US Election possible aftermath.

 In two weeks the fate of America’s democracy and the shape of its society will be decided. To say these are troubling times is an understatement and that the complexion of society is not only shaped now but a continuation of trends we have seen since 2016. Polarisation is to be expected in political societies but never has it been laced with hate, anger, disinformation and ethnic tensions as we see now. As much as this is a battle for votes and swing states, more importantly, it is the battle for the mind of Americans.

The challenges that will emerge from election result can be daunting and for America’s sake one hopes these challenges are minimal. It might be helpful to explore the outcomes and their consequences:

A Trump Victory.

Notwithstanding the polls, where a Trump defeat seems on the cards, Trump could spring a surprise like 2016, and win enough swing states to be re-elected. While this will mean a continuation of the way we have sen things in the past four years, a re-elected Trump will be vicious in his attacks on his detractors. He will take firmer control of the Republican Party moulding it closer to how he wants it to be, even pushing his relatives to secure their political future. 

In the event a Trump victory is accompanied with a loss of the Senate then tensions between Congress and  the White House will reach a crescendo. It is more likely that his extremist right wing supporters, including the militias, might well intimidate his detractors in the Senate. These groups may also see a Trump victory as a license to impose their own style of vigilante justice. 

In a more broader level, a Trump victory will harden the lines of division within American society and result in further polarisation the cost of which will be borne by the average American on the street. Observe social media and you will see a form of anger and hate has crept into US political society that with every tweet, every angry profanity inflicts a wound on the social fibre that will be harder to heal. Will a Trump victory heal these wounds? Will his MAGA supporters be magnanimous in victory? Will race relations improve? 

A Biden Victory.

A Biden victory may well be seen as a return to normalcy, especially if accompanied with a Democrat party hold over the Senate. However, over the past two months Trump has been setting the stage for disputing any election result that does not grant him victory. There is a suggestion that a landslide victory for Biden is the only way for Trump to peacefully concede the election, however this could well be wishful thinking. 

If it is a close election then Trump will resort to the courts much like the Bush versus Gore election. Trumps hope remains that a Supreme Court with three of his appointees, all of whom were involved in the Bush-Gore case, could tilt the decision in his favour. However, this cannot be a forgone conclusion as judges cannot blatantly lean to a political agenda and judges have voted against what is expected often. 

If we see a Biden landslide we may see Trump conceding, let’s say a 30% chance, but be assured he will still go to the courts. It is in his nature to litigate and will hope his base, many of whom are white supremacists, will agitate enough to make it more difficult for his successor. In this scenario his comment to the militias to “standby” assumes particular significance. A small curtain raiser was that two weeks after his standby comment a plot to kidnap a Democrat Governor was unearthed and linked to a white militia group. 

We know Trump will not be a gracious loser and a nightmare scenario could well be him refusing to leave office and claim the whole election was fraudulent. It is not clear what mechanism exists to then force him to leave office as this has never been tested before. Yet there is confidence that sense might prevail and enough influence brought to bear on him to accept an overwhelming defeat. One cannot rule out that he may bargain a pardon in return for leaving office.

These are testing times for Americans and one can appreciate the emotion and passion we see. As painful as the anger and lack of respect for different political views exists one can only hope decency and the need to heal will prevail.

Trump and the virus

 It was almost as if God looked at Donald Trumps arrogance and indifference to 200,000 plus Americans having died from the virus that Trump said would go away and then handed it to him. Indeed it is an irony that the COVID 19 virus should infect the very man who made light of this deadly disease while privately admitting it was deadly. Everything that Donald Trump has said about this virus has come back to haunt him. Was a lesson learned in this awful episode?

Perhaps not. The systemic disinformation and mocking of people who wore masks, the most recent during the Presidential debate, all have been  a hallmark of this President who knows he could have done better. Better in planning, better in informing the people and most importantly putting together a credible action plan, based on scientific advice, to minimise the effects of this deadly virus. The reality is that Trump saw the virus as to what effect it would have on his re-election and to him listening to his scientists would have meant widespread lockdowns and their knock down effect on the economy. 

Prior to the COVID 19 pandemic Trumps campaign pitch would have been the performance of the economy, the stock market gains and his trade deals. The pandemic threatened that storyline and he had essentially two choices; think of America first by opting for a lockdown and minimising its impact or to downplay the crisis and hope it will go away. Had he chosen the route he didn’t take he could have actually boosted his chances for re-election even though his spin on the economy would have been diluted but then he could have pointed to the way every single country has had a severe economic impact. He could have shown he has put Americans first, implemented a strategy to keep them safe, invoked emergency powers to implement what scientists were telling him and what other countries have shown works. Without a doubt, even with say 75,000 deaths, which would have been in line with what other countries experienced relative to their population, his stature as a leader would have been enhanced.

Instead he chose the path to mislead, lie, and even deliberately spread disinformation on not only the pandemic but also as to the exact status of what his administration was doing to combat it. From touting untested drugs as a cure for the virus to even suggesting flippantly that bleach might work if injected into patients Trump showed incompetence that is not expected from the office he occupies. His grasp in the crisis was so weak that in July he suggested that they estimated 65,000 people would die from the virus, to then be faced with over 100,000 dead by the month end. He recently claimed if he had not done what he did 2 million Americans would have died! Why did he not reveal the modelling upon which any of his estimates were based, including his earliest remarks that by Easter the pandemic will be gone.

The reality is that everyone, from scientists to governments who have tackled this virus have had to learn their way through the evolution of the virus, but they have relied on good scientific practises and logic and lessons learned from previous pandemics. The Obama administration had, from its experiences with SARS and the Ebola viruses, developed a contingency plan and a playbook which Trump promptly threw out, perhaps because it had Obama’s signature on it. With nothing to replace that plan Trump thought he can outsmart this virus by talking things down and hoodwinking his way. The results are a matter of record and an abysmal testimony to the failure of leadership. What has been more difficult to digest has been the lack of transparency and a deliberate attempt to conceal the gravity of the pandemic. So much so some have termed Trumps actions as “homicidal negligence”.

After contracting the dreaded COVID 19 virus the lack of transparency continues. How did President Trump contract the virus? Clearly it was not Hope Hicks, so when did he show symptoms? Has contact tracing been done to establish all the people who could have been exposed to the virus? Have more than one test been done to ensure that some people cleared as negative are still not carrying the virus? What is the exact state of the symptoms shown by the President? As we know after a temporary improvement most COVID patients a week or so later deteriorate, sometimes with fatal consequences. Therefore the pertinent question to ask is what are the short term and long term prognosis of the Presidents condition?

Sadly for a president who has lied most of the past four years it is difficult to separate the facts from fiction. Showing him sign papers was designed to show he is in control but then signing blank pages exhibits the continued attempts by him and his cohorts to deal with his condition through smoke and mirrors, much like the whole pandemic has been dealt with. Someone has to tell Mr Trump that having lost the chance to have handled the pandemic as a true leader he should try and preserve what little credibility he might have by being straight and honest with people.