What Biden’s win Means and Polarisation in America
I’m not hypocritical. I supported Trump and I really wanted Trump to win in this election. For many reasons, he is a game changer and he has been building his brand name within business and talking about politics for years. Another 4 years for Trump would not be so bad for such a great investment he has put in. However, I might have been accused for not understanding the outcome if Trump would be in the office for another term after such horrendous destruction in the last 4 years. And here are my reasons.
First, I do not care because I am not living in the United States. Any domestic policies from the President have never impacted my way of living. Second, I am from Cambodia. The United States and Cambodia have never been in a close relationship, which means whoever wins in this election will not benefit Cambodia either. The foreign policies of the United States has never been delightful to this tiny country because, which is really understandable, Cambodia does not have the strategic location in term of geopolitics that is beneficial to trade with, and Cambodia has been merely minimally influential inside the region.
In whatever way, a Biden’s win may not mean anything to Cambodia and me, but it means a lot to America and the world because we cannot deny the fact that the United States is a global power, so whichever direction America chooses to go consequentially impact globally in general.
Nationalism: Welcome back Globalisation!
From Fall of the Wall to We Build the Wall
In November 1991, Berlin Wall was falling down. Everyone in the democratic world congratulated because the Fall of the Wall was the sign that the United States won the Cold War. Western civilisation was regarded as the greatest civilisation among all humankind so democracy and capitalism have been embraced. It was believed that American mission afterwards would be to establish the world of free trade and to preach the value of democracy. American political scientist Francis Fukuyama thought that it was the end of the history. With all optimism, people believed that the future of the world would be no longer divided but a world as one village. The optimism toward globalisation have been stronger than ever as we entered into the 21st century, because new problems appeared such as terrorism, climate change, racism, and poverty. To solve these problems, it is important to have strong cooperation regionally and internationally.
Unfortunately, in 2008, the world was hit hard by financial crisis. After many tough years, global economy bounced back. The vision toward the world as one village recuperated around global stage. However, the side effects from the wars in the Middle East have produced many critical issues that were brought to discussion. One of which was European migrant crisis. It created tensions in Germany, worries, and disagreement among EU members over the solution. Meanwhile, Britain felt disappointed to most of the EU’s decisions, which later resulted the rise of Euro-scepticism inside the Britain’s politics. Britain was the victim of its own success as during the process of economic recovery, it created more jobs than other EU countries combined but those jobs mostly fell into the hands of the immigrants.
In 2016, immigration was a noticeable crisis in Europe, so there was the rise of nationalism across Western society. Right-wing parties in many EU, central and eastern European countries gained popularity. There was a referendum in Britain in order to decide whether to stay or leave EU, and as the result, Leave voters claimed the victory on Brexit. In 2017, there was also the election in France. Marine Le Pen, who was from National Rally, a right-wing party, promised to bring France out of EU. Her famous statement during the presidential debate with Emmanuel Macron was: “France will be governed by a woman: either me or Madame Merkel.”. Luckily, it was Macron who won the election. Imagine if Le Pen had won and delivered her promise by bringing France out of EU, the dream of globalisation would be in a real danger.
The situation in Europe and Middle East could also explain the rise of Donald Trump. Externally, during the Obama’s administration, the United States’ involvement in the Middle East killed thousands of innocent people by using drone. It created public distrust and people started the question the real role of America in the world. In another word, people suspected that whether it would be better off to not be involved in domestic issues of other countries. Internally, the United States also faced the problems regarding to immigration. Some members of GOP tried to propose the reform of immigration law, but they faced backlash among conservative groups. So Trump was coming in the right time. He preferred strict immigration law, and he famously said during his presidential campaign: “We Build the Wall.”
Donald Trump is not just a joke
Before Trump, the world was working toward left, but Trump influenced, distracted, and changed the direction. Trump has always been Trump. His policies and ideology attracted most people on the right. There are two kinds of people who support Trump. First, they are the people who believe that American value and Western civilisation have been threatened because of globalisation and the real enemy of the US is internal. Second, they are the people who hate the left, the progressive movement, and want to preserve the traditional value such as small government, free trade, strict immigration law, and they rather have anyone as the President than people on the left.
What Trump did during his administration before the Covid-19 might have dissatisfied many people, but if considering from the lens of conservative, he had done many things right as well due to the fact that what he did really benefited American workers, which have been ignored by Democratic Party for so long. The trade war with China was the interruption to prevent China from growing too fast and to reduce the reliance on them in term of supply chain. Trump passed tax reform which helped many small business owners, and he created millions of manufacturing jobs for American workers and he kept his words toward conservative agenda such as religion and national security. Unfortunately, Covid-19 happened and how Trump handled the crisis was disastrous which later led millions of people infected and died.
