Washington letter: Eerie scenes as security ramped up ahead of election

Washington is on tenterhooks - and there are big lessons for Australia. Here’s what visitors to the city are being greeted with.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt once declared: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

The line – now etched in stone at a sprawling Washington memorial in his honour – was delivered during Roosevelt’s inauguration as America’s 32nd president at the United States Capitol in March 1933.

Construction has already begun on temporary stands at that same location, where the nation’s 47th president will take the oath of office in January.

But as the contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris nears its conclusion, fear itself hangs heavy in the streets, in a situation that carries a warning for Australia.

Your columnist is fortunate enough to be in the American capital, taking in the sights and sounds of democracy in action at one of its great citadels.

Temporary security barriers around the White House in Washington. Picture: Keith Woods.

On Tuesday, it was like a city preparing for the fury of an incoming hurricane. Hoping it would pass, but getting ready for it to hit with full force.

A wide area around the White House, already one of the most secure locations on the planet, had been surrounded by additional security barriers. Dozens of secret service police officers, some on bikes, some with dogs, patrolled the perimeter.

Tourists like your columnist, hoping for a decent photo of the famous old home, were bang out of luck. Joe Biden, if he was in there, was living in a gilded prison.

I asked a local tour guide who knows the city well if similar additional security had been taken on the eve of the last presidential election four years ago.

“No, this was not here at that time,” he said.

Was it because authorities were worried in a way they had not been in the past?

“Yes sir, that is exactly right.”

Boarded up windows on a building on Freedom Plaza in Washington. Picture: Keith Woods.

Just two blocks away, at Freedom Plaza, the management of a private property were also taking no chances. Windows at the Pennsylvania Building, including on a chemist shop and bakery, were boarded up on Tuesday.

This column was told the area was frequently the gathering place of protesters.

Preparations were also underway at the Capitol, where your columnist saw police arriving with equipment including riot shields.

Locals told this column they did not expect anything to happen, but were glad preparations were being taken, expecting the heavy security would have a deterrent effect.

The city had been spooked, they said, not just by the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by Trump supporters who refused to accept his election loss, but by destruction wrought on the city by riots following the death of George Floyd the previous year.

Recently we had an election in Queensland, and soon, there will be another federal election.

There is no Donald Trump here and nobody fears riots will follow results.

However nobody feared riots following elections in America until relatively recently either.

A police officer carrying riot shields at The Capitol in Washington. Picture: Keith Woods.

Temporary security barriers near the White House in Washington. Picture: Keith Woods.

Fuelled by social media, hyper-partisanship of the kind seen in the United States is at risk of spreading here.

It was bizarre, for sure, but think of the fanatical following former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews was able to generate.

Politicians, meanwhile, seem all too eager to ape the ways of their American counterparts. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday held an American-style political rally at an Adelaide high school. In the Queensland campaign, abortion became a key issue, just as it has done in the United States.

It seems where America goes, we eventually follow.

Even the George Floyd protests were emulated here, despite the sheer irrelevance of his death in Minneapolis to life in Australia.

It’s a slippery road. One best avoided.

The fear felt in America is not just in Washington. A poll found 69 per cent of Americans were anxious about the election and its aftermath.

That’s astounding to read, but not so surprising when you spend some time here, speaking with locals and seeing what is happening on the streets.

In Washington, everyone says they just want the election over and done with. Similar sentiments were held by voters in Queensland.

Let’s hope that stays about the only thing we have in common with elections in the United States.

That they are never here conducted in such of atmosphere of anxiety and fear.

Follow @keithjwoods