Rarely have a few thousand votes in a handful of places mattered so much to so many. America – and the world – spent much of Thursday hanging once again on every twist of the long vote-counting battle between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the remaining battlegrounds. When it finally comes, the verdict will nevertheless be decisive. One of these two utterly different political leaders will become the United States president until 2025. History will be shaped by both the result and the aftermath.
This election has highlighted deep weaknesses in the American democratic system, all of which are amplified by Mr Trump’s determination to test things to destruction in real time. Fortunately, the armed intimidation of voters and election officials by militias supporting Mr Trump did not happen on any scale. But other outrages did. The most egregious of these remains the scandal of systemic voter suppression by Republicans against minority ethnic voters across most of the US. This scandal has now been joined by Mr Trump’s brazen readiness to use his lawyers, often on the basis of lies, to try to stop the counting of votes.
Underlying this is the electoral college system itself, which may yet deny the presidency – for what would be the third time in 20 years – to the candidate for whom most Americans voted. This anachronism may have been what America’s 18th-century white founders intended, when they tried to empower the states against the popular majority. But in an era of equal rights, it is an extraordinary hangover. The electoral college is not a check or a balance. It is an abuse that is ripe for the scrapheap.
In most respects, the 2020 US election has proved less of a watershed. In the American system, voting at state level is often almost as important as the presidential contest. State elections, which choose members of the US Congress as well as of state legislatures, shape much of what a president can do at home. They provide a homeland context for the president’s actions on the world stage too. They define how far the presidential writ will run. Here the verdict this week was almost the opposite of decisive. In some ways it seems like a vote in favour of gridlock.
Tuesday confirmed America is a country divided down the middle. These divides are at their most glaring in the Trump-Biden battle. This week, though, voters clearly drew back from handing all the power to one side of the divide. Republicans seem likely to keep control of the Senate, despite some losses. Similarly, Democrats survived setbacks to keep their grip in the House of Representatives. Many on both sides will interpret this as a mandate to fight every issue every inch of the way, with no concessions. A minority may see it as an ultimatum from the voters for the two sides to compromise and cut deals. This seems deeply unlikely.
The calculated shamelessness of Mr Trump’s disregard for facts and propriety in his response to the election suggests the coming days and weeks will also be vicious, bitter and explosive. Even if Mr Biden eventually enters the White House as president in January, he will be immediately confronted with entrenched opposition. There is a newly strengthened conservative majority on the supreme court. Now there will also be a Senate that will claim a mandate to obstruct. Meanwhile, after a strong performance at state level, this week’s results ensure that Republicans will have the upper hand in the always dirty business of redrawing the states’ electoral maps for the coming decade.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
