The US won’t change even after the election.

The Trump era is finally coming to an end. What’s next for America? It doesn’t look too promising.

As someone who has been following the 2020 Presidential Election for 2 years now, I’ve seen the ups and downs of the Biden campaign, from his terrible showing in almost all Democratic Primary Debates to the even worse results in the 1st 3 states of voting (4th in Iowa, 5th in New Hampshire, 2nd in Nevada LOL), to the sudden rise of the Moderate Candidates and finally, his historic win against the worst president in the history of the US. While I’m relieved that Trump has finally been defeated, the future still looks bleak with Biden in office. After analysing the election for quite some time, here are my reasons why I feel the US would not see much change under a Biden cabinet. As this is written from the perspective of a Singaporean, I may not get all the facts on the ground right, but these findings certainly came from a lot of research in the field.

1. Trump-ism is here to stay.

Over 79 million people voted for Joe Biden, the highest number in any presidential race in history. What may be under covered in the news, however, is that Trump got over 73 million votes. That’s the 2nd highest number in any presidential race in history, and 11 million more votes than his tally in 2016, which is astonishing 😓. If not for voting campaigns by key Democrats such as Michelle and Barack Obama, Stacey Abrams from Georgia and other celebrities, Biden may not have won with lower voter turnout. It is thus obvious that many people still believe in Trump and his policies, including an overwhelming majority of white men and a higher percentage of Latinos compared to 2016.

Trump’s core message of not being a politician continues to hold up, but so does his consistent hatred towards the media and deeper polarisation down political lines. The Twitter storms have spoken to the masses, and some of the things that he has said about the media and Democrats are honestly not wrong. The media does treat him unfairly and Democrats have made some decisions not based on the people’s interests but on the fact that they have a majority in the House.

Trump’s right-wing populist policies of short term tax cuts, trade wars, heightened security from immigrants and other nationalistic policies may not do the country well in the long run, but have some popularity amongst Americans, as it provides the best way to guide the country to high economic growth in the short term. Republicans might just try to use the glory days of Trump before COVID-19 to push for these policies that would look good to those in the Midwest and Rust Belt, where key jobs are in sunset industries that some of Trump’s policies would continue to support.

If Republicans still support such policies, it can only spell big trouble for America, as a purely capitalist mindset of policing making cannot solve many problems in the country anymore. That is the struggle I’m afraid of, the fact that Trump has left a political position that would still be followed by in the future, increasing the difficulty of Biden’s policies crossing the aisle for proper negotiation between the 2 parties. The polarisation would continue to deepen, and I really hope this doesn’t lead to any civil war within this extremely divided nation.

2. Biden is Biden. You can’t expect much.

A lot of excitement in the Democratic Primary stemmed from the battle of ideologies within the Democratic Party. As more leaders of the party were shifting further to socialist ideologies, with the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren leading the way, moderate candidates such as Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar fought to defend the cross-party ideology that defined the Democrats from Bill Clinton’s successful terms. A major move by many moderates after the South Carolina primary (the 4th state in the primary to cast votes) to drop out of the race and consolidate votes around Joe Biden caused Bernie Sanders to get absolutely crushed on Super Tuesday (A day when many states vote in the primary on the same day), leading to the end of Bernie’s strong and steady campaign. This broke the hearts of so many socialists who became so infuriated that many of them decided they would never vote for a Moderate like Biden again.

Biden eventually proved that he could win the election against Trump despite having policy positions that are simply not in line with a majority of Americans across the board. If not for the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic and how people were willing to vote for anyone either than Trump, Biden may not have been able to fight the Trump cabinet that oversaw an extremely strong economy before COVID-19.

Now that Biden is at the helm of the presidency, he would establish the standard protocol for dealing with pandemics and do whatever is necessary to get the country out of their crisis. I’m sure that with a vaccine on the way, these measures would prove effective under strong leadership. However, most of what Biden offers is experience and being able to cross party lines to get things done. Given that his 8 years as Vice President has shown that Moderate Democrat policies would continue to be ineffective in helping working Americans as time passes, if no shift is made in ideology, Americans would continue to suffer from the systemic issues of the political system.

3. Neither political party really understands the true issues of the American people. Democrats need to change their image to survive future elections.

The Democrats have no economic plan to address current concerns on job displacement or low wages. While the party has been able to rebuild its blue wall on the electoral map because of the unpopularity of Trump, it would be far from gaining votes from the Industrial Midwest as it no longer stands up for its workers.

The Democratic Party has taken on the role of coastal urban elites who are more concerned about policing cultural issues than improving their way of life that has been declining for years.

