[ad_1]
Credit, Reuters
An election in which the president seeks a second term is always a referendum on his government, and this year Democrats hoped that the November 3 election would make clear the American repudiation of the performance of Republican Donald Trump.
In a record year of attendance, Biden was the president who received the most votes in the country’s history, surpassing the previous mark of 69.5 million votes received by Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.
But even so, his victory was close, since, in the United States, the president is indirectly chosen by the Electoral College, and receiving the majority of the popular vote is no guarantee of success. The dispute for the 270 votes of the Electoral College necessary to win the Presidency was fierce and with uncertainty until the last moment.
Despite being defeated, Trump performed better than expected and, according to partial figures, this year he received more than 7 million more votes than he had received in 2016, when he also lost the popular vote, but won the necessary votes. in the Electoral College to get to the White House.
Contrary to Democrats’ expectations, the Republican Party expanded its presence in the House of Representatives (equivalent to the House of Representatives), regaining some of the seats lost in the 2018 legislative elections.
The expectation that the Democratic Party will win a majority in the Senate was also questioned. With few seats yet to be confirmed, the party’s only hope is to win two second-round races in January in Georgia, a traditionally Republican state, despite Joe Biden leading the presidential election tally.
The faithful electoral base and the support of nearly half the country should mean that, even outside the White House, Trump remains an influential leader in the Republican Party.
“The result of this election shows that Trumpism remains firm and strong,” political scientist Justin Gest, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia, told BBC News Brazil.
“Even losing will be a huge influence on Americans and the future of the Republican Party in the future,” says Gest, who is the author of the book. The New Minority: The Politics of the White Working Class in an Age of Immigration and Inequality (“The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Era of Immigration and Inequality”, in free translation).
Travel accident
For months, Biden and the Democrats repeated that Trump, his actions and statements did not represent Americans. “That is not who we are,” the Democrat said more than once.
Credit, Reuters
Defeated, Trump made several allegations of voter fraud without providing any evidence
Many Trump opponents believed that his victory in 2016, when he shocked the world by defeating Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, was a car accident.
Trump joined the 2015 campaign with an aggressive speech against immigrants and a promise to put America “first.” During his four years in the White House, he broke protocols, ridiculed and attacked opponents and even allies and even suffered impeachment, being acquitted in a trial in the Senate controlled by his party.
His critics accuse him of incompetence and of inciting and deepening the polarization that already exists in the country and undermining trust in national institutions. In recent months he has been severely criticized for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 240,000 dead in the United States and millions without work.
For most of Trump’s opponents, voters who had voted for him in 2016 were betting on change, not knowing what would happen. But now, after four years in which the measures of his administration and his position as president have become clear, these opponents expected that Trump and the party he led would be widely rejected at the polls.
This expectation was fueled by polls that indicated a clear advantage for Biden. Many expected the Democrat to win, winning states like Florida, always contested, and even Texas, traditionally Republican. Democrats also hoped to regain control of the Senate and expand their majority in the House.
However, as in 2016, polls underestimated support for Trump. Biden actually won the election, as predicted, but his multi-state lead was much smaller than expected.
Blacks and Latinos
Trump maintained his strength among white voters with no higher education and evangelicals. The results also show that the large gap persists between residents of rural areas (who support Trump) and urban areas (favorable to Democrats).
The majority of black and Latino voters have historically voted for the Democratic Party, and that trend has continued this year as well. According to Edison Research, Biden was supported by 80% of black men, 91% of black women, 61% of Latino men, and 70% of Latina women.
Credit, EPA
American society is more polarized than ever
But research indicates that, in some states, Trump performed better in this group than he did four years ago. According to the polls, Trump received the votes of 18% of black men, up from 13% in 2016. Among black women, the proportion went from 4% to 8%. It received votes from 36% of Latino men and 28% of Latina women, an increase of three percentage points compared to the previous election.
