The unprecedented US Presidential Election and its consequences
By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Nov. 18, 2020 (IPS)
– American democracy has survived
a dangerous virus, and it
has even come off the ventilator,
but whether it will be restored
to full health or will suffer for
a long time (like a long Covid)
from the negative effects of the
virus of personality cult, chauvinism,
populism, racism, militarism
and, yes let’s say it, fascism,
remains to be seen.
So far, President Trump has
refused to accept that he has
lost the election, and instead
of conceding he has alleged
massive fraud and vote rigging.
Instead of conceding, on Nov. 17
he fired Christopher Krebs, the
director of the federal agency
that vouched for the reliability
of the 2020 election.
Trump continues to claim
that the election was stolen
from him. His personal lawyer
Rudy Giuliani has been engaged
in desperate efforts in the courts
to prove his boss’s unsubstantiated
claims, so far without success.
As late as November 15th,
Trump tweeted: “He Biden only
won in the eyes of FAKE NEWS
MEDIA. I concede NOTHING!
We have a long way to go. This
was a RIGGED ELECTION!”
Caps as in the original.
In the midst of a deadly pandemic
which so far has infected
more than 11 million and killed
nearly a quarter of a million
Americans, the largest number
in the world by far, Trump’s
refusal to cooperate with the
incoming administration to
stem the tide of the infections
and the resulting economic
recession is highly irresponsible.
However, whether ultimately
Trump will be forced to concede
and move on, his repeated
claims of vote rigging and a
stolen election have discredited
US democracy and have
undermined the US reputation
as a law-abiding country with
a smooth transition of power.
There have already been many
clashes between Trump’s supporters
and opponents, and tension
may increase and result in
violence before he leaves office.
Four years ago, when the
reality TV star and property
developer Donald Trump, who
had never held any elected
office, pushed all his competitors
aside and elbowed himself
into the White House, despite
all the predictions and despite
having received three million
votes fewer than his opponent,
many people were wondering
whether the US Constitution’s
famed checks and balances
would work.
As he broke every rule in the
book, blasted the media, sidelined
Congress, appointed partisan
justices to the Supreme
Court, openly criticized the US
security services, pulled out
of many international treaties,
alienated many democratic
allies and cozied up with a
bunch of authoritarian rulers,
it seemed that checks and balances
had failed.
The longstanding fear of
Trump’s use of force to stay in
power, his constant belittling
and insulting of his opponent,
his encouragement of his base
to stick by him, and various
attempts to outlaw or at least
delegitimize postal votes had
caused a great deal of concern
among ordinary citizens and
even politicians and pundits
about a peaceful transition of
power.
However, American voters
took the matter into their own
hands and by voting him out
of office as one of only five oneterm
presidents over the past
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
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Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
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100 years they have restored
grounds for hope and optimism,
but whether the next administration
can repair all the
damage that has been done to
democracy and the rule of law
will remains to be seen.
President Trump’s efforts to
hold on to power have been
unlike anything that Americans
have experienced in recent
memory, and they resemble the
efforts of some rulers in thirdworld
banana republics where
the defeated candidates resort
to force to subvert the will of
the people. “What we have seen
in the last week from the president
more closely resembles the
tactics of the kind of authoritarian
leaders we follow,” Michael
Abramowitz, the president of
Freedom House, which tracks
democracy, told the Times. “I
never would have imagined
seeing something like this in
America.”
Apart from undermining
democracy at home, Trump and
his aides may also engage in
some catastrophic adventures
abroad before leaving office.
According to a New York Times’s
scoop, in a meeting with his
senior advisors on November
12th, Trump asked them if there
were options for a US strike on
Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment
facilities.
Apparently, they opposed
Trump’s course of action
because it could kick off a major
war in the last weeks of his presidency.
The fact is that Iran has
not engaged in an illegal activity
and has carried out civilian
uranium enrichment under
the IAEA supervision in keeping
with the Iran nuclear deal (the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action) which Trump violated,
and as a part of his “Maximum
Pressure,” imposed crippling
illegal sanctions on Iran.
Therefore, not only would
an attack on those facilities
have constituted a war crime,
it would also have resulted in
massive casualties among civilians
living near those installations.
A 2012 study found that a
strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities
would kill between 5,000 and
70,000 people from the release
of 1%-20% of the uranium
hexafluoride gas at the Isfahan
facility. However, if 50 percent
or more of the gas were released
the radioactive fallout would
be proportionately larger. Even
contemplating such an attack
shows the extent of his irresponsibility
and even criminality.
Another cause for concern is
that even if there is a peaceful
transition, the long-term effects
of the election are still unpredictable.
The vote was not a
clear, one-sided repudiation of
Trump’s authoritarian tendencies
and a return to the rule of
law. Although the Biden-Harris
ticket prevailed by an almost five
million votes margin, Trump
too received more votes than he
did in 2016.
He continues to have a devoted
base, and even after seeing
the disastrous record of his
rule during the past four years,
nearly half of the voters voted
for him again. This shows that
although Trump was defeated
by a small margin, Trumpism is
still alive and well, and may pose
a serious threat to democratic
governance during the next four
years.
The Democrats lost seats in
the House and, contrary to predictions,
failed to gain a majority
in the Senate. The runoff
elections in Georgia on Jan.
5 may reduce the Republican
majority in the Senate but the
situation is far from ideal. So, it
is still premature to predict the
end of Trumpism and a return
to political health.
The recent election has highlighted
some flaws in the US’s
electoral system. Although both
Al Gore in 2,000 and Hillary
Clinton in 2016 received more
popular votes than their rivals
they failed to be declared president
on the basis of the number
of Electoral College votes. This
clearly goes against the principle
of one-person one vote, and
the majority vote deciding the
outcome.
The Electoral College is a
remnant of the debates in the
summer of 1787. The Constitutional
Convention debated three
options about how to elect a
president, election by Congress,
selection by state legislatures
and a popular election. It should
be remembered that at that time
the right to vote was generally
restricted to white, landowning
men.
The choice of the Electoral
College was to provide a buffer
from what Thomas Jefferson
referred to as the “well-meaning,
but uninformed people”
who “could have no knowledge
of eminent characters and qualifications
and the actual selection
decision.”
Surely, in the age of universal
education and mass communication,
those condescending
arguments are no longer valid.
The return to the principle of
the majority vote will put an end
to this anomaly among democratic
countries.
The whole system of voting
also needs changing. At the
moment, there is no uniform
pattern of voting and different
states have their own rules. As a
result, there have been unnecessary
disputes about postal votes,
votes received too late, etc. In
most other democratic countries
there are clear rules of
voting and the results are often
announced shortly after the end
of the election.
The third problem is the
duration of transition from one
administration to the next with
the possibility of mischief by
an irresponsible incumbent. In
Britain, for instance, the outcome
of the election is usually
known by the following
day when the transfer of power
takes place, and the new prime
minister moves into 10 Downing
Street as the previous one
leaves.
These are surely issues for
consideration before the next
presidential election. However,
whatever happens, the fact
remains that American democracy
has been dealt a major blow
as the result of Trump’s populist
and authoritarian rule, and it
will need a great deal of hard
work, national unity and determination
to reverse the trend.
Sadly, the raging pandemic, the
worsening economic recession
and a divided society will make
that task very difficult.
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