"Worldview issues" is also a kind of “conceptual cliché”, allowing us to cover a very broad spectrum of issues, the reception of which is affected by the totality of religious, philosophical and ethical/moral views. They remain linked to the most intimate and at the same time fundamental spheres of a person’s personal life, such as gender, race, sexual identity and the need to ensure their respect in a democratic society, as well as the approach to such issues as the relationship between the state and religious communities, or the question of the beginning and end of human existence (including access to contraception, abortion and euthanasia).
This text is an attempt to answer the question of whether, in the ongoing electoral race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, these kinds of issues occupy an important place in the debate between the candidates and whether they may weigh on who Americans will cast their vote for in the upcoming presidential election.
The specificity of ideological issues in the American socio-political reality
The analysis of the relevance of worldview issues in US presidential elections remains burdened by the need to clarify the specificity of problems and phenomena of this kind in the current US socio-political reality.
It is important to point out that certain issues that still dominate the Polish public debate – having an impact on the voter's final decision when casting a ballot – are not the subject of wider interest in the United States and therefore do not appear in the candidates' election programmes. This category includes, for example, the issue of relations between the state and the Catholic Church (or other religious communities), one of the most important axes of ideological dispute in the Third Polish Republic.
Another "type" of worldview issues – those that are not (or almost completely) of interest to either voters or representatives of political parties in Polish public discourse but are of very significant importance in the United States. This catalogue includes, among other things, deep racial divisions and related problems concerning e.g., social inequality, racism, discrimination, and police brutality.
The last of the specific groups of issues includes those worldview issues that remain an important element of election campaigns in both Poland and the United States. In this case, it is about, for example, the issue of access to abortion and regulating the situation of non-heteronormative people. It should be mentioned, however, that the similarity of the significance of these issues in the political and social life of both countries does not entail the identity of their scope – for example, in the United States, the Supreme Court confirmed the constitutional protection of same-sex marriages already in 2015.
It should also be indicated that the significance of worldview issues in the election campaign is not a constant phenomenon, but remains the subject of specific socio-political changes, dependent on a whole range of specific circumstances of place and time. For example, issues of racial division and inequality played a much more prominent role in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections than either the issue of the permissibility of abortion or the rights of non-heteronormative minorities, which now appear to be much more prominent issues in the public debate
Worldview issues in the current election campaign in the United States
In the current election campaign, the so-called "worldview issues" are used in two specific aspects of the candidates' activity.
The first of them, i.e. creating a specific image of the candidate, constitutes a certain constant in the political reality of contemporary states, not only democratic ones. This type of procedure – which assumes that each participant in the race for the White House is placed in a specific cultural context or on a specific side of a social dispute – is based on a specific attitude of voters towards broadly understood worldview issues.
In this context, Kamala Harris' campaign is trying to build a message about the daughter of migrants – representatives of racial minorities – being a kind of modern embodiment of the "American Dream." The Democratic Party candidate appears as a strong, independent woman, a representative of the middle class who has achieved everything through hard work.
Her message to voters is therefore based on giving hope, including to people from minorities (ethnic, racial, sexual) – whose rights Harris is supposed to respect and protect – that in the United States they have a chance for safe, stable development and success.
Donald Trump's campaign, in turn, is building his profile as a determined, decisive, and active man who, thanks to his actions, commands respect (and/or fear) among other leaders of states around the world, thus strengthening the position of the United States. The Republican Party candidate is presented as a supporter and defender of the traditional/conservative system of values and the "American way of life", in which patriotism plays a strong role (as manifested, for example, by the very strongly exposed slogan "America First", which we wrote about in one of the previous texts.
This type of attitude assumes building a message based on the fight against the (broadly understood) left-liberal establishment, a return to clear, transparent rules for the functioning of society, including guaranteeing freedom of speech and defending the interests of "ordinary Americans".
The second aspect of the use of "worldview issues" in the current election campaign is the candidates' stance on specific issues that constitute an important area of dispute in the American public debate.
In this respect, two specific issues can be distinguished – the candidate's attitude towards abortion and the rights of transgender people.
In the case of abortion, the candidates' division centres on the Supreme Court's decision of 24 June 2022, to overturn the abortion law rules set forth in Roe v. Wade from the early 70's. In the cited judgment, the Supreme Court guaranteed – at the federal level – that women have the possibility of having an abortion (with the possibility of introducing state law restrictions in the second and third trimester of pregnancy). This type of decision led to a kind of "return" of competence to regulate the issue of the permissibility of termination of pregnancy to state legislative bodies.
Kamala Harris – indirectly blaming Donald Trump for this state of affairs, whose Supreme Court judges were involved in issuing the criticised decision – has consistently supported the right to choose, postulating the need to restore those guarantees under federal law that "were taken away by the Supreme Court." She is far more explicit on this issue than Joe Biden, who, while in favour of abortion rights, has indicated that his approach to the issue is fraught with internal conflict, due to the fact that the current US president remains a practising Catholic.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, seems to be prevaricating over the above-mentioned issue. Until he began his presidential term in 2016, the Republican candidate was seen as a supporter of abortion. Then, as indicated above, it was his activity of appointing specific Supreme Court judges (with a conservative value system) that led to the aforementioned overturning of Roe v Wade. Currently, it seems that – due to the importance of this worldview issue, also in the so-called "swing states" without which it is impossible to reach for the presidency – Trump has decided on a kind of "compromise approach" – on the one hand, he distances himself from the issue of the possibility of signing a federal ban on abortion, on the other hand, he remains a supporter of regulating the issue of the permissibility of abortion at the state level, allowing the possibility of terminating a pregnancy in cases of rape, incest and a threat to the mother's health.
When it comes to the situation of transgender people, the divide between candidates also remains evident.
Kamala Harris seeks to protect the rights of transgender people, including protecting them under the amended Title IX Act, which prohibits exclusion/discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded educational programmes or activities. However, such actions were blocked by the Supreme Court in August 2024.
Donald Trump, in turn, is against this type of activity that would result in the expansion of the rights of transsexual people, repeatedly indicating that during his presidency he will take actions aimed at limiting the promotion of gender reassignment issues among Americans.
The importance of "worldview issues" in the current US election campaign
Taking into account the course of the election campaign so far and the experience of previous years, it seems justified to say that although "worldview issues" play a very important role in the presidential election campaign, the attitude towards them is not the decisive/exclusive determinant of the final choice of the candidate when casting a vote. It seems that the issue that is of particular interest to voters is the issue of proposals to introduce such legal regulations and take such actions that will result in improving the economic situation of Americans and solving "current problems" in the areas of, among other things, the healthcare system or housing.
It should be pointed out, however, that at least in some states, the issue of abortion may directly affect the election results – in November, ten states (including two classified as so-called "swing states") will also hold referenda on abortion regulations. It cannot be ruled out that this type of correlation will translate into support for a candidate whose position is consistent with the views of the people participating in the referendum vote.
But will even this type of course of events be enough for a given candidate to win the required number of electoral votes? We'll find out in less than a month.
Text: Dr Jakub Stępień
Department of Constitutional Law, University of Lodz / Centre for Anglo-American Legal Tradition UŁ
ORCID: 0000-0003-0106-680
The article is a part of the ConLaw24 series, in which the Centre for Anglo-American Legal Tradition takes a closer look at the intricacies of the American legal and political system. Every Tuesday until election day, we will publish more texts.
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