Anger and fear have greeted the return to power of former US strongman Donald Trump, a corrupt far-white extremist coup plotter who is also a convicted felon and rapist, following this week’s shock presidential election result.

Ethnic tensions have been on the rise with members of the historically oppressed minority Black ethnic group reporting receiving threatening text messages, warning of a return to an era of enslavement.

In a startling editorial, the tension-wracked country’s paper of record, The New York Times, declared that the country had made “a perilous choice” and that its fragile democracy was now on “a precarious course”.

• READ MORE: Kamala Harris’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza ‘betrayal of true feminism’
• ‘All-out catastrophe’: Famine fears as Israeli siege of north Gaza tightens
• Pacific nation leaders look forward to strengthened US relations with Trump
• All in all, Trump’s election is a calamity in he making — Paul Buchanan
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

President-elect Trump’s victory marks the second time in eight years the extremist leader, who is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of using campaign funds to pay off a porn star he had cheated on his wife with, has defeated a female opponent from the ruling Democratic Party.

Women continue to struggle to reach the highest office in the deeply conservative nation where their rights are increasingly under attack and child marriage is widespread.

This has prompted traumatised supporters of Vice-President Kamala Harris, who had been handpicked to replace the unpopular, ageing incumbent, Joe Biden, to accuse American voters of racism to sexism.

“It’s misogyny from Hispanic men, it’s misogyny from Black . . . who do not want a woman leading them,” insisted one TV anchor, adding that there “might be race issues with Hispanics that don’t want a Black woman as president of the United States.”

Hateful tribal rhetoric
The hateful tribal rhetoric has also included social media posts calling for any people of mixed race who failed to vote for Harris to be deported and for intensification of the genocide in Gaza due to Arab-American rejection of Harris over her support for the continued provision of weapons to the brutal apartheid state committing it.

America Makes a Perilous Choice https://t.co/sKW5ZZa3Q3

— Xandre Rodríguez (@xandrerodriguez) November 6, 2024

“Victory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan,” goes the saying popularised by former US President John F Kennedy, who was shot 61 years ago this month.

The reluctance to attribute the loss to the grave and gratuitous missteps made by the Harris campaign has mystified America-watchers around the world.

As an example, analysts point to her wholesale embrace of the Biden regime’s genocidal policy in the Middle East despite opinion polls showing that it was alienating voters.

Harris and her supporters had tried to counter that by claiming that Trump would also be genocidal and that she would ameliorate the pain of bereaved families in the US by lowering the price of groceries.

However, the election results showed that this was not a message voters appreciated. “Genocide is bad politics,” said one Arab-American activist.

Worried over democracy
As the scale of the extremists’ electoral win becomes increasingly clear, having taken control of not just the presidency but the upper house of Congress as well, many are worried about the prospects for democracy in the US which is still struggling to emerge from Trump’s first term.

Despite conceding defeat, Harris has pledged to continue to “wage this fight” even as pro-democracy protests have broken out in several cities, raising fears of violence and political uncertainty in the gun-strewn country.

This could imperil stability in North America and sub-Scandinavian Europe where a Caucasian Spring democratic revolution has failed to take hold, and a plethora of white-wing authoritarian populists have instead come to power across the region.

However, there is a silver lining. The elections themselves were a massive improvement over the chaotic and shambolic, disputed November 2020 presidential polls which paved the way for a failed putsch two months later.

This time, the voting was largely peaceful and there was relatively little delay in releasing results, a remarkable achievement for the numeracy-challenged nation where conspiracy theorists remain suspicious about the Islamic origins of mathematics, seeing it is as a ploy by the terror group “Al Jibra” to introduce Sharia Law to the US.

In the coming months and years, there will be a need for the international community to stay engaged with the US and assist the country to try and undertake much-needed reforms to its electoral and governance systems, including changes to its constitution.

During the campaigns, Harris loyalists warned that a win by Trump could lead to the complete gutting of its weak democratic systems, an outcome the world must work hard to avoid.

However, figuring out how to support reform in the US and engage with a Trump regime while not being seen to legitimise the election of a man convicted of serious crimes, will be a tricky challenge for the globe’s mature Third-World democracies.

Many may be forced to limit direct contact with him. “Choices have consequences,” as a US diplomat eloquently put it 11 years ago.

Patrick Gathara is a Kenyan journalist, cartoonist, blogger and author. He is also senior editor for inclusive storytelling at The New Humanitarian. This article was first published by Al Jazeera and is republished under Creative Commons.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Anger and fear have greeted the return to power of former US strongman Donald Trump, a corrupt far-white extremist coup plotter who is also a convicted felon and rapist, following this week’s shock presidential election result.

Ethnic tensions have been on the rise with members of the historically oppressed minority Black ethnic group reporting receiving threatening text messages, warning of a return to an era of enslavement.

In a startling editorial, the tension-wracked country’s paper of record, The New York Times, declared that the country had made “a perilous choice” and that its fragile democracy was now on “a precarious course”.

• READ MORE: Kamala Harris’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza ‘betrayal of true feminism’
• ‘All-out catastrophe’: Famine fears as Israeli siege of north Gaza tightens
• Pacific nation leaders look forward to strengthened US relations with Trump
• All in all, Trump’s election is a calamity in he making — Paul Buchanan
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

President-elect Trump’s victory marks the second time in eight years the extremist leader, who is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of using campaign funds to pay off a porn star he had cheated on his wife with, has defeated a female opponent from the ruling Democratic Party.

Women continue to struggle to reach the highest office in the deeply conservative nation where their rights are increasingly under attack and child marriage is widespread.

This has prompted traumatised supporters of Vice-President Kamala Harris, who had been handpicked to replace the unpopular, ageing incumbent, Joe Biden, to accuse American voters of racism to sexism.

“It’s misogyny from Hispanic men, it’s misogyny from Black . . . who do not want a woman leading them,” insisted one TV anchor, adding that there “might be race issues with Hispanics that don’t want a Black woman as president of the United States.”

Hateful tribal rhetoric
The hateful tribal rhetoric has also included social media posts calling for any people of mixed race who failed to vote for Harris to be deported and for intensification of the genocide in Gaza due to Arab-American rejection of Harris over her support for the continued provision of weapons to the brutal apartheid state committing it.

America Makes a Perilous Choice https://t.co/sKW5ZZa3Q3

— Xandre Rodríguez (@xandrerodriguez) November 6, 2024

“Victory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan,” goes the saying popularised by former US President John F Kennedy, who was shot 61 years ago this month.

The reluctance to attribute the loss to the grave and gratuitous missteps made by the Harris campaign has mystified America-watchers around the world.

As an example, analysts point to her wholesale embrace of the Biden regime’s genocidal policy in the Middle East despite opinion polls showing that it was alienating voters.

Harris and her supporters had tried to counter that by claiming that Trump would also be genocidal and that she would ameliorate the pain of bereaved families in the US by lowering the price of groceries.

