Politics
Revamping the Cracked Democracy
From Trump Over to Biden.
Donald Trump’s antipathy towards normalcy and good in general is known to all of us. Him not acknowledging defeat wasn’t hard to reckon. What wasn’t that straightforward and predictable was the solidarity shown by republican leaders in pampering the spoiled child-in-chief; not even the best of us saw it coming.
While Donald Trump beats his brains out to win a defeated battle, Joe Biden has already been congratulated on his ‘not so impressive’ win by most world leaders. Messages have come from all over the world — from the happiest bunch comprising of Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, and Angela Merkel to the ‘unhappy gang’ that includes Putin( he has not congratulated Biden yet, he may never do it in the future also), Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Erdogan, Boris Johnson, Bolsonaro and King Salman. In between lies the satisfactory cluster, which consists of Iran, Mexico (though no congratulatory message is yet received from the nation), and South Korea. Then there is the neutral group that covers India and Israel.
Trump is totally callous about the harm his little offended ego is causing to the nation. On the contrary, he ensures that he makes things as difficult as possible for the Biden administration. He is in complete contrast to what people need in times of despair from the government. Before anything else, all they need is reassuring that they won’t be abandoned and would instead be stood by. It goes a long way to keeping people from panicking. But here we have a president who is rather inducing panic by withdrawing several emergency programs that were initiated at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 — against the warnings issued by the federal reserve for not doing the same.
Paul Krugman, in an opinion article in NYT, Trump Wars II: The Loser Strikes Back, tells us that “Panics don’t necessarily reflect mob psychology, although that sometimes plays a role. More often, we’re talking about the self-fulfilling prophecy, in which individually rational actions produce a collectively disastrous result.” According to him, it’s not a sensible move as we are not entirely out of the woods yet. The financial crisis may strike back again as the coronavirus cases surge again.
What’s striking is that despite Trump turning brutalities into such plain-looking commonalities, not one Republican could gather the courage to speak against it.
Joe Biden taking up the office will mean returning to conventional foreign policy, which means he will take all allies onboard and deploy diplomacy as best as he could to get his way through. It is especially true in the case of China. Joe Biden is best suited for long term policy gains against short-term benefits that Trump instead yearned for. He grounds his policy-making on good relationships, both personal and professional.
Though it’s next to impossible for Trump to overrule the election results, the kind of damage that American democracy is unguarded to is a cause of concern for anyone who cares about it. When a sitting president of a country known for having smooth presidential transitions before behaves like this, take it for given that the country is in for bigger troubles in the near future. There’s compelling reasoning for us to feel that way. In the 2020 election, America barely dodged the electoral bullet, but the question still remains open, will it be able to survive the next election?
I want to end here with a word of caution. Lawrence Douglas, in his book, ‘Will He Go?’ explains with legitimate wariness about the possible dangers to democracy. He says, “the Electoral College is more than simply anachronistic, opaque and prone to subverting the people’s will. It is also capable of producing something more troubling than a bad result — it may produce no clear result at all, which was the case not only in 2000 but also in 1800 and 1876”.
While I am pessimistic about it, I am convinced that the fear that I just expressed is something that even the most affirmative can feel. It is entirely fair and healthy to think that ways as the perversion of justice and abuse of power that continue to happen each moment are reshaping our lives in ways we aren’t even conscious of. Pretending otherwise is not an option. I am a little more enthusiastic about the slight desire expressed by Americans in this election to want something better than Trump. Their performance was moderately upgraded.
