From one perspective, the historical significance of this Tuesday’s US midterm elections should not be overstated. Anticipated Republican gains, and a consequent loss of Democratic control of Congress, would, if they materialise, be nothing out of the ordinary. The party in power usually performs poorly at the midpoint of the election cycle, especially if the sitting president is unpopular – and Joe Biden, with a disapproval rating of 55%, certainly is.
Viewed another way, however, the immediate significance of the vote for an angry, divided America that split roughly 51%-47% between Biden and Donald Trump in 2020 cannot be overestimated. The backdrop is looming economic recession, pessimism about the future, deep schisms over race, abortion rights, crime, guns and climate – and rising political violence fuelled by disinformation, far-right pundits, conspiracy theorists and paramilitary militias.
So febrile is the state of the union in 2022 that some ask: can democracy endure? The main concern is that the extremist Maga Republican faction continues to deny Trump’s 2020 defeat while many more moderate GOP candidates supinely refuse to challenge them. Trump supporters in many states are fixing voting rules and intimidating opponents. These elections are crucial because there may not be many more – at least, not free and fair ones.
Underlying this sinister campaign within a campaign is the implicit or explicit use of political violence. Recorded examples include the hounding of election workers, threats to judges, armed demonstrations outside statehouses, attacks on abortion clinics, threats to hospitals caring for transgender children, assaults on flight attendants in arguments over Covid rules and harassment of librarians over which books to stock.
Warning again of the dangers to democracy, Biden last week directly linked the recent, shocking hammer attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Trump’s “big lie” about the stolen election. “We’re facing a defining moment,” Biden declared. “We must with one overwhelming, unified voice speak, as a country, and say there’s no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America.”
Yet his assertion that “democracy is on the ballot for all of us” is flatly rejected by conservatives who argue that an out-of-touch president is scaremongering to win votes. About 63% of likely Democrat voters agree with Biden that a functioning democracy is more important than a strong economy, according to one survey – but 70% of Republicans say the opposite. Tellingly, 79% of all voters said they felt “things were out of control” in America.
The extent to which Americans on both sides of the divide seem to think the worst of each other, or are misled or misinformed, was revealed by a recent CBS/YouGov poll of 2,100 registered voters of all persuasions. For example, 53% said they believed that the Democrats, if they won, would cut police funding. And 59% that they would open the US-Mexico border to unlimited immigration. Neither proposal is Democratic party policy.
Conversely, 63% said they believed Republicans would try to impeach Biden, while 56% expected the GOP to overturn Democratic victories and impose a national abortion ban. Sadly, that is entirely plausible. Yet despite this overall lack of confidence in the integrity of politicians and the electoral process, a striking 89% said they would definitely or probably vote or had already voted. On this evidence, reports of democracy’s death are greatly exaggerated.
So intense is America’s introspection that many miss the bigger picture. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have magic answers to problems essentially global in nature – recessionary pressures, energy costs, post-pandemic supply issues, climate impacts, China’s economic downturn, war in Europe. Like Britain’s Brexiters, it is a foolish conceit of American conservatives that the US is somehow immune to such global forces. It may have been once. It isn’t now.
Rising political violence, while predominantly emanating from the far right, also reflects a broader crisis facing all western democracies: the frustration and anger felt by ordinary people that self-serving political elites cannot be trusted, that their votes are wasted. In the US, failure to reform constitutional anachronisms such as the Electoral College and two-per-state distribution of Senate seats, regardless of population size, is a self-inflicted handicap.
And then, as if these were not problems enough, there’s Trump himself. Lowering over the electoral landscape like a thundercloud ready to burst, the former president edges closer by the day to declaring his candidacy for 2024. Here he is speaking in Iowa last week: “In order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very probably do it again… Get ready, that’s all I’m telling you. Very soon. Get ready.”
It’s plain that Trump has learned nothing, regrets nothing, cares for nothing but his own endless self-promotion. It’s amazing he is not in jail. He faces accusations of insurrection and subversion over the 6 January 2021 Capitol Hill riots, election rigging in Georgia, criminal theft of White House records, fraudulent business dealings and a defamation suit by a writer who says he raped her. Yet not only is he still a free man, he’s favourite for the Republican nomination.
Given his record in office and his behaviour since, it is difficult to imagine a more dangerous prospect, for US democracy, for global security and for common decency, than a second Trump presidency. Yet it is on the results of this week’s midterm elections that his final decision to run may hinge. For that, if for no other reason, we hope Americans vote Democrat.
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