However, the election results showed that this was not a message voters appreciated. “Genocide is bad politics,” said one Arab-American activist.

Worried over democracy
As the scale of the extremists’ electoral win becomes increasingly clear, having taken control of not just the presidency but the upper house of Congress as well, many are worried about the prospects for democracy in the US which is still struggling to emerge from Trump’s first term.

Despite conceding defeat, Harris has pledged to continue to “wage this fight” even as pro-democracy protests have broken out in several cities, raising fears of violence and political uncertainty in the gun-strewn country.

This could imperil stability in North America and sub-Scandinavian Europe where a Caucasian Spring democratic revolution has failed to take hold, and a plethora of white-wing authoritarian populists have instead come to power across the region.

However, there is a silver lining. The elections themselves were a massive improvement over the chaotic and shambolic, disputed November 2020 presidential polls which paved the way for a failed putsch two months later.

This time, the voting was largely peaceful and there was relatively little delay in releasing results, a remarkable achievement for the numeracy-challenged nation where conspiracy theorists remain suspicious about the Islamic origins of mathematics, seeing it is as a ploy by the terror group “Al Jibra” to introduce Sharia Law to the US.

In the coming months and years, there will be a need for the international community to stay engaged with the US and assist the country to try and undertake much-needed reforms to its electoral and governance systems, including changes to its constitution.

During the campaigns, Harris loyalists warned that a win by Trump could lead to the complete gutting of its weak democratic systems, an outcome the world must work hard to avoid.

However, figuring out how to support reform in the US and engage with a Trump regime while not being seen to legitimise the election of a man convicted of serious crimes, will be a tricky challenge for the globe’s mature Third-World democracies.

Many may be forced to limit direct contact with him. “Choices have consequences,” as a US diplomat eloquently put it 11 years ago.

Patrick Gathara is a Kenyan journalist, cartoonist, blogger and author. He is also senior editor for inclusive storytelling at The New Humanitarian. This article was first published by Al Jazeera and is republished under Creative Commons.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at Donald Trump’s return to the White House, we turn now to look at what it means for the world, from Israel’s war on Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During his victory speech, Trump vowed that he was going to “stop wars”.

But what will Trump’s foreign policy actually look like?

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Fatima Bhutto, award-winning author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways, New Kings of the World. She is co-editing a book along with Sonia Faleiro titled Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year. She writes a monthly column for Zeteo.

Start off by just responding to Trump’s runaway victory across the United States, Fatima.

Fatima Bhutto on the Kamala Harris “support for genocide”.   Video: Democracy Now!

FATIMA BHUTTO: Well, Amy, I don’t think it’s an aberration that he won. I think it’s an aberration that he lost in 2020. And I think anyone looking at the American elections for the last year, even longer, could see very clearly that the Democrats were speaking to — I’m not sure who, to a hall of mirrors.

They ran an incredibly weak and actually macabre campaign, to see Kamala Harris describe her politics as one of joy as she promised the most lethal military in the world, talking about women’s rights in America, essentially focusing those rights on the right to termination, while the rest of the world has watched women slaughtered in Gaza for 13 months straight.

You know, it’s very curious to think that they thought a winning strategy was Beyoncé and that Taylor Swift was somehow a political winning strategy that was going to defeat — who? — Trump, who was speaking to people, who was speaking against wars. You know, whether we believe him or not, it was a marked difference from what Kamala Harris was saying and was not saying.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fatima, you wrote a piece for Zeteo earlier this year titled “Gaza Has Exposed the Shameful Hypocrisy of Western Feminism.” So, you just mentioned the irony of Kamala Harris as, you know, the second presidential candidate who is a woman, where so much of the campaign was about women, and the fact that — you know, of what’s been unfolding on women, against women and children in Gaza for the last year. If you could elaborate?

FATIMA BHUTTO: Yeah, we’ve seen, Nermeen, over the last year, you know, 70 percent of those slaughtered in Gaza by Israel and, let’s also be clear, by America, because it’s American bombs and American diplomatic cover that allows this slaughter to continue unabated — 70 percent of those victims are women and children.

We have watched children with their heads blown off. We have watched children with no surviving family members find themselves in hospital with limbs missing. Gaza has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. And we have seen newborns left to die as Israel switches off electricity and fuel of hospitals.

So, for Kamala Harris to come out and talk repeatedly about abortion, and I say this as someone who is pro-choice, who has always been pro-choice, was not just macabre, but it’s obscene. It’s an absolute betrayal of feminism, because feminism is about liberation. It’s not about termination.

And it’s about protecting women at their most vulnerable and at their most frightened. And there was no sign of that. You know, we also saw Kamala Harris bring out celebrities. I mean, the utter vacuousness of bringing out Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and others to talk about being a mother, while mothers are being widowed, are being orphaned in Gaza, it was not just tone deaf, it seemed to have a certain hostility, a certain contempt for the suffering that the rest of us have been watching.

I’d also like to add a point about toxic masculinity. There was so much toxicity in Kamala Harris’s campaign. You know, I watched her laugh with Oprah as she spoke about shooting someone who might enter her house with a gun, and giggling and saying her PR team may not like that, but she would kill them.

You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy, as we’ve seen very clearly from this election cycle.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Fatima Bhutto, if you look at what Trump represented, and certainly the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, Jewish progressives, young people, African-Americans certainly understood what Trump’s policy was when he was president.

And it’s rare, you know, a president comes back to serve again after a term away. It’s only happened once before in history.

But you have, for example, Trump moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. You have an illegal settlement named after Trump in the West Bank. The whole question of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies in Israel pushing for annexation of the West Bank, where Trump would stand on this.

And, of course, you have the Abraham Accords, which many Palestinians felt left them out completely. If you can talk about this? These were put forward by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, when the massive Gaza destruction was at its height, talked about Gaza as waterfront real estate.

FATIMA BHUTTO: Absolutely. There’s no question that Trump has been a malign force, not just when it concerns Palestinians, but, frankly, out in the world. But I would argue there’s not very much difference between what these two administrations or parties do. The difference is that Trump doesn’t have the gloss and the charisma of an Obama or — I mean, I can’t even say that Biden has charisma, but certainly the gloss.

Trump says it. They do it. The difference — I can’t really tell the difference anymore.

We saw the Biden administration send over 500 shipments of arms to Israel, betraying America’s own laws, the fact that they are not allowed to export weapons of war to a country committing gross violations of human rights. We saw Bill Clinton trotted out in Michigan to tell Muslims that, actually, they should stop killing Israelis and that Jews were there before them.

I mean, it was an utterly contemptuous speech. So, what is the difference exactly?

We saw Bernie Sanders, who was mentioned earlier, write an op-ed in The Guardian in the days before the election, warning people that if they were not to vote for Kamala Harris, if Donald Trump was to get in, think about the climate crisis. Well, we have watched Israel’s emissions in the first five months of their deadly attack on Gaza release more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations release in a year.

