Governments of Hate

Tomorrow the United States presidential election officially begins. The first debate between the two candidates, President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden, marks the beginning of the final phase of the campaign. The last mile. The odds are very close and it is difficult to prdict what will happen on Nov. 3, when the U.S. elects the person who will occupy the Oval Office for the next four years. Historically, the position of the president of the United States has been one of the ultimate symbols of the world we know, and remains a powerful position.

The United States is a country that is unique in how it understands and cultivates power: first through its history, then through its wealth and technology and, when all that has failed, through its military. And in a world as decentralized as this one, where anything is possible, force remains the key element in establishing international relationships with allies, enemies and even distant powers. Nevertheless, the history of the United States since 1945 has not been one of success, but one that has been characterized by failure.

The stage is clearly set for this election. Trump has dispensed with institutional norms, as has his compadre, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Both are politicians whose approach is based on mistrust and on the almost divine belief that anything that the fail to win is something that is being stolen from their people. Based on that premise, and Trump’s pronouncement that he will not accept nor facilitate a peaceful transfer of power, it is important to point out that this situation may have two consequences. Trump will try to fill the Supreme Court seat of the legendary Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as soon as possible. Or perhaps the result of the upcoming election will be a done deal from the start, because the American people have been mobilized by Trump’s administration to end U.S. institutional norms and react out of hate, and by their own outlook based on doubt.

Who will win, Trump or Biden? Personally, I lean toward believing that Biden has a greater chance of winning. But whoever wins will not be able to change the fundamental circumstances that will sustain the policies Trump has imposed, as the damage he has caused appears to be irreversible.

No one can possibly know if more or less people would have died from COVID-19 if Trump with his singular style had not been in office during this crisis. But what we do know is that we have reached the end of the show and that the American people are eager to move on.

At the moment, it seems that this election, above all things, is an election that will ultimately demonstrate to the next occupant president that it is no longer possible to irresponsibly hold the United States in a state of limbo between spin and reality, regardless of what happens in Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio or Wisconsin.

We have reached the point at which corruption, inefficiency and the trials and tribulations of the political process might have allowed a vote of no confidence in the old way of doing things, and the emergence of something new, an opportunity to veer from establishment politics. But in spite of that, the balance sheet for “Trumpism” could not be worse.

The United States has not experienced such animosity and conflict since the Civil War. This is due, in part, to the irresponsible and indiscriminate provocation of the worst in people, the kind of sentiment that causes civil wars. The United States is mired in a complete crisis of values concerning what the country should be.

The crisis is a kind of open civil war, which creates doubt about the leadership capacity of the person who should ensure that the United States is a country where the rule of law is above ideology, prejudice and hate.

In contrast to the way it should be, today the United States is led by someone who is not only one of the people most forcefully disregarding the law, but by someone who engages in the hellish machinery that allows increases racial hatred every day. Yet, whether Trump beieves so or not, he didn’t invent all of this.

Yet his understanding of life, his own manner of living, his history and his policies have promoted that hateful machine, and we will see how much that influences the result on Nov. 3.

In the upcoming election, the United States will not only put the credibility of its political process in play, the process that the president rejects, but will put its ability to survive to the test, because that is what is at stake. Not only are the sacred text of the Constitution and the examples set by the Founding Fathers being challenged, but so is the executive the power of the leader of the free world, leadership based on the triumph of a government guided by the rule of law and the success of the democratic experiment.

This election is taking place as those charged with maintaining law and order are being subject to great question. An example of this is the crisis affecting the police system in the United States, a problem which is much deeper than it appears to be, although what can be seen is frightening enough.

I have always been interested in the tidy arrangement of hate and strong social and racial discrimination in the United States, an arrangement which is part of its DNA. In the past, racism and the denial of civil rights were predominantly white issues, but now, — and after a Black president who was not known for promoting integration, we have hatred and an explosion of rascism within both white and Black communities. And in the middle of all this, we find what once was American society, its history, and the admiration and respect it once commanded.

My bet is solid, and not because I like it. Considering all the information, change, action and, above all, the fear in which the people of the United States are immersed, I see a triumph for Biden. Still, fear is something which causes violence, and the current president is an expert at using fear at the right moment for his personal benefit, a factor that in the end might allow him to be reelected. My impression is that the results of the presidential election will be quite close, and it will be different from events in 2016, when the popular vote was concentrated on one side, and the results in the Electoral College went in the opposite direction.

In the end, it is easy to describe the legacy Trump will leave: an economic crisis caused by the pandemic, but also shaped by the way in which it was handled by the president of the United States. But above all, the major thing the American people will inherit from Trump is a complete identity crisis encompassing everyone and all the institutions that form the United States.

For good measure, it is worth remembering that, being the consummate cheat he is, before he even launches a head-on attack on American institutions, President Trump has already assumed responsibility for America’s failure to survive by destroying the validity of such things as mail-in voting.

This is the moment in which we our primary focus should be on the voting for what is really at stake. And what is really at stake on Nov. 3 is the survival of society, especially in the United States.