We are now only three weeks away from election day and the topic of this election has been the near exclusive subject of this CASTNET COMMENTARY blog for years, in fact from almost the day that Donald Trump came down the Trump Tower escalator to announce his candidacy for President in the 2016 election cycle. It has been exhausting and I wish nothing more than to get the “all clear” signal for changing the subject. That can only happen if America unambiguously defeats the MAGA prophet and his apostles in the upcoming election. That is a big “if”!
A question
that should never have to be asked in a civilized, educated, and prosperous
society will have to be answered in this election: “Is America ready to elect a
woman President and is America ready to elect a woman of color President?” When
the result is in, we will have to sort out if the winner was elected on the
basis of policy or on the basis of sex and/or skin color. We may never know.
What started
with an escalator ride has turned into an interminable roller coaster ride that
may, or may not, come to a final stop sometime after November 5. The most
remarkable and distressing aspect of this roller coaster ride has been that
time and again the American voting public has kept a man in the race who is so
patently undeserving of the high office in the land. While he has done almost
anything imaginable to disqualify himself, including committing crimes, the
Republican Party has allowed him to be the top of their ticket for eight years.
It defies belief that an openly populist, authoritarian, xenophobic, and barely
disguised racist movement like MAGA has managed to replace conservatism as the
opponent of liberalism. Fringe movements in American society are nothing new but
they never lasted and hardly ever captured more than 20% popular support. At
that level they never posed a serious threat to the constitutional democracy,
but that has changed by the Trump takeover of the Republican Party. The reason
why the upcoming election is of such epic importance is because it has morphed
from a battle between conservative and progressive ideology to a battle between
democracy and authoritarianism. Never before has America faced this fateful
choice.
It has all
appearance that the race between Trump and Harris is a toss-up at this point. We
have witnessed mood swings that have shifted momentum in either direction from a
strong Trump bias immediately after the Republican National Convention and the Biden/Trump
debate in June to a move in the other direction after Biden backed out of the
race and Harris/Walz were coronated at the Democratic National Convention. A
momentum that got confirmed with a clear Harris win in the Trump/Harris debate
on ABC in September.
But, unless
all the polling amounts to nothing, the net result is that this race is too close
to call and up for grabs. So, the roller coaster ride continues. It is so
distressing that apparently character does not account for anything anymore
when it comes to electing the next President of the United States of America.
If it were different, this race would already be decided by now.
With the peculiarity
of the role of the Electoral College in the process of electing the President
of the United States, all eyes will be on the battleground States of
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.
Any of these States can be won by only a handful of votes which in turn can decide
the election one way or the other. It will not matter who wins the national
popular vote as Hillary Clinton only knows too well (she won the popular vote
by almost 3 million votes in 2016 and still lost the Presidency to Donald
Trump).
The inescapable tightness of the race this year raises the specter of a very long
period in which the outcome will remain uncertain. We better brace ourselves
for repeated calls for recounts, audits, and litigations creating a breeding
ground for protests, demonstrations, and violence reminiscent of January 6,
2021. Trump has already made it clear that only election fraud can keep him
from coming away victorious from this election and no doubt he will declare
himself the winner long before we will have the result. He and his running mate
J.D.Vance have yet to admit that he lost the 2020 election. The only saving
grace is that this time he does not reside in the White House and has no power
to invoke the insurrection act or try to engage the military in any subversive
action aimed at restoring him to power. The integrity and the loyalty to the
Constitution of the top State election officials, the State legislatures, the
Electors, the judiciary, and ultimately the Supreme Court will surely be tested
before we can inaugurate the 47th President of the USA, that is
unless Trump would somehow pull off a decisive, incontestable win.
I have long
believed that the American voters, when it would come to standing in the voting
booth and having to pull the lever, would in large majority refuse to abandon
the safety of the constitutional democracy and defeat Trump based on character.
But I was wrong in 2016 and today I am not so sure. From all appearances the
race, three weeks out from D-Day, is uncomfortably close. I sure pray that the
voters will recognize what is at stake and come out in force to do the right
thing. As Winston Churchill famously said: “Americans can always be trusted to
do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
