Democrats are very uncertain about President Joe Biden’s chances of winning the race for the White House on November 5. According to American media, the politician, who is 81 years old and has suspended his campaign due to covid, was told by his party colleague and former head of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, that the polls show that he cannot win. And it is said that the former ruler of the Oval Office, Barack Obama, is also afraid of this. Biden was its vice president from 2009 to 2017.
Portal Axios.com wrote that several high-ranking Democrats told it that they expect the current president to withdraw from the election. The problem, however, is that the party has no obvious plan for who could meaningfully replace him.
The longest speech
Unlike Biden, his Republican opponent Donald Trump (78) is at the peak of power. Last week, he survived an assassination attempt with only a slight injury to his ear. At a pre-election rally in Pennsylvania, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to shoot him, who was subsequently killed by security forces.
However, this week Trump was able to enjoy the almost religious attitude shown to him by the Republican Party at the party’s nominating convention in Milwaukee. Yesterday evening local time in Wisconsin, the populist billionaire gave a speech to the participants of the congress. If the aim of the speech after the assassination attempt was to try to ease the polarization in the country, it did not sound like that.
“If you put the 10 worst presidents together, they wouldn’t do the damage that Biden did. Biden, I won’t mention that name again,” Trump declared at the convention to the cheers of supporters. He called Pelosi crazy and also mentioned the cannibal Hannibal Lecter from the famous film Silence of the Lambs, which for some reason is the ex-president’s favorite topic at campaign rallies.
Trump’s speech was supposed to last 40 minutes, but stretched to an hour and 32 minutes. No presidential candidate in history has spoken for so long at a nominating convention. At the beginning of the speech, the ex-president said that he was not afraid during the assassination because, according to him, God was with him. Many people in the audience wore an ear patch, as did Trump.
“As Americans, we share a single destiny, and it’s a shared destiny,” said the Republican, who said it was necessary to heal the discord and division of society. During the speech, Trump kissed the fire suit of Corey Comperatore, who was a firefighter protecting his family during the shooting.
But these powerful moments were quickly replaced by falsehoods about how in 2020 Democrats allegedly used the covid pandemic to cheat during the election and statements about mass deportations of migrants.
A threat to democracy
Although Trump is a convicted felon, his companies have committed fraud, he is married for the third time, he has not conceded defeat in the election, his rhetoric has led to an attack on Congress, and he constantly spreads lies and conspiracy theories, Republicans are fascinated by him. The ex-president could even dare to say that if he won the election, he would be a dictator, but supposedly only on the first day in the White House. Regardless of whether he meant it or not a few months ago, if any Democrat running for president said something like that, Republicans would hardly breathe. In the case of Trump, however, they don’t mind.
Republicans complain after the assassination that the rhetoric of opponents, who describe the ex-president as a threat to democracy, led to it. Nothing is known about Crooks’ motivation yet, and the data on his phone shows that he was looking for information about both Trump and Biden. Experts, of course, point out that the assassination must be unequivocally condemned, regardless of what led the shooter to it. But at the same time, they add that Trump’s approach to managing the state raises serious questions.
“Am I worried about the rhetoric that he will become a dictator, if only for a day? Yes! I don’t know any serious scholar of democracy or American politics who isn’t interested in how a second Trump term in the White House could significantly weaken democracy in The former president and his key advisers have made it quite clear that they generally do not respect the key aspects of democracy and the rule of law and intend to push the boundaries of what is permissible in a democratic system,” Steven Greene, a professor of political science at North Carolina State University, responded to Pravda. universities.
“Such rhetoric worries me a lot. Trump’s claim that he wants to be a dictator, if only for a day, should dissuade anyone who wants to live in a democracy from electing him. And the fact that he is talking about only one day does not seem credible. Just look at what Trump did when he was president and his plans to get revenge on all the people who disagree with him. This probably implies his intention to permanently deviate from the democratic republic. Nobody who is the leader of the USA should want to be a dictator for any length of time,” Tammy Vigilová, an expert in political communication from Boston University, also told Pravda.
A political scientist from the University of St. Louis Kenneth Warren is less bothered by Trump’s rhetoric, but nevertheless outlined for Pravda a possible negative development for American democracy if Trump returns to the White House.
“As for the ex-president’s statements that he will be a dictator for one day, I do not take them seriously. I think he was joking. Our system wouldn’t let him. He would certainly like to be a dictator, but I don’t think he would be capable of being one for a day,” Warren said.
However, according to the expert, it may turn out that the problem is not only Trump. “He may try to become a dictator during his administration because he has no respect for the rule of law or the constitution. If he wins the presidential election, his party will likely win both houses of Congress. With the federal courts full of Trump Republicans, he may get away with what would normally be considered abuse of power. The Supreme Court already went so far as to give immunity to the head of the White House, as well as actions that might apply to it. Well, the Supreme Court, which is crowded with Trump nominees, has paved the way for him to act like a dictator to a greater degree than previous US presidents, if he wins the presidency,” Warren explained.
At the same time, Trump signals a departure from more traditional US foreign policy. He chose Ohio State Senator JD Vance as his vice president. This politician strongly criticizes the support America provides to Ukraine defending itself against Russian aggression.
“Vance alone is likely to mean very little to American foreign policy. But his appointment has symbolic value because it is an important warning to the Republican Party. By choosing a loyalist and someone attuned to his more isolationist views on Ukraine, trade and China, Trump is clearly signaling his goal. He wants to suppress the more traditional Republican approach to foreign policy that still exists in the party, based on Ronald Reagan’s legacy of achieving peace through strength. Trump hopes that the actions of the Republican members of Congress will be more in line with his foreign policy aspirations, which will limit the pressure on him that he sometimes experienced during his first term, especially in connection with relations with Russia,” explained Garret Martin, co-director of the Center for in transatlantic politics at the American University in Washington.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
