The world waits as a nation votes

Elections are held supposedly to let the voice of the people be heard – one person/one vote, as long as you meet the age (so you are supposedly mature enough to discern right from wrong, to choose what is good over what is bad…as I said, supposedly) and residency (for local polls) requirements. So rich or poor, GenZ (or whatever) or senior, PhD or no read/no write ( I think thumbprints are still accepted?), you get to cast one ballot, and if there are enough of you who think alike, who like the same candidate, then he/she wins.

That is in an ideal world, and the spirit behind democratic elections. A “government of the people, by the people and for the people” – as famously proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg in 1863 – is an idealistic vision, and it can easily – and probably convincingly – be argued that in today’s crazy, convoluted, messed up, tossed up world, it is a nearly impossible ideal.

The United States, where those lofty ideals were born, goes to the polls today (actually tomorrow, Wednesday, Manila time) in a most crucial election, not just for them but for the world. The US is so polarized, with family members on opposite sides of the political fence no longer speaking to each other. I wonder what Thanksgiving dinner will be like this year for such families, if Thanksgiving dinner is held at all (one friend is considering cancelling their reunion and making an early vacation to the Philippines instead; even Fil-Am families have not been spared this political animosity).

The race is so tight, only the bravest – or most die-hard – pundits have made a call. Supporters of Trump have said that it’ll be a “landslide or fraud” – and there are supposedly plans being prepared to address the latter. There are rumors (according to my almost vacationing Fil-Am friend) that the National Guard and DC police have likewise made preparations for – as we here love to say – “any eventuality.” If that eventuality means – as it did on Jan. 6, 2020 – chaos and violence, then that would be the real tragedy – the death of the democratic ideal.

The two candidates could not be more different – 18 years apart in age (60 vs 78, that’s almost a generation!), a mixed race empowered woman and a white macho male. Their policies, personal and political beliefs, positions on crucial issues like immigration, foreign policy, taxes, defense, health care, right to life… are poles apart.

As big a chasm as apparently separates the candidates, similarly huge chasms separate their followers. Supporters of Kamala cannot understand why Trumpists can knowingly vote for and support a convicted felon who mouths off wild policies and incoherent statements (and who, again according to my soon-to-return Fil-Am friend, simulated oral sex on stage at one of his latest rallies), while Trump supporters cannot get why people would vote for one who would simply continue failed government policies, support foreign wars with American taxpayers’ money and who hasn’t done much in four years in the nation’s second highest office.

The fate of the world’s most powerful nation hangs in the balance, in the hands of the strange agency called the Electoral College (no matter how many articles explaining it I have read, I still don’t get it). In many ways, as many others have written, our nation’s fate is at stake too, not directly, but for sure we will be affected by whether the US of A goes Blue or Red.