So, I don’t quite see that there’s a difference between what Democrats allow and what Trump brags about. I think it’s just a question of crudeness and decorum and politeness. One has it, and one doesn’t. In a sense, Trump is much clearer for the rest of the world, because he says what he’s going to do, and, you know, you take him at his word, whereas we have been gaslit and lied to by Antony Blinken on a daily basis now since October 7th.

Every time that AOC or Kamala Harris spoke about fighting desperately for a ceasefire, we saw more carnage, more massacres and Israel committing crimes with total impunity. You know, it wasn’t under Trump that Israel has killed more journalists than have ever been killed in any recorded conflict. It’s under Biden that Israel has killed more UN workers than have ever been killed in the UN’s history. So, I’m not sure there’s a difference.

And, you know, we’ll have to wait to see in the months ahead. But I don’t think anyone is bracing for an upturn. Certainly, people didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. I’m not sure they voted for Trump. We know that she lost 14 million votes from Biden’s win in 2020. And we know that those votes just didn’t come out for the Democrats. Some may have migrated to Trump. Some may have gone to third parties. But 14 million just didn’t go anywhere.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Fatima, if you could, you know, tell us what do you think the reasons are for that? I mean, the kind of — as you said, because it is really horrifying, what has unfolded in Gaza in the last 13 months. You’ve written about this. You now have an edited anthology that you’re editing, co-editing. You know, what do you think accounts for this, the sheer disregard for the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza?

FATIMA BHUTTO: It’s a total racism on the part not just of America, but I’m speaking of the West here. This has been betrayed over the last year, the fact that Ukraine is spoken about with an admiration, you know, Zelensky is spoken about with a sort of hero worship, Ukrainian resisters to Russia’s invasion are valorised.

You know, Nancy Pelosi wore a bracelet of bullets used by the Ukrainian resistance against Trump [sic]. But Palestinians are painted as terrorists, are dehumanised to such an extent. You know, we saw that dehumanisation from the mouths of Bill Clinton no less, from the mouths of Kamala Harris, who interrupted somebody speaking out against the genocide, and saying, “I am speaking.”

What is more toxically masculine than that?

We’ve also seen a concerted crackdown in universities across the United States on college students. I’m speaking also here of my own alma mater of Columbia University, of Barnard College, that called the NYPD, who fired live ammunition at the students. You know, this didn’t happen — this extreme response didn’t happen in protests against apartheid. It didn’t happen in protests against Vietnam in quite the same way.

And all I can think is, America and the West, who have been fighting Muslim countries for the last 25, 30 years, see that as acceptable to do so. Our deaths are acceptable to them, and genocide is not a red line.

And, you know, to go back to what what was mentioned earlier about the working class, that is absolutely ignored in America — and I would make the argument across the West, too — they have watched administration after, you know, president and congressmen give billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine, while they have no relief at home.

They have no relief from debt. They have no relief from student debt. They have no medical care, no coverage. They’re struggling to survive. And this is across the board. And after Ukraine, they saw billions go to Israel in the same way, while they get, frankly, nothing.

AMY GOODMAN: Fatima Bhutto, we want to thank you so much for being with us, award-winning author of a number of works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways and New Kings of the World, co-editing a book called Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year, writes a monthly column for Zeteo.

Coming up, we look at Trump’s vow to deport as many as 20 million immigrants and JD Vance saying, yes, US children born of immigrant parents could also be deported.

Republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Surveying the wreckage of the US elections, here are some observations that have emerged:

Campaigns based on hope do not always defeat campaigns based on fear.

Having dozens of retired high ranking military and diplomatic officials warn against the danger Donald Trump poses to democracy (including people who worked for him) did not matter to many voters.

• READ MORE: America makes a perilous choice – The New York Times
• Trump 2.0 will not be like anything we have seen before – the US and the world should be prepared for the second coming of Trump and the new global order he will try to create
• Other US elections reports
• Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning’s weekly global affairs podcasts

Likewise, having former politicians and hundreds of academics, intellectuals, legal scholars, community leaders and social activists repudiate Trump’s policies of division mattered not an iota to the voting majority.

Nor did Kamala Harris’s endorsement by dozens of high profile celebrities make a difference to the MAGA mob.

Raising +US$ billion in political donations did not produce victory got Harris. It turns out outspending the opponent is not the key to electoral success.

Incoherent racist and xenophobic rants (“they are eating the dogs, they are eating the cats”) did not give the MAGA mob any pause when considering their choices. In fact, it appears that the resort to crude depictions of opponents (“stupid KaMAla”)and scapegoats (like Puerto Ricans) strengthened the bond between Trump and his supporters.

‘Garbage can’ narrative
Macroeconomic and social indicators such as higher employment and lower crime and undocumented immigrant numbers could not overcome the MAGA narrative that the US was “the garbage can of the world.”

Nor could Harris, despite her accomplished resume in all three government branches at the local, state and federal levels, overcome the narrative that she was “dumb” and a DEI hire who was promoted for reasons other than merit.

It did not matter to the MAGA mob that Trump threatened retribution against his opponents, real and imagined, using the Federal State as his instrument of revenge.

Age was not a factor even though Trump displays evident signs of cognitive decline.

Reproductive rights were not the watershed issue many thought that they would be, including for many female voters. Conversely, the MAGA efforts to court “bro” support via social media catering to younger men worked very well.

In a way, this is a double setback for women: as an issue of bodily autonomy and as an issue of gender equality given the attitudes of Trump endorsers like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate. Those angry younger men interact with females, and their misogyny has now been reaffirmed as part of a political winning strategy.

Ukraine, Europe much to fear
Ukraine and Western Europe have much to fear.

So does the federal bureaucracy and regulatory system, which will now be subject to Project 2025, Elon Musk’s razor gang approach to public spending and RFK Jr’s public health edicts.

In fact, it looks like the Trump second term approach to governance will take a page out of Argentine president Javier Milei’s “chainsaw” approach, with results that will be similar but far broader in scope if implemented in the same way.

So all in all, from where I sit it looks like a bit of a calamity in the making. But then again, I am just another fool with a “woke” degree.

Dr Paul G Buchanan is the director of 36th-Parallel Assessments, a geopolitical and strategic analysis consultancy. This article is republished with the permission of the author.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Tongan and Fijian prime ministers are among the first Pacific Island leaders to congratulate US President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump, 78, returned to the White House on Wednesday by securing more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, according to Edison Research projections.

Tonga’s Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, who is also the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum said on X, formerly Twitter, that he is looking forward to advancing Tonga-US bilateral relationship and the Pacific interests and initiatives.

• READ MORE: US votes as Gaza burns – Trump ‘declares victory’ in election
• US presidential election holds high stakes for Pacific relations
• How the US election may affect Pacific Island nations
• Donald Trump ‘unfit to lead’ – vote for Harris, warns New York Times
• Other US presidential elections reports
• View the complete CNMI results

Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka said it was his sincere hope and prayer that Trump’s return to the White House “will be marked by the delivery of peace, unity, progress, and prosperity for all Americans, and the community of nations”.

