Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Opinion: You’re Not Just Voting for President. You’re Voting to Start Over.
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Trump and Boris Johnson have shown countries need leaders, not celebrity politicians
Rafael Behr
After four years and a pandemic, one thing is clear: the fence between entertainment and politics must urgently be rebuilt
Boris Johnson had barely finished telling the nation about new English lockdown arrangements on Saturday night when the BBC, correctly reading the mood of its primetime audience, cut live to Strictly Come Dancing.
It is easy to imagine Johnson on the other side of that switchover. There is a parallel universe where “Boris” is one of the sequin-clad celebrities waiting in an Elstree studio for the jaunty music to strike up while someone with natural gravitas delivers the serious message from Downing Street. In this scenario, Johnson’s political career fizzled out after a second term as mayor of London but his fame stayed alight. He was an obvious match for Strictly. (The judges deride his shambolic dances and dishevelled appearance, but he appeals over their heads to the voting public, who keep returning him to the dancefloor – for a laugh: a welcome distraction from the pandemic.)
And in that hypothetical world, Donald Trump still hosts The Apprentice, because liberal democracy has not been taken hostage by marauding vaudevillians.
I have witnessed Johnson holding forth over lunch with a dozen guests and declaiming to vast auditoriums. It is the same act in any venue. He adjusts his beliefs to whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear, but not the raconteur style, sustained by laughter and applause. Few things disturb his poise more than a stone-faced reception. If his words hang in the air too long, there is a danger they will be examined, remembered, taken seriously. He was not a great parliamentary speaker before the pandemic, but he really bombs in the Commons chamber now that it is thinly populated and hushed by social distancing.
Trump uses a fraction of Johnson’s vocabulary, and his delivery is less laboured, but he also uses cadences more familiar from standup comedy than traditional oration. He is master of the faux-conversational ramble that invites intimacy, the little observations and non-sequiturs, the unnatural pauses that build tension before a punchline drops.
When the fate of US democracy hangs in the balance, Trump’s rhetorical technique might not be the most pressing concern. But that showbiz patter has been a key to unlocking the character of his presidency. He has the personality of a tyrant, but not the premeditated programme of a dictator. His thirst for power has always been deep, but it is the impulsive craving of a man addicted to attention for its own sake, without the mechanical drive to rearrange society and fashion other people’s destinies in the mould of a Hitler or Stalin. Trump is a more theatrical breed of despot, who bullies people and abuses his office because he believes they exist to gratify his needs and satisfy his fan club.
The harm to the American republic is profound already. The incarceration of children, the approval of white-supremacist militias, the dehumanisation of opponents – it is the stuff of incipient fascism. But the slide into the abyss has been slowed by incoherence, infantile inattention and impatience. A more systematically ideological and intelligently focused saboteur in the White House could have done even worse.
Other nationalist demagogues have used the coronavirus pandemic to expand their control of society and suffocate dissent. It is the obvious move. There is a national emergency that requires some suspension of civil liberties and unusual regulation of citizens’ private business. The authoritarian opportunities have not been wasted on Vladimir Putin in Russia and Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Trump could have exploited the virus to build an apparatus of political repression. Instead he opted for denial and petty frustration, belittling the pandemic because it was a bigger story than his own presidency. He couldn’t bump it out of the headlines with an aggressive tweet. Barack Obama called it right when he mocked the president for being “jealous of Covid’s media coverage”.
Johnson’s approach has been much more rational. He is better at hiding resentment of the way his job has turned out to be less fun than anticipated. But the disappointment is there – the dismay of the comedian inadvertently booked to speak at a memorial service with no fitting repertoire, no fluency in consolation.
The prime minister believes in the utility of lockdowns (unlike Trump), but he shares his American counterpart’s disregard for their use as tools of coercion. Backbench Tories are quick to highlight how the letter of Covid regulations is totalitarian, but none actually thinks Johnson intends to apply them in that spirit. The constant assertions of reluctance and regret – the pained apology for meddling in private freedoms – are about the only sincere notes he strikes in those televised addresses.
Johnson is in any case too lazy for fascism, which requires an obsession with order. His preferred flavour of control is best conveyed in a line from an old interview, when he described the “rather weird sense of power” he got as Brussels correspondent for the Telegraph, making mischief with confected tales of meddlesome European bureaucracy: “I was just chucking these rocks over the garden wall,” he said. “I’d listen to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door, over in England.”
Now Johnson is keeper of the greenhouse. That doesn’t stop him chucking rocks, but the effect is more self-defeating. He does not have “weird”, remote, unaccountable power. He has the ordinary kind that comes with elected office, where popularity is not an end in itself, but a temporary licence to get things done on behalf of other people.
Johnson is a more conventional politician than Trump, but he also reached the top by trampling through the boundary between celebrity and statecraft. His brand was built by turns as a panellist on Have I Got News For You more than on his record at City Hall. Both men benefited from a transatlantic culture of democratic complacency. They carved their way through the ranks of stale, cavilling bores because most politicians were bad for ratings and entertainment was news. Now we are stuck in a strange intermediate zone where real-life events have the febrile, climactic quality of a box-set season finale.
