We pray for America

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“We will win an election when all the seats in the House and Senate and the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office and the whole bench of the Supreme Court are filled with people who wish they weren’t there.”—P. J. O’Rourke

WE hope and pray that the world’s biggest democracy will survive when America’s 240 million registered voters (150 million of them were expected to cast their ballots either by mail-in or in-person) decide for their next president on November 3.

Filipinos all over the world, especially those living—and will vote—in the United States, should take a closer look at the unfolding events and watch out in the next 72 days starting November 3 (U.S. time).

Will America elect its new president in the person of Joseph Biden?

Will President Donald Trump be reelected?

Will Mr. Trump accept defeat and peacefully turn over the reigns of the White House if he loses in the race for the 270 votes in the Electoral College?

Or will he become an instrument of chaos and violence by refusing to yield in the event he loses the presidential election as manifested by his previous inflammatory words?

Weeks leading to the Election Day, there were telltale signs that American democracy will experience a tremor of hostility and tumult with no less than the International Crisis Group (ICG), an independent organization working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world, warning that “the ingredients for unrest are present.”

 

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This came after Mr. Trump claimed “he will only lose if the Democrats will cheat.”

The incumbent president had asked his army of supporters to guard the ballots on election day, alluding there will be an electoral fraud, an unsubstantiated accusation which had been dismissed as baseless by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“The electorate is polarized, both sides frame the stakes as existential, violent actors could disrupt the process and protracted contestation is possible,” the ICG observed.

“President Donald Trump’s often incendiary rhetoric suggests he will more likely stoke than calm tensions.”

ICG sounds the alarm to prevent deadly conflict and builds support for good governance and inclusive politics that enable societies to flourish.

ICG has warned that “beyond the implications for any Americans caught up in unrest, the election will be a harbinger of whether its institutions can guide the U.S. safely through a period of socio-political change.”

It added: “If not, the world’s most powerful country could face a period of growing instability and increasingly diminished credibility abroad.”

ICG has urged authorities to be “ready to counter voter intimidation and continue polling in the event of disruption.”

It encouraged domestic leaders to “make bipartisan calls for a clean election. Foreign leaders should press U.S. counterparts to respect democratic norms. The media and foreign governments should take care not to recognize a winner prematurely.”

 

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If democracy gets sick in the United States owing to the unrest and acrimony that attended the pre-election day days, the rest of the world will be affected.

Members of the free world from the different continents look up to American democracy as role model.

This government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system, is touted to be the best government in the modern world.

America should survive this acid test and show the world it is really the role model of democracy.

 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)