Rabuka also said Fiji was looking forward to deepening bilateral ties with America as well as furthering shared aspirations including, promoting peace and economic prosperity in the Pacific and beyond.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minsiter James Marape today congratulated Trump, saying: “We look forward to reinforcing the longstanding partnership between our nations, grounded in shared values and mutual respect.”

Marape also expressed gratitude for outgoing President Joe Biden’s service and Kamala Harris’s “spirited challenge” for the presidency.

Similar policies
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said both the Democrats and Republics had similar policies on the Indo-Pacific and he did not expect much change.

“The US has reengaged with the Pacific in terms of diplomatic representation and increased people-to-people engagements,” Brown was quoted as saying by Cook Islands News.

“From a bipartisan perspective I don’t see any drastic changes in US policy on what they have termed as the Indo-Pacific strategy.

“Both Dems and Reps have similar policies on the Indo-Pacific. I don’t expect much change.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This morning, I am afraid. I am very afraid.

I fear that by the time I go to bed democracy in the United States will be imperilled by a man, the nature of which the Founding Fathers could never envisage when creating the protective elements of the constitution.

The risks will not be to Americans alone. The world will become a different place with Donald J Trump once again becoming president.

• READ MORE: World reactions as Donald Trump wins US presidential election after a turbulent and defiant campaign
• Donald Trump ‘unfit to lead’ – vote for Harris, warns New York Times
• Other US presidential elections reports

My trepidation is tempered only by the fact that no-one can be sure he has the numbers to gain sufficient votes in the electoral college that those same founding fathers devised as a power-sharing devise between federal and state governments. They could not have foreseen how it could become the means by which a fraction of voters could determine their country’s future.

Or perhaps that is contributing to my disquiet. No-one has been able to give me the comfort of predicting a win by Kamala Harris.

In fact, none of the smart money has been ready to call it one way or the other.

The New Zealand Herald’s business editor at large, Liam Dann, predicted a Trump win the other day but his reasoning was more visceral than analytical:

Trump provides an altogether more satisfying prescription for change. He allows them to vent their anger. He taps into the rage bubbling beneath America’s polite and friendly exterior. He provides an outlet for frustration, which is much simpler than opponents to his left can offer.

That’s why he might well win. Momentum seems to be going his way.

He is a master salesman and he is selling into a market that is disillusioned with the vague promises they’ve been hearing from mainstream politicians for generations.

Heightened anxiety
Few others — including his brother Corin, who is in the US covering the election for Radio New Zealand — have been willing to make the call and today dawned no clearer.

That may be one reason for my heightened anxiety . . . the lack of certainty one way or the other.

All of our major media outlets have had staff in the States for the election (most with some support from the US government) and each has tried to tap into the “mood of the people”, particularly in the swing states. Each has done a professional job, but it has been no easy task and, to be honest, I have no idea what the real thinking of the electorate might be.

One of my waking nightmares is that the electorate isn’t thinking at all. In which case, Liam Dann’s reading of the entrails might be as good a guide as any.

I have attempted to cope with the avalanche of reportage, analysis and outright punditry from CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. I have tried to get a more detached view from the BBC, Guardian, and (God help me) Daily Mail. I have made my head hurt playing with The Economist’s poll prediction models.

I am no closer to predicting a winner than anyone else.

However, I do know what scares me.

If Donald Trump takes up residence in the White House again, the word “freedom” will lose its true meaning and become a captured phrase ring-fencing what the victor and his followers want.

Validating disinformation
“Media freedom” will validate disinformation and make truth harder to find. News organisations that seek to hold Trump and a compliant Congress to account will be demonised, perhaps penalised.

As president again, Trump could rend American society to a point where it may take decades for the wound to heal and leave residual feelings that will last even longer. That will certainly be the case if he attempts to subvert the democratic process to extend power beyond his finite term.

I worry for the rest of the world, trying to contend with erratic foreign policies that put the established order in peril and place the freedom of countries like Ukraine in jeopardy. I dread the way in which his policies could empower despots like Vladimir Putin. By definition, as a world power, the United States’ actions affect all of us — and Trump’s influence will be pervasive.

You may think my fears could be allayed by the possibility that he will not return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Were Kamala Harris facing any other candidate, that would certainly be the case. However, Donald Trump is not any other candidate and he has demonstrated an intense dislike of losing.

I am alarmed by the possibility that, if he fails to get the required 270 electoral votes, Donald Trump could again cry “voter fraud” and light the touch paper offered to him by the likes of the Proud Boys. They had a practice run on January 6, 2021. If there is a next time, it could well be worse.

Sometimes, my wife accuses me of unjustified optimism. When I think of the Americans I have met and those I know well, I recall that the vast majority of them have had a reasonable amount of common sense. Some have had it in abundance. I can only hope that across that nation common sense prevails today.

I am more than a little worried, however, that on this occasion my wife might be right.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes the website knightlyviews.com where this commentary — written before the election results started coming in — was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

As Americans voted for their next president, Israel has continued its attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has declared victory over Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, after being projected to win the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, reports Al Jazeera.

According to AP, the Republican Party was also projected to win back control of the Senate  and on track to control the House of Representatives as well.

• READ MORE:  US presidential election holds high stakes for Pacific relations
• How the US election may affect Pacific Island nations
• Donald Trump ‘unfit to lead’ – vote for Harris, warns New York Times
• Other US presidential elections reports
• View the complete CNMI results

Trump was projected so far to win 267 electoral votes — three short of the necessary 270 to win — while Harris was on 224 as counting continued.

Commentator Marwan Bishara said “Trump 2.0 spells the decline and potential demise of American liberalism, as we know it, both domestically and internationally.”

Trump 2.0 spells the decline and potential demise of American liberalism, as we know it, both domestically and internationally. Dominating the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court will enable him to do and get away with almost anything …

— Marwan (@marwanbishara) November 6, 2024

Meanwhile, Israel is reported to have killed at least 61 people across Gaza in the 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday morning.

Dozens of people were also fleeing Beit Lahiya in the north, the latest forced displacement by Israel’s military, which was also shelling the Kamal Adwan Hospital for a third day.

Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi reported on the latest attacks and what the US election could mean for Israel’s genocidal war:

US votes, Gaza burns.        Video: Al Jazeera

Israel was also in turmoil with thousands of protesters rallying in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to protest over the sudden sacking of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Netanyahu and Gallant had reportedly been at odds over the war in Gaza.

But news reports said Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival before taking the step as the world’s attention was focused on the US presidential election.

Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” in his announcement as he replaced Gallant with former Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who has limited defence experience, in the midst of wars on two fronts.

The protesters called on the government to prioritise a hostage deal to return the captives still held in Gaza.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The leading Cook Islands environmental lobby group says that if Donald Trump wins the United States elections — and he seemed to be on target to succeed as results were rolling in tonight — he will push back on climate change negotiations made since he was last in office.

