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View from America


By M.R. Josse
GAITHERSBURG, MD: This write-up from Maryland in America, on the eve of the 2020 presidential election, was planned to be timed after the final debate between Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, October 22 (October 23 in Kathmandu), moderated by NBC News moderator Kristen Walker.


The Dasain festivities back home, and the interruption in this journal’s publication schedule, has however necessitated advancing this somewhat premature analysis of the possible outcome of what is perhaps one of the most consequential of all American presidential elections in modern times.
SEAT-OF- THE-PANTS ASSESSMENT
Rather than being based on complex or sophisticated voting models/records and the other paraphernalia usually employed by professional crystal-ball gazers, this is a by-the-seat-of-the-pants assessment by an interested observer of the American political scene, leavened by absorbing the thinking in write-ups of well-known pundits gleaned over the past several months.
Among the more striking features of this election is how little foreign policy has figured, particularly among the American electorate. Indeed, it will probably be correct to claim that the foreign policy aspect of this momentous clash of the titans, as it were, has grabbed more interest and attention of foreign policy wonks outside America than appears to be the case here.
Though the Trump campaign has sought to make China its major target or talking point – including by Trump’s insistence on calling Covid-19 the ‘China virus’ – it does not seem to have deflected the key fact that his mishandling of the pandemic – with over 220,000 fatalities two weeks before election day – is clearly uppermost on the minds of the majority of American voters.
The obvious implication of Trump’s hospitalization for Covid-19 infection days after his first debate with Biden has not only been widely understood in America but has embarrassingly reverberated around the world.
In any case, it is revealing that the Trump campaign, as per NPR, had requested that the forthcoming debate focus on foreign policy as opposed to topics chosen by Walter, a shortlist of which includes “race, national security, leadership, America’s families, Covid-19 and climate change.”
While Trump would have sorely wanted to discuss securing his ‘historic’ peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the educated American voter is cognizant that, as the Biden campaign claims with justification, that America’s international image under Trump has taken a beating.
In Nepal and South Asia generally, for example, American foreign policy is today perceived as dysfunctional, unpredictable, and inconsistent, while its standing is a mere shadow of its once-dominant leadership global role in the post-Second World War era.
In the latest NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll, published last week, Biden leads Trump 54% to 43 % nationally among likely voters. Still, the Biden campaign has warned its supporters that “Donald Trump can still win this race” – reminding all that in key battleground states the two sides are still neck to neck.
Doubtless, such caution is the product of the 2016 election experience where Trump was generally viewed as the losing candidate – by most experts. Though that, of course, is true enough, what should not be forgotten that in 2016 Trump was largely an unknown political quantity; today, he is tainted by his none-too-bright political track record and diminished by his endless quirks and singularities, including his whimsical, egoistical and dictatorial tendencies.
To my mind, the answer to the oft-asked question at election time – are you better off today than you were four years ago? – would be a resounding ‘no’ as far as the average voter is concerned. Also, it is difficult to believe that the average American, or male or female, would not favour Biden over Trump in a simple character test: who comes across as the more reliable, honest or decent person.
Generally speaking, Trump has been stuck with what might be termed as an awesome triple-whammy: the pandemic, a sluggish economy and with race relations being at its lowest ebb in generations.
The fact that Trump has attempted to suppress voting – particularly mail-in ballots of which at this time more than 27 million have been cast – has not been lost on the average American voter whose long lines in early balloting venues clearly seem to suggest that the movement for change in the administration is strong and ever-growing.
Besides, his seeming pandering to right-wing groups and his rants against the military – calling them, on recorded tape, as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ – should, in my view, cost him dear in terms of electoral votes.
IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
On a more personal level – and speaking (now) as a resident of Gaithersburg, a verdant slice of American suburbia in Maryland just over an hours’ drive from the ‘nation’s capital’ of Washington, D.C. – I can report that, during my many walking tours in the broad neighbourhood over the past several weeks, that I have come across only one property that has a visible Trump/Pence (Keep America Great) advertising hoarding as compared to about a score indicating that the residence owners favour the Biden/Harris ticket.
While most property owners here seem shy of announcing their political preferences on their sleeves, so to speak, those who do not directly hint at their preference for the Biden/Harris team, do so in code: that is to say that they have placards visibly announcing that they support a variety of causes, such as Black Lives Matter and so on. Even a dotard should have no problem is guessing how those property owners are going to vote come November 3 – if they have not already done so.
Though I’d be the first to admit that the conclusions drawn from the above may not be totally scientific, surely collectively they must mean something, especially considering that the residents of this neck of the woods are not exactly hillbillies but educated individuals living in the Greater Washington D.C. area.
To sum up, if I were a betting man I’d stick out my neck as to predict that Trump is heading for a defeat, big time.
Of course, that is not to say that a clear winner may not emerge on November 3rd night because some voting rules have changed due to the pandemic.
We can now only wait and see.