The Tribune

With Charlie Harper

Maybe you heard. Tuesday was election day in the US. It might have the most widely anticipated day in America since the dawn of the new millennium nearly 20 years ago.

Across nearly the entire transcontinental expanse of the US, election day was a beautiful weather day. Remnants of recent hurricane-fed monsoon rains in the East and early season snow on the Plains and in the West gave way to bright sunshine over most of the nation.

As you might also have heard, by late yesterday it looked like Joe Biden would prevail, by as few as two electoral votes out of 538 or as many as nearly 40. Successfully flipping Arizona and returning Michigan and Wisconsin to the Democratic column appeared to be the decisive results.

Despite much pre-election fulmination by President Donald Trump and his allies, the election was carried out commendably.

Over 100 million Americans had voted early, and that clearly helped to relieve congestion at polling places. Fuelled by incendiary remarks by President Trump about potential election fraud even as his Republican agents and lawyers tried their best to suppress votes they feared would not favour the President, Americans were wary and anxious as they approached this momentous election.

Friends and relatives of people living in big cities, especially in the Eastern US, were reportedly on the phone and their computers checking on the welfare of their loved ones. One young person in Washington DC, walking casually home after casting his ballot, was amazed at the number of concerned inquiries he had received.

“They all saw the barriers around Lafayette Park by the White House, and stores with boarded up windows nearby, and they assumed the whole area was under threat.” He chuckled, and continued placidly on his way to resume his daily schedule at home, where he has worked remotely since March.

In a nation as vast and disparate as is the US, the actual election would have been disappointing to those who were expecting or even hoping for chaos. We will see how the aftermath of the election unfolds from a public safety perspective.

But remember that cataclysm you didn’t experience on January 1, 2000, because Y2K turned out to be largely a non-event? This election was reminiscent of that. In both cases, maybe the massive advance attention helped to so far avoid potential mayhem and even bloodshed.

Florida and North Carolina were touted by the media as early harbingers, inasmuch as they were supposedly swing states whose early reporting would indicate whom they would support.

But it didn’t exactly work out that way. Beginning a long night ruled by caveat and disclaimer, commentators, pundits and miscellaneous media talking heads blathered on for television audiences until well after 9pm. Then many sensible people went to bed.

As the nation continued on its weary long day’s journey into night and then into another largely clear and welcoming weather morning, a few major things were apparent:

Anyone proclaiming victory in the presidential contest, as Trump did around 2:30am on Wednesday, was being really premature.

“This is a fraud on the American public,” Trump said. “This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”

Those who had forecast a really close race for the top job, including a lot of Republican observers, turned out to be right.

And those who had predicted that the Big Three of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would again determine the winner also seem to have been largely correct.

As in 2016, polling appears to be less reliable than many had expected. As was the case four years ago, numerous well-respected public opinion surveys showed the Democratic candidate with a steady lead through the summer and autumn, and many in the national media joined wary but hopeful Democrats in fantasising about a blue wave election.

That certainly didn’t happen.

While Nancy Pelosi will be able to continue to serve as Speaker of the House, her Democratic majority will almost certainly shrink after all the votes are counted.

Matters in the Senate are on a different course. Belying his own pre-election assessment, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell looks likely to continue as Senate Majority Leader. While Democratic victories in Arizona and Colorado and their defeat in Alabama materialized as was expected, several other results favored continued GOP control of the upper house of Congress.

The race for the nation’s top job was much murkier Tuesday evening and all day long yesterday.

By 6am, Americans paying attention believed they might not know the identity of their new President for many hours, if not days or even weeks, if threatened Republican legal challenges are raised.

But by 6pm yesterday, the picture had become much clearer. It looked very much like Biden would prevail.

During this 21st Century, US elections have often revealed deep, nearly even splits in national elections between candidates and parties of the left and right.

Barack Obama’s big triumph 12 years ago stands out as a relative exception, but there were mitigating circumstances in that case. GOP candidate John McCain was dealt a losing hand in 2008 as he tried to run away from the economic shambles and foreign misadventures of predecessor George W Bush.

Now what?

We already know the US Senate will remain under Republican control. Americans who despise him will need to adjust to at least two more years of watching decidedly untelegenic Mitch McConnell frustrate most of their aspirations.

The Democrats and most commentators had looked forward to strongly competing for control of the Senate. That did not happen, as Susan Collins in Maine and Thom Tillis in North Carolina defied expectations and retained their seats.

And what about the federal court system? Trump has been typically transparent and outspoken in his belief that if the election somehow winds up in the courts to decide, as did the 2000 election, “his” three Supreme Court appointees can deliver the White House for him.

With the presidential election again potentially hanging in the balance, how will the US deal with such dizzying and agonizing uncertainty?

Catastrophising about whether this election ultimately drags the US into autocratic Trumpism or unchecked socialism won’t change the results, whenever they are finally confirmed.

Someone will ultimately be declared the winner of the presidency. Right now, it certainly looks like Biden.

But in the cities and on the farms, millions of Americans will still have their lives to lead and their families to support.

Their political leaders also have their own responsibilities to uphold, including taking bold steps to restore some sense of economic and societal balance to a nation profoundly unsettled by almost too many fissures to count.

Meantime, 11 weeks remain before the inauguration of the next American chief executive. Trump and the Senate Republicans will largely control the course of events in Washington, as they have been doing for the past two years.

It is reasonable for Americans to expect leadership from their elected leaders during this “lame duck” period when Trump and several senators will probably be serving their last days in office. But given Trump’s truculent response to election results yesterday, Americans probably should not expect to actually see that leadership.

The President and his associates should move quickly to negotiate and deliver further economic stimulus assistance to the American people and small businesses – not simply obsess about the election.

Can they do so? What we see in the next three months could provide valuable insight about whether the US and its current political leadership is sufficiently mature to resume playing a responsible role in the world.

Many other nations in the world will be affected by how the US navigates the shoals it will face in the coming months. Few will experience the effects of American actions as will we here in The Bahamas.

So we should watch. And keep our fingers firmly crossed.