Mick Clifford: The US is about to face its moment of truth
It's ironic that Donald Trump says one of America’s greatest threats is 'the enemy within', when it is he who is the greatest threat to American democracy. Picture: Matt Rourke/AP Photo
There is a serious want in US democracy right now. Next Tuesday, the US will elect its 47th president, yet in many ways the process to do so resembles what one might expect in a developing country unused to the mores of a democracy.
Security at many, if not most, polling stations will be tight. That would be expected in a new democracy, but this one is over 200 years old.
The department of homeland security has conducted 1,200 assessments of security in polling centres.
They have also trained more than 30,000 election officials and workers with an emphasis on personal security.
The department was formed after the September 11 attacks on the US. Its brief was to protect the country from any such repeat attack.
Now it is having to prepare for any attack from within the country, emanating in particular from those associated with one of the two parties that have been competing for power throughout the states’ history.
Ironic then that Donald Trump says one of America’s greatest threats is “the enemy within”.
In reality, as things have emerged, it is he who is the greatest threat to American democracy.
If Trump had not attempted to overturn the will of the people in 2020, it is highly unlikely that there would have been any dispute about the result.
But the power he now wields has ensured that a large minority genuinely believe that dark forces associated with those opposed to him are at work.
Trump’s genius is that he has managed to convince his followers that these dark forces are really out to get them.
If such an individual attempted to do as Trump did in any other Western democracy, he would most likely have ended up in prison by now.
Some of the dissemination of the big lie is down to modern media, particularly social media, where falsehoods can be spread and amplified under certain conditions.
But many individuals know precisely that the farrago is an invention yet persist in disseminating it.
Their collusion in Trump’s fraud is particularly alarming.
Earlier this year, it emerged that soon after the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a flag was placed upside down outside the home of supreme court judge Samual Alito.
Those who claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump flew the flag in this manner as a form of protest.
Alito claimed that it was his wife who planted the flag. That detail is largely irrelevant.
What is at issue is that one of the most powerful people in the US, a man whose power is attributable to his alleged expert knowledge of the law, was willing to have a de facto protest against a basic tenet of democracy, despite knowing the protest was based on a fraud.
It is difficult to envisage such an individual retaining his position in any Western European democracy.
It also emerged that the wife of his supreme court colleague, Clarence Thomas, was at the rally where Trump spoke on January 6 before the assault on the Capitol that led to death and destruction.
The woman is entitled to her views, but what is staggering is that Thomas maintains that his spouse’s proximity to the assault on democracy does not debar him from sitting on cases about the whole issue.
If Trump wins the presidential election next Tuesday, much of this will likely fade in comparison with the kind of assaults on the institutions of democracy he has promised to effect.
Right now, all that stands between Trump and his plan to further erode democracy is Kamala Harris.
In this respect, Trump, not for the first time, is lucky in his opponent.
In 2016, his opponent was Hillary Clinton, who for many typified the ‘insider’ perception of US politics.
The portrayal of her as somebody who profited from her status in politics was probably unfair, but the prevailing environment post the economic crash of 2008 and subsequent fall-out ensured that the mud stuck.
If Trump had faced Joe Biden that year, there is every probability that Biden would have won and that would have been the end of Trump.
This year, if Trump had faced 82-year-old Biden, the former would have almost certainly won.
But Trump’s luck persisted as Biden stayed in the race until such time as it was impossible for anybody but Harris to replace him.
Harris is highly competent and appears to be a person of serious integrity.
Yet that alone has never been a qualification to become president. She is not a natural political animal.
When she ran in the Democratic primaries in 2020, she was easily defeated and her subsequent elevation to vice president was a stroke of luck.
Now two issues in particular are haunting her.
She is associated with Biden’s unpopular administration, largely due to the ravages of inflation over the last three years.
Much of that was due to factors external to the US and beyond Biden’s power, but perception rather than reality rules politics.
Prices are coming back down but not fast enough and whoever is the next president will most likely garner disproportionate credit for that.
Harris has had to walk a high wire trying to distance herself from Biden yet not disassociate from him as that could lead to questions of credibility.
The other issue is her own politics.
She is a liberal from California which is perfect positioning for a state senator or governor of that state.
If she had had enough time she could have pivoted to reshape her agenda.
Instead, she was fumbled, particularly when it comes be specifics.
Asked what the first item on her agenda would be as president, she couldn’t give a straight answer.
Harris, if elected, could well turn out to be a fine president.
Getting elected may turn out to be beyond her.
That is the environment in which Trump’s chances of election are such that he is marginally the favourite.
He is unlike any other contender for the job.
He is a huckster born into privilege who used his power against opponents all his life.
He is a convicted felon and has been deemed by a civil court to have sexually assaulted a woman.
There are over a dozen credible allegations from other women about his conduct.
Most of those who worked with him when he last served as president describe him variously as unhinged, petty, a fool, and even displaying the tendencies of a fascist.
Yet he has tapped into currents of discontent so brilliantly and basely that he might be about to remake the process of governing in the US to an extent that has never been done before.
How did it ever get to this?
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