Right now, the fun is over, and the trend is clear. We are going back to the original direction. Biden, if not anything, is the sign of hope to many European leaders, especially US allies, who were so frustrated to work with Trump regarding many global issues that required strong cooperation, especially Covid-19, climate change, terrorism, immigration, Iran’s nuclear, and the future of the Middle East.
Convergence of skin colour, divergence of vision
From white majority to racially diversified
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th president of the United States. He was against slavery and he called for emancipation, which consequently led to American Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865. As a result, the Union won the war, then the Thirteen Amendment was passed and all slaves were freed. But it was just the beginning of the long fight for Black Americans to obtain the equal status. It was until after the World War II that Civil rights movement started, and then Jim Crow segregation was considered to be outlawed.
Unlike today, there was a fairly dispersion among Black voters voting for GOP and Democratic Party in the past. Black people sometimes benefited more from Democrat’s policies, but they still chose to vote for the party of Abraham Lincoln. But one of the major shifts of black voters from GOP to Democrat was during the Great Depression under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. New Deal, enacted by President Roosevelt, helped a lot of black people who were deeply affected by poverty. Another major shift was in 1964, the year that Civil Rights Act was signed into law. After that year, the vast majority of Black voters, about 90%, moved aggressively to support Democratic Party. At that time, the shift of support of Black voters was not a big deal because the proportion of Black people was still small and the country was still overwhelmingly consisted by white majority, so Black voters was not the decisive factor in the election.
Right now, it is no longer the case because there has been a demographic change. There is a large number of Black voters and the people of colour, and they have become a very decisive factor in the election. And Democratic Party have benefited from this change swiftly. In the last 8 Presidential elections, the candidate from GOP won the popular vote only once. In 2013, the number of babies of colour has tipped to become the majority. It is projected that people of colour will be a majority of the American working class in 2032. The United States today is no longer only decided by White people, and the United States in the future will be also no longer the white-majority country but racially diversified.
Political divide
American politics is interesting because somehow it does not sound democratic at all. In the United States, president-elect is not determined by the popular votes, instead it is decided by the so-called electoral college. Because of electoral college, America is divided and states are labelled into red states, for Republican, and blue states, for Democrat. But what is more interesting is that it is not the red states or blue states that influence much on the result but swing states. Swing states are the states that are indecisive in every presidential election because it is not sure whether they vote for either Republican or Democrat since the dispersion of voters supporting both sides are similar and there are also a fairly amount of independent voters as well. Presidential candidates mostly spend their times campaigning in swing states because if they can win in many of those states, they are likely to become the next President. Although there are surely the advantages of electoral college, one of biggest disadvantages is that it has divided America. In the past, there were a fairly amount of swing states, but now, among 50 states, there are just around 5, which is really threatening for democracy.
American politics is mostly described as duopoly because it is dominated by only two parties, GOP and Democratic Party. These two parties have different values and agendas which sometimes create a clear boundary which is very hard to cooperate with one another to solve issues. Nowadays, it is even harder because people no longer vote for the person who they think is the best for the job, they vote based on distrust, hate, and personal agenda. In 2020, it was not just the race of Biden vs. Trump, but it was also the race of the hate of Trump vs. the hate of the left and progressive vs. conservative. Though Trump has lost, but do not forget that half of the people in America voted for Trump, which was around 73 million people. Lack of landslide victory is the sign that America today is highly polarised more than ever. Even in the case of Covid-19, not all people take this issue seriously. They even fight over the matter of wearing mask. It is hard to imagine what America looks like in the future.
Generational divide
We do not really see generational divide in Republican party since they share the same set of value and perspective on the role of government, but it is crystal clear in Democratic party. They are not conflicting whether this country should change and move forward, but they are conflicting on how. There are people like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden who are moderate, and there are people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who are progressive. While moderates still prefer the traditional value of Democrat which reflects the vision of the founders, progressives enthusiastically try to push the progressive agenda among committee demanding for fundamental change. We can see those conflicts inside the party during Democratic Presidential Primary Debate.
There is the rise of the Squad which is consisted of four young women of colour (AOC, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib), and they are on the left wing of Democratic Party who inspire the movement, and more and more of young people have drawn themselves to the progressive agendas like Medicare-for-all and Green New Deal even though sometimes these agendas accused for being unrealistic. The people of new generations believe that the system no longer works for this country because of the increase in inequality and worry that new generation will likely to be born poorer than their parents. There are also other issues as well like racism and police brutality that have brought momentum to the movements.
