On one side the lying tycoon, on the other, the unlikable Hillary. At the polls this Nov. 8, many Americans will be holding their nose when they vote.
In the race for the White House, we are entering the final stretch; the real countdown starts now. Conventional wisdom says that a portion of the American people – perhaps a small portion, but made up of precisely those undecided voters who can make a difference – is only now beginning to focus on the election. Labor Day, the national holiday, has passed, the schools have reopened, and everyone has returned from vacation.
On Sept. 26, the first direct television duel between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be held. The polls that count – assuming polls are still reliable – are the ones coming out now.
One thing is certain: This 2016 campaign has proven itself an anomaly, perhaps unique in history, and for more than one reason. First of all, because the two most hated candidates in history have arrived at the final round. That’s right: opinion polls indicate this exceptional fact. Never before have two candidates who accumulate such high percentages of negative reviews faced each other, two candidates who concentrate so much dislike, distrust and draw such hostility.
It is the election of negatives, in a certain sense, with perhaps the winner being whoever manages to convince the voters that the other candidate is even worse. Many on the left, like those on the right, will go to vote holding their nose, just to avoid the apocalypse. On one side there is a tycoon who is defined more as a moneymaker than as a businessman, and of dubious talent. He has gone bankrupt four or six times (in the world of Trump, the lack of transparency is such that even counting bankruptcies is a controversial matter); he is chased by customers and suppliers who claim to be robbed and cheated by him, and he refuses to disclose his own tax returns. He has only one real success under his belt and that’s a TV show.
Trump, the serial liar, has amassed lies that in other times would have crushed political careers (he said that Obama was born abroad and a Muslim; that Arab immigrants in New Jersey celebrated in the streets over the collapse of the twin towers on 9/11; and so much more.) Trump, the xenophobe, the misogynist, and so on. Just the character Trump is in itself enough to define this election as anomalous: 15 months ago when he announced his candidacy, no one took it seriously, nobody thought even vaguely that he could get to the general election, let alone win the nomination within the Republican Party, whose establishment lined up some 16 alternative candidates.
However, seen from the right, even from some sections of the traditional and moderate right, the tycoon is still the lesser evil, preferred over the devil incarnate, Hillary Clinton, or “Crooked Hillary,” dishonesty personified.
It’s the reputation that has always followed the Clinton clan; they think that the rules only apply to others. See the case of Hillary’s private emails, involving a practice which is strictly forbidden for whomever is secretary of state.
See also the Clinton Foundation, which as a philanthropic activity is a gigantic public relations machine, where whoever pays more has access to “Mrs. Secretary of State,” even an authoritarian and despotic government like Saudi Arabia. In an era of revolt against the elites, paradoxically it is Hillary who has played the worst part; more than Trump, it is she who has been stuck with the infamous label “member of the establishment, of the professional politician class, or caste.”
There is a further anomaly. You can’t really say that this is a campaign which comes at the end of seven years of economic recovery and the creation of 15 million jobs. It’s not “phony” growth either, it is so “not phony” that the approval rating of Barack Obama is very high for a president who has reached the end of his second term. At 54 percent approval, it is almost a historic record. Yet this growth has not healed all the wounds opened by the systemic collapse of 2008. It hasn’t reduced inequality, but rather it has increased it. It hasn’t revived the American dream. Social mobility is low; for young people to get a good degree they have to go into debt for life. Whole pieces of the social fabric carry scars that are perhaps permanent due to globalization.
Who is the typical Trump voter? He’s an adult male, white, 55 years old, with a low level of education, a former laborer laid off when a large Midwestern factory closed to be outsourced to China. Then, being in America and not in Europe, he found another job, but as a delivery man for Amazon, a Walmart cashier, or a waiter at MacDonald’s. And his paycheck is half of what he earned as laborer. Maybe his wife has left him, and he struggles to pay her alimony; or he doesn’t pay it at all and is chased by court orders. He’s lost all self-esteem as a worker, and as a man, father, and husband.
It is in this socio-demographic group where suicides or deaths from methamphetamine overdose are increasing. Then there is also another category of Trump voters: the pure and simple racists. Maybe they’re no worse than before, but they are convinced that now in America “the others are in charge,” blacks who have won the presidency, Hispanics. And the state is only concerned with them; the only minority that doesn’t have any aid and must just pay taxes are whites.
There is finally a third America that is suspended in limbo, a country in between which hasn’t really encountered the mighty waves of immigration such as those on the East Coast and West Coast, but which fears the imminent arrival of a wave of foreigners. It sees a future in which the standard of life of its children will be less than that of its parents. It sees a world in chaos and an America less respected than before, unable to impose order and stability.
A portion of the fears that trouble Trump’s people are mirrored by the left’s base which voted for Bernie Sanders in the primaries: the rejection of globalization. The condemnation of capitalism made to measure for the richest 1 percent. Political corruption, corruption legalized by scandalous laws and constitutional rulings that have shot down any limit on funding lobbying. Oligarchic capitalism, a rigged democracy. Hillary needs to perform a true miracle to bring in votes from the many Sanders fans who consider her part of that corrupt system. Young people, blacks, Hispanics: if all the “basically Democrats” vote for her, she should win.
America is split in two, but with a slight majority of Democrats. It is these Democrats, however, who are also the most likely to abstain if their candidate does not excite them. More than their enthusiasm, perhaps Hillary will have to play on their fear.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.