In the nerve-racking yet exciting race for the world’s most powerful position of the President of the United States of America, Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden has finally succeeded in showing the door to incumbent President Donald Trump of the Republican Party. Biden’s unassailable lead got established when vote counting showed that he had expanded his following in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. He ultimately secured 290 Electoral College votes against Trump’s mere 214.
Biden had been much ahead of Trump ever since the counting began after the polling ended on November 3 as he was helped considerably by mailed-in ballots. The lead he established in Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) cleared the way for the Democratic claimant to the White House with the US Supreme Court on November 6 refusing to stay the counting of absentee ballots for several days after the election day.
The court refused a Republican plea in the Pennsylvania case whether election officials should be allowed to continue receiving absentee ballots for three days after the election day. In the case of North Carolina, the court decided to go by the lower court rulings allowing the state’s board of elections to extend the deadline to nine days. This made Biden easily secure 273 Electoral College votes to finally defeat Trump and capture power.
Surprisingly, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by Trump despite the controversy surrounding her case, did not come to his rescue as she refused to take part in the hearing in either case “because of the need for a prompt resolution” and because she did not have time “to fully review the parties’ filings”.
It was, however, clear that the final results of the crucial elections would not be known for days together because of the chaotic US system and the circumstances that prevailed with the Trump side determined to do whatever they could for delaying the outcome or dragging the Biden side to court to convert defeat into victory by raising flimsy issues like “electoral fraud” or “stealing votes” without providing proof. Trump has ultimately gone to court, but in vain, as experts have pointed out.
As expected, the election focus quickly shifted to 12 battleground states or “swing states” like Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa where the two principal political formations – the Democrats and the Republicans – were almost equally well placed to convince voters to favour their candidates. No party, however, could be sure of which way the voters in these states would swing. This has been the situation in the past too. That is why the Presidential nominees focused more on these states than the other ones. Both Trump and Biden targeted these “swing states” till the last moment and ultimately Pennsylvania helped Biden to secure his entry into the White House.
Since there is no direct voting for the position of the US President, the electors choose the members of the Electoral College (constituted on the basis of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate) who finally cast their vote in December in accordance with the decision of voters in their respective states. The election system in the US is under the control of the 50 states it has and they run it independently. That is why the delay in the official declaration of the results and other related problems, but powerful television networks and other media outlets quickly do the job of finding out who the winner is, and invariably the candidates concerned have been conceding their defeat or victory accordingly. The media outlets did their job this time too, but Trump, exhibiting his arrogance, refused to accept defeat.
However, Biden, set to take over as the 46th President of the United States, in a victory statement, declared, “I am honoured and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice-President-elect Harris. In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving, once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America.”
Interestingly, all pollsters this time had predicted a Democratic victory if nothing unexpected happened in the “swing states”. But what has come out as more significant in the case of the 2020 US Presidential elections is that it has been a very close contest between the two sides with nearly 48 per cent of the popular vote going in favour of Trump. This shows he has not been treated as a failed leader, who has brought only ridicule to the US from world capitals. Nearly half of the US population approves of his policies based on arrogance like the dangerous white supremacist policy and not being bothered about controlling the Covid-19 pandemic with the measures medical experts have been pointing out – wearing a face mask, maintaining social distancing and taking care of hand hygiene. And that too when the US has lost over 2,30,000 lives owing to the pandemic and millions of jobs.
The US economy has been suffering a lot because of what has come to be described as Trumpism, yet he has followers only a little less than those of Joe Biden, who has been calmly proclaiming that the world’s oldest democracy is not for creating false narratives, but for promoting racial equality, an inclusive policy and freedoms guaranteed under the constitution. “I pledge to be a President who seeks not to divide, but to unify,” Biden said in his victory statement.
Yet the most disturbing outcome of the US Presidential elections remains that Trump has been able to carry along nearly 48 per cent of the American voters with his un-presidential conduct and highly divisive policies. This may continue to be coming in the way of functioning of the new President throughout his tenure.
All said and done, the stakes for both the Democrats and the Republicans were too high to leave any stone unturned. Over 65 per cent voting, seen only during the 1960 elections and former President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 and 2012, provides proof that both sides of the electoral divide wanted to wrest victory with an appeal for maximum voter turnout. But a nation like the US, an excellent example as a democracy, should not have shown as much likeness for Trumpism as it has unfortunately done. Imagine what could happen in the land of opportunities and what lessons the world would draw if the US was to be run for another four years by an eccentric leader like Donald Trump.
It has been pointed out by most political pundits that Trump has been vanquished but Trumpism – blatant arrogance, distrust for immigrants, a racist outlook and lack of empathy shown in ignoring the huge loss of lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic – survives. The biggest challenge for the new US President will be to ensure that Trumpism also gets eliminated in the larger American interest as also for the good of the rest of the world.
We in India need to look at the US electoral outcome beyond Trumpism. There is unlikely to be much visible change in the US policy towards India as New Delhi may continue to be getting precedence over Beijing as seen in the case of the India-China border standoff in the Ladakh region. The agreements reached between Washington DC and New Delhi for cooperation in different areas like defence and civilian nuclear
energy may remain unchanged. The factor of Kamala Harris (Vice-President-elect) because of her Chennai maternal link may serve to strengthen US-India relations. The Indians in the US waiting for the coveted Green Card may also be benefited as a result of policy change.
But the rightist forces are bound to feel depressed. They have been told to learn the lesson that illogical supremacist ideas cannot take any party or ideological group too far.
[The writer is a New Delhi-based senior journalist, specialising in foreign affairs.]