For the first time in 28 years an incumbent US President has not been reelected. President Trump seems hellbent that the battle is not over claiming widespread cheating and fraud in several states and is trying to get a recount in some of them. Some of these proceedings have already been thrown out though. While there undoubtedly seems to have been some irregularities there is little doubt that Joe Biden will be instated at the 46th President of the United States. President Trump’s rhetorical “prowess”, exacerbated by his spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain’s statement, that “angels were being sent from Africa to save the election”, didn’t boost the credibility of the incumbent administration, on the contrary. According to yours truly’s perhaps not so humble opinion Donald Trump should not have become presidential candidate in the first place back in 2016. Rather the Republican Party and the United States – and in the long run also the World, need someone with a more substantial skill set and statesmanlike manners, such as Rand Paul. A true American dilemma is that with only two parties of significance there can be found some really unsavory characters within both.
The election turmoil undoubtedly shows the need of a unison federal election system. Claims that the election results will lead to a unifying path of the American society is nothing short of political propaganda. Mark my words, there will be no healing as the US society is more divided than ever. That said the alleged “blue landslide” did not materialize, instead the Republicans received more votes than ever from voters that ought to be voting Democrat, at least as liberal analysts are concerned, such as from women and Afro-Americans. The geographic political demarcation lines are more pronounced than ever, pitting the coasts and the big cities against the rest of the United States. The Democratic Party is also divided, between a more balanced liberal capitalist wing represented by the future 46th President, albeit a corrupt one, and a more radical left wing faction centered around people like Alexandra Ocasio Cortéz (New York) and her “squad” in Congress consisting of Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts). The internal turmoil within the Democratic Party that undoubtedly will follow at least bring yours truly’s thoughts to Robespierre, Marat et al. Alexandra Ocasio Cortéz is affiliated with DSA – Democratic Socialists of America and frequently appears in the Marxist quarterly magazine Jacobin. There is hence far from any prospects of unity at the horizon for neither America nor the Democratic Party. AOC has already called her own party “incompetent” for not appointing enough progressive candidates to higher positions.
While we can be sure that identity politics, after all Black Lives Matter protests and riots, will take a precedent position in domestic US politics as the Democratic Party has embraced the narrative of structural racism i.e. more a matter of a populist form of reversed racism, although not to the extent of some people’s wishes, the balance in the Senate and Congress will hopefully counterbalance the worst excesses. The same hopefully goes for any attempts to change the US constitution. In the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan the cultural reporter Rakel Chukri, that previously stated at the last annual Book Fair in the stereotypical “progressive” manner of reversed racism and oikophobia that “it isn’t a human right for ethnic Swedes to recognize their own country”, wrote in an article analyzing the election that the US certainly has issues with structural racism, but the that the election results will empower those that are victims of this alleged oppression.
Of course she left out that people of color and women have voted conservative as never before, probably as a result of the chaos brought to the United States under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement. Many so called Liberal analysts recurrently fail to recognize that people are more than just the color of their skin. Identity politics thus instead of uniting a nation tares it apart, something that we see on a daily basis in today’s Swedish society. That US taxpayers are in for a “Green shock treatment” – just as the Swedish ones, are without doubt. What further happens with US energy interests, for instance regarding fracking, will have geopolitical repercussions, not only domestically but also in for instance in the Baltic countries that purchase US LNG. Thus Russian natural gas will become more important which in turn bolsters Russian economic and political influence.
On the international scene it will hence be interesting to see what the future brings. The Israeli leadership does not greet the election results with joy, on the contrary Israel has raised concerns of a future war with Iran as Joe Biden endorsed what President Trump called “the worst deal ever”, the JPCOA – The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action colloquially more known as the nuclear deal with Iran which the Trump Administration unilaterally withdrew from. The US stance regarding Venezuela and the rest of Latin America remains to be seen. Any real change with regards to Syria is doubtful as it was the Obama Administration that began the regime change operation in the country, initiating Operation Timber Sycamore in 2013 – the transfer of military hardware to “moderate” freedom fighters. Still this hardware had a tendency to end up i the hands of militants and the operation was called off by the Trump Administration.
While most Western European countries within the EU probably draws a sigh of relief over the election results this probably isn’t the case in many conservative Eastern European countries such as Poland that has nurtured increasingly good relations with the United States under the Trump Administration. What the future holds regarding US policies in Ukraine remains to be seen. For Russia, the leadership of the US is seen more or less as an adversary to it’s geopolitical interests, regardless whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican.
So while most on this side of pond are jubilant yours truly, with American ancestry, at least find some relief in that the “blue landslide” remained nothing but political propaganda for political consumption both in the US as well as over here, and that the Republican Party is well poised for the future. But it needs to find a leadership that shows much more statesmanlike properties than what the 45th President showed while in office..
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