Sanaullah
The United States presidential election, like national elections in most democracies, is primarily fought and won on domestic issues that directly affect the lives of the American people. However, more than any other election in the world, the process and result of the United States presidential election are keenly watched and have global repercussions. From the intra-party primaries to the presidential nominations, and then to the final verdict in November, candidates must grapple with various issues, based on which American voters will elect the next US president.
As the election season heats up, dramatic changes are rapidly occurring in the election campaign. The United States President and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden has stepped down for the next term. The furious and fuming Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, survived an assassination attempt during a public meeting. Both developments took place within the previous month. A growing number of political observers foresee more excitement about upcoming events involving widespread impacts.
By tradition, United States presidential elections have been provoked by burning political tendencies reflecting their main concerns. For instance, a key prevailing factor in America’s first election campaign was the ratification of the United States Constitution in states, and it persisted until the Civil War in 1861. The post-Civil War decades were marked by a rift between the Republicans and the Democrats in the industrialized North and the agrarian South for socioeconomic compatibility, where the Republican Party had a slogan: ‘Every Democrat has not been a rebel; every rebel has been a Democrat.’ In the 1868, 1872, and 1876 elections, the United States faced a choice between using the power of the federal government to defend the rights of the newly freed slaves from their erstwhile masters and white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
The early 20th-century era saw the rise of the progressive era, characterized by extensive business activities and progressive reforms. It was a sociopolitical movement demanding a better and reformed American society with increasing engagement. This movement inspired Theodore Roosevelt to contest the presidential candidate on its ticket. He earned the second-highest popular votes, pushing the Republican nominee, Howard Taft, into third place. After World War II, the presidential race embraced foreign policy featuring uprights of military industrialization and collective security to counter communism around the globe.
Presently, the presidential elections encompass a mixture of domestic and foreign issues such as abortion, healthcare, immigration, taxes, judicial reforms, trade, and NATO. Following the contemporary circumstances of the presidential race, both parties are enthusiastically adamant about the continuity and persistence of their policies executed during their presidential periods.
Apart from prevailing inclinations in the presidential campaigns, a populist desire for ‘reforms’ runs deep in the psyche of American voters. Every few decades, a presidential candidate channels this rebellious spirit. Andrew Jackson was such a candidate in 1828. So were William Henry Harrison in 1840, Abraham Lincoln in 1860, William Jennings Bryan in 1896, Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, F.D. Roosevelt in 1932, Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Barack Obama in 2008.
But no candidate for president carried the reform banner for honesty and competence more naturally. In some cases, the presidential elections have fallen at the moment of crisis. Just as Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 at the verge of the North-South split, F.D. Roosevelt was elected in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression. Barack Obama was sworn in as president against a backdrop of economic collapse.
Now it is obvious that the Republican Party has decided to confer Donald Trump another opportunity in this 60th presidential election of the United States. Donald Trump is, at this time, the second presidential candidate after Eugene Debs to be convicted by a court of law. However, the Republican Party is more interested in paying tribute to their presidential candidate, the second president after Grover Cleveland, who returned to the White House after a gap of four years.
On the other hand, the Democratic candidate and President Joe Biden has announced his departure from the presidential election despite winning the primaries for the second term. He is thus the fourth president after Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson to withdraw from the second term while still in office.
Assessing the previous period of presidency, Donald Trump assumed a self-proclaimed isolationism to ‘make America great again.’ It was one such endeavour that evident itself somehow in the Monroe Doctrine. James Monroe, 5th President of the United States, articulated America’s revulsion from the probable European meddling in the western hemisphere after Napoleonic war treaties. The doctrine was successfully executed by both parties for more than a hundred years.
Donald Trump, however, took barbed measures to stay away from international conflicts with a hard-line approach of pragmatism and apolitical decision-making. Trump endeavoured to restrain American responsibilities by withdrawing from Syria, unwrapped support for Israel, talks with North Korea, trade sanctions on China, NATO budget reforms, and stern immigration steps. However, this impulsive approach with immediate result-oriented dealings mismatched conventional superpower traits and polled the White House and Capitol Hill apart.
Some academics think that Trump’s first term as president was a response followed by America’s war on terrorism and the economic crisis of 2007-08. They argue that it is unjust to interpret this reactionary phenomenon as the rise of populist culture. The victory of Joe Biden was an expression of confidence that the American people have come out of the spell of populism. Charges of fraud, election subversion, obstruction, mob supporters, and sex scandals vividly exhibit the absence of political behavior to rule over the world’s strongest democracy and superpower. Though Donald Trump is not the Socialist Party’s Eugene Debs nor the Progressive Party’s Teddy Roosevelt, he is the strongest Republican Party candidate.
The party has the credits of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush, who had unyielding and unfathomable impacts on the history of the United States. Interestingly, the Republican Party in United States history has a prominence of Ulysses Grant, Herbert Hoover, and Dwight Eisenhower club who never held public office before the presidency. The final nomination of Trump for the second consecutive presidential term, despite the grave charges, is virtually a major shift in the political objectives of the Republican Party.
It is essential to recognize that this dramatic ideological budget is merely an illusion for those who think populism is a temporary reaction. The Trump factor is a herald of populist culture enshrining socio-political realms of the United States system. The picture is becoming clear that the culture of populism has gained acceptance in American democracy, and this trend will play a key role in the next presidential elections. The political behavior of the Democrats, surprisingly, illustrates their ambiguity in identifying this political reality which is evident in the recent development when Joe Biden was forced to step down even after winning primary elections, just less than four months before the national election. The new Democratic candidate may set a tough stage against the opponent Trump, but now it seems too late to defeat him at these last stages. The Democratic Party needs a marvel of the Nixon-Kennedy face-off to turn the table in its favor.
The author is a freelance researcher and a graduate of International Relations from the University of Karachi.