– Former Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang

As Yang eloquently put it, the party is aligned with many Americans on cultural issues such as climate change and abortion, but for any ordinary American who just wants to get by, the party that was built to support the rights of the common worker is no longer doing so. The only foreseeable economic changes that the party hopes to bring is in the progressive wing that advocates for trickle-up economies in the form of raising taxes on the wealthy to increase coverages in healthcare and education. Still, this does not bring direct purchasing power into the hands of normal Americans that would help people get above the poverty line. On the contrary, Trump’s policies appeal directly to the economy. Tax cuts, increased funding to coal and mining industries where most of the ordinary Americans work under, trade wars to favour American goods. These policies may not be good for the US in the long term, but it sure would continue to appeal to workers.

Either way, voters have struggled to resonate with any of the 2 political ideologies available. The 2016 American Values Survey carried out before the 2016 Presidential Election saw 61% of survey respondents say neither political party reflects their opinions today, while 38% disagree. Today’s numbers are much more staggering.

Ergo, Democrats must re-evaluate how they wish to help low and middle-income groups if they want to continue to win big and pursue progress outside of the current Moderate ideology. Continue to work with corporations or directly with the people, that is the key question that must be asked. If not, the 2 parties would continue to be unable to represent the best interests of the American people, with Republican policies continuing to provide a better option for poor or middle-income workers.

4. The Senate is still filled with self-serving snakes

Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell were both fighting “highly contested” Senate re-election races in their respective states. In the end, Moscow Mitch won 57.8% of the vote to Amy McGrath’s 38.2% in Kentucky, and Lindsey Graham’s 54.5% beat Jaime Harrison’s 44.2% in South Carolina. Jaime Harrison’s campaign raised the most amount of money in any Senate race in history and still lost to one of the most hated Republican Senators.

Either way, if the Senate remains in Republican majority after the Georgia Senate Run-Off races (If the democrats win both senate races, the Senate would be divided 50-50 between the 2 parties, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris being the tiebreaker vote on all bills passed), Biden would genuinely not be able to do much with Mitch McConnell’s partisan actions. It is unbecoming of any politician to do things only in his party’s best interests, yet Kentuckians have voted him into office so many times over the years. The Senate would do everything in its power to either block off efforts to reverse Trump’s terrible policies or prevent anything Biden has to offer from being passed. We’re talking about the expansion of Obamacare, climate change policies, COVID relief bills, and rebuilding America’s shattered economy.

With the Senate continuing to do its damage in the coming months and potentially years, together with corporate greed still infiltrating into politics because the money offered simply cannot be washed out, policies cannot be passed as easily as we think.

5. Trump is still in the White House.

While Trump has not attended a briefing from his White House team on any issue in a very long time, this does not discount concerns that Trump can still cause great chaos in the remaining weeks that he is President. He has the potential to destroy our economy by engaging in further trade wars with other countries as he has just done with China, by banning Americans from investing in Chinese firms that seem to have ties to the Chinese military. Given the way that he has taken the results of the election by refusing to concede and provide any form of transition for the next Administration, Trump may lengthen the process by which Biden can get the engine running.

His policies have also led to increasingly partisan politics, meaning that both parties are now doing things with their own party’s best interests in mind. The fact that the House, controlled by the Democrats, cannot allow a bipartisan bill to provide another stimulus check to Americans during the COVID 19 crisis shows that the partisanship works within both parties. Biden has a huge task on his hands to unite the 2 parties again, but honestly, I still feel he is the best man to do so in these current times.

Conclusion

Biden winning the election is a huge relief, because he is a much much better option than our current option. Unfortunately, the problems in American politics are so endemic that it would take large reform to change, reform that Biden cannot accomplish with his ideology. It’s becoming more and more obvious that even as a Singaporean who cannot physically see the effects of policies on the American people, the country is in tatters because of the government. I hope Biden’s main focus for reform within the government can be to truly unite both sides again so they can start working for the American people again. Obama’s “audacity of hope” message cannot resonate with Americans until people get the resources they need to come close to having hope.

For those of us who are not living in the US currently, I hope that this article has allowed you to understand how difficult it is for common people to lead better lives when the political system is more destroyed on the inside than you think. It is a good indication that politics cannot be made up of platitudes and empty promises, but should be true to how we can directly help people, in the most pragmatic way possible. For now, let’s enjoy that there is a chance for progress to be made, but know that we should not even be celebrating at this moment when so much work is left to be done.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyC855KdBKo&feature=emb_title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyG7WoAFiWw

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/06/2020-election-reveals-two-broad-voting-coalitions-fundamentally-at-odds/