The Presidential Election Has Led to Unprecedented Events in US Media

The last presidential debate is now over, and there is not long left until the election. I joined record numbers of voters casting their ballots early this year. Most experts predict that early voting will significantly boost overall voter turnout, which could prove detrimental to President Donald Trump, who relies on a solid, though limited, base of support. The earliest a winner will be declared is Nov. 3 (U.S. time), though as Trump has not committed to a peaceful transition of power if he loses, the election may become difficult to resolve, for example if Trump refuses to concede defeat.

There have been a notable number of unprecedented occurrences across U.S. media recently. Firstly, USA Today, one of the few national newspapers in the U.S., announced its endorsement for Joe Biden. This is the first time the paper has supported a specific candidate by name. Science, a scientific journal with a reputation for quality, levelled harsh criticism against Trump’s response to COVID-19, running an editorial that stated he was unfit as a leader.

Most surprisingly of all, The New England Journal of Medicine, a celebrated medical journal, broke its nonpartisanship for the first time in its 208 year history. Though it did not mention Trump by name, it blamed the current U.S. leadership for the unscientific policies that have squandered American lives. The journal went on to claim that these actions were equivalent to criminal acts.

It is understandable that these scientific journals broke their traditionally held political silence in step with each other to insist urgently that reelecting Trump would result in nothing but harm. The president presented mask wearing as nothing more than a form of political expression, and let over 220,000 of his fellow citizens die. These journals are desperately calling for as many precious lives as possible to be saved. After all, this is not a normal presidential election, which simply asks questions about the future direction of the U.S. or how the country should be, it is an election to save lives.

There will likely be a sharp uptake in interest in coverage of the U.S. presidential election in Japan. I understand that it is difficult for Japanese people to get a sense of the dire situation in the U.S. firsthand, and also not easy to have sympathy with the suffering of Americans dealing with a COVID-19 disaster that is so much worse in the U.S. than it is in Japan. Despite that, I sincerely hope, at the very least, that rather than being confined to the narrow viewpoint of whether a Trump or Biden win would be better for Japan, the Japanese media reports with a wider awareness of the universal issue of human value.

The author is Vice Chairman and Secretary General of the NPO Research Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs .