By Kleanthis Kyriakidis
The entire world witnessed the most interesting elections in the history of the US. The President-elect Joe Biden won the popular vote by 6 million votes (a significant difference of 4% ahead of President Trump) and 306 Electorates (a margin of +74). Despite that fact, it was not a sweeping victory. In some States like Wisconsin (10 Electorates), Arizona (11 Electorates) and Georgia (16 Electorates) Joe Biden won by small margins (less than 20,000 votes and less than 0.5%).
The were some basic elements, characteristics and outcomes that should be noticed (both positive and negative ones):
On a positive side:
There was huge participation with more than 150 million voters, which shows that the notorious “corrosion of citizenship” with people not wanting to participate in politics was a trend absolutely and clearly reversed. People do care!
The combination of Federal/ State Government worked perfectly. There were actually two States that had a republican Governor and despite that the Presidential Candidate was an incumbent Republican President, swifter for a difference of less than 20,000 votes each (Georgia and Arizona). The system does work!
On a negative side:
We had the worst polarization ever. The first presidential debate was a big humiliation and a proof of decadence.
Riots, demonstrations and fanaticism from both sides reigned.
President Trump proved to be a very bad loser. Despite the fact that even if he reverses through judicial means the result in the aforementioned three States, he still loses the presidency, he refused to concede. This will definitely tarnish his legacy and divide even more the American people.
The controversy around the President not accepting defeat gets even bigger in the light of all Foreign leaders congratulating the president-Elect, some of the leading figures in the Republican party including Mitt Romeny and George W Bush doing the same, and finally firing people after the elections with last victim being the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director, Chris Krebs, who dared to say that there was no fraud during the elections.
Concluding, statements from both sides of the aisle, showed that the good old days where progressive republicans and conservative democrats could cooperate for the good of their constituencies and the American people is over. We are bound to witness battlefields in the Senate, the House and of course this situation hampers any serious effort to govern a country. In order to be fair, the obsessive and unsubstantiated Democrat effort to impeach President Trump had been really one of the reasons for the republican post-elections reaction.
As a last note, in 2000, Al Gore lost the Presidency to George W Bus due to one State (Florida) with a difference of 527 votes (less than 0.1%) and this State had as a Governor the brother of the Republican candidate. Still, we did not see the chaotic situation that we witness today. In his famous concession speech, Al Gore said “I say to the President-Elect Bush that what remains a partisan rancor must now be put aside and may God bless his stewardship of this country”. Will we ever see the American wounds heel?
