Recently, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia now supports Kamala Harris. Alexandra Voitolovskaya, a researcher in the US Foreign and Domestic Policy Sector at the Primakov Center for North American Studies IMEMO RAS, explained to Pravda.Ru the reasons for this statement.
— Earlier, Vladimir Putin announced his support for Biden as a candidate for the US presidency. But at the Vladivostok Economic Forum he made a statement that he would now support Kamala Harris. In your opinion, why did the president support the Democratic candidate?
— Probably only Vladimir Vladimirovich can give an exact answer to this question. There is an assumption that with Donald Trump Russia has already seen him, it has not gained anything good from him, so why not try a chance with a democratic president, especially with a young and nice woman?
“Many people thought it was a kind of trolling.” In your opinion, was this a truly sincere statement?
“Judging by the president’s tone, he was probably joking.” But how serious can one be when the head of state is asked about the expected outcome of elections in another sovereign state? In this case, laughing is probably the only possible option.
— The president said she is very happy, she laughs and maybe, as a kind person, she will reduce the sanctions, partially or even completely lift them. How would you describe Kamala Harris, a woman who has fun all the time?
“This is part of her image, part of the advertising slogan of her election campaign: the “campaign of joy”. Her style of behaviour, constantly attacked by her political opponents, was deliberately made a plus, a part of her image. As for the sanctions, Kamala Harris will not have the right to remove anything, since she did not impose them.
Donald Trump, when he was president, signed a law to counter US adversaries through sanctions. This is the same law that codified a set of presidential decrees that had been introduced earlier in relation to the Russian Federation. The President could remove them by decree. But once Congress has passed this law, no other president, including Trump, can repeal it. Only Congress can remove it. So I don’t think there is any need to delude ourselves here.
Regarding the character of Kamala Harris. In my opinion, the media space underestimates this candidate. She plays well with the image of a relatively young and attractive woman, she does not follow the path Hilary Clintonwho in 2016 tried to act like a man in a male-dominated political field. Kamala Harris behaves like a woman, deliberately exaggerates it, which is why, perhaps, there is a feeling that she is too cheerful and cheerful. Her, let’s say, her target voter is not only the white middle and upper middle class, but also the dark-skinned population. They very much welcome this style of communication, which is close and understandable to them.
People in the United States are very tired of Trump and Biden, of the feeling of fear: “Elect me, or the terrible Trump will come and the American statehood will end.” Or, on the contrary, as Trump says, “elect me, otherwise Biden will come, who has no idea what is going on, and then the United States will enter the third world war.” This “joy campaign,” personified by Kamala Harris, the new face of the Democrats, is designed to free the voter from the oppressive feeling of fear and give him hope. And hope is easier to sell to people than fear. It is better to buy fear, but hope is easier to sell. And Kamala Harris’s campaign headquarters is betting on this. Moreover, the Democrats needed to change the face of their party. So they changed it as much as they could.
— The United States has imposed sanctions against our media outlet Russia Today. Will Russia be accused of interfering in the US election again? In your opinion, could this indicate that the Democrats have begun to doubt Harris’s victory and have brought out their usual scarecrow, or are there other reasons behind this?
“The intervention is likely to be repeated. Last time this card was played very successfully, even though essentially no evidence was presented, at least in the public domain. Those posts published on the Internet and supposedly backed by the American intelligence services were enough for the average voter to believe them. For an American, the FBI investigations are an indisputable truth. The FBI cannot lie, so it must be true. If it worked once, why not do it all over again?”
“Will the American people really believe this conspiracy theory trick again?”
“I think it’s quite possible that he believes it.” Another thing is how necessary it is today. The question is not whether the Democrats doubted Kamala Harris’ victory, but whether her lead over Trump is still quite small. Kamala is ahead of Trump, she has about 47% of the population’s support, Trump has 44%. The 3% can be attributed to miscalculation, i.e. they are neck and neck.
Now all the cards that can be put on the table will be played. It will be very interesting to see what else the Trump team pulls out of its sleeve, because I have a personal feeling that they are just getting ready to attack and are waiting until closer to the election to boost Kamala Harris’s popularity ratings.
—How do you think relations between Russia and the United States will develop if the Democrats come to power?
