American Elections: I Worked For Joe Biden, Here’s What I Learned From Him

OPINION: “Kia Ora, feel free to give us an afternoon and we’ll see for you.”

When I saw the response from the New Zealand Election Commission to a comment on one of their Instagram posts that offered to help a kiwi verify his vote registration, I immediately showed my American boyfriend, gloating over my country’s electoral process for the 345th time. “Imagine if the US Election Commission had an Instagram account and told you to swipe your DMs to check if you were registered to vote,” he guessed in disbelief.

I currently work in American politics in Washington DC, helping the Democrats get elected in November. My firm, Global Strategy Group, promotes progressive causes in the US, including this year conducting research for organizations supporting Joe Biden’s presidential race.

While my work in the Democratic polls has been a relief amid the chaos of this administration, the insanity is becoming overwhelming for a Kiwi who is used to a government that encourages voter turnout, not one that uses deprivation of votes. of minorities as a political strategy.

READ MORE:
* Elections in the United States: the presidency is still in balance while Joe Biden wins Wisconsin
* 2020 US Elections: US Electoral Vote Count
* Elections in the US: Donald Trump sues for access to Michigan ballots, temporary suspension of the counting of votes in Pennsylvania

Not to mention President Trump’s calls for his supporters to vote twice (illegal), intimidate voters at the polls (unethical), and ambush a Biden campaign bus on the road (simply intimidation).

So for the past few weeks, the choice of New Zealand has served as a wonderful escape for me while living in the “center of the free world,” as they love to claim.

I have political news from New Zealand at home almost every hour that I am awake; the voices of John Campbell, Patty Gower and Jack Tame give me much needed relief. Sometimes I close my eyes and transport myself from Washington to Wellington. But it wasn’t always like this: At one point, the White House tormented me more than I thought the Hive could.

I first came to the United States to study politics as a fresh-faced, uninformed but excited foreigner, two months before the 2016 presidential election. Back then, I attended three rallies for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia, soaking up the excitement. from the American political rally, where I saw Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and even Katy Perry.

In 2018, I was a foreign policy research intern for Joe Biden at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, an institute at the University of Pennsylvania (where I was a student). I spoke to Vice President Biden about New Zealand and he told me to tell Kiwis “we don’t like Trump at all.”

It couldn’t get any better than this. He was entrenched in the American political machine. Born and raised in little old Aotearoa, he now rode his bike home every day passing the White House and racing through the Supreme Court. DC had me in a trance.

Now, DC is bricked up, in preparation for the potential chaos, if not civil war, that may ensue due to the election results.

I began to wonder why I came to the United States when I watched the second New Zealand leaders debate, hosted by Patrick Gower, a day after surviving the bloodbath of the first United States presidential debate. Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins’ policy discussions were music to my ears, having survived 90 minutes of screaming, interrupting, and teasing in the schoolyard packaged in democracy form just one night earlier.

And the further he went, the more impossible it was not to notice the stark differences between the New Zealand and the American elections, and how much he had taken New Zealand politics for granted. He longed for political parties that would debate politics, not facts.

My best friend from home and I vote for different parties, a rarity in the United States. National voters in Morrinsville, Jacinda’s hometown, call her “a good prime minister” and continue to like her as a person, even if they criticize her tax policy. In the United States, the parties have gone tribal: a Republican is your enemy if you are a Democrat.

When Gerry Brownlee appeared on TVNZ’s Q + A the morning after the election and congratulated Labor on its victory, I was shocked … and strangely moved: had my standards of political (and human) decency been lowered so much?

I came here looking for glitz and glamor, and American politics surely got me on that trip, but sorry Washington, when it comes to debating real issues and getting things done, Wellington might be the place for me. Kiwis, don’t take our politics for granted; I certainly won’t anymore.

Lucy Hu works for the Global Strategy Group, a company that promotes progressive causes in the US and conducts research for organizations that support Joe Biden’s presidential race in 2020.