Ballot bruises
Fierce political struggle drives electoral violence, disrupts lives as vote draws close
As Republicans and Democrats engage in a partisan war of words ahead of the presidential election in November, the general US public seems to have got tired of the chaos, clashes and violence related to the election across the country. Observers and US citizens reached by the Global Times said this year’s presidential election is probably the most violent and confrontational one in decades due to the tense political struggle between the two parties and the growing domestic chaos amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anger and anxiety spread throughout the US last week when Aaron Danielson was shot dead amid “clashes between Trump’s supporters and [Black Lives Matter (BLM)] protesters” in downtown Portland, Oregon on August 29 local time, police said. The shooting comes days after Jacob Blake was shot and seriously injured by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Increasing violence in the US ahead of the election is a result of the fierce rivalry between the Republican Party and Democratic Party, experts on US issues said.
Trump’s polarizing style in office, coupled with the Democrats’ animosity toward Republicans after the defeat in the 2016 election, have left the two parties increasingly divided and unable to compromise on various issues, Yuan Zheng, senior fellow of the Institute of American Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told the Global Times.
Play the blame game
Many US Twitter users expressed their concerns after the Portland shooting over the increasingly violent social situation, condemning the Trump and Biden campaigns for playing on the violence.
“Be prepared for this election to become violent,” posted user Frederick Joseph on August 30. “Kenosha and Portland are likely just the beginning.”
Joseph, a New York resident and author of the forthcoming book The Black Friend, said the Portland shooting case was obviously electoral violence. “I feel that the electoral violence in the US right now hasn’t been this heightened since the 1960s,” he told the Global Times.
Joseph said he personally encountered election-related violence this year – two men fighting over a Trump flag hanging from the back of one of the men’s cars. He complained the violence happening in the US over the last few months “has been not only antagonized but glorified by Trump,” who has deployed federal forces to some cities in response to BLM protests.
At a press conference on August 30, Portland’s Democratic mayor Ted Wheeler castigated Trump for “having created the hate and the division” that has led to the highest level of violence in decades. Trump later fired back on Twitter, threatening to send more federal law enforcement into Portland.
The deployment of forces is not to reduce but to aggravate the US’ electoral violence, said Zhu Feng, director of Institute of International Studies under Nanjing University.
The Trump administration is attempting to fuel its “law and order” narrative with the violence to show the public that he is needed in office, Zhu analyzed.
The growing violence has scared many US citizens, especially minorities. Xu Deqing, a Chinese American living in North Haven, Connecticut, said he felt the fear and concern of minority groups around him. “Connecticut has strict gun-control rules, but a lot of my friends have bought guns in the hope of protecting themselves,” Xu told the Global Times, saying he has frequently seen vulgar verbal attacks among supporters of the two presidential candidates on social media.
The fierce rivalry between Republicans and the Democrats has also disrupted the daily lives of citizens like Xu, who said each day he receives at least 10 emails or phone calls asking him to donate money or vote. “Both sides say they are
Matthew
at their ‘most dangerous moment’ and are trying everything they can to boost turnout among their supporters,” he added.
An August 26 poll conducted by Reuters and Ipsos put Biden at 47 percent to Trump’s 40 percent among registered voters, CNN reported on Sunday.
While the two campaigns consistently point fingers at each other, riots keep occurring across the US because people have “accumulated a lot of discontent,” said Matthew, a PhD student at the University of Illinois living in Chicago.
“Democrats and Republicans are only indulging in political struggle, and they even use violence as a weapon to guide public opinion,” Matthew told the Global Times. “The two play up that ‘the whole society is at risk’ and compete against each other to see who is doing worse.”
Xu noted Barack Obama once compared Democrats and Republicans to Coca-Cola and Pepsi, suggesting there were no big differences between the two.
“But now, the gap between them is widening and both sides consider the election as a life-or-death struggle,” he remarked. “This is one of the saddest things in the US-style democratic politics.”
“Democrats and Republicans are only indulging in political struggle, and they even use violence as a weapon to guide public opinion. The two play up that ‘the whole society is at risk’ and compete against each other to see who is doing worse.”
PhD student at the University of Illinois