Win for Trump’s enemies would cast pall over democracy

Their opposition to the President is more vengeful than cerebral.

Illustration: John Tiedemann

Almost all of academia, mainstream media and certainly all progressive parties and groups in this country, the US and around the Western world are viscerally opposed to Donald Trump and obsessed with seeing him defeated. Which is part of the reason why it will send a terrible message to the world about the state of the great Republic, the bastion of open and fair democracy, if Joe Biden is elected president.

The spiteful ruckus that passed for a presidential debate this week, and the deceitfully jaundiced coverage that followed, exposed the fault lines and the stakes. Biden did little but contradict himself on his own policies, call Trump a liar, tell him to shut up, and remain upright, yet that will be good enough for many.

In 2016 Trump won a democratic election, fair and square, by winning the support of mainstream voters, yet the political/media class never accepted his legitimacy and have used every means available, fair and foul, to overthrow him; from violent protests around the election and inauguration to the so-called resistance campaign, from complaints about the electoral system to relentless fake news attacks, and from FBI and judicial inquiries to impeachment proceedings. Yet there he is, still President, taunting them, affronting their very sense of themselves and the nation, and campaigning vigorously for re-election.

If Trump’s enemies succeed, especially when their critiques are often so deceptive and dishonest, and after they have trashed processes and natural justice through episodes such as the Russia collusion hoax or the assassination of Brett Kavanaugh’s character, it will leave a dark pall over the world’s pre-eminent democracy. And it will leave a mass of disaffected mainstream voters feeling that even a democratically elected President promising to “drain the swamp” can fall victim to the ­revenge of the political, bureaucratic, academic and media establishment — the deep state.

We know he is unorthodox, ­polarising and crass, yet so many players and commentators never tire of pretending these observations are still worth fussing over. These qualities were merely the starting point and politics at this level is not a popularity contest; voters will decide on Trump ­according to what he has done, what he promises to do and whether the alternative is compelling.

We might dream of a contest where someone with the oratory skills of Barack Obama and the leadership experience of George H W Bush takes on a candidate with the moral clarity of Ronald Reagan and the modern bearing of Bill Clinton. Or we might want to see Nikki Haley and Pete Buttigieg contest the presidency. But, sorry, reality is brutal, and the choice is between Trump and Biden. A rock and a soft place.

The disdain for Trump makes it uncomfortable to even point out the hysteria of the Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers or draw attention to the manifest flaws of Trump’s challenger in polite society. There are many otherwise intelligent adults who seem to have a personal score to settle with Trump — perhaps his victory humiliated them in 2016 and they feel defeat will somehow erase their erroneous expectations.

Perhaps they seek to highlight their civility by condemning his crassness or sense his defeat will be their redemption. For many, their normal disdain for right-of-centre politics has been inflamed in a strangely personal way by the most provocative populist in living memory.

For context, we need to remember how the same elements of society demeaned and dismissed Ronald Reagan, reviled and defamed John Howard or mocked and abused Margaret Thatcher — these were all intelligent, mainstream and orthodox leaders yet were treated like pariahs by the so-called elites. Little wonder someone as uncouth and antagonistic as Trump has sent them to a new level of apoplexy.

Maybe this says a bit about identity politics in the social media age; people might consider that their choice of candidate says something about their own character. Rational consideration of policy options and achievements might take a back seat to these reflections by association.

Whatever their reasons, their opposition to Trump is more emotive than rational, more vengeful than cerebral. Most journalists fall into this category. They spit words about the President, verbal him in fake news stitch-ups, ignore his achievements, laud his opponents and generally allow their judgment to be clouded by their disdain.

It is intriguing and worrying to watch. You can sort of comprehend what is happening with the Trump haters — so much about him is abrasive — but it is just too intense and irrational to fully understand.

Trump is not the kind of person most of us embrace in our personal relations. He is aggressive, narcissistic, self-centred, uncultured, almost monosyllabic, crude and bombastic.

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, US voters faced an appalling choice. While I said it was clear Trump could win, my assessment was that a Hillary Clinton victory would deliver a better outcome because she would be appalling in an orthodox fashion while Trump would be wildly unpredictable.

This year the US faces another woeful choice, but the best outcome would be the re-election of Trump because a Biden win would signal the triumph of cynical, ­establishment politics practised by the elites, over the democratic ­aspirations of an unconventional but authentic leader who has delivered what he promised, and more. On taxes, the economy, border protection, trade and foreign policy, Trump dramatically changed US settings as he pledged to do — only the pandemic has shattered his economic success, just as it has in every country across the globe. And now his own and the First Lady’s infections will highlight both the issue and the contrasting attitudes of the candidates.

Besides, Biden would raise taxes, implement uncosted green energy and climate policies, and create a vacuum around issues of law enforcement and support for the police. He would also be welcomed as a more predictable and malleable antagonist by China, Iran and Russia, not to mention the NATO allies.

In 2016 and again over recent weeks, the Democrats and the media have generated a story about how Trump will not accept the election result. They skate over the very real concerns about unprecedented use of mail-in ballots (ostensibly in response to the pandemic), evidence of ballot harvesting, and the likelihood of legal challenges post-election.

Yet this is the least of their ­duplicity. The deeper concern is they ignore how the Democrats and their supporters never accepted the 2016 result.

Trump deliberately keeps alive his post-election options, and this is used to justify the confected outrage of the Democrats and the media. Yet there is no mention of their four years of resistance and, understandably, no pledges from them to forgo any post-election legal challenges.

Of course, all politicians should accept election results but never surrender their legal rights to test the validity of the process.

The Democrats and their barrackers have written the book on not accepting a result — their ­demands of Trump are like Lance Armstrong demanding no cyclist use performance-enhancing drugs to eclipse his record.

Given all this and the continuing media crusade — just look at how journalists pretend Trump has given a nod to white supremacists while allowing Biden to make excuses for the fuellers of violence, vandalism and anarchy across American cities, Antifa — a win for Biden would suggest to many Trump voters that the political/media establishment conspired to overturn their democratic choice.

Globally, American prestige would suffer, and its enemies would be emboldened because the diplomacy that has pushed back at China on trade and security, sought to restrain North Korea, asked more of European allies and, crucially, provided the most promising breakthroughs in the Middle East for decades, will have been repudiated by US voters.

On the pandemic, Trump’s wild assertions and inconsistent messaging would be sidelined but his penchant for pragmatism could be replaced by a nanny-state preference for lockdowns that could deepen the economic consequences. During an economic challenge when even the Australian Labor Party has recognised the stimulatory necessity of tax cuts, Biden would impose higher taxes on the US economy.

The identity politics that has fuelled murder and pandemonium on American streets would be enlivened rather than constrained. Police departments would wonder whether their president was on their side.

The US would once more bow to Paris on climate, to the WHO on the virus and to the so-called elites on border security. Uncertain weakness would replace volatile strength.

Four years on, American voters could suffer noxious consequences for overturning an election result the Democrats never accepted. And the chattering classes of the free world could pay a perilous price after they celebrate what they would see as the removal of an oaf from the Oval Office.