Multiple University of Connecticut experts met in a public forum to discuss the upcoming presidential debate on Tuesday, Oct. 8. titled “Historic Firsts: The 2024 Presidential Election.” Taking place at Connecticut’s Old State House in Hartford, the forum was centered around the historic significance of this year’s election.
Questions were primarily asked by moderator Catherine Shen, the current host of Connecticut Public Radio’s podcast “Where We Live,” with half an hour saved for questions from the audience. The panelists for the event were UConn professors Evelyn M. Simien and Christopher Vials, as well as Manisha Sinh, who is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair in American History at UConn.
Shen began the forum with the question, “what is historic about this election?” Simien, a political science professor as well as the director of the Africana Studies Institute at UConn, noted that Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris is significant, not only due to her gender and racial heritage, but also the way by which she achieved the nomination.
“Biden made a decision to put country first,” Simien said. “What I think I will never forget, especially as a political scientist, is just the way she came to be the Democratic nominee.”
Vials instead discussed what he referred to as the “darker aspect” of the election. “It’s the first time we’ve had somebody in this century who doesn’t believe in the rule of law,” he explained, discussing Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump. “There is now a change within the political right that is, in certain ways, post-democracy.”
“What I’m surprised about was the way Kamala Harris immediately stepped into the role,” Sinh added, referring to Harris’s sudden nomination by the Democratic party after President Biden withdrew from the race. “Historically, I think this is probably one of the first times we’ve had a presidential nominee so late in the game, who has been able to step up.”
Furthermore, she noted that Harris has also been primarily focused on what a future for America would look like.
“It’s rather extraordinary to have a presidential election where it’s not just going to be decided who will be the next president, but the fate of the American public,” Sinh said.
Shen then brought up the discussion of Harris’s nomination, noting that “we’re at a crossroads. But this doesn’t seem to be the first time that America has been at this crossroads,” referencing Sinh’s discussion of the future of America. “Have we seen this before? Is this new?”
Sinh brought up the period of Reconstruction, during which the nation was recovering from the Civil War. In the eyes of Sinh, there was “authoritarian rule in the South. You had racist domestic violence, you had people launching mini coups, overthrowing elected governments, assassinating people. And I thought we had turned the page on that history. But when January 6th happened … I said, ‘no, this has happened before.’ But we have actually gotten through that period.”
Vials discussed what he referred to as “facism-esque politics,” which he originally had believed was unlikely to crop up in America, although he has since changed his mind.
“There are debates, very smart debates, about whether or not MAGA is in the fascist tradition,” he said, referring to the Make America Great Again movement, which Encyclopedia Brittanica describes as a “nativist political movement that emerged in the United States during the 2016 presidential campaign of its putative leader, Donald Trump.”
“I would say that it brings together this mix of anti-Marxism, of masculine fetish for action, of authoritarian drive for national renewal. All of these things that put it within range, very much so,” Vials continued, discussing MAGA’s relationship with fascism. “I didn’t expect to see that.”
Shen next asked Simien about what Harris represents in term of a “first” for America, referring to her status as America’s first female, African American and Southeast Asian vice president.
“How do you think that impacts the psychological decision making with voters?” Shen asked.
Simien responded with a discussion of the way voters see their candidates, and what kinds of emotions candidates can bring, equating “pride” specifically with the way voters view candidates that represent their demographic.
“There’s something to be said about the progress that is made when someone from a historically disenfranchised group emerges on such a platform to assume commander-in-chief,” Simien said.
Shen and the panelists also discussed voting, with topics related to the voting process, what a person’s vote truly means in America and the current process of early voting in America.
The forum was livestreamed on YouTube and is currently saved as a recording on the CTOldStateHouse channel.