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Only days to go before the US election and it is not a pretty sight
It’s about now that you feel the ice-cold fingers around your heart. They’ve been there a while, slowly inching closer, causing this constant low-level chill in your chest. But now they’ve made contact. They’re grasping for the aorta and the ventricles, they’re starting to squeeze. The fear is here. The dread.
Do you wake up with nightmares of the dystopian world portrayed in Back to the Future II? Remember the repulsive Biff Tannen, an arrogant, selfish, narcissistic bully, who has created fear, pain and disorder all around him. Even in the 1980s, Biff was modelled – according to his creator – on Donald Trump, then a relatively young man whom it was possible to ignore. It is astounding how much life has imitated fiction. Knowing what we know now, Biff was a flattering portrayal. The reality goes way beyond what could have been predicted. Hold that thought.
It is difficult to forget even briefly that the American election is going to happen on 5th November, just a few days away, and indeed over 60 million people have already voted. The outcome is, to say the least, uncertain. It is almost a truism to say that there has never been such a momentous election, one which risks marking the end of American democracy as we know it, but with knock on effects throughout the world. Potentially a day which will live in infamy, as Franklin D Roosevelt would’ve put it.
We are all stakeholders in this election, so it is ironic and bizarre that the outcome is in the hands, not just of Americans, but of voters in the seven swing states which remain finely balanced. That this should be so is the result of the arcane and wholly unjustifiable electoral college system, something which in turn came about at the founding of the state and largely as a result of slave ownership. So it is an extreme anachronism.
The seven setting states.
To say we live in troubling times would be to put it extremely mildly. In the event of a Trump presidency, European unity will be more essential than ever. And yet Europe is divided. That is only partly the fault of the reprobates who cried “take back Control“ and who achieved precisely the opposite. Politicians like Putin, Orban and Le Pen have also played their part. We are facing a new area of possible American isolation and European vulnerability.
Getting there
How has it come to this? How is Trump even a candidate?
In any sane world it would never have happened. It should’ve been obvious to all even in 2016 that Trump stood out as the worst ever prepared candidate for the presidency. Despite the public image he carefully cultivated through The Apprentice, his whole career was littered with publicly available and solid evidence of dishonesty, selfishness, narcissism and incompetence. The scandal of Trump University was only a small but telling example.
Based on his record he would not have passed the ‘Fit and Proper Person’ test, nor would he have made the shortlist for a job in health, education or the civil service. Some voters consoled themselves with the thought that there were checks and balances in place. There aren’t because the constitution assumes that the people know best. Others lived in hope that his bark was worse than his bite, that he would change colours on being elected and become an enlightened president, or that those around him could restrain him. We know of course that nothing could be further from the truth. There are far too many examples of misrule on a monumental scale to list.
What have we learned?
But now, eight years on, we know so much more than we did in 2016. We have been learning every day both while he has been in and out of office. His actions and his promises should say it all.
The appalling events of 6 January 2021, for which he still faces the possibility of prosecution, and his second impeachment, all occurred after the American public unequivocally rejected him. His blatant refusal to accept that result, not to mention his willingness to countenance homicide in his name, should alone disqualify him from standing, let alone being elected.
Recently he has been sounding more and more like a dictator. He tells the electorate they’ll never need to bother voting again after this election. He will, he tells us, take control of the Department of Justice, and he will use the FBI and National Guard as his tools. He will imprison his opponents and release the 6 January insurgents, implicitly giving immunity to people who actively tried to overturn democracy and carte blanche to those who do the same in the future. He wants to shut down purveyors of ‘fake news’ like ABC and CBS. He talks about deporting the 11 million (he says 20 million) ‘illegal immigrants’ – or, if he cannot do that, putting them in internment camps (concentration camps?). Remember many of these people are essential to the US economy – even to Trump’s own companies. Many have children who are American citizens. And ironically, what they are accused of doing is precisely the same as Elon Musk did when he first came to the US.
Trump plans to use his ill-gotten majority on the Supreme Court to make any challenge more difficult. And, knowing that there are few if any Republican members of Congress who are prepared to stand up to him, the possibility of retaking the Senate and holding the House of Representatives, which could easily happen, would be the icing on the cake for him. Unlike in 2016 there is a plan in place to create an authoritarian state. Project 2025, even if Trump implausibly disavows knowledge of it, is ready to run. Nafeez Ahmed paints a picture that goes beyond dystopia – think Armageddon:
“The Trump campaign has now made exceedingly clear what it plans to do if it wins. It amounts to a project of national suicide … The plan itself is not viable. But if executed, it would pave the way for a future of total economic catastrophe, environmental disaster, permanent civil unrest, ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence – not to mention, a global economic crisis which empowers Vladimir Putin … The Musk-Trump plan is the fruition of a global network war aimed at tearing down the entire infrastructure of a viable democracy in the United States. We should stop underestimating the risks, and start waking up to who is fighting this war and why.”
