Grappling with the message?

With Bernie Sanders out of the race and Joe Biden having clinched the nomination of the Democratic Party, it is Trump vs Biden in November, an election that looks as much exciting as it is dicey.

Given the drama that comes associated with the American election every four years, the polls have the makings of a high-quality thriller, something that will keep the world hooked until the denouement.

While the opinion polls, surveys and primetime TV commentary have been talking about the trends and predicting likely changes in the voting behaviour of the American people, the November election is not just about electing a new leader who will lead the US for the next four years. It is more of a referendum on the policies of President Trump as well as what he stands for in the larger scheme of things.

A bit of context is in order.

When Donald Trump announced his candidature to run for the most powerful office of the US, political pundits laughed him off. He started getting noticed as he made his way up by defeating rival Republican heavyweights in the primaries. His nomination in the Republican National Convention in 2016 was the watershed moment not just for the Grand Old Party but also for American politics.

Despite winning the Republican nomination to take on ‘experienced’ Hillary Clinton, Trump’s chances were played down. He was called out for his inflammatory and divisive rhetoric, and his controversial past as a business tycoon. The fact that he did not come from a political background and never held a political office was interpreted as a disqualifying factor for a position that required an understanding of not just the American politics but also of how the world operated in a unipolar and US-dominated world order.

Compared to ‘naive’ Trump, Hillary Clinton, with tons of experience at her back as the first lady as well as President Obama’s secretary of state, was projected as an ideal leader who fulfilled the requirements of the highest office. The fact that the American establishment including the powerful media and the big business on The Wall Street rooted for her made her victory a foregone conclusion.

The air was so thick with a strong possibility of her making it to the White House that countries around the world prepared for a Hillary presidency and started adjusting their foreign policy positions. However, the outcome of polling on November 8 left the Americans shocked with Democrats struggling to understand the deep transformation in voting behaviour and the issues shaping the choices on the hustings.

The question as to how someone from outside the system could emerge from nowhere to turn it upside down against a political heavyweight has been widely deliberated upon not just in the US but also in the world that has been intrigued by the conduct of President Trump in the Oval office.

As the political landscape gets heated in the run-up-to the November elections, the shock of the Hillary defeat in 2016 will weigh on candidate Biden as well as the Democrats. The unpredictability of an election keeps contenders on the hook, no matter what the pre-poll surveys and political assessments say.

Irrespective of Trump’s burden of incumbency and his pandemic leadership coming in for severe criticism, and consequently giving Biden an edge in the ratings, the Democrats cannot afford to take him lightly. The memory of the 2016 defeat will continue to cast its shadow on this year’s elections.

The seeds of what has come to be defined as Trumpism, a decade before Donald Trump actually appeared on the American political circuit, were sown in the global financial crunch in 2008. The Obama administration’s response to the crisis spoke to the change in the political orientation of the Democratic Party.

From claims of establishing racial equality, and closing gaps in healthcare and educational opportunities for all Americans to taxing the rich under the banner of ‘Change we need’ and ‘Hope’ campaign slogans, his administration’s economic policies veered toward favouring the Wall Street and big business – a glaring contradiction in the stated position and governance practice that was not lost on those studying American politics.

Obama’s mammoth stimulus package of $787 billion, which was later revised to $831 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, had politics written all over it with liberal and left-leaning economists such as Paul Krugman calling it as an attempt to win over GOP votes. The package also generated a heated debate around the role of a state in rescuing the ‘big fish’ with the taxpayers’ money.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz described the package as representing “ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses.” In ‘Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy’, he threw light on the causes of the Great Recession of 2008 and urged the Obama administration to use the financial crisis as an opportunity to fix markets and prepare America for the 21st century to avoid what he termed as ‘near-death experience’ in the future.

In an attempt to appear politically correct and in line with its centre-left ideology, the Democratic Party has strongly advocated globalisation, celebrating openness, multiculturalism, and interdependence.

The global financial crunch and its aftermath transformed the intellectual system of Democrats, leading them to take up causes that might have been popular globally, but resulted in the gradual estrangement of the working-class white Americans. Their feeling of being left out was accentuated by the Democrats’ strong support for immigration and the resultant reduction in economic opportunities.

Donald Trump demonstrated his political genius by capturing and articulating the fears of, and giving a voice to, a community that felt increasingly elbowed out of the mainstream political conversation. He successfully turned his election campaign into a binary of ‘us versus them’ by invoking the fears of economic subjugation of average working-class white Americans. His slogan of ‘Making America great again’ became a clarion call for a significant constituency of the voters who found, in this mantra, an expectation to reclaim their share in the opportunities for a better life.

More importantly, this slogan represented a rejection of Democrats’ espousal of globalisation and multiculturalism. The popular nationalism that has found traction with a sizeable segment of the white Americans owes its rise to Trump’s campaign slogan. His non-political background and aggressive and uncompromising tone made his message more appealing.

The Democratic Party failed to notice and internalize the political shift and customize its message accordingly.

However, the failure to redefine itself is not just exclusive to Democrats. Republicans have also exhibited an inability to understand the changing landscape of American politics and allowed themselves to be locked into issues that require progressive thinking.

Many political commentators believe that the ouster of Bernie Sanders from the race has strengthened President Trump. According to this line of thinking, Bernie offered solutions that could actually undermine the efficacy of Trump’s message. He also enjoyed an added advantage of being an ideological mentor to young voters who were inspired into activism.

Only the November elections will deliver a judgment on whether the Democratic Party made the right choice in nominating Joe Biden or whether it experiences a repeat of the 2016 electoral fiasco.

The writer, a Chevening scholar, studied International Journalism at the University of Sussex.

Email: amanatchpk@gmail.com

Twitter: @Amanat222