Peter Dunne
Wellington, November 7, 2024
President Ronald Reagan’s successful campaign theme in 1984 was “It is morning again in America.” It was a theme of optimism and hope for the future. Today, as America awakes after one of the most tumultuous Presidential election campaigns in its recent history, the sight is a far less positive one.
This year’s protracted election campaign, accompanied by intimidation and bullying across the spectrum, a complete aversion to seeking the middle ground, and the threats to immediately proceed to Court if results did not go the way candidates wanted, has left the nation that proclaims itself as the world’s greatest democracy, looking in a very shabby state.
Deeply Divided
Abraham Lincoln’s dream of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” seems a long way away in the wake of this year’s election circus. Just as forlorn was the American Ambassador to New Zealand’s social media post that “Elections remind us that our system, with all its debates and differences, ultimately brings us together.”
America today is deeply divided on political, economic and cultural grounds. The expectation that either of the two candidates for President would be capable of healing these divisions within a single four-year term was completely unrealistic. The best to hope for is that America does not become more divided because of the election outcome.
Unfortunately, the re-election of President Donald Trump has diminished that hope. His return will likely exacerbate these divisions, especially since he has vowed a programme of revenge on all those whom he considers responsible for costing him the 2020 election, and not bending to his will to subvert the electoral process to keep him in power then. Moreover, his subsequent determination to exact vengeance on those judicial authorities that have brought about his conviction on several fraud-related charges further suggests his second term as President will be one of revenge, rather than taking America forward.
Aside from his flagship policies, like completing the wall with Mexico, expelling illegal immigrants and imposing new blanket 20% tariffs on all imports, much of Mr Trump’s agenda in the coming term will focus on rolling back many of the Biden Administration’s social and environmental reforms. During the next four years, there are approximately 100 judicial appointments becoming vacant which Mr Trump will have to fill, meaning the prospects of the judiciary at several levels being stacked with loyalists, unlikely to hold the President and his cronies to account for any of the charges that have so far been laid against them.
Final Term
Mr Trump is constitutionally barred from standing again in 2028. However, given the apparent disregard he has shown for the United States Constitution on other matters, it would be no surprise if he were to challenge this before the next election. After all, it is exactly the trick Vladimir Putin, whom Mr Trump admires greatly, has pulled in Russia to stay in power almost indefinitely. America’s Constitution and institutions of government are in for a battering over the next four years as Mr Trump seeks to entrench his own absolutist form of rule.
The upshot is that America faces at least four more years of upheaval and uncertainty. Amidst all this sit hundreds of thousands of decent American families, with the same concerns that face many families in this country. They will be worried, as New Zealand families are, about how they will make ends meet, get access to quality healthcare, pay for their children’s education and secure their futures. Generally, they are not interested in the political divisions or games around them, they simply want to be able to vote for people they can trust to do the best for them. They will feel equally let down by the campaign of the last few months and will at best have limited expectations about what might lie ahead.
For all the pious talk, this election cycle has not been the showcase for democracy Americans might wish. It has left the United States more divided than at any point since the end of the Civil War in 1865. Contrary to the United States Ambassador’s hope that the election will bring people together, it is in fact far more likely to have driven them further apart.
In many ways, the last eight years have seen the demolition of Mr Lincoln’s wish for “government of the people, by the people, for the people” as the American model, because excessive partisanship has destroyed the balance that once regulated America’s complex and multi-layered political system. The next four years now seem set to severely test the validity of Mr Lincoln’s other famous statement (albeit a plagiarising of the biblical evangelist, Matthew) that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Peter Dunne was a Minister of the Crown in the Labour and National-led governments from December 1999 to September 2017. He lives in Wellington and writes a weekly Column.
