capability as president time and time again. But the last three weeks have seen the Democrats reach a crisis point. When removed from the safety net of teleprompters and memorised speeches, Biden has shown himself unable to speak as confidently and coherently as he had in the past. In the infamous debate with Donald Trump on the 27th of June in Atlanta, the President appeared confused and often unable to finish sentences, elevating his opponent’s image despite Trump’s usual recursions to empty accusations and invention of facts.

In the last month, Biden has undergone several other hiccups, referring to his VP Kamala Harris as ‘Vice President Trump’ and introducing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as ‘President Putin’ during a press conference about NATO’s support for Ukraine. It was against this backdrop that Trump faced an assassination attempt on the 13th of July at a campaign rally in Butler County Pennsylvania, pouring oil onto an already incendiary political climate. Stating repeatedly his refusal to withdraw from the presidential race despite the Democrat chorus urging him to consider, the president finally announced his sombre decision on social media yesterday, head held high. Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker called it “The Shakespearean end to a distinguished reign.”  Biden as President was real, far-reaching, and occasionally well intended even when arguably wrong.

Kamala Harris Endorsement is Important

Despite being formally endorsed by Biden minutes after his withdrawal announcement, and followed by numerous Democrats including the pillar of the American politics Nancy Pelosi, we will not know for certain if Harris is to replace Biden in the presidential run until the Democrat convention set to be held in August. Other potential candidates in the limelight include California governor Gavin Newsom and Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Equally important will be the decision on her VP to join the ticket. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released last week, however, found that 76% of Democrats would be satisfied with Harris as the nominee.

Harris could become the first woman as well as Black woman of South Asian descent to be US president. The leaps taken by the Biden-Harris administration in terms of LGBT+ rights, reproductive rights, and healthcare reforms may be just enough to secure Harris votes from demographics whose very identity is threatened by the prospect of a second Donald Trump run.

 

Charli XCX appeared to endorse Harris, writing “Kamala IS Brat,” Harris’ campaign embraced the moment, reposting the show of support, using the album’s signature green colour and typeface in one of its social media profiles and posting “Brat”-themed memes.

Whilst criticised for her past as a prosecutor, Harris undoubtedly has a long line of engagement with the fight for LGBT+ and reproductive rights. Following former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s – now the Governor of California and a prospective candidate for the presidency – legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2004, Harris, District Attorney in the area at the time, conducted marriages for same-sex couples. Elected as California Attorney General in 2010, she fought to restore marriage equality following its revocation as per the infamous Prop 8 in 2008. She has appeared in the press many a time in support of LGBT+ rights, speaking outside the Stonewall Inn last year and inviting the cast of Queer Eye to the White House in celebration of the show’s ground-breaking representation of the community. Also to note is Harris’ vehement support, together with Biden, for trans healthcare, an all-too-rare occurrence in contemporary politics around the world.

Still, Harris has to clear some dark points with LGBT+ community. The conviction of sex workers, the refuse to support health care for trans people incarcerated, all in her time as AG.  Biden has also been rightfully criticised for his enthusiastic support to Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli state, and a case can also be made for the potential performativity of the pair’s outspoken support for queer Americans, or rather the feeling that their policies have not moved fast enough to catch up to their voiced solidarity.

The Stakes for Us All

Yes, Biden and Harris have demonstrated significant shortfalls. However, the looming threat posed by the Trump-Vance pairing should become a priority in our eyes. A mere glance at Project 2025, a think-tank creation led by former Trump administration officials which proposes hard-line reforms including expanding presidential power, dismantling the Department of Education and halting sales of the abortion pill, serves as a more-than-unsettling premonition of what a second Donald Trump Presidency could look like. 

JD Vance, who has recently referred to the Democrats in office as ‘cat ladies’ and ‘people (and by this we can infer that he means women) without children’, has stressed his hard-line anti-abortion and anti-immigrant policies as well as an isolationist stance on foreign policy – he proposes to retreat US aid from Ukraine in order to, in his running buddy Trump’s words, allow Putin to do ‘whatever the hell he wants’. He has also expressed sympathy for Hungary’s leader Viktor Orbán, calling for an American implementation of Hungarian “de-woke-ification” in schools, in other words the removal of critical race or gender theory in what he sees as a purification of the education system to promote conservative family ideals. He has also denounced Poland’s Donald Tusk as a ‘criminal’ and referred to the UK as an ‘Islamist country’. The ghoul behind Brexit, Nigel Farage, has expressed his complete support for Trump in the upcoming elections.

Harris, on the other hand, will likely continue Biden’s foreign policy stance, namely aid to Ukraine, with a potential softening of Joe Biden’s unwavering pro-Israel stance; Harris has previously called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Republicans have recursed to what can only be described as bullying towards Harris since Biden’s announcement. Referred to as ‘Laffin’ Kamala’ by Trump, who in the same speech also called her ‘crazy’, the misogynist undertones, or rather overtones, of such discourse cannot be missed. Though Trump has expressed that Harris will be easier to defeat than Biden in November, polls suggest that Harris may be just as, if not marginally more, popular amongst Democrat voters than her predecessor. 

Trump has perhaps created the impression that he is unbeatable, encapsulated in the unforgettable photo at the rally, raising his arm in the air moments after his assassination attempt. His supporters, of which he has many, began bandaging their ears in solidarity. If the 13th of July showed us anything, it was that Trump has forged tactics to victory and that his supporters will make their voices heard no matter what. He may not be as blithering as we’d be inclined to think; we should perhaps take his threat more seriously. 

Try as we might to forget about the frankly terrifying state of US politics at the moment, we must remember that, at the very least in terms of defence spending, Europe is inextricably intertwined with and, in some respects, even dependent on the US. So, our eyes need to stay on it, because we have stakes in this political game too. In addition to this, the rise of populism is no American invention; the last 3 weeks of US politics reflect international patterns in increasing right-wing popularity as a response to a feeling of instability in the world. A Trump reign would simultaneously mean a strengthening of right-wing power in Europe following the disastrous European elections last month.

With a belief that Kamala Harris’ past efforts point towards a future president who will at least not reduce communities to second-rate citizens on the basis of gender, sexuality, or race, and perhaps a tinge of idealism, we hope that the Democrats will succeed in November. Harris maintains this hope in her statement following Biden’s withdrawal: “I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic party – and unite our nation – to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.” 

Will she win? That is to be seen. What we know for sure is that her victory will come as necessary to balance an increasingly-divided world.

 

Miruna Tiberiu is the Editor-in-Chief of GAY45 and co-host of the podcast “GenClash: Queer Perspectives on Current Affairs”. She is a postgraduate in Film Studies at Cambridge University. Tiberiu has written for numerous publications, including The Cambridge Review of Books and the Cambridge Language Collective. She is the co-founder and co-editor of  Cambridge’s first all-queer magazine, Screeve. She was nominated for the International News Media Association (INMA)’s “30 Under 30” Awards in 2023. 

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Author

  • Miruna Tiberiu is the Editor-in-Chief of GAY45 and co-host of the podcast “GenClash: Queer Perspectives on Current Affairs”. She is a postgraduate in Film Studies at Cambridge University. Tiberiu has written for numerous publications, including The Cambridge Review of Books and the Cambridge Language Collective. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Cambridge’s first all-queer magazine, Screeve. She was nominated for the International News Media Association (INMA)’s “30 Under 30” Awards in 2023.

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