Despite the initial expectations of many Democrats, Trump won in Florida and Texas, as well as in 2016. In these two states, Biden’s performance among Latinos was below expectations and also below that recorded by Hillary Clinton four years ago. . In 2016, Trump received votes from 35% of Latinos in Florida. This year, according to the poll, it was supported by 47%.
Even small, these advances surprised those who believed that this electorate would move further away from Trump, who called Mexican immigrants rapists, tightened immigration laws and responded with force and promises of law and order to protests against racial injustice that they were spread throughout the country. this year.
But the Latino electorate in the United States has a great diversity of origins and political positions. Many are conservative on economic and social issues, such as the population of Cuban or Venezuelan origin in Florida. Some of the Latino men who voted for Trump also appear to have been drawn to the image of traditional and strong masculinity projected by the Republican.
However, analysts recommend caution when looking at this data, emphasizing that national minority support for the Democratic Party remains largely intact.
Political scientist Vincent Hutchings, a professor at the University of Michigan, points out that while Trump has fared a little better among the Latino electorate in some states, at the national level there is no relevant difference from previous elections.
“(Trump’s performance with the black electorate) is the same as any Republican candidate would receive,” Hutchings told BBC News Brazil.
“Trump has a bombastic style, but the policies he advocates are consistent with those of a generic Republican,” he says.
Supporters
Biden competed by promising to end the chaos and unify a divided nation. But this election showed that the United States remains as (or more) polarized than four years ago, and that nearly half the country remains loyal to Trump.
His voters celebrate the good economic performance of the country before the pandemic, the tax cuts since the first year of government and the fact that Trump has appointed conservative judges who oppose abortion in the courts of the country. They also don’t believe Trump is to blame for the damage caused by the coronavirus.
Credit, fake images
President Trump strengthened the QAnon conspiracy movement
Critics say Trump deepened the resentment of his supporters and reinforced the “us versus them” message. At a time of extreme polarization, both sides consider the opponents a mortal danger to the country’s values.
His style of politics came to be copied by many Republican candidates for state and local offices. If four years ago Trump was rejected by most of the traditional politicians of his party, today he has absolute dominance. Few dare to disagree with him in public, for fear of becoming the target of his army of nearly 90 million Twitter followers.
Despite being a billionaire, Trump cultivated among his voters an image of an opponent of the elites, who speaks his mind and does not apologize.
“It gave power and voice to a group that felt alienated and excluded, whether it’s true or not,” political scientist Hans Noel, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, told BBC News Brazil.
“These white working class voters were hearing that their suffering and problems were not their fault, and that Trump would help them,” says Noel.
Continuation
Gest notes that among Trump supporters there are people with nationalistic and authoritarian tendencies toward religious voters and even traditional Republicans who have always voted for the party. However, there are also voters who used to vote for Democrats, but felt abandoned by the party.
“Many decided to bet on Trump (in 2016) because they were suffering, they were seeing economic decline, they had the feeling of social decline, they felt that, culturally, they were despised in their society, they felt that they had lost political power,” he says.
Credit, Reuters
Trump gave power and voice to a group that felt alienated and excluded, says expert
According to Gest, these were the voters many thought could return to the Democratic Party this year.
“But the Democrats didn’t do much to get them back. All they did, symbolically, was elect Biden, the best candidate to attract those kinds of voters,” Gest says.
“But the problem is that the Democratic Party itself no longer reflects that demographic as it did until the last century.”
While some critics and opponents view the Trump presidency as a departure from the country’s history, others say it is just the continuation of a movement that has always existed. Hutchings of the University of Michigan says he avoids calling the current phenomenon triumphalism.
“Because that might suggest that it started with Trump, but that’s not the case. Trump is not the source of that opinion in American politics, he’s just its latest symbol,” he says.
“It’s basically a line of conservatism, if you can call it that, in American politics that has been here maybe from the beginning. If there was any expectation that it would disappear or diminish, (that expectation) was wrong.”
Have you seen our new videos on Youtube? Subscribe to our channel!
