The force is one of the values on which the United States is based. Their army is strong, the strongest. The economy must be strong. The image that other countries must have of the United States is strong, because only in this way can they maintain their influence on a global level. It is no coincidence that one of the criticisms that has been most often leveled at Joe Biden lately is that he is “too weak” to influence what is happening in the Middle East. On the concept of force, Hollywood has built an immense cinematography that contributes to nourishing an imaginary that is however beginning to creak.
Strength in the US Presidential Election
Last 19 July, Biden has decided to withdraw from the race for the White House not because everyone thought he was "too old" to be president, or rather not only that, but because that “old” was increasingly becoming synonymous with “weak.” And voters would never have voted for a “weak” president. Hence the step back in favor of Kamala Harris who from the very first moment has tried to present herself to the voters as a strong, resolute, decisive woman. And in recent weeks the vice president has been trying more and more to prove to be the strongest with actions and statements that confirm it. Harris “has a gun and she’s ready to shoot” any intruder who enters her home, she told Oprah Winfrey on September 22, causing quite a stir even among her supporters. Harris enters the lions’ den and is interviewed by Fox News, the conservative network par excellence that contributed significantly to Trump's rise. Harris confronts her opponents head on, so much so that wins the first tv debate and challenges his rival to a second confrontation which he refuses. The reason? “It is clearly a sign of weakness”, the current vice president commented laconically.
Trump: from “weird” to “weak”
In the first weeks of the election campaign, Democrats mockingly described Donald Trump using the same adjective over and over again.: “weird”, “strange”. To annoy him (and succeed, by the way, the tycoon is not very inclined to accept criticism, to put it mildly), but also to demonstrate that his accusations against them had no power. In recent weeks, however, the adjective most used by Harris and her allies to talk about Trump is “weak”, “weak”. Too weak to lend himself to a debate, too weak to give “uncontrolled” interviews (unlike Harris who goes to Fox News, is the subtext), too weak and old to make meaningful speeches during his rallies that become so boring that those present run away before he finishes speaking. And if he can't do these simple things, how will he “be president?” is the question that many Dems leave hanging. Not to mention his age. If elected, Trump will become the oldest president ever: "Are we sure that an elderly person is not too weak to be president?", many Democrats ask rhetorically. It might seem almost a revenge: they are the same, identical accusations that until July 18 the former president was making against Biden and that are now being turned against him.
Indeed it's a strategy very precise: Trump, with his invectives, his fake news, his fiery rallies has always managed to represent himself as a "strong man in command", the "commander in chief" that the United States needs to assert its strength. Characteristics that voters have rewarded in the past and that polls show are still winning: for the majority of voters he could still be the "strongest". Can a woman overturn these stereotypes? This is what Harris is trying to do. Succeeding will mean winning over many of those undecided voters who have doubts about him. And, considering that practically all polls in view of next November 5 predict an unprecedented “head to head”, even those few votes will count, indeed.
