The DNC is Over, Now the Run-up to the Election 2024

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large

It’s the economy, Nominee!
Domestic policy and cost of living issues occupied centerstage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

A little earnest politicking, some spectacular grandstanding, and even some regular course campaign electioneering, while Our Time Press went to press before the presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s speech at the end of the DNC, it was the super-slick production expected with an urban touch and everyman-feel. Culture, actionable demands, and movements were highlighted by politicos, social media influencers, and grassroots activists.

The new youth vote alongside the older, experienced voters, raised issues like housing, security, climate change and deadly weather, foreign conflicts, and multi-general concerns about the future.

There was a strong Black presence of New York delegates including Brooklyn’s Congresswoman Yvette Clarke and her mom former City Councilwoman Una Clarke, Assemblywomen Stefani Zinerman and Monique Chandler-Waterman, NYS Attorney General Letitia James, and State Senator Andrea Stuart-Cousins.

While on the first night, a selection of women told their tales of personal healthcare and reproductive rights denials, pop culture celebrities were utilized as Democratic Party political messengers, artists like Beyonce, John Legend, and Kerry Washington, alongside vote-getter speakers like former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle, and current President, Joe Biden who got a 4-minute ovation after his Monday midnight EST address.

While Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks of ‘Comrade Kamala,’ and is dragging the issue of crime and immigration, mass deportation, and trade tariffs, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris gets to tread the campaign boards, staying close to what may be seen as “Bidenomics” with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, and a people-centered economic and green energy focus and rebuilding infrastructure.

Harris’s economic/inflation platform touts projected policies such as building new affordable homes, first-time buyer assistance, family tax breaks and expanding child child-earned income Tax Credit, paid family leave, canceling some medical debt, limiting prescription drug prices, banning grocery price-gouging, and free tuition for low-and-middle-income families.

Not chosen as the “border tsar” Trump says she is, but in 2021, President Biden asked his Vice President Ms. Harris to “oversee the diplomatic effort around immigration issues on the US southern border to reduce numbers arriving there,” and said the BBC, as she worked “with Central American countries on the ‘root causes’ of why people there were fleeing to the US.”
The ABC News/Ipsos poll national poll says Harris has a 6-point lead among likely voters, 51%-45%. It states that “since President Joe Biden stepped out of the 2024 presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement on the Democratic ticket, enthusiasm and interest in voting have strengthened among Democrats.”

With “progressive patriotism” as part of the Tim Walz, Kamala Harris platform, the New York Times said that according to the Times/Siena College polls in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Harris has “surged ahead of Donald Trump partly because she is performing better with working-class voters and rural voters than President Biden was.”

Open line host and producer Fatiyn Muhammad broadcast his Sunday morning show live from Harlem Week.
Panelists included Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO and Executive Director, of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies Rev. Michael A. Walrond, Jr., Senior Pastor of Harlem’s First Corinthian Baptist Church, Ruben Santiago-Hudson award-winning actor, playwright, and director and State Senator Cordell Cleare.

“The energy has changed. The momentum has changed, and we know that politics is local. It’s not just about the presidential election,” radio host Muhammad said. “It’s about the down-ballot…the House and the Senate are very important. You can elect the Democratic president, but if you have a Republican House and Senate then nothing probably will pass or get through. So it’s about politics are local, not just educating yourself on the presidential election, but educating yourself on the local elections that are in your community, very, very, very important.”

There has been a Harris honeymoon period for a month now, but as the General Election Day draws closer– the initial excitement that reignited the lackluster Biden campaign, is going to have to face a storm of hard-hitting analysis, criticism, and honest questions.
Back in Chicago, as expected raucous protestors gathered out the DNC have kept reproductive rights, and the “Gaza genocide” top of mind and chants in demand for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine.

Speaking on WBLS, Rev. Walrond determined that the Black electorate has to begin from a unified and informed position.
“Organized money is working. There are billionaires pumping money into Donald Trump. And we have people pumping tons of money into Kamala Harris. But we must understand that where we don’t have wealth, we have the people.
“Organized people always overcome organized money.”

There is just over two months before the national election. The Divine 9 ‘Black-Greek-letter sororities and fraternities have pledged to “ensure a strong voter turnout in the communities we serve.”

Brooklyn-based Ghanaian and African community activist Kwabena Adinkra told Our Time Press, ”As an African living in America, I see Kamala Harris’ campaign as a beacon of hope for a more inclusive and equitable society, where the voices of the marginalized are finally heard.”