Quo vadis, USA?
a commentary 4 days before the election
With just a few more days before the election of the next US president, I wonder, how still now many people can not recognize the doom they are marching towards, when giving the “big loser” a second time a vote – even as he did not really win the first time around either.
My own audio recording from 2016 (when I heard the news in the morning) is a 10 min. rage full of explicit words, as I knew then already, what many did not want to believe, but know now also – that this clown is dangerous, that his neurotic narcissism has no boundaries, that he only knows one goal: his own advantage and that his entourage will use him to cement an ultra-conservative, right-wing agenda.
Four years later, I repeat my “I told you so” with no joy – but rather with a vague hope, that maybe this time really ALL democratic thinking voters in the USA will rally behind “the other candidate” – especially in the swing states.
In an election like this, there is no place for “protest votes” or not voting, only because a voter may not like Joe Biden. When the democracy itself is on the line, as it IS this time, a voter needs to vote >against< the terrible choice of “4 more years”, as it would be catastrophic not only for the USA, but for much of the Western world and its alliances.
In 2002 in France 40+% of (left & liberal) voters were grinding the teeth and voted for the conservative candidate Jacques Chirac in the French presidential election >against< the right-wing / fascist LePen. They knew, they had to support a candidate, which was standing firm to democracy, beside his own affairs and shortcomings.
Yet even, when this will happen in high numbers this time in this US election, I fear, it may not be enough. When a candidate with almost 3 Million less votes (2,864,974 to be exact) can win (2016), then the system is wrong. And this happened before in the year 2000, with half a million votes.
The US election system is antiquated and severely damaged and not fit for the new millennium. 40 Million voters (in California) are represented by 2 senators, when the same amount of people in 7 different (rural) states come to 14 senators. When you add to this “gerrymandering” and “voter suppression”, the outcome of this election may be still unclear even when the numbers >against< “the orange man” are higher than 2016.
“Hope dies last” goes the old saying – yet when it dies, the USA will slide further down the hill into a totalitarian autocracy, destroyed by a narcisstic-idiotic maniac and his fascistic entourage, who are all only looking out for their own pockets and power, and who do not really care for America at all.
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PS: I have written this commentary with a bleeding heart towards a country, where I have lived and worked between 1994 – 2006 and where 3 of my children were born.
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The electoral college is a constitutional relic of a fundamentally different nation, one with 13 states and a potential electorate of 2.5 million citizens, slashed dramatically by restrictions that limited the franchise to white, land-owning Protestant men.
(from The Guardian, 2016)
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(This commentary was published in October 2020)