COVID- 19 will decide US presidential election
The 2020 US presidential election, like many of this year’s most important decisions, will be decided by COVID- 19.
Just as the coronavirus has spread across America, it has seeped into the political campaigns of US President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
On the one hand, the Democrats argue that Trump has failed in his handling of the crisis. As of Tuesday, some 226,000 Americans
have died of COVID- 19 out of 8.78 million who have been infected.
On the other hand, the president says that he did very well, all things considered, and if Biden would have been in charge, the death rate would have been two million or more.
The Democrats say that Trump and his staff contracted coronavirus because of their failure to comply with health officials’ recommendations, such as wearing masks
and social distancing. The president will argue he caught coronavirus and survived: that he won his personal battle against the pandemic.
“The question is who the public is going to believe,” said Prof. Eytan Gilboa, a senior research associate at the Begin- Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar- Ilan University. “The Democrats want the election to be about coronavirus; Trump is trying to deflect from the subject.”
Despite the fact that cases are in fact highest now in districts the president generally leads and needs, it is not clear that COVID will plague the president in the final days of his campaign as much as some might think.
The White House appears unable to stop the spread of the virus, as numbers spike at onceagain unprecedented rates. And this is especially the case for Biden’s constituencies: Minority groups, including Latinos and African- Americans, have been harder hit by the pandemic than other groups.
A paper published on the website of USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences showed that hospitalizations and deaths from COVID- 19 among members of the AfricanAmerican community are nearly three times their share in the general population.
The paper also highlighted that Latinos were among the hardest hit economically. A Pew Research Center report found that in April, almost half ( 49%) of Latinos – compared to 33% of all US adults – said they or someone in their household had taken a pay cut, lost a job or both because of the pandemic.
“This could lead to more support for Joe Biden,” Gilboa contended. “Biden could use this as a way to increase voting by those groups for him.”
However, historically in times of national emergencies, Americans rally around the flag and tend to cling to the incumbent for support, Gilboa said. Former US president George Bush’s ratings rose rapidly after September 11, for example, and likely played into his reelection in 2004.
Many people have framed the fight against the pandemic as a modern world war. If Americans see it that way, they could turn toward Trump.
Furthermore, Trump is seen by some as fighting for liberty and personal choice, explained Dr. Yonatan Freeman, an international relations and media expert who teaches in the Department of Political Science at Hebrew University. He said that Trump’s refusal to impose nationwide mandates to wear masks or social distancing is seen by some as ensuring the people’s right to choose.
Americans’ view of China and its role in the pandemic could also lead to a Trump win. Most recent polls show that US public opinion is down on China and declining.
“If China is seen as the foreign power or adversary responsible for what is going on in America, that could potentially increase support for Donald Trump,” Freeman said, noting that while both Biden and Trump are seen as critical of China, Trump is seen as even more critical and the stronger candidate to keep the enemy country at bay.
The economic ramifications of the coronavirus will be a big issue in this election, too. However, Freeman said that if people blame China for the economic situation – claiming that China is responsible for the virus – then they would not blame Trump. And while most surveys show the people trust Biden more to secure their health, they believe Trump is better equipped to handle the nation’s economy.
A Yahoo News/ YouGov poll published earlier this month showed that 48% of likely voters think Biden would better handle the coronavirus pandemic, compared to 39% for Trump. But 46% said Trump would better handle the economy, compared to 41% for Biden.
There is one final and very practical way that the coronavirus will impact the US election – and that is the mail- in ballot system.
Already, more than 60 million Americans have voted with mail- in ballots, which is likely to lead to record- breaking turnout. According to Gilboa, not since 1908 have more than 65% of eligible US voters actually exercised their right to vote. In 2016, only 55% of eligible voters cast their ballots.
Gilboa said that mail- in ballots could favor the Democrats because there are more Democrats in the US than Republicans and because the people voting by mail- in ballots are those who consider coronavirus a threat and therefore want to avoid going to the polls.
Likewise, he said, those who are over 65 are also more likely to vote by mail – and for the Democratic candidate – because this population has been hardest hit by the pandemic.
