A Decisive Election for International Relations

It’s not just one more election. On Nov. 3, the United States will hold an election in an extremely polarized environment, after a very dirty and exorbitantly expensive campaign ($11 billion). In the absence of an outright winner, the election may lead to long and cumbersome litigation over the vote count in states which polls have characterized as evenly divided between voters. Moreover, there is a predominance of dramatic interpretations about the implications of this election.

A possible Democratic victory alarms Donald Trump supporters. They believe it will bring a turn toward socialism and extreme statism. For the more progressive sector (“liberals,” in local jargon), intellectuals, artists and academics, Trump’s reelection would entail the possible end of democracy. These extreme positions agree on something important: Victory for their respective nemeses would jeopardize liberty and the rule of law, which both sides claim to defend.

Even the Financial Times has claimed that this is the most important election since 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in the middle of the Great Depression while the world was heading toward World War II. According to this well-known publication, a Republican victory will accelerate the retreat of the U.S. from the world scene and the destruction of a timeless system of international relations that emerged under its imprint and leadership after and because of the Allied triumph in the war. The newspaper also warns that if Joe Biden wins, he will have to make an enormous effort to contain and reverse the advanced deterioration of international relations. Concerning both domestic and international matters, most observers see a potential tipping point in these elections, albeit with opposing interpretations regarding its direction and meaning.

The candidates themselves were the main subjects in this peculiar race. This is especially true of Trump, who has managed to get most of the Republican Party in line over the past four years by constant entanglement in every kind of controversy, including potential conflicts of interest, management of his finances and possible tax manipulation and evasion. Trump is quarrelsome, abrasive and very personal. (He is also prone to nepotism, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka stand out as examples. Many see Ivanka, like Alberto Fujimori’s daughter and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter as a possible successor.)

Trump uses these qualities, along with his hyperactivity and a rather chaotic dynamic regarding management to leverage a pre-pandemic boom and fabulous current recovery, his commitment to the most conservative sectors (as demonstrated by his appointment of three Supreme Court justices, who are as united as one in those values), the concepts of law and order in the face of the mobilizations and demonstrations in recent months (featuring organizations such as Black Lives Matter and antifa) and his surprising foreign policy achievements (particularly in the Middle East).

Hounding him, however, is the resurgence of racial conflict and the emergence of far-right violent groups, whom he has never clearly or firmly condemned. Add to this the moderate wing of the party who mostly supports Biden and is funding the Lincoln Project (lincolnproject.us), an innovative communication initiative aimed at convincing Republican voters to support the Democratic candidate. Finally, unusual for an incumbent candidate who is seeking reelection, Trump has been less successful at fundraising than Biden.

Biden has spent much more on advertising through radio, television and digital media, with polls showing him as the favorite in terms of the popular vote and, even more importantly, in key states of Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, with the situation much more even in North Carolina, Iowa and Ohio. Texas is registering a “red” advantage. Biden has claimed that he is the candidate to beat. He has avoided connection with two potential weaknesses: that his age and supposed cognitive problems make doubtful the strength of his leadership, and that the radical sector of the party (led by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most charismatic and controversial figures of the new generation that broke into Congress in 2018) would drive away moderate voters.

Democrats are betting on rebuilding the large, diverse coalition from 12 years ago that anointed Barack Obama as president. This included young voters and minorities, especially African Americans (whose vote could be critical, for example, in Florida). The subsequent disintegration of this coalition was one of the factors that explained Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016.

Obama himself jumped into the final stretch of the campaign as if he were the candidate, with an event schedule that was even more intense than that of his former running mate. In this sense, the role of Kamala Harris was also crucial. She is Biden’s running mate, and one of the people most likely to succeed him. (Many expect that Michelle Obama will also participate.) The campaign has focused on ferocious criticism over management of the pandemic, the economic disaster it generated and climate change (which Trump denies, in spite of unprecedented wildfires in the Western states). There are also two questions stemming from the new composition of the Supreme Court: the threat of losing the right to abortion (the famous Roe v. Wade case) and the virtual dismemberment of Obama’s health care law, the more egalitarian health care policy created a decade ago that requires insurers to cover preexisting conditions. Democrats have become so sensitive about this issue that they have already asked Biden to send a bill to Congress that would increase the number of Supreme Court justices in response to the current conservative majority if Biden wins.

The “Latin Americanization” of U.S. politics is astonishing. Despite numbers that suggest a high probability of a Biden victory, caution has prevailed among his supporters, especially in light of the beating that Trump delivered four years ago. There is moderate hope among Republicans related to the allegedly hidden vote (people who are embarrassed to admit to pollsters that they will vote for the current president) and connected with the revitalization and empowerment of conservative religious sectors based on the changes in the Supreme Court and the values that Trump pushed during his term and which he confirmed during his campaign.

From a sociodemographic perspective, large cities are supporting Biden while rural areas are leaning toward Trump. The suburbs are up for grabs, with an apparent rise in support for Biden. The end is yet to be decided. Every vote will count and the gaze is fixed as much on balloting Tuesday as on the votes cast early by mail.

This election has the potential to be the last of its kind. Surely, because of age, neither Trump nor Biden will run again in the future; most likely, we will not see a contest between two white, male septuagenarians representing the principal parties again, and we hope there will be no pandemic the next time Americans go to the ballot box to choose someone who still remains the most powerful leader on this turbulent planet.