DISUNITED STATES AMERICA
Fears of violence in a divided nation as Biden edges closer to White House
SORE LOSER Trump supporter yells her disapproval in Phoenix
RAGE Trump supporter armed with pitchfork
REGARDLESS of who wins the election the next US President will head a country that is anything but united.
He will be in charge of a nation at war with itself which when given a straight choice between democracy and a form of fascism, almost half opted for the latter.
It is also a sad fact that in any other democratic country a leader like President Trump would have been damned by his lies and the accusations against him – including rape – but not in America.
His speech when he falsely claimed victory and, at the same time, alleged the election had been stolen from him, was as bizarre as it was shocking.
Yet the stark reality is that almost half the US electorate voted for a man who unashamedly lies on an almost hourly basis and is now refusing to accept the result of a legitimate presidential election.
The claims being made by Trump are not only unprecedented, they risk further dividing a nation that i s in danger of tearing itself apart.
His claims he has been denied the presi dency and hi s support ers are somehow being disenfranchised could lead to violence on the streets of US cities.
“If you count the legal vote, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,” he said without offering a shred of evidence.
DANGER
If Joe Biden does become president he will face the monumental task of bringing together a nation that is split down the middle and mending a society that is badly broken.
In the past the vast majority of the American public were split along party lines with most of the working class voting f or the Democrats while the middle classes and well- off would ould opt for the Republicans.
Trump has changed all that with millions of lower income voters now believing he is on their side and against the elit es of both parties which traditionally ran the country.
The fact that Trump himself elf is part of an elite who inherited his wealth from his father and pays little or no tax is irrelevant to those who see him as one of them.
Clearly Trump’s actions and utterances in the past four years and in the days after the election have been clearly aimed at roiling his base.
There is now a real danger the more extreme Trump supporters who have been told by the President of the United States the election has been stolen from them will take the law into their own hands to win it back.
Already some hardcore supporters are
using social media to urge others t o t ake up arms, claiming “this means war”. The fact most of his supporters have guns only adds to the danger.
Shortly after polling ended there was t he bi zarre situation where Trump supporters were simultaneously calling for the count to be halted in states where he was behind, while demanding the count continue in states where he was ahead or projected to lose.
While these inconsistencies might alarm outsiders, Trump supporters are as oblivious to the contradictions as they are to the claims of the President the election has been stolen without offering any proof. If the American public is polarised
so too is the Republican Party with many traditional members seeing Trump as a threat to its long- term wellbeing and a danger to the stability in general.
Some of the hardest- hitting political adverts in the run- up to the election were funded by the Lincoln Project, a group of former Republicans which came together with the aim of preventing Trump’s re- election.
They maintain Trump is a danger to democracy and in their mission statement they say “we understand that action must be taken, now, to protect the institutions that have made the United States the greatest nation the world has ever known”.
Even some sitting Republican politicians are alarmed by Trump’s claims that the election has been stolen, which is not only false, it also puts the lives of those involved in the counts in danger.
One of President Trump’s top allies publicly rebuked him f or f ailing to provide proof the Democrats had stolen the election.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said it is Trump’s “right to pursue legal action, but show us the evidence”.
He also warned making such unfounded claims could lead to violence. He added: “This kind of thing, all it does is inflame without informing, and we cannot permit inf lammation without information.” Not only could Trump’s claims undermine American democracy, they will also tarnish US foreign policy and further alienate its allies and derail attempts to promote democracy overseas.
Award- winning j ournalist and CNN news anchor Christiane Amanpour compared the current situation in the US to Iran, saying: “The last president I covered who refused to accept the vote count in an election was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, 2009.”
The rest of the democratic world is looking on in horror at what is taking place in the US as it sends out the message that the results of legitimate elections are not to be respected.
In an ironic twist, only this week the US Embassy in the Ivory Coast called on political leaders there to respect the “rule of l aw and the democratic process” f ol l owing a heavily- di sputed recent presidential election.
A few days later the US President was refusing to leave office and like a Third World tyrant appearing on TV claiming a fair and free election was rigged.
The disturbances that followed the election in the Ivor y Coast have cost dozens of lives which should serve as a warning as to what can transpire when the democratic process is not respected.