The most important election, anywhere, ever
Should Trump win on Tuesday, the consequences will be felt far beyond the borders of the United States, but if enough people turn out to vote....
So it turns out that opinion polls are pretty much useless as predictors of the actual outcome of elections. This has cheered me greatly: it means there is a good chance that Kamala Harris will win tomorrow.
But it could still go either way. Despite the fact that 78 million votes have already been cast, a high turnout is crucial if Trump is to be denied a second term. There is no room for complacency.
Below, I consider the consequences of a second Trump term for the world outside the USA, but first a few numbers to illustrate the poor condition of democracy in America, and indeed, elsewhere in the world.
Do we get the leaders we deserve? If we don’t bother to vote, then yes!
If the United States is to escape a second Trump term, turnout will be crucial
In the eleven US Presidential elections since 1980, when reliable figures based on those eligible to vote were first collated1, the average turnout has been just 54.8 per cent. Over a forty year period, on average, barely half of those who had the right to choose the most powerful person in the world, could be bothered to vote.
The lowest turnout was in 1996, just 51.7 per cent, when Bill Clinton easily won a second term against the Republican candidate Bob Dole, who at (just) 73 was considered by many to be too old for the job. The fact that the outcome was perceived as a foregone conclusion long before polling day likely contributed to the low turnout.
The highest turnout in any of those eleven elections was four years ago, when 65.9 per cent of eligible voters cast their vote, the unusually high turnout helping Joe Biden deny Donald Trump a second term.
I’ve heard many expressions of exasperation recently from people who can’t stomach the thought of Trump winning again, often along the lines of:
‘But how on earth can half of Americans vote for a man like Trump?’
The truth is that nothing like half of Americans have ever voted for Trump. Just look at the figures:
In 2016 he beat Hillary Clinton with just 41.6 per cent of the popular vote on a turnout of 59.2 per cent: Just 27.3 per cent of Americans who were eligible to vote put Trump in The White House.
You may remember that Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but even she only won the support of 28.5 per cent of eligible voters. Nonetheless, there is no possible justification for an electoral college system in what is nearly always a two horse race.
Fast forward to 2020: the largest turnout since the 19th century. Joe Biden was able to beat Trump with the support of just 33.8 per cent of eligible voters, three percentage points ahead of the incumbent.
Participating in elections seems to have become a minority activity. And it’s voter apathy that opens the door for populist authoritarians like Trump.
If he is to be defeated on Tuesday, it’ll likely require another record turnout. And he must be beaten: the consequences for the rest of the world of a Trump victory are as serious as they are for the United States.
What would a Trump Victory mean outside the USA?
Pretty much the end of our cherished civilization, I fear. But if that sounds too melodramatic, then it almost certainly means an end to the relative stability, prosperity and the absence of war, which many of us have enjoyed since 1945.
1 Ukraine and Russia
The people of Ukraine have shown unbelievable resilience in holding back the Russians since they invaded nearly three years ago. Putin is a monster. If allowed his way in Ukraine, he will not stop there.
The support of western nations, especially the United States and Britain, has been crucial to the Ukrainian cause, but that commitment now appears to be wavering.
Trump has indicated that he will force a grossly unjust peace on the people of Ukraine. The spectre of an alliance between Putin and Trump will put countries in Europe and elsewhere in a perilous situation.
If a major European war is to be avoided, it is essential that Trump not be elected on Tuesday.
2 International Diplomacy
A Trump victory would render largely impotent the established institutions of international diplomacy. You may shrug and say that well, they’ve never been very effective, but you would be wrong.
The longer peace and relative prosperity endure, the stronger these institutions become, to the point that we no longer realise how important they are as they go quietly and effectively about the business of keeping relations between nations on a reasonably even keel.
If Trump does win, and if he sets out to govern as he has promised throughout the campaign, it is essential that democratic governments across the world do not treat him as an equal, or as the legitimate leader of the free world. Instead they should build alliances inside and beyond the United States with those who understand the threat posed by Trump’s proto-fascism.
