There's every reason to believe that voter turnout will once again be high in the United States in the November 5 elections. In 2020, turnout had reached levels not seen since the beginning of the 20th century. This renewed interest in a civic event should not, however, be misunderstood. It is the only positive aspect of the extreme polarization that is undermining American democracy, the main culprit of which is the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.
It is not about the ideas, or rather the slogans, of this soon-to-be octogenarian, even if many of them are abhorrent, such as the massive and indiscriminate hunt for undocumented immigrants that serves as his societal project. The inability of the two major parties to agree on a reform of the laws governing immigration has meant that many of these people have long since integrated into American society.
What is at issue is more fundamental: his attempted coup on January 6, 2021, to remain in the White House at all costs, despite an undeniable defeat at the polls. Logically, this should have hastened his political demise. The former businessman, who had announced the end of "American carnage" by swearing an oath to defend the Constitution, then sowed chaos and trampled on his country's ideals. Denying the results of this election has become his first commandment, in a self-perpetuating cult of personality.
Judges' complicity
His presence in the 2024 race constitutes an alarming signal of the collapse of whole swathes of the US political system, not to mention what a possible re-election would mean at the end of a campaign built once again on endless insults and shameless lies. The Republican Party, which once presented itself as the party of law and order, has done everything in its power to ensure that this is the case. The inability of its elected officials to publicly acknowledge that Trump indeed lost the 2020 presidential election fair and square, a fact that no evidence has been able to disprove, speaks volumes about the fear that reigns within the Grand Old Party. Its former backbone now has little more than a function: to bow to the outrages of its candidate.
The party of Abraham Lincoln is not short of accomplices. The conservative justices of the Supreme Court also did everything in their power to ensure that the Republican did not have to answer in court, before the November 5 election, for his actions in contesting Joe Biden's victory. As if this role wasn't enough, on July 1 they gave him a tailor-made presidential immunity. Should he return to the Oval Office on January 20, 2025, there is every reason to fear what this avowed admirer of autocrats might do with it. He is quick to describe his opponents as "enemies from within" against whom the National Guard or the army should be deployed, when he is not ambiguously conjuring up the image of a firing squad.
Trump is making the most of the amnesia that now surrounds his turbulent and messy term in office and of the unpopularity of the outgoing administration for which his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, is responsible, long penalized by the thankless limitations imposed by the office of vice president. He also benefits from the unusual conditions under which Harris entered the campaign trail at the end of July, after Joe Biden stepped down. It came far too late for the Democrat to be able to articulate a political agenda that would set her apart from the president. Biden is certainly guilty of recklessly clinging to the prospect of a second term – something that his state of health, at nearly 82, made totally unreasonable.
Everything is in place to make the November 5 election in the US an unprecedented event in American history. This democracy, which has long set itself up as a model, is unfortunately proving to be uncertain and shaky.