Slowly, painfully and alarmingly, US President Donald Trump has been conceding the US presidency to US president-elect Joe Biden. Over the weekend, Trump’s close friend, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, called his delay “a national embarrassment,” joining judges, aides and other US Republican politicians.
The world has erupted in a chorus of derision at the state of US democracy, polluted by corruption, fake news and money.
Countries whose leaders would not dream of risking an open election, let alone conceding one, mimic Moscow in ridiculing the “obvious shortcomings in the American electoral system,” while Beijing celebrates by preparing to jail a clutch of Hong Kong democrats.
The reality is the opposite: US historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr said that the US constitution regularly takes its grand coalition of diverse peoples to the brink of disintegration, shows them disaster and pulls them back.
Trump in 2016 was a populist candidate who ran for election on a pseudo-revolutionary ticket against the Washington establishment. Although he won fewer votes than his opponent, former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, a US Electoral College biased to protect the interests of small states against big ones gave him the presidency.
In office, Trump ran up huge debts, was a bully and a xenophobe, and relentlessly attacked all centers of establishment power.
The economy boomed — and US political participation soared. At this month’s US presidential election, the turnout of 67 percent was the highest in more than a century.
Biden’s popular lead over Trump was not much bigger than Clinton’s in 2016, and the Electoral College tilted his way, rather than against.
INCREASED SUPPORT
However, Trump’s popular vote rose and did so among surprising groups, including Hispanic, black and female voters. His “outsiders” stuck with him and told him to finish the job.
Exit polls showed that what helped to give Biden the victory was increased support among white men. Many of them were saying that they had gotten the point of Trump and wanted to be rid of him.
Almost as large a group was warning that it felt ignored and alienated, and that no one should take democracy for granted. It has flashed that warning not once, but twice — Trump might yet return.
Of all the great political unions that emerged from the age of empire, the US has proved the most robust, with a hesitant nod toward India. Such unions are seldom entirely stable. Their survival requires constitutions capable of accommodating disparate peoples, regions and interests — and to do so peacefully.
The US constitution, so baffling to outsiders, was designed in the 18th century to bind together a union rightly seen as vulnerable. Yet it built what became the world’s dominant great power and while delivering leaders as diverse as former US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, it has survived them all.
Few would contend that Trump has been anything other than an aberration, but if he was testing the US constitution to destruction, it passed the test.
Biden should receive every support in restoring his country’s dignity and good faith, and other unions — not least that of the UK — should look to their own.
They all have their Trumps in waiting. All have lessons to learn.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
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