Votes alone, not protests, will unite the Divided States of USA
THE arrival of a long white Board of Elections envelope, stamped US Postage Paid in red through my letterbox last week sparked a renewed interest in the US electoral system. Being an American citizen as my Mom hails from Upstate New York means I have the right to vote in all kinds of elections. Democracy is big business in America and there are elections for every role, from chief of police to mayors and senators, and, the Big Kahunas: Presidents.
As I write Americans are angry. They are frustrated. Most are anything but united with one common purpose, or against one foreign enemy.
The death of George Floyd was a horrific act of brutality against a black man who could have been arrested without suffering any injury. Across the world people have cried out against its inhumanity but many were also crying out at the injustices of an American president who made his intentions clear from day one: divide and conquer. June 6 was the 76th anniversary of one of the most audacious battles undertaken by any modern army: the D-Day landings in France. America was galvanised and front and centre, fighting side by side with their European Allies for every inch of ground, united in a must win battle for freedom from Nazi tyranny.
The country became even more of a cultural brand after the war and soon its people had a new ideological enemy in the Soviet Union, giving birth to the Cold War.
Growing up in Ireland with an American mother, and biennial visits to family in Upstate New York, meant I had more of an insight into American culture than my friends growing up. I would blow their minds by telling them I had seen a film which was due for release in the local cineplex in Listowel a month or two later and everything from new music to taste sensations were relayed with wide eyed wonder.
America has been a symbol for hope and ideological freedom. Like the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, it is a country which seldom operates at less than the speed of light, one which challenges, which is much closer to life and death than the placid lives most enjoy in Ireland. I have clear memories of how much of a military, weapon fixated country America is. Marines and army recruitment drives outside of K-Mart, assault-style weapons stacked neatly on shelves in the back of supermarkets, magazines about guns in friends’ houses. And the police, packing a gun, like a gun-slinging Western matinee hero, when you had to go in to the station about a passport or happened upon them in a store.
The dream has faded. Judging by the tens of thousands who took to the streets of cities across America over recent days their is a belief that it can be revived. As a Democrat voter, I plan to use my franchise this month to try and get a long standing Republican out of office in Upstate New York - for virtually all senators and high ranking political figures in the Republican party have been complicit in enabling Trump and his acolytes to run America like a dictator, using the police as the strong arm, while enforcing ‘ law and order’ as Nixon and Putin did before him. Make no mistake he has won new followers and his base will grow. But an Obama-backed Biden can bring real change.