Exactly a week from now, Americans will troop to the polls to elect their next president. This is more than just a watershed election. American civilization is on the line.
The next US president will either be Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Neither is a perfect human being. Voters distrust both candidates immensely. This is such an unlikely contest. It has the world on edge.
For better or for worse, one of them will serve as president. One of them will lead in directing the drift of American policy and the evolution of American political discourse over the next four years, at least.
No two rivals for the presidency could be more different in style and substance. This is why this situation has become so polarized and the discourse among the candidates so negative.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton threaten to emigrate if Trump wins. Most nations are wary of a Trump presidency. He could break alliances, abrogate trade agreements, make truly bad decisions and bring the world closer to a nuclear holocaust.
Some of the more fanatical Trump supporters, for their part, threaten rebellion if Clinton wins. Republican politicians threaten to block Hillary’s policies and stymie her administration. They are most worried about the fact that the next president will appoint the most number of Supreme Court justices since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That will cause the Court, final arbiter of American values, sharply more liberal.
Barack Obama, president for eight years, had only one chance to nominate a Supreme Court justice. The Republican-dominated US Congress has refused to act on that nomination for over eight months now. Obama will likely leave office without having a justice appointed to the Supreme Court.
The prospect of a more liberal Supreme Court under a Democratic president is what alarms social conservatives the most. They see more pro-choice decisions forthcoming and the acceptance of new lifestyle choices. They would rather play down Trump’s personality quirks than have a liberal Supreme Court.
The electoral bases of the two candidates could not be more different.
Trump draws support mainly from white American males, from the more rural and older folk, from the less educated and all those insecure about their economic prospects. He will rely on the vote of the deep American south and hopes to score in the Rust Belt states where the hollowing out of US industries fueled profound despair. They will rather build walls to keep the rest of the world out.
In a word, Trump draws support from yesterday’s America: a mainly white society of prosperous farmers and well-paid industrial workers.
Clinton scores the most from among college-educated voters, minorities, the young and the more cosmopolitan. Her base is composed of the diverse colors that now inhabit the US as well as an unfolding society of empowered women. She represents tomorrow’s America: driven by the knowledge-based enterprises and thriving in an interdependent world.
There is a fork in the American road. One leads to a closed society suspicious of the rest of the world. The other is a more open, more tolerant society at peace with diversity and tolerant of differences.
This is what next week’s elections are about. A civilizational choice is about to be made.
Two weeks ago, the elections might have been conceded to Hillary Clinton. She led Trump by 12 percentage points in the popular vote. In the charts, she had over 300 electoral votes when only 270 are needed to win. US presidential elections are decided by states credited electoral votes proportional to their populations.
After new controversy over how she handled her emails, sparked by a terse and unsubstantiated letter from the FBI director last week, the margin suddenly narrowed. The FBI, in the course of investigating the husband of a close Hillary aide, stumbled upon a personal computer shared by the couple before they separated.
By the last survey, Hillary’s lead over Trump was cut to between two and three points. That is within the margin of polling error.
The actual race is not as tight, however. In order to reverse the trend and win the elections, the Trump campaign must win all the currently contested “battleground” states and grab one more state from the Democratic column. This is highly improbable.
The Democratic Party holds sway over the densely populated New England and the Pacific Coast states. The Republican Party holds sway over the Deep South, most notably the large state of Texas. Florida is in a virtual tie, as it normally is.
In terms of electoral votes, Clinton holds a fairly solid margin. But, as one British prime minister once observed, a week is a long time in politics.
The specter of Brexit haunts this election.
That very significant vote earlier this year has some resemblance to the US presidential contest. Those who wanted to exit the European Union (EU) came from the English countryside: white people whose towns were economically in decline. They were afraid of the wave of migration that EU membership abetted. They were older, more rural and had inferior skills to compete in an open regional market.
Those who supported “Remain,” on the other hand were younger, more urban and better skilled. They had confidence in the course their economy was taking.
Until the eve of the vote, people were confident “Remain” would win the day. The surveys and common sense suggested that. A decision to leave the EU would mean years of recession for the UK.
When the votes were cast, those who wanted to leave the EU won by the narrowest of margins.