America: A Nation Divided

Michael Chugani October 31, 2024 21:54

Just days remain before America’s most consequential presidential election in modern times. A jittery world knows the outcome will have far-reaching ramifications. It will either mean predictable US domestic, foreign, and trade policies or an unpredictable overhaul of such policies.

Crucially, the winner will determine how acrimonious the US-China rivalry over trade, technological, military, and regional dominance becomes. This rivalry is rattling not only countries that have close economic ties with both sides but also smaller countries which fear they may be forced to choose between the US and China.

As the November 5 election nears, I am reminded of a witty remark attributed to writer George Bernard Shaw and the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Both apparently said Great Britain and America are two countries divided by a common language.

What they meant was even though English is the common language in both countries, the accents, pronunciations, and some spellings are different. Churchill is said to have used the quote at a meeting of allies during World War II.

America emerged as the world’s foremost superpower after the war, but it is today a superpower divided by its own people. This has never been clearer as the country counts down to electing its next president. Poll after poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party and former President Donald Trump of the Republican Party deadlocked in a bitterly contested election.

I am now in Atlanta in the state of Georgia, one of seven battleground states. The others are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona. Both candidates need to win most of these states to win the election. Polls show Harris and Trump are running neck and neck in all seven states.

I have never seen a tighter race during my many years as a journalist in Washington DC and Seattle. The division runs through gender, race, and values. Most women of all races back Harris for her support of abortion rights. They also detest Trump’s belittling of women.

Trump has very strong support from White men and Evangelicals. Blacks and Hispanics traditionally support the Democratic Party’s candidate, but some men from those groups now back Trump. They see him as macho for defiantly asking supporters to fight after a gunman’s bullet bloodied his ear. They are also not ready for a woman president.

Numerous polls show voters care most about the economy, immigration, abortion, and democracy. Both candidates are spending millions of donation dollars on TV, radio, and digital platform ads attacking each other as unqualified to be president.

Trump’s attack ads blame Harris and President Joe Biden for the millions of illegal immigrants pouring into the US from the southern border. Harris’s attack ads accuse Trump of supporting an abortion ban by appointing right-wing Supreme Court judges during his presidency who helped repeal a 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion. The ruling led to 21 states banning abortion outright or severely restricting it.

Foreign policy doesn't typically rank high during presidential and local elections. But the US-China rivalry has made China the top foreign policy concern among voters. Americans overwhelmingly named China as the number one US enemy in a Gallup poll last March. Russia was a distant second, followed by Iran. Another survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed similar results.

Politicians and ordinary Americans on both sides of the divide are convinced China wants to replace the US as the world’s top superpower. This hostility towards China, and Hong Kong by extension, is the only unifier in a divided nation. Trump and Harris try to outdo each other during rallies and media interviews to prove who is tougher with China.

Harris and former President Barack Obama have mocked Trump for using factories in China to print his own brand of Bibles that he sells to supporters in the US. Trump often taunts Harris as being too weak to stand up to strongmen leaders like China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Harris has said she will govern differently from her boss Biden if she wins. But analysts expect her to largely keep Biden’s policies of strengthening alliances in Europe and Asia to confront China. She recently told US business leaders during a speech in Pittsburgh that she would make sure America, not China, wins the competition for the twenty-first century.

Many US and foreign analysts fear if the mercurial Trump wins, America’s domestic, foreign, and trade policies would be even more unpredictable than during his first term. He has threatened to quit the NATO military alliance and impose new terms on US allies in Europe and Asia. His former national security adviser John Bolton said he is very worried for Taiwan if Trump wins.

Trump has threatened to crush his political enemies if he wins, described Democrats as the enemy from within who are worse than foreign enemies like China or Russia, implement mass deportations of illegal immigrants, and impose a 60 percent trade tariff on China and a 20 percent tariff on all other countries.

Whoever wins will make history. If Trump wins, he will be the first ever president with a criminal record for covering up a sex scandal. A Harris victory will usher in America’s first ever woman president who also happens to be half Black and half Indian.

Michael Chugani

A Hong Kong-born American citizen who has worked for many years as a journalist in Hong Kong, the USA and London.