The Americans have already elected Trump once; if they re-elect him, none of the voters can claim they didn’t know what to expect.
Last night, we knew what to expect from Trump: lies, outrageous exaggerations, personal attacks, but no concrete plan except that, according to him, his mere presence will change the dynamics both inside and outside the country. Hope is not a strategy, as the saying goes.
So, all eyes were on the man Trump has long called « Sleepy Joe. » Is Biden really as lacking in energy as the Republicans claim? Are his mental faculties truly weakened? Trump didn’t need to insist on this point, Biden stumbled in front of the world. He looked lost, he stuttered, his voice was weak, he was babbling, in short, he simply looked senile. It was painful to watch, for his detractors as well as his supporters.
In 2016, I couldn’t conceive of any sane person voting for Trump, and yet he was favored over Hilary Clinton, who, despite all her weaknesses, offered a vision and, all in all, a good fight. Last night, Biden tried to offer a vision but all he managed to present was the image of a man with diminished intellectual faculties and memory problems – exactly what the Republicans have been accusing him of for a long time.
40 percent of Americans will vote for Trump, no matter what he says and does. It’s been a long time since I stopped trying to understand what these Americans might see in Trump; it’s simply beyond my comprehension. A billionaire who claims to defend the cause of the underprivileged, an arrogant and abhorrent being who simplifies every problem to the extreme, who has no nuance in his thinking and his words, to me, it’s an aberration but it seems that nearly half of Americans believe he makes a good commander-in-chief. Go figure.
In 2016, I joked that I would vote for a plant over voting for Trump. Eight years later, without wanting to diminish the president to a mere plant, it’s a bit of the scenario that is unfolding in our neighboring country. For a country whose image of strength is central to the national psyche, voting for a « weak » is not an option. Americans want the image of a powerful president, at the head of the greatest military and economic power the earth has ever known. Biden no longer represents this ideal – he used to represent it, search the archives and you will discover a large amount of speeches and debates where « Joe » is sharp, bright, in short, combative. There is only one debate left – in September! – so Biden will not be able to shake off this image for several weeks. And even then, there is no guarantee that Trump won’t devour him whole in the next debate.
If he truly values democracy and American ideals, Biden must make way for another contender. Otherwise, it must be acknowledged that the United States, and the rest of the world, will have to endure another four years of Trump, with all the irreversible damage that nobody dares to imagine.
Eric,
Mercifully, neither you nor I have the opportunity’ to vote in the US Presidential election.
To bastardise the well known political concept, the conundrum facing US electors seems to be the choice between ‘the evil of two lessers’.
Surely in a nation of 330 million people, these two can’t be the very best options for President. Surely not.
While the outcome is important for all of us, most of the world can only watch this unfold and (unlike some) accept the result.
Kind regards
Chip
I know some of my « kamarades » don’t understand my interest – they’d call it an obsession – with US politics but the fact is the name of the next president has a bigger impact on my life than the next prime minister. It sound like a cliché but the US are still the policemen of the world and what they do, or don’t do, has an impact on other Western nations. Hence why I take a personal interest in US politics. Just like most neighbouring countries and allies do, or should do in my views.