Flawed election in greatest country gets underway with Trump tactics on line

WASHINGTON: Americans headed to polls in droves on Tuesday to vote for what kind of country and future and leadership they want, as much as casting their ballot on hot button issues such as health care, national debt, and immigration. The election is seen as a virtual referendum on two years of Trump Presidency, characterized by a booming economy but also a base pandering to racism and xenophobia.

Regardless of the numerical outcome, the fault lines in the United States look set to become even more apparent – divided between a liberal-moderate electorate concentrated in urban and coastal areas who mostly despise the President and a conservative-religious-blue collar voters spread across a vast swathe in the middle of the country who broadly love him. Pre-elections surveys point to a split verdict, with Democrats winning back the House of Representatives winning seats from more populous urban areas and Republicans managing to hang on to the Senate retaining seats from less populated hinterland, although given the shock results in 2016, no one is putting any money on the forecast.

Election day – which is a working day and not a holiday in the US – brought to a close one of the most vitriolic campaigns in US history, with each day further dividing the nation that bears the name United States. Ironically, President Trump’s campaign ended in a rally where his supporters broke into the gospel hymn Amazing Grace when someone in the audience had a medical emergency.

But there was very little grace and nothing amazing in a bitter campaign, the nadir of which came when several television networks declined to air a patently racist advertisement from the Trump campaign -- approved by President Trump – a commercial so xenophobic that even Fox News, the President’s cable channel of preference, refused to air it.

The rejected ad featured footage of an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, Luis Bracamontes, bragging about his murder of two California police officers in 2014, with ominous music in the background, followed by images of the migrant caravan that originated in Central America of poor refugees and asylum seekers that Trump and his mostly white followers have characterized as criminals and terrorists. “Dangerous illegal criminals like cop-killer Luis Bracamontes don’t care about our laws,” intones the ad, with a final onscreen message reading, “Stop the caravan. Vote Republican.”

Those who believe in the dire message, particularly white conservative voters in the middle of the country often derided as flyover territory because it is so alienated from the more liberal, progressive, and economically vibrant coastal areas, are expected to vote Republican. Those who won’t – and a numerical majority are expected to reject the GOP – are already suspect in the eyes of the Trump establishment. “Two Americas on a collision course,” read the headline on the CNN website.


Both President Trump and his Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned of voter fraud and illegal voting in Tuesday’s elections, even though such allegations in 2016 proved to be largely phony and aimed at glossing over the fact that he lost the popular vote by more than three million votes. In fact, the issue at the heart of a deeply flawed election in the self-described greatest country on earth is rampant voter suppression and a dubious exercise called gerrymandering that enables political parties to carve out voting districts to their liking, effectively distorting the collective will of the electorate.

(What is gerrymandering: Let’s say you have 5lakh voters spread across five constituencies with an equal mix of Republicans and Democrats. Instead of allowing the constituency to retain a natural mix, the ruling party (say Republicans) redraws the constituency map to pack most Democrats into one constituency, so that they can win the other four constituencies. This practice of manipulating constituency maps to gain political advantage was first practiced by Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry. The first such map is said to have resembled a salamander, hence Gerrymandering; even Democrats have done this when they have been in control)

Thanks to Gerrymandering, the Republican Party has seized control of the country even though it does not have a majority of the votes, winning a majority of seats in Congress even though it gets less votes than Democrats. This is particularly true of the Senate, where each state has two seats regardless of population. California, with a population of 40 million has two Senators, as does Wyoming, which has less than 600,000 people. )

Trump brought out his “big guns,” including his daughter Ivanka and his media acolytes such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from the conservative side to rouse his supporters at a final rally, even as Democrats sounded confident that the electorate would punish the President for his flagrant infractions. “For the past two years, we've watched this administration attack and undermine our democratic institutions and values. Today, we say enough,” tweeted Hillary Clinton. Her former assistant Philippe Reines was more colorful. “It’s not you vs Obama. It’s not you vs Hillary. It’s you and your accidental two years vs America’s first 240 years. It’s the first time since Nov 8 2016 the entire nation will render judgement on you. You’re f**ked,” he tweeted.

But Trump and his associates appeared confident that the broad support they have in middle America would sustain. “The contrast in this election could not be more clear. Democrats produce mobs. Republicans produce jobs,” he told cheering supporters at his final rally.