Do I need to mention his countless indictments and his 34 felony convictions, for which he could well go to jail if he loses? (What a reason to want to be president). Or the unprecedented assault his party is launching on women’s reproductive rights? The debate on reproductive freedom is Harris’s strongest suit, but in a closely-fought election it is going to have to do some heavy lifting.
Allies who have seen the light
Of the 40+ people who worked in his cabinet only four are prepared to endorse him, the rest agree that he was not and is not fit to be president, as, for very good reasons, does his own former vice president, Mike Pence. John Kelly, a respected general and Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, hand-picked by Trump himself, spoke of his fascist tendencies, his admiration for the Third Reich, and his wish that his generals would be as compliant as Hitler’s. A group of 13 former senior Trump staff members signed a letter expressing support for Kelly and dread at the prospect of a further Trump presidency. And these are loyal Republicans. It is impossible to see this as just sour grapes:
John F Kelly
“Donald Trump’s disdain for the American military and admiration for dictators like Hitler is rooted in his desire for absolute, unchecked power… In a second term, those who once tried to prevent Donald Trump from his worst impulses will no longer be there to rein him in. For the good of our country, our democracy, and our Constitution, we are asking you to listen closely and carefully to General Kelly’s warning. We unfortunately know all too well how serious and dire it is”.
But just to prove them right, Trump’s recent rallies have been more and more shrill, most famously that in Madison Square Garden, where he was supported by billionaire Elon Musk and right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s notorious ‘joke’ about Puerto Rico was just a small part of a display of venom, hatred and bile which would almost certainly have fallen foul of the law had it happened in the UK. As Emily Maitlis put it ‘they came for the misogyny and stayed for the racism’. And now he is openly encouraging his supporters to take a gun to Liz Cheney. That particular outrage is the subject of investigation by the Arizona attorney-general. This is the same Trump who became apoplectic about Biden’s “garbage” gaffe.
Our problem too
But this is not just a US problem. For the world it is impossible to see any good in a Trump win. He has stated his intentions. If he is elected he will ‘solve the Ukraine problem in a day’, i.e., let Putin have his way. He will abandon, or at least mortally wound, NATO, leaving Europe, East and West, at the mercy of a revanchist Russia. He will once again walk away from net zero, and no doubt other nations will follow his lead, feeling there is really no point in even trying to delay the catastrophic climate change of which we are daily seeing evidence all around us.
Oxford for Europe has every reason to care.
Kamala Harris has to win three times
Could the tragedy of another Donald Trump victory actually happen?
Despite the apocalyptic warnings of those who should know, the American people are divided right down the middle. According to the bookmakers, at the time of the democratic national convention Kamala Harris was favourite to win, though never by a massive margin. At the moment the odds are 6 to 5 against her but fortunately shortening. In the seven all important swing states neither candidate is more than 2% ahead in the opinion polls, so within the 4% margin of error.
Bear in mind that for a satisfactory outcome Harris has to win three times. Firstly, that she will win the popular vote, as Al Gore and Hillary Clinton did, is highly likely but that does not help her. But then she has to win the electoral college, which means taking a majority of electoral college votes in the swing states. Thirdly, even if she does that, her presidency is going to have to survive the inevitable insurrection which Trump has already said is coming. He tells us that he will accept the outcome “if the election is fair” but we know from his previous form that he will declare it unfair unless it comes out in his favour.
A few other things give Trump reasons to hope. One is the phenomenon of shy Republicans, those people who feel ashamed to tell opinion pollsters how they plan to vote, but come out for Trump on the day. So the opinion polls underestimate the Trump margin. Attempts to correct for this often merely muddy the waters.
Another is that there may be many voters who hear the catastrophic predictions of Trump-inspired civil war following on from a Harris victory, and seriously believe the only way to prevent it is to stop her from winning. That, alas, is twisted logic, but that is nothing new to portions of the electorate. The sad reality is that the US is a divided nation, there is pain ahead whatever the outcome, and it is folly to forego the last chance to prevent this bully from having his way.
Powerbrokers at home
Then there is the obvious influence of social media, all the more so now that Twitter/X has become a mouthpiece for Elon Musk. Musk himself has let it be known that he fears what will happen to him under a Harris presidency: he told Tucker Carlson, only half-jokingly, “if he loses I’m fucked”. And if he wins, Musk’s power will be massively enhanced – he has been promised that the country will be his oyster. His unquestioning loyalty to Trump is driven by self-interest not evidence. He is currently unashamedly bribing voters in the swing states under the pretext of a raffle – this is being challenged but by the time the courts can find against him the harm will have been done. It is striking that the Trump campaign accuses the Democrats of electoral fraud, but assumes that its own fraud will be allowed to pass unpunished. And given the composition and previous behaviour of the Supreme Court, that assumption may be justified.
