[ad_1]
The close race for the US presidency has some lessons; some more surprising, some less. An exciting shift in the states Trump was able to champion is also evident. Democrats must question their candidate.
1. 2016 was not a slip
Anyone who looked at the phone early in the morning must have gotten the impression that he was experiencing déjà vu: shortly before 6 o’clock, Ohio’s important “transition state” went to Trump, an hour later, surprisingly, he insured Florida for himself. Another half hour later, confidently, the Texas Democratic ray of hope. The US media election charts for the other states also bode well: Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin – Trump led in all disputed areas, sometimes clearly. For a brief moment, his re-election seemed inevitable. And even if Biden was later able to catch up in many of the aforementioned states and also surpass the billionaire, it remains to be said: 2016 was no slip.
The hope of Democrats has always been that if as many people as possible voted, Trump would be kicked out of the White House. Because four years ago many had been saved by going to the polls in a false sense of security. This year there was a record turnout, but not only the Democrats were able to mobilize new voters: in 2016 Trump received almost 63 million votes, in 2020 it will be at least 66 million. Many points on the voting card have remained in the red, despite the other half of voters deeply rejecting Trump. America is a divided country.
2. Personal decency is not a good choice
If you like human images of politicians, Joe Biden is the right place for you: the Democratic candidate is approachable, warm-hearted, and empathetic on the campaign trail. For all that is known, he is authentic about it. Politically, he is also committed to conviction when it comes to resolving conflicts through rapprochement rather than division. Not once has he made disparaging remarks about individual sections of the population, has not come into conflict with the law, or been caught with bigger lies.
None of this would be particularly noteworthy, but only a minimum requirement for a potential president of the United States if the competitor was not named Donald Trump. Thousands of headline lies are documented. He made extensive comments about Latin Americans, Muslims, and blacks protesting police violence. He has tried to blackmail incriminating material through Biden from Kiev in exchange for arms deliveries to war-torn allied Ukraine.
Mueller’s report on improper contacts with Moscow did not exonerate Trump, and his lawyer paid money to a porn actress with whom Trump apparently had an affair. Trump has repeatedly spread false claims about the corona pandemic and has dragged his advisers, most notably epidemiologist Anthony Fauci, to the ground. That Trump is a pathological narcissist with no relation to the truth is obvious, actually.
After all, a good half of American voters, despite these obvious differences in character fitness, voted for Trump, including almost all the evangelicals who are so influential in America. That makes you think. Many voters don’t care about Trump’s character as long as it supposedly serves their interests. Others fail to achieve these facts: In his media, billionaire Trump is a man of the people who agitates the establishment in Washington. Criticism of Trump is enemy propaganda. These voters live in a parallel universe. How the opposing camps should agree on at least some facts and truths in the future to have a solid basis for discussion is possibly the fateful question for the future of the world’s oldest democracy.
3. Biden is a bad candidate
Even if he should still win: Joe Biden did poorly in competition with a president whose office is properly described by the word catastrophic. At no point has Biden been able to put his stamp on the election campaign and put his agenda at the center of the debate. Instead, Biden, as a man of balance and reason, left the big stage to the eternal screaming Trump.
The president constantly used his media appearances, numerous election campaign events, and Twitter to mobilize his own side and caricature Biden as an active representative of a corrupt elite. Because the 77-year-old actually repeatedly attracted attention due to a lack of focus, he looked considerably older than Trump, who was only three years younger. Because Hunter, Biden’s son, was actually on the supervisory board of a dubious Ukrainian bank, it was easy for Trump to accuse his opponent of lack of cleanliness.
From the start, Biden was a compromise candidate in the deeply divided Democratic Party: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who was also in her 70s, seemed far too radical on the left for moderate Democrats. The other moderate applicants, on the other hand, were too unknown and therefore risky. So good old Joe should fix it.
But that didn’t elicit any real enthusiasm anywhere: 68 percent of his voters named the goal of getting rid of Trump as the main reason for their voting decision. In contrast, only 30 percent of Trump voters primarily wanted to warn Biden. 52 percent of Trump voters voted for Trump out of enthusiasm for their president. Light on the horizon for Democrats: Biden’s runner-up Kamala Harris has a lot more appeal and talent to show what top American politicians need these days.
4. Republican strongholds totter
Coloring Texas blue in the presidential election, for the first time since 1976: This is what many Democrats have dreamed of after promising polls. Joe Biden and Donald Trump faced off in several, and the challenger even led in some. Nothing came out, with 52 to 46 percent of Republicans winning the “Lone Star State” unexpectedly and clearly. But they trembled for a brief moment, at least.
Similar to Georgia, where a Democrat was last successful in 1992 with Bill Clinton. But the differences are getting smaller: In 2004, George W. Bush had won the southern state by a good 16 percentage points. In 2012, Barack Obama narrowed the gap to 8 points, and in 2016 Hillary Clinton made it 5 points. In the 2018 gubernatorial election, Democrat Stacy Abrams was just 1.4 percentage points behind, despite numerous indications of voter suppression. In 2020, a Biden victory is still within reach after 92 percent of the votes have been counted. At 4:30 p.m. German time, Trump’s lead was just over 100,000 votes.
Republican strongholds totter and fall, like Arizona, for example: Since Bill Clinton in 1996, no Democrat had won desert status on the Mexican border. Before him, future President Harry Truman had last done so shortly after World War II. Now Joe Biden too. The rural exodus and progressive cities are more useful to Democrats than Republicans.
5. The electoral system is out of date
The United States is the oldest democracy in the world, and consequently the electoral system is outdated. In sparsely populated rural areas, the count goes fast, but in large cities the process is unusually difficult by German standards. This creates a distorted picture of the vote that may have surprised many Trump opponents who are unfamiliar with the early morning procedure. Due to the many millions of people who voted by mail due to the coronavirus, this distortion is even greater.
In the important “changing state” of Pennsylvania, for example, where Trump led after counting about 75 percent of the votes with 55 to 43.6 percent or nearly 700,000 votes, Biden could still win. How, calculated journalist Jonathan Tamari of the “Philadelphia Inquirer” on Twitter: There would still have to be 1.4 million votes by mail, he wrote. Biden has so far won 77 percent. If it stayed that way, Biden would get 787,000 more votes than Trump and could win.
So it was in the “swing states” of Wisconsin and Michigan: After counting the first few votes, Trump also had a seemingly clear advantage. However, it gradually melted away in the hours that followed as votes from the Milwaukee and Detroit metro areas were counted. Until there was nothing left and Biden suddenly took the lead. Basically, there is nothing wrong with this process, but especially at times when a President open to electoral fraud speak up and declare victory prematurely, of little use if the results of the vote are difficult to understand.
[ad_2]
