SMART THINKING
Elections on both sides of the Pacific will determine our local and global future in a time of uncertainty.
Elections on both sides of the Pacific will determine our local and global future.
In these final months of the year, Kiwis will be keenly following two consequential elections – our own, of course, and the globally significant event that is the US election. Two elections that will speak volumes about the kind of leadership we require in a crisis, and two outcomes that may reveal how much the priorities of New Zealanders resemble or differ from those of Americans.
It goes without saying that Jacinda Ardern and Donald Trump sit on opposite sides of the leadership and political spectrum. When it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, the former has been praised for leading with empathy and communicating with clarity as New Zealand worked to crush the coronavirus curve. Meanwhile, her US counterpart leads a nation with more than 200,000 confirmed virus deaths and has admitted to downplaying the severity of the virus so as to avoid “creating a panic”. There’s still much to play out in this pandemic and history will ultimately judge
Ardern on her response when it comes to the economy. And it’s perhaps unfair to compare the leadership in a country of about 330 million with one of just five million. But much of leadership in a crisis is about acting swiftly, communicating clearly and rallying the population to play their part in overcoming adversity. Empathy and honesty are fundamental to leading a nation through tragedy, and here, Ardern has succeeded and Trump has failed.
But success in a crisis doesn’t necessarily guarantee an election victory – vis-à-vis Winston Churchill’s loss in the 1945 UK general election, despite having an approval rating of 83 per cent at the end of the war. And equally, as much as his detractors won’t hear of it, Trump’s response to recent events may not mean it’s the end of the road for him. Americans face deep concerns for the years ahead, so could Trump’s assertions that ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden is incompetent convince voters that the alternative is worse than the incumbent in such uncertain times? As President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself.” In sharp contrast to this rejection of fear, Trump thrives on stoking it with his base. And on the other side of politics, fear has been heightened with the passing of liberal jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Republicans have vowed to replace her before the election, which would further shift the ideological balance of the Supreme Court and cement Trump’s legacy, should he be voted out. The death of Ginsburg is likely to galvanise voters on both sides of the presidential campaign in order to prevent, or ensure, the Republicans locking in a decades-long conservative majority on the highest court in the country. A renewed motivation to participate in the democratic process calls to mind the advice Ginsburg said she would give to young women today: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” In 1946, when she was just 13, Ginsburg wrote an essay about the impact of World War II. She wrote, “We are part of a world whose unity has been almost completely shattered. No-one can feel free from danger and destruction until the many torn threads of civilisation are bound together again.” They’re words that resonate today, and the election will show which way voters hope to bind threads together to rebuild the US.