As voters in the US cast their votes on who would be the next president, Trump or US Vice-President Kamala Harris, the question for most Pacific Islands countries is what this will mean for them?

“If Trump wins, it will push back on any progress that has been made in the climate change negotiations since he was last in office,” said Te Ipukarea Society’s Kelvin Passfield.

• READ MORE:  US presidential election holds high stakes for Pacific relations
• How the US election may affect Pacific Island nations
• Donald Trump ‘unfit to lead’ – vote for Harris, warns New York Times
• Other US presidential elections reports
• View the complete CNMI results

“It won’t be good for the Pacific Islands in terms of US support for climate change. We have not heard too much on Kamala Harris’s climate policy, but she would have to be better than Trump.”

The current President Joe Biden and his administration made some efforts to connect with Pacific leaders.

Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies senior lecturer Dr Anna Powles said a potential win for Harris could be the fulfilment of the many “promises” made to the Pacific for climate financing, uplifting economies of the Pacific and bolstering defence security.

Dr Powles said Pacific leaders want Harris to deliver on the Pacific Partnership Strategy, the outcomes of the two Pacific Islands-US summits in 2022 and 2023, and the many diplomatic visits undertaken during President Biden’s presidency.

Diplomatic relationships
The Biden administration recognised Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign and independent states and established diplomatic relationships with them.

The Biden-Harris government had pledged to boost funding to the Green Climate Fund by US$3 billion at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates.

Harris has said in the past that climate change is an existential threat and has also promised to “tackle the climate crisis with bold action, build a clean energy economy, advance environmental justice, and increase resilience to climate disasters”.

Dr Powles said that delivery needed to be the focus.

She said the US Elections would no doubt have an impact on small island nations facing climate change and intensified geopolitics.

Dr Powles said it came as “no surprise” that countries such as New Zealand and Australia had increasingly aligned with the US, as the Biden administration had been leveraging strategic partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan since 2018.

She said a return to Trump’s leadership could derail ongoing efforts to build security architecture in the Pacific.

Pull back from Pacific
There are also views that Trump would pull back from the Pacific and focus on internal matters, directly impacting his nation.

For Trump, there is no mention of the climate crisis in his platform or Agenda47.

This is in line with the former president’s past actions, such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2019, citing “unfair economic burdens” placed on American workers and businesses.

Trump has maintained his position that the climate crisis is “one of the great scams of all time”.

Republished with permission from the Cook Islands News and RNZ Pacific.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

With Election Day for one of the most consequential United States presidential races in recent history underway, Pasifika communities on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are considering how a new administration could impact US-Pacific relations.

Roy Tongilava, a public policy professional and Pacific community advocate in the United States, hopes to see improved US-Pacific relations under either a Harris or Trump administration.

“I’m not an expert in foreign affairs, but my hope would be that either a presidency under Harris or under Trump would continue to build those relations, to build those investments, to really help not only combat climate change but also to really aid in the Pacific development, which is inherently connected to what I believe is the Pacific Islander American experience,” he said.

• Watch the full PMN interview with Roy Tongilava

• READ MORE: Al Jazeera US elections live updates
• How the US election may affect Pacific Island nations
• Donald Trump ‘unfit to lead’ – vote for Harris, warns New York Times
• Other US presidential elections reports
• View the complete CNMI results

New Zealand political commentator and former chair of the National Party’s Pacific Blues group, Christian Malietoa-Brown, is backing Donald Trump in the presidential race.

He says the Pacific is caught in a “tug-of-war” between major powers like the US and China, with Australia playing an increasingly significant role.

“For me, I think in terms of long-term investment, Trump likes to prevent war by showing strength . . .  I think they [the US] will strategically put some investments here just because they don’t want China running around too much in this area for defence reasons.

“Under the Biden administration, we saw record investment down this way in the Pacific region, obviously to try and push away China’s influence in the region,” Malietoa-Brown says.

• Watch the full PMN interview with Christian Malietoa-Brown

Picking a big player
“So you have China, you have America, you have Russia, you have India that’s coming up big,” Malietoa-Brown said.

“And if I had to pick a big player to be in charge of the world, I would pretty much stick to America as it is right now, because that’s the devil we know, rather than someone else that we don’t know. And that’s probably purely a selfish thing.”

Tongilava agrees that the Joe Biden administration has been positive for the Pacific region in terms of investment.

“The Biden administration has pumped record investment into the Pacific to a number of things, infrastructure, education, all of that. Ultimately, though, to try and cool off and push away China’s advances towards this region.

“We’ve seen Vice-President Harris during her time as Vicep-President really commit to climate change as well as building relations within the Pacific region,” he said.

Education concerns
For Tongilava, who is part of the South Pacific Islander Organization (SPIO), a nonpartisan non-profit organisation that champions education and workforce development for Pacific youth, this election has serious implications for youth.

“Our mission is laser focused on enhancing college access, college retention, and degree completion for Native Hawai’ian and Pacific Islander students throughout our college systems,” Tongilava said.

“A lot of our work has focused on expanding educational opportunity and workforce development for young Pacific Islander students.

“In terms of education, I think it is crucial that Pacific Islanders turn out today in support of the policies specifically that may hinder or create opportunity for their families and for their communities,” Tongilava said.

He said it was crucial that Pacific Islanders vote in support of the specific policies that might hinder or create opportunities for their families and their communities.

Tongilava is concerned about Trump’s proposal to dismantle the US Department of Education, noting that such a move would disproportionately harm communities like the Pacific Islanders, who often rely on federal support for educational programmes.

“This raises additional questions around what role does the federal government play within our school systems here within states and at the local level. For many Pacific Islander Americans, we live in under-resourced communities,” Tongilava said.

Republished from Pacific Media Network with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Kimberlyn King-Hind, from the CNMI Republican Party, won the race for the CNMI’s lone non-voting delegate in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The delegate position was one of 61 races up for grabs in the 2024 CNMI general elections.

The former Commonwealth Ports Authority chairwoman and lawyer from Tinian received 4931 votes (40.34 percent) of total ballots cast.

• READ MORE:  How the US election may affect Pacific Island nations
• Donald Trump ‘unfit to lead’ – vote for Harris, warns New York Times
• Other US presidential elections reports
• View the complete CNMI results

Democratic Party of the Northern Mariana Islands’ candidate Edwin Propst finished second, 864 votes behind with 4067 (33.27 percent).

Independent candidates John Oliver Gonzales, James Rayphand, and Liana Hofschneider gained 2282, 665, and 280 votes, respectively.

Even before the results of the 2024 general elections were certified about 5.20am on Wednesday, Propst conceded defeat and congratulated King-Hinds in a social media post.

“Congratulations to Kim King-Hinds, delegate-elect. I wish you the very best,” he wrote.