— If Democrats come to power, we can probably expect, at least in the first six months, a fairly consistent continuation of Biden’s policies simply by the logic of the election cycle, because the president who takes office usually completes many of the initiatives started by the previous president, especially if they are members of the same party.
There is another, much more interesting question: How will the forces be distributed in the House of Representatives and the Senate, that is, in the US Congress? Because depending on how the elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate go (and they are held there at the same time as the national presidential elections), much will depend on the foreign and domestic policy of the United States.
If Congress is controlled by an opposition party, it can become very angry with the president. And at the same time, if it or at least one of its chambers represents the president’s party, as is happening now, then the president’s initiatives will not be completely blocked, but the period for making decisions on some consensus issues will be extended. This applies to both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
— So if the Democrats remain in power, will support for Ukraine continue and perhaps even grow?
“At this point, I think we should not expect any moves from the US government regarding support for Ukraine, simply because even if the Democrats do not win, it turns out that they will give some kind of moral and image dividend to Donald Trump. If the Democrats win, a lot will depend on the color of Congress. If it is completely democratic, which is unlikely, then, I think, it will be given a full green light.
But I doubt that Congress will be completely democratic even if Kamala Harris wins. Therefore, there will still be a strong internal political confrontation.
— If Trump comes to power, how will US policy towards our country change?
Trump is more focused on China. And his methods are much more radical than those of the Democrats. The Democrats are also confronting China, but in a much softer way. In knowledge-intensive industries, in telecommunications and in the military, of course, we will clash with the United States in exactly the same way as we did.
As for sanctions, I don’t think anything good awaits us if Trump wins. We can only hope that Trump is too busy with domestic politics, because he will significantly shake up the domestic political establishment.
—Is this a fight against immigrants and the return of production from China and other countries to the United States?
“He will do it too, but first of all he is determined to focus on the establishment, that is, on those people who are involved in politics. In particular, he wants to take political officials and turn them into political appointees, that is, people who will be appointed to their positions. And this reform affects thousands of people. This is a very big and serious problem in the United States today. Supreme Court reform. Migration. There will be a whole host of points. In foreign policy, Trump will be primarily concerned with China and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
— Sometimes one gets the feeling that US presidents are a kind of staged characters behind which there are people unknown to the public, the so-called Deep State. If this is so, with whom should we negotiate and to what extent are they capable of negotiating?
“First of all, we must understand that behind the presidents there is not only a deep state, but also the legislative and judicial branches of government and Congress. In the United States there are three branches that create balance. It is impossible to negotiate with one person without taking into account the opinions of the other two; these are three equal branches of government, and not one, as in other states. As for the deep state, if we talk about the fact that any candidate is financed by donors and any party has a certain group of people who benefit from the arrival of a particular candidate, then yes, such a deep state exists in the United States.
All of this is public domain, you can see who these people are, how much money they donate and to whom exactly. The problem is that today’s candidates really look a lot like characters that can be replaced. One of the American magazines had a wonderful cartoon cover on which Kamala Harris appeared in the form of an inflatable balloon. obama AND Clinton. This reflects the current situation very well, and not only in the United States, but also in many Western countries, where some political fanatics or excessive populists are coming to power. The establishment is getting stronger, that is, the group of people who control power is getting stronger. But this does not mean that the candidates do not have their own opinions and do not have their own policies.
I think Kamala is being underestimated a lot here, portraying her as a weak-willed woman. We don’t know what she will do if she really comes to power and gains strength.
— In the United States, there is a polarization of society, there is a strict division between Democrats and Republicans, more precisely, between Harris supporters and Trump supporters. Do you expect this to lead to an armed confrontation?
— Of course, I don’t expect an armed confrontation. But the trend you noticed is very significant. These are not just Trumpists and Harrisists, these are people who gravitate towards radical left and radical right agendas, and because of polarization (and this permeates not only society, the electorate, but also Congress), the decision-making process at the government level is very difficult.
Americans are concerned about many fundamental issues that have taken decades to resolve, such as immigration, abortion, LGBT people, among others.*transpersonas, school education issues.
There is polarization on these issues. So there cannot be an armed conflict over support for Trump and Harris, but it is quite possible that there will be some serious clashes over these unresolved issues, demonstrations and taking to the streets.
*Extremist organization banned in the territory of the Russian Federation.