The pandemic shows why that fence between entertainment and politics needs to be restored. Covid cannot be played for laughs. Managing a public health crisis involves metrics of success other than applause. It requires politicians who can meet a challenge without self-pity at being forced to do the tough part of the job. Democracy is unsafe in the hands of egocentric men who do not know which way to turn in a crisis because they dare not face away from a cheering mob.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/03/trump-johnson-leaders-celebrity-politicians-pandemic-politics
#ElectionDay - After a campaign like no other, #Americans rendering final verdict at polls
By Trevor Hunnicutt, Doina Chiacu
Americans cast votes on Tuesday in the bitterly contested presidential race between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden after a tumultuous four years under the businessman-turned-politician that have left the United States as deeply divided as at any time in recent history.Voters lined up at polling places around the country casting ballots amid a coronavirus pandemic that has turned everyday life upside down. Biden, the Democratic former vice president who has spent a half century in public life, has held a strong and consistent lead in national opinion polls over the Republican president. But Trump is close enough in several election battleground states that he could piece together the 270 state-by-state Electoral College votes needed to win the election.Trump is hoping to repeat the type of upset he pulled off in 2016 when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton despite losing the national popular vote by about 3 million ballots. Trump is aiming to avoid becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to lose a re-election bid since George H.W. Bush in 1992.It is possible that it could be days before the result is known, especially if legal challenges focused on ballots sent by mail are accepted in the event of a tight race. There was a sense of anxiety among voters and concern about possible unrest after a campaign with heated rhetoric. There were buildings boarded up in anticipation of possible protests, including in Washington and New York City. A new fence was erected around the White House. Polls opened in some Eastern states at 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT). The most closely watched results will start to trickle in after 7 p.m. EST (2400 GMT) when polls close in states such as Georgia. Biden made another appearance on Tuesday morning in the pivotal state of Pennsylvania. Speaking to supporters using a bullhorn in Scranton, the city where he was born, Biden returned to some of his familiar campaign themes, promising to unite Americans and “restore basic decency and honor to the White House.” Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday morning, Trump said the crowds he saw on Monday during his frenetic last day of campaigning gave him confidence that he would prevail. “We have crowds that nobody’s ever had before,” said Trump, who has been criticized by Democrats for holding packed rallies in defiance of social-distancing recommendations during the pandemic. “I think that translates into a lot of votes.” The voting caps a campaign dominated by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 Americans and put of people millions out of work. The country this year also was shaken by protests against racism and police brutality. Biden, who has framed the contest as a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic, promised a renewed effort to combat the public health crisis, fix the economy and bridge America’s political divide. Trump has downplayed the pandemic, saying the country is “rounding the corner” even as numerous states set single-day records of new infections in the final days of the campaign. More than 99 million Americans voted early either in person or by mail, motivated not only by concerns about waiting in lines on Election Day amid the pandemic but also by extraordinary levels of enthusiasm after a polarizing campaign. The record-shattering total is nearing three-quarters of the total 2016 vote, according to the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida. Experts predict the vote could reach 160 million, exceeding the 138 million ballots cast in 2016. While there were long lines in some places, in many states lines were shorter, perhaps a reflection of the massive early vote. In McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, about a dozen voters lined up, bundled in jackets and hats on an unseasonably chilly morning. “He’s a bit of a jerk, and I appreciate that,” Martin Seylar, a 45-year-old welder who had just finished his shift, said of Trump, his preferred candidate. “He doesn’t get everything that he says done, but the way I see it is he’s trying, versus where everybody else blows smoke at us.” In Detroit, Republican voter Nick Edwards, 26, cast a ballot for Biden but voted for Republican candidates for Congress. “Honestly, decency in the White House,” Edwards said when asked about his main concern. “When someone leads the party, they need to hold those values, as well. I don’t think Trump encompasses that.” Some crucial states, such as Florida, begin counting absentee ballots ahead of Election Day and could deliver results relatively quickly on Tuesday night. Others including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are barred from processing the vast majority of mail ballots until Election Day, raising the possibility of a prolonged vote count that could stretch for several days. U.S. stocks opened higher on Tuesday, as investors wagered that Biden would prevail and usher in fresh stimulus spending. CONTROL OF CONGRESS AT STAKE Voters on Tuesday will also decide which political party controls the U.S. Congress for the next two years, with Democrats pushing to recapture a Senate majority and expected to retain their control of the House of Representatives. Trump, 74, is seeking another four years in office after a chaotic first term marked by the coronavirus crisis, an economy battered by pandemic shutdowns, an impeachment drama, inquiries into Russian election interference, U.S. racial tensions and contentious immigration policies. Trump, looking tired and sounding hoarse after days of frenetic campaigning, struck a decidedly less belligerent tone on Tuesday than he did on the trail over the weekend. He was expected spend most of Tuesday at the White House, where an election night party is planned for 400 guests, all of whom will be tested for COVID-19. Biden, 77, is looking to win the presidency after a five-decade political career including eight years as vice president under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. He mounted unsuccessful bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden started his day at St. Joseph on the Brandywine, his Roman Catholic church near Wilmington, Delaware, where he spent some time at his son Beau’s grave with Beau’s daughter, Natalie. Beau Biden died of cancer at age 46 in 2015. The two candidates have spent the final days barnstorming half a dozen battleground states, with Pennsylvania emerging as perhaps the most hotly contested. Biden will have made at least nine campaign stops in Pennsylvania between Sunday and Tuesday. Biden’s polling lead has forced Trump to play defense; almost every competitive state was carried by him in 2016.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election/after-a-campaign-like-no-other-americans-rendering-final-verdict-at-polls-idUSKBN27J0GK
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