“To my amazing committee, I cannot thank you enough for your hard work and support. To our supporters, thank you for your votes, messages of support, donations, and kindness. To Daisy and Kiana, Devin, Kaden, and Logan, I love you more than anything in this world. Thank you for always being there for me,” he added.

Other electoral results
In other races, Senate President Edith DeLeon Guerrero, who ran as an independent, lost her Saipan seat to Representative Manny Castro of the Democratic Party, as the latter took 52.89 percent of the votes (5178) compared to the former’s 43 percent (4210).

For Tinian, incumbent Senator Karl King-Nabors of the GOP ran unopposed and was elected in by 803 voters.

Incumbent and longtime Senator Paul Manglona, meanwhile, lost his Senate post to fellow independent Ronnie Mendiola Calvo, 476-441.

There was not much shakeup in the House of Representatives races, as only incumbent Vicente Camacho, a Democrat, among the incumbents lost his seat. Newcomers in the incoming lower house include Elias Rangamar, Daniel Aquino, and Raymond Palacios — all independents.

Associate Judge Teresita Kim-Tenorio was also retained, receiving 9909 “yes” votes (84.21 percent) compared to 1858 (15.79 percent) “no” votes.

The US territory also elected members of the CNMI Board of Education and councillors for the municipal councils for Saipan, the Northern Islands, Tinian, and Rota.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

As the US election unfolds, American territories such as the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, and Guam, along with the broader Pacific region, will be watching the developments.

As the question hangs in the balance of whether the White House remains blue with Kamala Harris or turns red under Donald Trump, academics, New Zealand’s US ambassador, and Guam’s Congressman have weighed in on what the election means for the Pacific.

Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies senior lecturer Dr Anna Powles said it would no doubt have an impact on small island nations facing climate change and intensified geopolitics, including the rapid expansion of military presence on its territory Guam, following the launch of an interballistic missile by China.

• READ MORE: Voiceless Guam feels ‘injustice’ of US presidential non-vote
• Other US elections reports

Pacific leaders lament the very real security threat of climate-induced natural disasters has been overshadowed by the tug-of-war between China and the US in what academics say is “control and influence” for the contested region.

Dr Powles said it came as “no surprise” that countries such as New Zealand and Australia had increasingly aligned with the US, as the Biden administration had been leveraging strategic partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan since 2018.

Despite China being New Zealand’s largest trading partner, New Zealand is in the US camp and must pay attention, she said.

“We are not seeing enough in the public domain or discussion by government with the New Zealand public about what this means for New Zealand going forward.”

Pacific leaders welcome US engagement but are concerned about geopolitical rivalry.

Earlier this month, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa attended the South Pacific Defence Ministers meeting in Auckland.

He said it was important that “peace and stability in the region” was “prioritised”.

Referencing the arms race between China and the US, he said, “The geopolitics occurring in our region is not welcomed by any of us in the Pacific Islands Forum.”

While a Pacific Zone of Peace has been a talking point by Fiji and the PIF leadership to reinforce the region’s “nuclear-free stance”, the US is working with Australia on obtaining nuclear-submarines through the AUKUS security pact.

Dr Powles said the potential for increased tensions “could happen under either president in areas such as Taiwan, East China Sea — irrespective of who is in Washington”.

South Pacific defence ministers told RNZ Pacific the best way to respond to threats of conflict and the potential threat of a nuclear attack in the region is to focus on defence and building stronger ties with its allies.

New Zealand’s Defence Minister said NZ was “very good friends with the United States”, with that friendship looking more friendly under the Biden Administration. But will this strengthening of ties and partnerships continue if Trump becomes President?

US President Joe Biden, center, stands for a group photo with Pacific Islands Forum leaders following the Pacific Islands Forum Summit, at the South Portico of the White House in Washington on September 25, 2023. Photo: Jim Watson

US wants a slice of Pacific
Regardless of who is elected, US Ambassador to New Zealand Tom Udall said history showed the past three presidents “have pushed to re-engage with the Pacific”.

While both Trump and Harris may differ on critical issues for the Pacific such as the climate crisis and multilateralism, both see China as the primary external threat to US interests.

The US has made a concerted effort to step up its engagement with the Pacific in light of Chinese interest, including by reopening its embassies in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Tonga.

On 12 July 2022, the Biden administration showed just how keen it was to have a seat at the table by US Vice-President Kamala Harris dialing in to the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Fiji at the invitation of the then chair former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama. The US was the only PIF “dialogue partner” allowed to speak at this Forum.

However, most of the promises made to the Pacific have been “forward-looking” and leaders have told RNZ Pacific they want to see less talk and more real action.

Defence diplomacy has been booming since the 2022 Solomon Islands-China security deal. It tripled the amount of money requested from Congress for economic development and ocean resilience — up to US$60 million a year for 10 years — as well as a return of Peace Corps volunteers to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu.

Health security was another critical area highlighted in 2024 the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Declaration.

The Democratic Party’s commitment to the World Health Organisation (WHO) bodes well, in contrast to the previous Trump administration’s withdrawal from the WHO during the covid-19 pandemic.

It continued a long-running programme called ‘The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs’ which gives enterprising women from more than 100 countries with the knowledge, networks and access they need to launch and scale successful businesses.

Guam’s take
Known as the tip of the spear for the United States, Guam is the first strike community under constant threat of a nuclear missile attack.

In September, China launched an intercontinental ballistic test missile in the Pacific for first time in 44 years, landing near French Polynesian waters.

It was seen as a signal of China’s missile capabilities which had the US and South Pacific Defence Ministers on edge and deeply “concerned”.

China’s Defence Ministry said in a statement the launch was part of routine training by the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force, which oversees conventional and nuclear missile operations and was not aimed at any country or target.

The US has invested billions to build a 360-degree missile defence system on Guam with plans for missile tests twice a year over the next decade, as it looks to bolster its weaponry in competition with China.

Despite the arms race and increased military presence and weaponry on Guam, China is known to have fewer missiles than the US.

However, Guamanians are among the four million disenfranchised Americans living in US territories whose vote does not count due to an anomaly in US law.

“While territorial delegates can introduce bills and advocate for their territory in the US Congress, they have no voice on the floor. While Guam is exempted from paying the US federal income tax, many argue that such a waiver does not make up for what the tiny island brings to the table,” according to a BenarNews report.

US Congressman for Guam James Moylan has spent his time making friends and “educating and informing” other states about Guam’s existence in hopes to get increased funding and support for legislative bills.

Moylan said he would prefer a Trump presidency but noted he has “proved he can also work with Democrats”.

Under Trump, Moylan said Guam would have “stronger security”, raising his concerns over the need to stop Chinese fishing boats from coming onto the island.

Moylan also defended the military expansion: “We are not the aggressor. If we put our guard down, we need to be able to show we can maintain our land.”

Moylan defended the US military expansion, which his predecessor, former US Congressman Robert Underwood, was concerned about, saying the rate of expansion had not been seen since World War II.