Musk is far from being the only multi-billionaire helping Trump. To name just one, Jeff Bezos, again looking to protect his empire, has blocked his newspaper, the Washington Post, from coming out in favour of Harris, to the consternation of practically all its journalists. It’s hardly surprising that the editor-at-large has resigned and 200,000 subscriptions have been cancelled. Will Bezos’ Amazon suffer equal harm?
Powerbrokers abroad
Then there is Trump’s biggest ally of all, Vladimir Putin. We now know through the Mueller report that Trump’s 2016 victory owed a great deal to Russian electoral interference, and in this context his often stated admiration for Putin, not to mention the disappearance of classified documents and their partial reappearance at Trump’s Florida residence Mar-a-Lago, make total sense. There is clear evidence that Putin interfered in the elections in Moldova and Georgia (the Tblisi one – but maybe also the Atlanta one); given how much he has to gain from a Trump victory it will be astonishing if he is not doing so as we speak in the USA.
Autocrat though he may become, Trump will be Putin’s poodle. The prospect for Ukraine in the short term, and for NATO countries in the medium term, is too terrible to contemplate. Worse still, Trump is not a young – or indeed healthy – man, and if and when he hands over power, JD Vance will advance that particular harmful cause with even greater zeal, and this time with true conviction.
So the world’s three richest men have found common cause, and money talks.
It does not end there. Other powerbrokers abroad include Benjamin Netanyahu, who in the event of a Trump victory, would be spared even the half-hearted protests over his appalling atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon which have come from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. In Trump he would have a devoted supporter, and it is one of the ironies of this sad tale that it could well be the Arab American and Muslim voters of Michigan, disenchanted with Biden and Harris’s failure to restrain Netanyahu, who help achieve that result.
Furthermore,the whole Middle East crisis is playing into Trump’s hands – Netanyahu knows that by turning up the heat at the crucial moment he can make the Biden administration look helpless and incompetent. Even American voters who remain unmoved by foreign affairs will blame Biden and Harris if escalating tensions lead to an oil price rise just before the election. And we know that voters vote with their pockets – how else can you account for Trump being credited with being ‘good for the economy’?
Election interference
Election interference can take many forms: illicit social media influence campaigns, propaganda, bribery, intimidation, sabotage of polling stations to name but a few. We know that the Trump camp has organised armies of ‘election observers’ who may well do a great deal more than just observe. It will be astonishing if there is not a last-minute surprise. This could take the form of some rumour, put out too late to be effectively refuted by the Harris camp. Paradoxically Harris is much more vulnerable to scandal. She is dependent on a squeaky-clean image. In contrast Trump is almost invulnerable. His many flaws are almost priced in by those who plan to vote for him. As Val Jones said “he gets to be lawless, she has to be flawless,”. One of his great electoral advantages is that he is, figuratively speaking, soiled goods. The fact that he is so in a literal sense, according to some reports (NB trigger warning!), seems to make surprisingly little impact on his base.
In fact, for Trump all news is good news. The best thing that could happen, from our point of view, would be for the media focus to shift away from him, for Harris and her allies to be allowed to focus more on her policies and her undoubted strengths as a candidate. And yet, that is not how today’s 24-hour news cycle works. And when a candidate stands so far apart from all his predecessors, it is perhaps inevitable. Confession – I too have fallen into the trap of talking more about Trump than Harris.
What, no activists?
Given the awfulness of the prospect facing us all, and the helplessness of the vast majority of the world’s citizens, it could hardly be surprising that non-Americans want to do their best, and approximately 200 volunteers chose to travel over to help the Harris campaign, nor that those individuals should happen to be members of the British Labour Party. What is surprising is that there are people who see a story there. People who pretend to be unaware that this has been going on for years and that much of the overseas support is for the Republican Party and always has been. People who seem unaware of the campaigning activities of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson or Liz Truss on behalf of Trump. And that is without even mentioning the clandestine financial and logistic support which is coming from Russia.
Trump is taking the matter to the Federal Elections Commission. This says a lot about his insight into his own double standards. What is also telling is the Republican Party’s description of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party as far-left and a bad influence on the US Democrats. This within weeks of Starmer sitting down to dinner with Trump and, given that he did not do the same with Harris, giving the impression of an endorsement. Many of us would say, just one of the numerous errors of judgement he has made since coming to Office. He, of course, might see it differently and prioritise starting off on the right foot with a very thin-skinned man who might very soon be in a position to give him serious grief if he plays his cards badly.
Let us hope and pray that that remains entirely hypothetical.
Back to Biff
As for Biff, In the film he was made to disappear through the magic of time travel. If only in that one respect life could imitate art.
And back to my original title, I will complete the quotation: “remember remember 5 November, gunpowder treason and plot”. A prediction? I hope not.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and not necessarily representative of Oxford for Europe