Nearly a century ago, the world tried to appease another authoritarian demagogue. It didn’t end well.
3 Empowering other Authoritarian Demagogues
Were he to be elected on Tuesday, we can expect Trump to immediately to start building formal alliances with his friends overseas: other authoritarians already in power like Putin, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
His success would provide a massive boost to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party in France and the far right AfD in Germany. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a meeting with Prime Minister Georgia Meloni of Italy early in the new year; all smiles on the White House lawn.
It is crucial that Europe maintain a united front against Trump. While Britain remains unhelpfully outside the EU, the new government here is at least working to repair relations after the disaster of Brexit. However, the recent visit by Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy to the US to meet Trump does not augur well.
4 The end of Free Trade
While the neoliberal project and globalisation have introduced almost as many new problems into the world economy as they have addressed old ones, whatever economic model the world adopts going forward, free trade between nations will always be crucial to our collective prosperity.
Trump is promising the opposite by raising tariffs, supposedly to protect American interests. Any economist will tell you that this will lead to a reduction in economic growth at home, with the least well off suffering the most. It will likely also provoke a global economic downturn from which it will be very difficult to recover.
5 Unleashing a Global Oligarchy
The trend over the last forty years towards the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands is the very definition of oligarchy. It has been Putin’s economic model of choice since he came to power. Indeed it was his manipulation of the emerging oligarchy in post-communist Russia that paved his way to power in the first place.
Oligarchy in the economy goes hand in hand with autocracy in politics. Elon Musk knows this. As does Jeff Bezos.
6 Licence to abuse and demean
When people like Trump use racist or demeaning language, are abusive to and about women, and belittle those who risked their lives in the service of their country, it gives permission to other weak people to do the same.
The deliberate identification of scapegoats for everything that people perceive to be wrong in their lives, or with their country, is one of the key ways Hitler persuaded the German people either to conspire in, or turn a blind eye to, The Holocaust.
7 Dragging large parts of the opposition down the culture war rabbit hole
Perhaps the most depressing aspect of the right-driven culture wars has been the abject failure of the left to respond intelligently to the taunts of the conspiracy theorists and others, whose only aim is to polarise debate and create animosity where previously there was a reasonable degree of harmony.
Far too many otherwise sensible people have taken the bait. In the process their capacity to oppose Trump with appeals to reason and truth has been fatally compromised.
8 Climate Change
Worst of all, a second Trump term would effectively extinguish any possibility of concerted global action to mitigate the effects of accelerating climate change. The huge death toll in the Valencia region of Spain this week is a portent of things to come.
And while people in the poor world are still likely to bear the brunt of climate change in the short term, as events in Spain this week demonstrate, nobody will be safe.
The problem with climate change is that countries cannot take measures to protect themselves in isolation. It’s a global problem: carbon emissions in Vermont or Virginia cost lives in Valencia and Vanuatu.
Americans who vote for Trump tomorrow will, if he is elected, be voting not only to condemn millions of Floridians to endless hurricane seasons of destruction, but also people in Asia, Africa, Europe and elsewhere to more frequent extreme weather events that will cost thousands of lives
I agree with the plethora of thinkers and commentators -
, , , , , , Madeleine Albright, Dr Benadetta Carnaghi, Gen. John Kelly and others - all of whom now conclude that to all intents and purposes, Trump is a fascist.If he wins on Tuesday, we will know pretty soon after January 20th whether he plans to carry through with his threats against his political opponents, the rule of law, press freedom, legal immigrants and the institution of democracy itself. I suspect he will.
And while comparisons with Hitler are unhelpful, especially as Trump appears to have no particular mission beyond his own narcissistic pursuit of power, it’s what he’s prepared to do to maintain power that will determine whether future historians label him a fascist.
Let’s hope those historians never have to ponder that question.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections