Trump vs Harris is just a front

When Donald Trump and Kamala Harris step into the ring this evening, America will be treated to an illusion. For the past month, we’ve been told that tonight’s showdown in Pennsylvania will be pivotal — that, finally, the nation will witness the chosen tribunes of its two parties slugging it out for the presidency.

But appearances can be misleading. Yes, there is something called the Democratic Party and something called the Republican Party. But these entities bear little resemblance to the grassroots, mass-membership party federations that existed half a century ago. Rather, today’s organisations are made up of various groups as different from each other as from those across the aisle.