EDITORIAL: Democrat Party candidate Joe Biden, who was on the brink of victory for eternity since the day the Americans used their right of franchise to decide who will be occupying the White House for the next four years following the 2020 US presidential elections, has finally been declared winner in a deeply divided United States of America where his rival, President Donald Trump, has refused to concede defeat, filing purportedly frivolous lawsuits to challenge the credibility of the vote. In other words, there is no indication that Trump will be making a concessional speech anytime soon, although his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is said to have approached the President about conceding the election.
The situation that is currently obtaining in the US was very much expected mainly because of Trump's extraordinarily belligerent approach to the 2020 election, it is highly disappointing nevertheless. Some commentators have even tried to draw parallels between the present-day and the civil war-hit US of the 1860s. Such comparisons appear to be largely unrealistic owing to a variety of historic reasons and facts, including the vastly different roles the then Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the current White House incumbent Donald Trump played during their respective tenures, the fact, however, remains that the sole world superpower remained sharply divided under the presidency of Trump since his victory against Democrat Party candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The protests by Republicans over the credibility of election results after Trump leveled vote fraud charges in the midst of vote counts against the Democrats without any evidence are a case in point.
It has now clearly emerged that the opinion polls ahead of the US vote were wrong. That the US presidential electoral system is complex, intricate and out of date is a fact. There were strong expectations of a landslide or blue wave but it did not happen that way; and the Democrat Party's claim that Trump was a mere aberration or fluke no longer stands. Moreover, the election results must have come as a shock for the proponents of the "Russiagate". Russian President Vladimir Putin's silence over Biden's victory is therefore quite meaningful. It is however interesting to note that Trump has always described Democrat Party "a party of leftists", although Biden, who owes his electoral success to various reasons, is known as a downright rightist in a party that was likely to nominate 'radical' leftist Bernie Sanders had there been no support from former President Barrack Obama to the former Vice President. What is also interesting to note is that with Biden's victory the US appears to be an increasingly left-leaning country unlike Russia which, under Putin, is hell-bent upon destroying all symbols of Marxism and Leninism, although it is the successor state to the then Soviet Union.
Be that as it may, 78-year-old former Vice President Biden and 56-year-old Kamala Harris will become the 46th President and first-ever woman Vice President of the US, respectively. In their victory speeches, both Biden and Harris thanked the US citizens jointly and said it is time to heal for America. It is widely believed that Biden's first priority as US President will be to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic challenge through an approach which will be markedly different from his predecessor Trump's. The latter's policy rollbacks now appear to be on a sticky wicket because most were carried out through executive orders that can be easily consigned to the dustbin of history by the Biden administration. But Biden and his team will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to trash or tear up all those Trump decisions that enjoy congressional sanction until Democrats have a majority in the Senate. There is little or no doubt about the fact that Trump, who started a trade war with China to "fix an unfair relationship" between world's two largest economies, had successfully planted his flag in the global politics from the Middle East to North Korea. His actions are likely to have a lasting impact on the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Iran and Afghanistan in particular, although he failed to accomplish much. His offer to mediate between Pakistan and India over Kashmir was the reflection of one of his tasks that remained unaccomplished.
Last but not least, what will 'Bibi' of Israel do after his best buddy in the White House has lost the election? Will Trump's defeat somehow dampen the growing enthusiasm of the Arab sheikhdoms that have formed a beeline to normalize relations with the Zionist state?
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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