End the nightmare

By Artchil B. Fernandez

 

The United States of America is living a nightmare in the last four years. Three days from now, Americans will have the chance to end the nightmare. This they can do by voting Donald Trump out.

Four years ago, Trump won the US presidency as part of the populist wave sweeping the world. It was that populist tide which also brought to power Du30 here in the Philippines and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. The rising tide of right-wing populism is a reaction to the grave crisis of the neoliberal global order.

The crisis of neo-liberalism created a rightist backlash with populist demagogues stealing the thunder from the Left railed against massive inequality and grinding poverty. Neoliberal economics and liberal democracy failed to deliver on their promise of uplifting the lives of millions of people in the margins, feeding their discontent and disgust. Frustrated, the discontented turned to right-wing populism for salvation.

In the US, Trump’s catchwords, “Make America Great Again” resonated with white working class Americans who lost their jobs to globalization. The revolt of the group (who traditionally votes Democrat) in Rust Belt states narrowly delivered Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to Trump and was pivotal to his 2016 victory.

Trump promised paradise to Americans, but what they got instead is a nightmare. The America of Trump resembles more like a third-world country than a top-rate first-world nation.

No US president has flaunted and bent institutional rules than Trump. He ignores congressional oversight, is dismissive of the principle of check-and-balance and uses the apparatuses of government to advance personal and partisan interest. Trump behaves more like a third-world autocrat than a leader of an advanced democracy.

Lying and indecency are normalized by Trump. Telling lies not only becomes habitual under Trump, but he also tries to make lying acceptable. Trump is inundating America with tsunamis of falsehoods. So far Trump made 22,247 false or misleading claims. Fact-checkers are closely monitoring if Trump’s lies will reach or exceed 25,000 at the end of his term. Psychologist David Markowitz notes that Trump makes 23.3 lies per day. Honesty under Trump is no longer a virtue demanded from a leader.

Under Trump, the US is more divided than ever as a nation. Trump used the notion of the Other to sow fear, distrust and divide Americans. He disparages and vilifies immigrants and minorities, feeding on the xenophobia of white Americans. His racist-laced speeches empowered and emboldened white-supremacist and racist groups who used to be on the fringes of American society. Whether Trump is a racist or not is still debatable. At the very least, he is a latent racist and at most, he is a devious opportunist who uses the race-card to advance his political agenda unmindful of the dark consequences.

The scariest nightmare of Americans under Trump is his disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Americans are only 4 percent of the world’s population, but they comprise 20 percent of the global Covid-19 infections and deaths. There are now 8,859,310 cases of Covid-19 and 227,701 deaths in the US according to Johns Hopkins University (as of this writing) and these figures highlight Trump’s gross incompetence.

Wearing masks remains a contentious political issue in Trump’s America while this is the norm for the rest of the pandemic-ravage world. Trump refuses to order a national mandate on mask-wearing and politicized the issue. He mocks his opponent for wearing a mask and encourages his supporters to defy state and local orders despite scientific evidence that wearing a mask reduces 85 percent of the risk of infection according to World Health Organization. Covid-19 cases are now spiking across the US.

The existential question now is, will Americans end the nightmare on November 3 or prolong it for another four years?

The latest aggregate of national polls shows Democrat Joe Biden is leading the presidential race at 52 percent while Trump is lagging with 42 percent. In key battleground states which Trump won in 2016, Biden is also ahead:  Arizona – +4; Michigan – +8, Pennsylvania – +7 and Wisconsin – +7 while Iowa and Ohio are a toss-up. Even in the reliably red states of Georgia and Texas, both candidates are statistically tied.

To win, Biden needs only to hold on to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania while Trump has to win all the states won in 2016 to retain the presidency.

Pundits, however, caution of writing-off Trump pointing to 2016 where he was also lagging in the polls but pulled a big surprise in the end. Trump can still win but the situation now is much different from 2016. These are the differences: in 2016 Clinton was ahead on the eve of the election with 46 percent to Trump’s 42 percent but the lead was within the margin of error; Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton, there are fewer undecided voters now, no third-party candidate today and there was no Covid-19 then.

The path to victory for Trump is narrower today than in 2016. Only a hugely high surge of Republican voters, high enough to overcome the much-energized Democrats and surpass early voting (which traditionally favors Democrats) will enable Trump to win a second term.  Can the Republican hardcore base smash reality?

Early voting is record high with 76 million Americans already voted as of this writing and this is more than half of the votes cast in 2016. Americans are lining for 4 to 8 hours in early voting across the US, an enormous enthusiasm never seen in recent memory. Is this eagerness and zeal to vote a sign of the desire of Americans to end the Trump nightmare? Which one will prevail on Tuesday – decency or indecency, truth or lies, unity, or hate/division? The world will know the answer later this week.