THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2020
After long drawn out speculations, heated debates and campaigning, the United States elections have almost come to a close. Almost every news outlet, as well as the actual election results, have now projected the Democratic Candidate Joseph Biden as the President-elect of the United States of America, which is the first time since 1992 that an incumbent president has failed to be re-elected. This election also saw the United States making history by choosing its first Woman Vice President, Kamala Harris.
The United States Presidential race is one of the most eagerly watched elections on the planet, given its impact all over the world. We could say that this election was even more closely followed by people all over the world, given that it was a contest between America’s most controversial President and a previous Vice President.
Donald Trump’s presidency is well known all over the world for its divisive policies, extreme conservative dialogues and for creating one of the most polarized periods of American Politics, albeit all this, Donald Trump has come out of the election collecting the most number of votes for a sitting president, but just not enough to keep the most powerful post in the world.
Being the worst-hit country in the world by the pandemic, many expected a low voter turn-out, but we saw a higher than usual turnout with a huge number of people taking to the polling booths to cast their votes and to the streets to celebrate their candidate. One could say this eagerness of the citizens to cast their vote could be the result of frustration with the current system, given that we’ve seen President Trump failing to handle a lot of issues. The final straw might have been the pandemic itself as the President himself remained accused of downplaying the seriousness of the issue and failing to handle the economy while the death count is nearing 250,000.
The Election Promises
The citizens of the USA were given a lot of promises by both the candidates.
Donald Trump and his campaign have promised to :
- Bring a vaccine for Covid-19 by the end of 2020.
- Prevent illegal immigration
- Stop wars
- Create 10 million jobs and revive the economy.
While President-Elect Joseph Biden Jr has promised to:
- Fix the pandemic issues
- Revive the economy
- Climate Reforms
- Force China “to play by international rules”
- Fix the issues of Immigration reforms under Trump and create new ones
- Implement Criminal Justice Reforms
- Bring gun reforms
Donald Trump has stuck to his isolationist nationalist views, while Biden who was once considered moderate, has chosen a progressive view.
The Election 2020
As of now, President-Elect Joe Biden has gained 290 electoral votes, 20 more than the required 270 to be declared winner, while the incumbent President Trump has gained 217.
Neither a blue nor a red wave was seen as promised by both candidates as the election remained pretty tight. Southern Georgia and Arizona, the former of which has long been a political stronghold for Republicans, have chosen Biden, while Florida, the swing state with the most electoral college votes, has sided with Trump.
Due to the pandemic situation, this election also saw a record number of mail-in ballots, which gave rise to allegations of election fraud and ballot dumping from President Trump and his campaign, once it looked like the Democrats were winning. Every state has refuted these allegations and the Trump campaign has since failed to provide any evidence of alleged election fraud to the public.
In a highly controversial move, President Trump took to Twitter and press meetings, declaring himself the victor in states that hadn’t even finished counting. He even went as far as to say that he was the winner if only legal votes were considered. Meanwhile, a number of Republicans have asked the President to concede defeat and to stop trying to delegitimize the election system of the USA.
Analysts and the opposition say that this has been expected of Trump, since he had previously made statements declaring that he will not accept the election results if he loses and has failed to promise a peaceful transition of power. As of now, the incumbent President has failed to address the nation, conceding his loss and his campaign is currently in the process of legally disputing the election results.
Aftermath
This election has been one of a kind as the sitting President is contesting the election results and his campaign has filed lawsuits in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada. Legal experts and analysts have declared these lawsuits and allegations baseless and most likely to be dismissed.
No modern presidential candidate has ever refused to concede an election and Trump’s refusal to do so has been termed “an embarrassment” by the President-elect. President Trump has refused to cooperate with the transition and the General Service Administrations hasn’t been preparing to help the President-elect’s campaign.
Is it necessary for Trump to Concede:
According to conservative lawyer John Yoo, even if Trump doesn’t concede the election, his term will come to an end at noon on January 20th. Although the sitting president does have the right to raise legal challenges, it is considered a Hail Mary Pass. The 20th Amendment of the Constitution says that the candidate with the most number of electoral votes will become President on January 20th. Therefore, from January 20th, Donald Trump will be a private citizen and will hold no presidential power regardless of whether he concedes the election or not.
The Road Ahead & International Impact
The road ahead for the Oldest President-elect ever, Joe Biden looks hard since he would have to deal with the pandemic, revive the economy as well as take care of his election promises of gun reforms, the Green New Deal and take care of a politically and racially divided USA.
The President-Elect has promised stronger Indo-US relations and a foreign policy of leading by example. In a speech at the Graduate Centre of CUNY, New York Joe Biden had laid out his plans on how to change the Foreign Policies of the USA.
His plans towards international community outreach include pressing problems like climate change, transnational terrorism, cyber warfare, nuclear proliferation, etc. He has also published a ‘Made in America’ plan which proposes to restrict buying of steel, cement, concrete materials, and other building materials from abroad. The Biden Campaign has promised to lift all restrictions put forth by the Trump administration on worker’s visas, which could mean a rise in the number of skilled immigration, and in his website he has also assured to encourage research on STEM fields by taking away the visa cap and providing green cards to doctoral candidates.
The isolationist, and protectionist view of the Trump administration has caused many rifts with the international community and everyone is hoping that the Biden Administration will be able to resolve these. The entire world is looking eagerly towards the USA to see how its oldest President will lead it.
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