Trump v American democracy: the real battle on the ballot this November

The soaring oratory had been replaced by visible anguish. Barack Obama stood in Philadelphia, where the signing of the constitution laid the foundation stone of American democracy, and warned that his successor is ready to tear it all down to cling to power. Last week’s unprecedented attack by a former president on an incumbent at the virtual Democratic national convention crystalised fears that Trump poses a more severe danger to the 244-year-old American experiment than any foreign adversary. Whereas in 2016 Vladimir Putin’s Russia meddled in an election, now it is the current occupant of the White House who seems hellbent on subverting an American election.“The greatest threat facing the nation was an insider threat and still is,” Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, told the MSNBC network this week. “The insider threat is sitting in the Oval Office.”Trump will this week be nominated by the Republican party for a second term as president. He will give his acceptance speech from the White House, a break from tradition that signals the formidable tools of incumbency at his disposal. This time, critics say, Trump is running two campaigns. One is a brutally partisan attempt to demonize his opponent Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, the first woman of colour on a major party ticket, whom he has already dubbed “mean”, “nasty” and “a mad woman”. The other is an insidious and potentially catastrophic campaign against the integrity of the election itself. The boundary-pushing president has spent four years eroding the rule of law, upending constitutional norms and slandering the intelligence community. In recent months, faced with dismal polls that show him losing, he has worked to spread disinformation, sow distrust in democratic institutions and plant doubts over whether the election will be a free and fair capture of the popular will. Trump has floated the idea of postponing the election because of the coronavirus pandemic, though he has no power to do so. He has repeatedly refused to say whether he will accept the result, prompting a once unthinkable debate over how he might be physically removed from the White House. At a campaign stop in Wisconsin last week, he warned baldly: “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged."

All data is taken from the source: https://www.theguardian.com/
Article Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/23/donald-trump-v-democracy-us-election


#election #carteretnewstimes #austintexasnews #news #nytimes #cnn #newsnow