“We are the closest there is to the Indo-Pacific threat,” Moylan said.

“We need to make sure our pathways, waterways and economy is growing, and we have a strong defence against our aggressors.”

“All likeminded democracies are concerned about the current leadership of China. We are working together…to work on security issues and prosperity issues,” US Ambassador to New Zealand Tom Udall said.

When asked about the military capabilities of the US and Guam, Moylan said: “We are not going to war; we are prepared to protect the homeland.”

Moylan said that discussions for compensation involving nuclear radiation survivors in Guam would happen regardless of who was elected.

The 23-year battle has been spearheaded by atomic veteran Robert Celestial, who is advocating for recognition for Chamorro and Guamanians under the RECA Act.

Celestial said that the Biden administration had thrown their support behind them, but progress was being stalled in Congress, which is predominantly controlled by the Republican party.

But Moylan insisted that the fight for compensation was not over. He said that discussions would continue after the election irrespective of who was in power.

“It’s been tabled. It’s happening. I had a discussion with Speaker Mike Johnson. We are working to pass this through,” he said.

If Trump wins
Dr Powles said a return to Trump’s leadership could derail ongoing efforts to build security architecture in the Pacific.

There are also views Trump would pull back from the Pacific and focus on internal matters, directly impacting his nation.

For Trump, there is no mention of the climate crisis in his platform or Agenda47.

This is in line with the former president’s past actions, such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2019, citing “unfair economic burdens” placed on American workers and businesses.

Trump has maintained his position that the climate crisis is “one of the great scams of all time”.

The America First agenda is clear, with “countering China” at the top of the list. Further, “strengthening alliances,” Trump’s version of multilateralism, reads as what allies can do for the US rather than the other way around.

“There are concerns for Donald Trump’s admiration for more dictatorial leaders in North Korea, Russia, China and what that could mean in a time of crisis,” Dr Powles said.

A Trump administration could mean uncertainty for the Pacific, she added.

While Trump was president in 2017, he warned North Korea “not to mess” with the United States.

“North Korea [is] best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met by fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

North Korea responded deriding his warning as a “load of nonsense”.

Although there is growing concern among academics and some Pacific leaders that Trump would bring “fire and fury” to the Indo-Pacific if re-elected, the former president seemed to turn cold at the thought of conflict.

In 2023, Trump remarked that “Guam isn’t America” in response to warning that the US territory could be vulnerable to a North Korean nuclear strike — a move which seemed to distance the US from conflict.

If Harris wins
Dr Powles said that if Harris wins, it was important to move past “announcements” and follow-through on all pledges.

A potential win for Harris could be the fulfilment of the many “promises” made to the Pacific for climate financing, uplifting economies of the Pacific and bolstering defence security, she said.

Pacific leaders want Harris to deliver on the Pacific Partnership Strategy, the outcomes of the two Pacific Islands-US summits in 2022 and 2023, and the many diplomatic visits undertaken during President Biden’s presidency.

The Biden administration recognised Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign and independent states and established diplomatic relationships with them.

Harris has pledged to boost funding to the Green Climate Fund by US$3 billion. She also promised to “tackle the climate crisis with bold action, build a clean energy economy, advance environmental justice, and increase resilience to climate disasters”.

Dr Powles said that delivery needed to be the focus.

“What we need to be focused on is delivery [and that] Pacific Island partners are engaged from the very beginning — from the outset to any programme right through to the final phase of it.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Democracy Now!

This is Democracy Now!, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I am Amy Goodman, with Juan González:

The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post newspapers are facing mounting backlash after the papers’ publishers announced no presidential endorsements would be made this year. The LA Times is owned by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, and The Washington Post is owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

National Public Radio (NPR) is reporting more than 200,000 people have cancelled their Washington Post subscriptions, and counting.

• READ MORE: Two of the US’s biggest newspapers have refused to endorse a presidential candidate. This is how democracy dies
• Other US presidential elections reports

A number of journalists have also resigned, including the editorials editor at the Los Angeles Times, Mariel Garza, who wrote, “How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger — who we previously endorsed for the U.S. Senate?”

Veteran journalists Robert Greene and Karin Klein have also resigned from the L.A. Times editorial board.

At The Washington Post, David Hoffman and Molly Roberts both resigned on Monday from the Post editorial board. Michele Norris also resigned as a Washington Post columnist, and Robert Kagan resigned as editor-at-large.

David Hoffman, who just won a Pulitzer Prize for his series “Annals of Autocracy,” wrote, “I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump. I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

David Hoffman joins us now, along with former Los Angeles Times editorials editor Mariel Garza.

David Hoffman, let’s begin with you. Explain why you left The Washington Post editorial board. Oh, and at the same time, congratulations on your Pulitzer Prize.

DAVID HOFFMAN: Thank you very much.

I worked for 12 years writing editorials in which I said over and over again, “We cannot be silent in the face of dictatorship, not anywhere.” And I wrote about dissidents who were imprisoned for speaking out.

And I felt that I couldn’t write another editorial decrying silence if we were going to be silent in the face of Trump’s autocracy. And I feel very, very strongly that the campaign has exposed his intention to be an autocrat.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, David Hoffman, is there any precedent for the publisher of The Washington Post overruling their own editorial board?

DAVID HOFFMAN: Yeah, there’s lots of precedent. It’s entirely within the right of the publisher and the owner to do this. Previous owners have often told the editorial board what to say, because we are the voice of the institution and its owner. So, there’s nothing wrong with that.

What’s wrong here is the timing. If they had made this decision early in the year and announced, as a principle, they don’t want to issue endorsements, nobody would have even blinked. A lot of papers don’t. People have rightly questioned whether they actually have any impact.

What matters here was, we are right on the doorstep of the most consequential election in our lifetimes. To pull the plug on the endorsement, to go silent against Trump days before the election, that to me was just unconscionable.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Mariel Garza, could you talk about the situation at the LA Times and your reaction when you heard of the owner’s decision?

MARIEL GARZA: Certainly. It was a long conversation over the course of many weeks. We presented our proposal to endorse Kamala Harris. And, of course, there was — to us, there was no question that we would endorse her. We spent nine years talking about the dangers of Trump, called him unfit in 5 million ways, and Kamala Harris is somebody that we know. She’s a California elected official.

We’ve had a lot of conversations with her. We’ve seen her career evolved. We were going to — we were going to endorse her. And there was no indication that we were going to suddenly shift to a neutral position, certainly not within a few weeks or months of the election.

At first, we didn’t get a clear answer — sounds like it’s the same situation that happened at The Washington Post — until we pressed for one. We presented an outline with — these are the points we’re going to make — and an argument for why not only was it important for us, an editorial board whose mission is to speak truth to power, to stand up to tyranny — our readers expect it.

We’re a very liberal paper. There is no — there is no question what the editorial board believes, that Donald Trump should not be president ever.