Both men have accumulated a towering record of reasons for voters to like or dislike them. In the end, however, their fate hangs not on their campaigns, but on COVID- 19 – a disease and a factor that they cannot control. • among the justices that could leave a mark on America for a generation, or even longer.
The appointment, and the way it was rushed through just a week before the US elections, has led to calls for Biden – if he is elected and the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress – to “pack the bench,” meaning, to raise the number of Supreme Court justices so that he would be able to make appointments and theoretically tip the scales on the court toward the liberals.
Biden has been cagey regarding whether he would do this – the US Constitution does not establish the size of the Supreme Court, and the current number of justices is the result of an 1869 law – and when asked point blank about the matter, he replied: “If elected, what I will do is I’ll put together a national bipartisan commission of scholars, constitutional scholars, Democrats, Republicans, liberal, conservative. And I will ask them for over 180 days, come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system because it’s getting out of whack, the way in which this is being handled.”
Consider that statement for a minute, and then consider what would happen if a prime minister, prime ministerial candidate, or justice minister in Israel were to say that the judiciary in this country needs to be reformed because it is out of whack.
The earth would tremble and the person would be skewered by some as anti- democratic, or worse. For some, the judiciary in Israel is sacred, and any suggestion at reform is dismissed as a threat to the very fabric of the country’s democracy.
Just ask former justice ministers Daniel Friedman or Ayelet Shaked, who were fiercely criticized when they raised the issue of judicial reform during their tenures; reforms ranging from curbing the reach of the court to balancing out its liberal worldview with more conservative judges.
Take this headline from a Haaretz editorial in April 2016 as an example: “Israel’s Justice Minister Must Stop Attempts to Fundamentally Distort Israeli Democracy.”
Among the editorial’s complaints was Shaked’s intention to appoint right- wing judges, saying that this would lead to “politicization” of court rulings. In her years at the Justice Ministry from 2015- 2019, six new Supreme Court judges were appointed, five of them considered conservative.
Shaked neither hid her intentions nor apologized for wanting to appoint justices with a conservative worldview, arguing that the court had, over the years, moved too far to the Left and was badly out of step with Israeli society.
Had Shaked wanted to appoint judges on the Left, however, it is doubtful that a similar Haaretz editorial warning that she was trying to distort Israeli democracy would have been penned.
Likewise, had the US Supreme Court now had a 6- 3 liberal majority, it is unlikely that Biden would have declared the judiciary “out of whack” and called for the establishment of a commission to recommend reform. It all comes down to whose ox is being gored.
The drama and controversy taking place in the US over the appointment of Barrett is not dissimilar to what happens here when vacancies open up on the court.
Long- standing debates over how Supreme Court judges are appointed has led to calls to reform the process – calls made by Shaked herself – and make it more similar to the American system.
Currently, judges are appointed by a nine- member committee made up of the Justice Minister and one other cabinet minister, two members of the Israel Bar Association, two Knesset members and three Supreme Court justices. Seven of the nine members are required to vote in favor of the appointment for it to go through.
In the US, by contrast, the president nominates, the Senate Judiciary Committee holds what are often grueling hearings, and then the full Senate votes.
On the campaign trail in 2019, Shaked proposed doing away with the Judicial Appointments Committee altogether, and simply allowing the justice minister the authority to nominate a judge who will then come to the government and the Knesset for approval – a modified American system.
But the controversy over the process in the US should give those here who want to adopt an American- style process some pause. Both the controversy over how Barrett was appointed, a controversy likely to persist now for years, as well as the contentious and ugly Senate hearings four years ago for Brett Kavanaugh, show that the US system is not foolproof.
In fact, there may not be a foolproof way to appoint judges, as those whose worldview is in the minority on the court are likely to feel that the court is stacked against them. In the US it is now a feeling held by many on the Left, in Israel by many on the Right.
What is ironic about this is that the US is a liberal society now with a conservative Supreme Court, and Israel a right- wing society with a leftwing court. That situation has led to calls for judicial reform in both lands. But while in Israel any talk from the Right on reforming the judiciary system is quickly labeled undemocratic, calls from Biden for court reform in the US are viewed in a much more understanding light. •