The most watched upcoming US elections promises to be an edge of the seat thriller has its first faceoff
Every leap year, the United States presidential election becomes the most watched such event in the world. The quantum of coverage only grows with each successive election, as media and social media capacities expand worldwide. Yet, this year the election has acquired a special significance due to a mix of factors.
First, there are the compelling personalities — in their own ways, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both polarising figures, with strong adherents and sceptics. Second, it is now recognised that America is going through a tectonic transition in its society and history. The fact that Bernie Sanders and Trump have raised issues that have got such currency, is a symptom of underlying social and economic forces.
Trump may not be a mainstream politician and his rhetoric may sound unpleasant to some, but many of the concerns of the Trump constituency are far more mainstream in today’s America that his critics would care to admit. Those voters and those concerns will out-survive the November election, irrespective of whether Trump wins or loses.
With the first debate between the candidates scheduled for the evening of Monday, September 26 (Tuesday morning in India), the polling numbers still seem dynamic and tantalising. Clinton has the legacy lead, but Trump seems to have the momentum. It’s a tight contest between a candidate who got the nomination in the teeth of his party establishment’s opposition and a candidate who got the nomination much later than she expected to, beating back a socialist challenger who forced her to moderate her positions on business and trade.
Where is America headed with this election? Indeed, where is the world headed in the absence of the certitudes of American leadership? In a sense this is the first election to face the full impact of the fury against globalisation among a substantial section of American voters, and the first one taking into account the long-term (as opposed to immediate) implications of the global financial crisis of 2008, which cost some five million families their homes. Additionally, there is the factor of terrorism, of national security and of two tiring wars in Asia.
All these have seen ordinary Americans seek answers in identity, in economic protectionism and in an instinctive retreat behind America’s twin moats: Its two oceans. For the international system, particular for multilateral institutions underpinned by American stewardship, this is a moment pregnant with questions. What are the consequences for an increasingly assertive China and for President Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia? The Trans-Pacific Partnership was the trade element of that Pivot. If TPP is now consigned to some unknown future, will there be political ownership of the rest of the Pivot? What does America’s mood hold for West Asia and the Af-Pak region, and for the struggle against terrorism? Finally, of course, how is India affected?
This past week, Bruce Stokes of the Pew Research Center, a well-respected, Washington, DC based tracker of public opinion, was in Delhi for a series of talks. He presented results of opinion polls that offered insight into the contemporary American mind. More than the polls tracking the Clinton-Trump race, it is these opinions and numbers — on a variety of political and economic issues — that are revelatory.
For instance, 47 per cent of American voters feel life has got worse for Americans compared to 50 years ago; only 36 per cent think it has got better. Interestingly, 59 per cent of Clinton voters think it has got better, while 81 per cent of Trump voters think it is worse. Trump voters tend to be older, white and male. Like Clinton, Trump belongs to the baby-boomer generation, the Americans born in the aftermath of World War II. This was the generation that experienced Vietnam and the counter-culture of the 1960s, and made its fortune with the tech-fuelled boom of the 1990s. In less than a decade, it has gone from being America’s luckiest generation to its most pessimistic.
Listening to Stokes explain those numbers, it struck this writer that had Jim Morrison (to take a random example) not killed himself with that drug overdose in Paris in 1971, he may well have been a cynical old man today, worried about his future and that of society as he knew it, and contemplating voting for Trump. The example may sound strange, but it is nevertheless realistic.
Public trust in the Federal Government (as an institution) is at below 20 per cent. This is lower than what it was in the aftermath of Watergate in the mid-1970s. It points to the distrust of Washington, DC, that is emerging as a theme of this election and allowing Trump to package himself as the ‘change’ candidate. Interestingly, trust in the Federal Government had fallen to close to these levels in the early 1990s. Then, Bill Clinton had used the mood to present himself as the ‘change’ candidate and defeat President George HW Bush. Today, his wife, Hillary Clinton, is the ‘establishment’ candidate and being backed by Bush!
There is a divergence in global concerns as well. While 46 per cent of all Americans see terrorism as a “big problem”, only 36 per cent of Clinton supporters but as many as 65 per cent of Trump supporters do so. Paradoxically, 80 per cent of all Americans see the Islamic State as a major threat.
Americans are split on the advantages of globalisation and liberal trade. While 49 per cent consider globalisation negatively, as taking away jobs, 44 per cent see it positively, as creating opportunities. Sixty-one per cent of Republican voters think free trade agreements are bad. In contrast, 58 per cent of Democrat voters think such agreements are good.
The souring of trade has also meant the de-prioritising of Asia. In 2011, 47 per cent of Americans felt Asia was more important and 37 per cent felt Europe was more important. Today, 52 per cent plump for Europe and only 32 per cent for Asia. America wants to hang around with familiar friends and ‘people like us’.
How will the US respond if China militarily threatens an American ally in Asia? Just 49 per cent of Democrats feel the US should go to war with China. However, a massive 68 per cent of Republicans are willing to go to war with an adventurist China in those circumstances.
Trump voters are unwilling to trade with Asia but willing to go to war to defend it. How does one explain this paradox? To Stokes, the answer was simple. In both trade and military competition, the impulses of the Republican/Trump backer identify the same villain: China.
Enjoy the debate on Tuesday.
This commentary originally appeared in The Pioneer.
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