The road to November 2020
Donald Trump’s years in the White House starting January 2017 have been momentous.
From the quiet stability of 2016 where the USA was the main superpower in a unilateral world that revolved around Washington DC, Trump has driven US decline and fostered hatred and racism in the Americas to an unprecedented level. Trump and his toxic and racist politics, has driven race relations in the Americas back to the 1960s.
Now, Trump’s latest ‘’cock-up’’ was the mishandling of the COVID-19 response that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and a world on the brink of economic depression.
Far from making America great again, Donald Trump has made the USA a laughing stock; albeit the world has been further placed in jeopardy by the rise of the political culture of the strongman.
There has been a receding of democratic values worldwide, and the ditching of multilateralism and wise and humble statesmanship, as the means of ensuring global peace and security. Today, fascist clowns are in charge of western society. And when you vote for a clown expect a great circus.
OK. The election of a vastly wealthy hotelier, property mogul, and TV personality heralded the start of a new politics. Trump was the renegade in 2016. Trump was the unconventional candidate who would ‘’ drain the swamp.’’ Trump would turn the world of corrupt establishment DC politics upside down.
Today the USA is little more than a plutocracy. Far from ensuring the welfare of the ‘’little man’’ Trump has used his office to extend by trillions of dollars the wealth of the 1% and has entrenched inequality in the USA to levels that could be described as obscene.
However, a bull stock market and the belief by many that Trump- a businessman – was good for the economy allowed the US President to get away with a host of excesses that would have seen any other politician booted from office.
US politics cannot be ignored in the Caribbean. The US is the big North. When the US coughs the Caribbean catches pneumonia.
US investors in the Caribbean drive tourism. There is a symbiotic relationship. US tourists visit, flying in on US airlines. They stay in US-owned hotels and resorts. They visit on US cruise ships.
Caribbean nations benefit in the jobs this activity generates. The small businesses that hover around this USA driven tourism include taxis, tour guides, villas and guest houses, services to the marina and yachting industry, retail services, and so on and so forth. The currency that derives from this tourism provides a platform for internal market economies and fuels local consumer demand and economic growth. So, US politics cannot be ignored.
Caribbean nationals have social and cultural ties to the USA. Millions of Caribbean people are nationals of both their unique islands and the USA. Migration from the Caribbean to the USA is an age-old affair. From Puerto Ricans to Haitians, and Jamaicans, the USA for a hundred years has been El Dorado.
Notwithstanding the racism and segregation that is endemic in the USA, the call of the US Dollar has been the magnet that drives the Caribbean into the clutches of ‘’Uncle Sam.’’
For its part, the US has exercised hegemony over the Americas. It is the supreme global superpower in the region. Its military could invade and occupy most Caribbean islands in a moment if it so desired.
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9 Responses to “The road to November 2020”
The election for president is a two step process. The first step is winning the popular vote in the 50 states and DC; it is a winner takes all scenario. The second step is the Electoral College. Popular vote decided, 538 (435 House, 100 Senate, 3 DC) Electoral College electors meet in DC to decide who will be president. Most states have rules requiring electors to cast vote for the candidate that got the most votes in a state. For example, California has 55 electoral votes and if Candidate A got 50.1% of the vote and Candidate B got 49.9% of the vote, Candidate A gets all the 55 Electoral College votes. Thus, the term winner takes all.
Moreover, to the victor goes the spoils, the winning team (winning party) gets the rewards. The winning team gets to craft laws and policies, create programs, allocate scarce resources, set redistricting boundaries, set foreign policies, determine fiscal policy......etc. There will be much effort exerted to disenfranchised voters and suppress the vote. However, neither Covid-19, racial unrest, economic downturn, rain, hail, snow, sleet, sunshine, voting complacency, the warped notion that one’s vote is not going to matter......etc should keep voters from racing to the polls to vote. By the way, Presidential Election decided, voters must go to the polls with same passion exerted in the Presidential Election in the Mid-term election, for a president needs the Senate and House to be effective.