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In two months, Americans will go to the polls to decide whether Donald Trump will have four more years in power or whether Democrat Joe Biden will take office as the most powerful man in the world. It is a deeply polarized America that goes to the polls with contradictions that include both ethnicity and attitude toward free media and an independent judiciary.
Former prime minister and moderate leader Fredrik Reinfeldt reviews the conditions for this fall’s US elections in a new book. Its starting point is that the election is a matter for everyone, especially for Sweden, which has an economic and cultural exchange with the United States.
– The United States is the superpower that will influence the operating conditions of the economy in the world, if open trade becomes fair and is based on rules or if it becomes corrupt. That means a lot for an export-dependent country like Sweden, says Fredrik Reinfeldt.
According to Fredrik Reinfeldt, this fall’s fight for the presidency is a fateful choice.
Photo: Magnus Hallgren
Describe the fall fight on the presidency as a fateful election with far-reaching consequences for the entire world. Four more years with Trump risks shaking up the world order we’ve grown accustomed to since World War II, and instead lead to authoritarian leaders and nationalism.
– Donald Trump is emerging at a time when we have seen the rise of authoritarian populism. Even the countries we describe as democracies have had leaders who seem to have dictatorial overtones. That it shuns all forms of opposition, that shuts down public debate, that moves in free and independent media and that persecutes journalists and that it does not respect the independent role of the judiciary in society. All of that is worrying.
Fredrik Reinfeldt also sees an imminent risk of unrest in the United States. He interprets this as Donald Trump spending the summer preparing for a possible electoral loss by claiming that voting by mail is electoral fraud.
– Thus, you have said that you will not accept the result of the elections.
Fredrik Reinfeldt describes how it seemed like when he himself visited a debate in the United States in March with many Trump supporters in attendance.
– Firm men who think that the most important thing is that you can have as many weapons as you want to be able to defend yourself from all evil. What if they hear that the election result is rigged?
– I am very concerned that Trump and his followers will not accept the result but that the use of force will intensify. This is a very risky electoral opportunity.
Reinfeldt does not rule out violence after the electoral result
Photo: Magnus Hallgren
Observers have warned that the United States risks ending in civil war, but Fredrik Reinfeldt doesn’t want to go that far. At the same time, he emphasizes that the central issue of the civil war in the 19th century has yet to be resolved, but it occupies a prominent place in the minds of many Americans.
– It existed then and there is still a part of the United States that says that the United States belongs to the whites, especially the whites. Donald Trump has consistently supported that view.
– He defends structural racism, which means that he always questions all Americans who are not white, who are not Americans. The America he believes in belongs to white men and especially white men. There is risk. I don’t want to use the word civil war, but I am absolutely concerned about the escalation of violence and the huge presence of weapons in the United States.
Donald Trump.
Photo: Spencer Platt / TT
During the summer, the challenger has Joe Biden had the upper hand in opinion polls, but Fredrik Reinfeldt emphasizes that a lot is decided in the weeks leading up to the election. He does not rule out that Trump could be re-elected and then he fears that the next term will be even more revolutionary.
– I think you will go further in your challenge to American democracy. If there are four more years left, I think he will test many different limits, he will try to get his family in to protect his finances and his empire. So it comes down to how strong the restraining forces are. I am surprised by the silence of the Republicans and that there is no more criticism in business. I understand that there is a dullness, but here you have to see the systematic and how it goes year after year.
– The Washington Post recounts how often the president lies and has now passed 20,000 Trump lies. It’s incredible, we wouldn’t survive two such lies in the Swedish context. We must not be stunned and lose sight of what this means.
A new world order may be the result of the decisions of the United States.
Photo: Magnus Hallgren
Fredrik Reinfeldt sees several dictatorial tendencies in Donald Trump. At the same time, it emphasizes that Trump is democratically elected and that the division of power is enshrined in the US Constitution.
– My point is that what Donald Trump himself wants and seeks is a kind of dictatorship.
– Those who wrote the constitution did so to avoid the royal autocracy. That was what they ran from. To ensure that he did not get an individual ruler who did what he wanted. I think they were horrified by what Donald Trump represents.
