US voters woke up yesterday not knowing who their next president is in an election that has undoubtedly polarised the nation in a way rarely seen in modern history.
What is clear though is that the Blue Wave the democrats were hoping for didn’t materialise as the Republicans seemingly held strongly to their Senate majority while President Donald Trump defied all predictions to hold on to the states that he won in 2016.
Almost all opinion polls which have been conducted since March showed his Democratic rival Joe Biden in a comfortable lead even in the so-called swing states such as Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, North California and Arizona. Trump’s strong showing in those states led to a complete reassessment of his actual strength and may lead to a serious rethinking of the way he won four years ago against Hillary Clinton.
The winner will also have his job cut out for him — restoring the Americans’ faith in the system and its democratic process. Another enormous task is to restore the world’s trust and repair the increasingly disintegrating multilateral world order. Meanwhile, Americans and the rest of the world hold their breath as they wait for the verdict.
Democrats have been attributing his surprise victory in 2016 to a multiple of factors including the infamous Russia collusion and the release of the damaging Clinton emails on the eve of the elections by then director of the FBI James Comey. Trump’s performance in Tuesday’s elections proved that he may have been greatly underestimated by his opponents. He proved that he enjoys massive support among ordinary Americans who believe in his ‘Make America Great Again’ regardless of how superficial it may seem.
However, the election has shown a nation divided more profoundly than most political pundits and strategists have thought. The inconclusive polls have in fact demonstrated two Americas, vastly different with a huge social and political gap that will certainly need a tremendous effort by whoever wins the election to bridge.
Reuniting the divided nation
In the next hours, or days, there will be certainly be a winner who is going to celebrate a hard-earned victory. But soon after the celebrations are over, the president will have to start as soon as possible the harder job of reuniting the nation, divided today on more than one line — racial, class and ideological.
Tension has been building up in the country due to the Black Lives Matter movement. The election campaign of both Trump and Biden didn’t help reduce the tension. On the contrary, the unfortunate negative rhetoric of both campaigns pitted one part of the nation against ‘the other’.
The winner will also have his job cut out for him — restoring the Americans’ faith in the system and its democratic process. Another enormous task is to restore the world’s trust and repair the increasingly disintegrating multilateral world order. Meanwhile, Americans and the rest of the world hold their breath as they wait for the verdict.
