U S Democracy and Midterm Election

 

A majority of 270 or more electoral votes wins the election. American voters going to the polls on November 8 in what is called the mid-term election will see all the seats in the House of Representatives and more than a third of the senate up for grabs. In this election, however, they will not elect their president, who is voted into power every four years. As such, the mid-term elections, typically, do not excite most eligible voters to cast their votes. Outside the senior citizens and the retirees, most young voters don't show up to cast their votes.?is derived from its own practices. This system is unique, not universally applicable, and it is far from perfect. However, over the years, the US, despite the structural flaws and problematic practice of its democratic system, has claimed itself as the model of democracy. It has incessantly interfered in other countries internal affairs and waged wars under the guise of democracy, creating regional turbulence and humanitarian disasters. The US presidential election follows the time-honored Electoral College system, where the president and vice president are not elected directly by popular vote, but by the Electoral College consisting of 538 electors. The candidate who achieves?prerogative reserved to a few. Democracy takes different forms, and there is no one-size-fits-all model. It would be totally undemocratic to measure the diverse political systems in the world with a single yardstick or examine different political civilizations from a single perspective. The political system of a country should be independently decided by its own people.

The United States system of democracy?Democracy is a common value shared by all humanity. It is a right for all nations, not a Well, this year may be an exception with a record number of people casting their votes. The election results will have an enormous influence on the rest of president Joe Biden's term. Currently, House Democrats have a razor-thin 3-vote advantage. In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans are split 50/50, with vice president Kamala Harris being the tiebreaker. As the latest reports suggest, Republicans and Democrats have spent almost $10 billion on ads, exceeding even the spending on the 2020 presidential election, and is almost triple the amount spent during the last midterms. As usual, portraying the opponent in a highly negative way with short punch lines that are mixed with half-truths and lies to scare the voters has been part of this $10 billion campaign strategy. Pennsylvania has been a battle state in the 2020 presidential election where Trump narrowly lost. Among the conservatives, he remains a favourite choice to compete in 2024. To this group of die-hard red voters, Republican ad campaigns portray Democratic blue contenders as progressive, left-leaning politicians who are soft on crime. Consider, for instance, the ad materials received in my home mailbox from the America First Legal Foundation, which is run by Stephen Miller. In one of the latest polls, asked about inflation, nearly seven in 10 voters (68 per cent) nationally agreed with the statement that inflation is a problem and people will continue to pay more money on everyday expenses unless the government becomes more fiscally responsible Taking a cue from Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign slogan, It's the economy, stupid, Republicans have, thus, been pushing to make the economy a central issue in the midterm elections.

In contrast, Democrats have prioritized abortion rights as a referendum on reproductive rights. Since the overturning of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe versus Wade ruling in June, many conservative US states passed restrictive abortion laws, including near-total bans. In response, Democrats have been trying to pass a federal law to protect the right to abortion. Currently, they do not have the numbers in the senate, where a legislative procedure known as the filibuster requires 60 votes in the 100-member chamber to pass major legislation. In the last 22 months a record number of migrants and asylum seekers have crossed the southern border. Most recently, Republican governors in Texas, Arizona and Florida have captured national headlines by paying to transport migrants to liberal-leaning northern cities like New York City in what they say is an effort to share the burden. Migrant rights groups, Democratic lawmakers and the White House have denounced the push as cruel political theatre meant to curry votes at the expense of asylum seekers. Republicans are turning opposition to Biden's immigration policies into a political rallying cry. Many Republicans continue to believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and that Trump has been the real winner. Democratic candidates claim that a Republican return to power could fundamentally harm the governing system in the country, especially with the GOP having nominated election deniers to offices up and down the ballot across the country. The United States has witnessed an uptick in homicides and violent crime in 2020 and 2021 a trend that conservatives blame on liberals and progressives that had called to defund the police.

Mass shootings by white extremists, or more properly terrorists, since the days of Obama presidency have also gone up alarmingly. Democrats are pushing for tighter gun restrictions, including a ban on assault weapons that are used in such terrorist acts. In contrast, Republicans are vowing to protect gun access and the second amendment of the US constitution, which grants the right to bear arms. Democrats were once the party favoured by voters to deal with issues of education. Not any longer! Now the politics of education has energized Republicans to seize on the issue of critical race theory to attack Democrats on a range of education-related grievances.

Another set of issues that has risen on the Republican agenda encompasses LGBTQ rights. Florida's Republican governor signed legislation restricting the teaching of gender identity and related issues to students in kindergarten through the third grade. Although as per latest straw polls, Mehmet Oz is in a statistical tie with John Fetterman, it is believed by most neutral poll analysts that he may eventually win the close race. Since his debate with Fetterman, Oz has been gaining support not only amongst the undecided independent voters but also many Democrats who don't think that Fetterman is ready for the Senate job. In 2022, Oz said that Israel is an ally and a vibrant democracy in the world's most troubled region' and that he opposes the BDS movement, supports keeping the US embassy in Jerusalem and supports continued military aid to Israel. When it comes to Israel, as I have noted in my book: Democracy, politics and terrorism America's quest for security in the age of insecurity, and many essays and speeches, politicians in the US.

Democrats and Republicans alike, with very few exceptions, are mortgaged to the apartheid state. Very few politicians would dare to challenge that mighty power. Period. Truly, the political views of Dr Oz on Israel are not too different than those held by Fetterman who said that the US-Israel relationship is a special one that needs to be safeguarded, protected, supported and nurtured through legislation and all available diplomatic efforts in the region'. He supports United States foreign aid to Israel, including Iron Dome funding. Fetterman criticized Congressional Democrats who voted against Iron Dome funding, calling them fringe and extreme. Fetterman has said he supports the right of Israel to defend itself and is passionate in his opposition to the BDS movement. He supported a law signed into law by Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf that barred Pennsylvania from entering into contracts with companies that boycott Israel. Voters have short memories. They have long forgotten about the Biden stimulus packages and the turn-around, battling the Covid pandemic. Foreign policy about the apartheid state will not be the factor when the American voters cast their votes on November 8. It is the cost of survival that may be the deciding factor as to whom they choose. The mid-term elections are often harsh to the ruling party. Keeping with the usual norms, Republicans have a strong chance of taking the House but the Senate is a dead heat, or so it seems. What is now imperative for the US is to get to work in real earnest to ensure its people's democratic rights and improve its system of democracy instead of placing too much emphasis on procedural or formal democracy at the expense of substantive democracy and its outcome.

Confrontation will be a breach of the spirit of solidarity and cooperation which is critical in troubled times. All countries need to rise above differences in systems, reject the mentality of zero-sum game, and pursue genuine multilateralism. All countries need to uphold peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are common values of humanity. It is also important that all countries respect each other, work to expand common ground while shelving differences, promote cooperation for mutual benefit, and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.?What is also imperative for the US is to under take more international responsibilities and provide more public goods to the world instead of always seeking to impose its own brand of democracy on others, use its own values as means to divide the world into different camps, or carry out intervention, subversion and invasion in other countries under the pretext of promoting democracy. The international community is now faced with pressing challenges of a global scale, from the Covid-19 pandemic, economic slow down to the climate change crisis. No country can be immune from these risks and challenges. All countries should pull together. This is the best way forward to overcome these adversities. Any attempt to push for a single or absolute model of democracy, use democracy as an instrument or weapon in international relations, or advocate bloc politics and bloc.


Rayhan Ahmed Topader
is a researcher and a columnist.