[Politics] Let the exorcism begin

Sometimes the answer to all questions isn't 42 but 46.

I suppose a lot of us let out a collective sigh of relief on Saturday when the results of Pennsylvania came in.

It's true that the USA need healing now, and I think Joe Biden is capable of making empathy and compassion front and center of his presidency.

However, the US also need an exorcism because they are still haunted by demons, and although Trump was their most obvious manifestation, he was far from the only one and their roots go back years, at the very least back to the fateful meeting at which the Republican Party decided, way back in 2009, to block Barack Obama as much as possible. Trump's presidency was the result of this stance, but just like Brexit in the UK, the conservative movement basically opened the bottle unleashing the genie, with the thought they could somehow keep it under control and use it to their advantage. It doesn't work like that. If you flirt with disaster, don't be surprised if you find yourself married with it soon.

The GOP really have a lot to explain, because they allowed a figure like DT to be successful and to undermine virtually all the values they, as a party, initially stood for, degrading the rest of the party to mere props only there to say yes to everything he said (except for the few rank-breakers of The Lincoln Project and a few outspoken critics like Mitt Romney). This is not how democracy works.

Thankfully, the result of the election caused Trump to finally show his true face and lay his contempt for the electorate down for all to see. I wasn't surprised in the least (but definitely dismayed) to hear him talk as crassly as this about trying to stop the counting of some votes that just so happened to be against him – it's just the logical result of saying "I will accept the results of the election IF I WIN" way back in 2016. No, this is not how democracy works.

The GOP also have a lot to ask for with their history of allowing science denial dominate their policies – this also proved to be fatal for many US citizens in the face of Covid19, and might prove to be fatal for many people all over the world if we still can't get our shit together with regards to climate change.

Of course, there is also the media side of the coin. Twitter and, to a lesser degree, Facebook considerably stepped up their game compared to 2016 when it comes to flagging misinformation but knowing the danger doesn't eliminate it. Social media remains to be a problematic part of the equation.

What's far less unpredictable than the machinations of social media is the world of conventional media, and I think it's really time that some screws were adjusted there in order to ground the discourse in facts and reality. Here, the problem originates even earlier; we have to go back to the Reagan era and the removal of the fairness principle. Although it's been shown that sometimes representing 'two sides' of a debate can be misleading (again, see my pet topic climate change on the curse of "both-sidesism"), fact-checking and not allowing opinions and facts to be mixed at will would really benefit the political culture. There will always be conspiracy theories and people their "alternative" narrative is the true one - but without a big amplifier like Fox News or (gulp) Breitbart they would get much less traction, just like not having a president claiming the existence of "alternative facts" anymore should be good for the US. (Study: Trump biggest source of Covid-19 misinformation)

I can't write this entry without talking about the electoral college. The electoral college is a disgrace in its current form.

How? Let's illustrate this with a very simplified example.

Take a hypothetical USA that consists of three states. State A has 100 electoral votes, State B and C 60 each. (220 in sum.)

State A gets won by party D with 80% of the votes, State B and C both get won by the party R with 55% each.

This means that the end result will be a victory for party R's candidate with 120-100. How is this in any way representative of the public opinion?

Without the "Winner takes it all" principle, i.e. with a proportional division of electoral votes, the results would be as such:

D: 80 + 27 + 27 = 134

R: 20 + 33 + 33 = 86

In other words, it's about 3:2 (15:10) in terms of actual votes, whereas the electoral college comes out at 5:6 (10:12).

This is simple math. The electoral college, as-is, will continue to skew the result towards the less populated US states. This violates the idea that elections should be equal, since a voter who moves from state A to B or C will suddenly be worth more and vice-versa.

During this election, it eventually proved to be of no big consequence except making the race a bit more nerve-wracking than it needed to be, but it remains a fact that Democratic candidates are under more strain if they want to win due to the way the system is currently laid out.

What do I think about Joe Biden? Well, although I hoped he would win, I was part of the chorus who were afraid he might lose because he was too old and not charismatic enough. I wonder if this was the wrong way of looking at it though. Biden actually has a couple of interesting things going for him. He's achieved more than most of us can dream of (vice president from 2009 to 2016), and he's at an age where he really can't be said to set himself up for life anymore. This means he's basically not suspect to using his office to make life better for himself, i.e. to line his own pockets. He's on a mission; I truly believe it. He even stated as much, saying that he felt the need to challenge Trump and try to get him out of office, not for his own sake but for the greater good of the US. And of course he knows how politics work, gah!

I also have to admit that his policy proposals sound very sound (hah) to me; and in complete contrast to Trump's stubbornness and constant insistence that he knew better than advisors and scientists who've spent their lives devoted to their respective subjects, he's willing to listen to other people and cooperate. The "Biden Plan", after all, incorporates ideas from many of the people who ran against him in the primaries, and even quotes them as such. Refreshing!

But let's not burden the poor old guy with too many expectations; otherwise, many people will quickly be disappointed that Biden didn't suddenly grow a halo and a pair of wings. A lot also depends on whether the Republicans remaining in the system (senators, etc.) are willing to also leave partisanship behind and thereby come across as more human again. I think their credibility in future races now hinges greatly on whether they realize the erroneous ways of Trumpism.

While I will NEVER condone racism, the Democrats must also acknowledge that not every Trump supporter is racist and that some people have voted for him out of understandable concerns. Biden also must address those people. In general, a lot of the political problems of the last two decades are also rooted in the simple polarity of the two-party system, but I have no idea if the US will ever change from that. As it is, there is the danger that they will simply swing back and forth, with every new administration undoing whatever the previous one has done, thereby stalling the country's progress indefinitely.

Back to the exorcism. Trump will not be immune anymore from the point that his term ends. This is important because he's been causing all kind of concern. I'm all in favour of "in dubio pro reo" but apart from the fact that Trump certainly never lived by that motto (see his comments on the Central Park Five - classy)… if he really had nothing to hide, why did he never want to release his tax returns? Why did he try almost everything to stop or hinder Robert S. Mueller's investigations into the collusion with Russian elements? Logic dictates that if somebody were really not guilty, they would fully cooperate in order to transparently make their innocence proven. Is this what Trump did? Far from it. Make of that what you will, but I think we're in for a couple of interesting revelations.