The Glass Ceiling

Unlike 2016, Trump won the popular vote in 2024, carrying every key swing state, a disquieting fact for the Democratic party. A significant number of Democrats are of the view that it might be decades before the US gets a female president. Many are re-examining their commitment to fielding diverse candidates, especially women. Interestingly 40 per cent of both Democrats and Republicans feel that a woman will not be elected to the nation's highest office in their lifetime

- SUSHILA RAMASWAMY

U.S. exceptionalism is reflected in a number of ways with important political ramifications. The electoral college and the composition of the Senate violates the modern democratic principle of majority rule. The American presidency is a medieval office as it combines the functions of a head of state as well as of government and is an anachronism amongst modern constitutional practices. It was described by Schlesinger as imperial and continues to be so. The defeat of two well-educated women presidential candidates in 2016 and 2024 by a pronounced misogynist male supremacist reflects this exceptionalism. On crucial issues of economic equality, racial integration and women's rights, the US, according to Dahl, has fallen behind other nations seriously denting its soft power status too.

The US Constitution did not forbid slavery nor did it empower Congress to do so. It also did not guarantee the universal right of suffrage. Initially only, white male landowners had the right while women, African-American and native Americans struggled hard and long to secure it despite Washington wishing for an end of slavery and incorporation of native Americans in the political process as equals. The 14th amendment (1866), passed after the Civil War ended slavery and granted the right to all adult males and the 15th amendment (1870) stated that voting rights could not be denied on account of race. But it wasn't until the 1960s after the Civil Rights Movement that African-Americans secured the right to vote. Women despite their struggle since the 1820s got the right to vote in 1920 through the 19th amendment.