Would Americans really choose Trump again?

ollowing the announcement that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for the American Presidency, the Daily Mail of Saturday January 20, 2024, declared that among much of the UK’s intelligentsia, there was “a caterwauling orgy of nose-holding abhorrence”. The writer said: “No. They are saying. Not him—not that man again.” The man referred to was Donald J. Trump.

 

The United States elections to be held on November 5, 2024, will be based on the discernment of what constitutes ‘character’ and what is understood by ‘truth’. On the morning of October 7, 2024, one awoke to the absurd claim by Trump that the Democrats were behind his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania – a story that serves to appeal to his base as he poses as a martyr. On the same day, Trump also claimed to have received the endorsement of J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon. Dimon would later that day refute the claim.

 

The November 5 poll will also be a referendum on the political and moral intelligence of the American people at large. The choice between Donald Trump on the Republican side and Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket represents a clear difference between the questionable character of a man whose intellectual/cognitive capacity, political ideology and personal moral and social integrity leave much to be desired. On the other side is a woman who seems to represent what is arguably the better side of the American persona, committed to the expansion rather than the restriction of democratic rights, freedoms and inclusiveness.

 

To me, the right choice appears fundamentally clear, but 30 days before the poll, all evidence suggests that the outcome is too close to call, particularly in the battleground states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. An NBC national poll published on the morning of October 14, 2024, showed Trump and Harris tied at 49 per cent. This is a race that could be decided at the margins. Why is this, one asks? Shouldn’t the differences be rationally clear? A return of Trump to the White House in 2025 could impose a dystopian political and social order on American society from which it might be difficult to recover. Standing outside 10 Downing Street on July 5, 2024, newly elected UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Stammer noted that, “politics can be a force for good”. The late Professor Simeon McIntosh wrote of “The Politics of Virtue and the Virtue of Politics”. A Trumpian political order would be thoroughly devoid of virtue. Of course, in today’s world, virtue itself might be an outdated concept. In an age when for partisan political reasons anything can be described as false or rigged, it is becoming increasingly difficult to know what exactly constitutes the truth.

 

The political dystopia

The Supreme Court’s decision to give Trump immunity from prosecution for official acts would create an imperial presidency. He could seek to place persons in positions that would enhance his personal ambitions and take revenge on his political opponents. Trump has promised to clamp down on opponents in the press. He has said as much. A free press is essential to the workings of a free society and a viable democracy. The notion of the separation of powers that has long characterised American governance might be destroyed and we could be presented with a self-perpetuating immorality that might entrench itself in the United States’ political culture. No political system run by actual human beings can lay claim to total moral probity, but great leaders must always exhibit a strong moral compass. Trump’s actions and utterances show a frightening absence of a moral compass. America’s future is in the balance or, as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer put it, “this is a high-stakes election”.

 

Perhaps the most politically egregious of Trump’s recent political actions has been his spreading of misinformation about agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the midst of the recent hurricane threats in Florida. Firstly, there was the claim that the Biden administration was ignoring Floridians and then that it was directing aid to immigrants rather than to Americans. Both were so patently untrue that even Republican officials were forced to disavow the disinformation. Then it was also claimed that both federal agencies were part of the alarmist climate change industry. Note that more than 250 persons have died as a result of Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Milton has so far claimed some 16 lives. The overarching message from the man seeking to return to the US presidency is that the federal government is not to be trusted – that is, unless Donald Trump himself is president. As Barack Obama said while speaking on behalf of the Harris campaign, here is Trump deliberately trying to deceive people “at the most vulnerable moment in their lives”.

 

In his recent book entitled War, famed author Bob Woodward made two condemning claims against Trump. One was that during the COVID crisis and when he was President of the United States, Trump sent COVID kits to Putin for the latter’s personal protection. This was at a time when hundreds of American citizens were dying from the pandemic. The second revelation, if Woodward is to be believed, is that Trump had seven conversations with the Russian president since his leaving office in 2020. This is not necessarily illegal. However, the Logan Act specifically states that such interactions must be done in coordination with the existing federal government. One can only wonder whether Putin, a former KGB operative, is not playing Trump for the friendly fool that he appears to be.

 

The social dystopia

One hesitates to describe anyone as a racist. As a white Barbadian friend told me, when push comes to shove, we all retreat into our own particular racial and ethnic identities. Trump is clearly a racist and what was once the party of Lincoln is now a Trumpian cult that is fearful of being overwhelmed by a non-white majority and determined to halt black and non-white migration into the United States. His condemnation of the Central Park Five who he would have had executed, his reluctance to accept blacks and persons of colour into his housing estates, and his willingness to accept migrants from Scandinavia but not from countries like Haiti which he used a derogatory term to describe, are symptomatic of white supremacist thinking.

 

The international dystopia

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has been the bulwark against Russian territorial expansionism since 1945. As Richard Haase has commented, Trump does not share the foreign policy consensus that former US presidents shared and believed in. His policy inclination would suggest that he might retreat from NATO and follow a policy of isolationism – which would give Putin a free hand to follow his expansionism in Europe. Trump’s almost childish fascination for strongmen like Putin makes him a fitting tool for their autocratic ambitions. He actually said he would be a dictator from day one. What kind of person says that? The NATO states, particularly those on the border with Russia, are understandably concerned about the possibility of a Trump second term that could threaten the vision of North Atlantic security that America has stood by for over 75 years. In the Daily Mail article to which I referred earlier, the writer posed this question to Republicans who would abandon Ukraine to the Russians: How can you possibly make America great again if you allow a Russian tyrant to inflict total humiliation on the West?