U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TRYING TO BE 'RELATABLE'

Employment at a junk food restaurant is the equivalent of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi having meals in Dalit homes. In the end, both these gimmicks amount to glorification of poverty

- K P NAYAR

Elections in the United States are great equalizers; when there is an epic struggle to convince voters that the candidates are one of 'them'. The presidential election season in 2024 is no different.

If the US Constitution is amended to stipulate that when the White House falls vacant every four years, new applicants for tenancy should be at least millionaires, it would lend a sense of realism to American presidential elections. Candidates for the most powerful political office in the world would not then have to engage in ridiculous antics such as serving French fries at a McDonald's drive-in counter to identify themselves with ordinary voters, as Republican Donald Trump did in late October.

Candidates competing to occupy the White House, especially from the Republican Party, are more often than not multimillionaires, if not billionaires. Trump is only the latest example. Previous Grand Old Party nominees John McCain of the Anheuser-Busch beer conglomerate family, the Bush household and their vice president Dick Cheney—with vast oil industry connections, and film actor Ronald Reagan were all infinitely wealthy.

Long gone are the days when Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican chief executive who was not a millionaire, could rise from a humble log cabin to presidency.

In the third millennium, Democrats are not very different. There was a time when presidential nominees from the Democratic Party were more aam aadmi, as Indians would say. Their lives and fortunes were more like the millions who vote for them. Democrat Harry Truman was the poorest president in US history. In 1949, the US Congress had to double Truman's salary so he could make both ends meet in the White House. The US presidency became a pensionable job only in 1958—because Truman, by then a retiree, was slipping into penury.