AMY GOODMAN: Mariel, I wanted to —

MARIEL GARZA: So, it was perplexing. It was mystifying. It was — go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: Mariel, I wanted to get your response to the daughter of the LA Times owner. On Saturday, Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s daughter Nika Soon-Shiong posted a message online suggesting that her father’s decision was linked to Kamala Harris’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Nika wrote, “Our family made the joint decision not to endorse a presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I have been involved in the process.

“As a citizen of a country openly financing genocide, and as a family that experienced South African Apartheid, the endorsement was an opportunity to repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children,” she wrote.

Her father, Patrick Soon-Shiong, later disputed her claim, saying that she has no role at the Los Angeles Times. Mariel Garza, your response?

MARIEL GARZA: Look, I really don’t know what to say, because I have — that was — if that was the case, it was never communicated to us. I do not know what goes on in the conversation in the Soon-Shiong household. I know that she is not — she does not participate in deliberations of the editorial board, as far as I know. I’ve never spoken to her.

We all know how she feels about Gaza, because she’s a prolific tweeter. So, I really can’t say. And this is part of the bigger problem, is we were never given a reason for why we were being silent.

If there was a reason — say it was Israel — we could have explained that to readers. Instead, we remain silent. And that’s — I mean, this is not a time in American history where anybody can remain silent or neutral.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, David Hoffman, this whole issue has been raised by some critics of Jeff Bezos that his company has a lot of business with the US government, and whether that had any impact on Bezos’s decision. I’m wondering your thoughts.

DAVID HOFFMAN: I can’t be inside his mind. His company does have big business, and he’s acknowledged it’s a complicating factor in his ownership. But I can’t really understand why he made this decision, and I don’t think it’s been very well explained. His explanation published today was that he wants sort of more civic quiet, and he thought an endorsement would add to the sense of anxiety and the poisonous atmosphere.

But I disagree with that. I think, like in the LA Times, I think readers have come to expect us to be a voice of reason, and they’ve looked to endorsements at least for some clarity. So, frankly, I also feel that we’re still lacking an explanation.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, you have subtitle, the slogan of The Washington Post, of course, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It’s being mocked all over social media. One person wrote, “Hello Darkness My Old Friend.”

David Hoffman, your response to that? But also, you won the Pulitzer Prize for your series “Annals of Autocracy,” and you talk about digital billionaires, as well, and what this means. How does this fit into your investigations?

DAVID HOFFMAN: You know, I would hope everybody would understand and acknowledge that we’ve done a lot of good for democracy and human rights. You know, I’ve had governments react sharply to a single editorial. When we call them out for imprisoning dissidents, it matters that we are very widely read.

And that’s another reason why I feel this was a big mistake, because we actually were on a path, for decades, of championing democracy and human rights as an institution.

And, you know, I have to tell you, I wrote a book in Russia about oligarchs. I understand how difficult it is when you have a lively and independent group of journalists. And ownership really matters. And, you know, we’re not just another widget company.

This is actually a group of very, very deep-thinking and oftentimes very aggressive people that have a desire to change the world. That’s the kind of journalism that The Washington Post has sponsored and engaged in.

In 2023, we published a series of editorials that took a look deep inside how China, Russia, Burma, you know, other places — how these autocracies function. One of the findings was that many of these dictatorships are using technology to clamp down on dissent, even things as tiny as a single tweet.

Young people, young college students are being thrown in prison in Cuba, in Belarus, in Vietnam. And I documented these to show how this technology actually isn’t becoming a force for freedom, but it’s being turned on its head by dictatorship.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, David Hoffman, Washington Post reporter, stepped down from the Post editorial board when they refused to endorse a presidential candidate; Mariel Garza, LA Times editorials editor who just resigned.

I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

This programme is republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Amid rising fears that Republican lawmakers could soon force a catastrophic U.S. default, Fix Our House on Wednesday released a report arguing that "Congress lacks the incentive structure necessary to responsibly handle crucial tasks like raising the debt limit."

The release comes between a pair of meetings at the White House. After sitting down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday, President Joe Biden told reporters they plan to come together again on Friday.

Biden and congressional Democrats are calling for a clean bill and stressing that GOP lawmakers took action on the debt ceiling three times under former President Donald Trump. However, House Republicans continue to hold the global economy hostage, demanding massive spending cuts that would affect working families—as demonstrated by their recent passage of the so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would increase the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, 2024, whichever comes first.

Some fearful of a default—or even coming precariously close to one, given warnings that the deadline could be as soon as June 1—have pushed the president to take unilateral action, but Biden on Tuesday downplayed perhaps the most popular option: invoking part of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to keep paying the nation's bills.

"Just like in 2011 and 2013, Washington will hopefully find a way to avoid disaster. Whatever happens, one thing is certain: Brinkmanship and crises aren't random accidents in our democracy—they are inevitable outcomes of an electoral system that incentivizes and rewards them," states the report from Fix Our House, which advocates for proportional representation.

The report—Debt Limit Chicken: Why Washington Plays Games With Disaster—criticizes "the winner-take-all election rules that make performative conflict easy and compromise difficult" along with calling for the creation of "a more functional electoral system that would disincentivize Congress from playing death-defying stunts with the full faith and credit of the U.S."

"The overwhelming majority of congressional districts are not competitive between the two parties," the report explains.

Citing another recently released Fix Our House publication, the document details that "90% of House elections last fall were decided by a margin greater than five percentage points. About 83% had a margin greater than 10 points. Landslides are normal; the average margin of victory in 2022 was 27.7% for Democrats and 30.2% for Republicans."

Although both parties have been accused of gerrymandering, since Republicans won narrow control of the House in the wake of redistricting last November—leading to a 222-213 divide in the lower chamber—experts have highlighted how current political maps served the GOP, and may continue to do so if they are not challenged in court.

The new report includes a section dedicated to the "five families" of the fractured House GOP: the Republican Study Committee, Republican Main Street Caucus, Republican Governance Group, Freedom Caucus, and Problem Solvers Caucus.

"As with the rest of the House, the overwhelming majority of the members of the five families don't face competitive general elections," the publication points out. "The average margin of victory for the members of each major caucus was a blowout election."

"In uncompetitive districts, the potential to be primaried is a much greater concern than a general election challenge," Fix Our House Co-Founder Lee Drutman said in a statement Wednesday. "That motivates representatives to focus on pleasing their voting base and disincentivizes compromise for fear of appearing too weak on 'the enemy."

"This problem is unique to America's outmoded system of single-member districts," Drutman added, "and it's only getting worse as urban-rural polarization makes it even harder to draw competitive districts."

As the report puts it, "gerrymandering is a huge problem," but it is not the only barrier to having 435 competitive districts.

"Rural voters are increasingly trending more to the right, and urban voters more to the left," the document says. "Voters are increasingly moving to places that better reflect their ideology. Red areas are getting redder, and blue areas are getting bluer."

"Even if the most fair-minded saints were drawing our congressional district maps, we would still have mostly uncompetitive districts," the report stresses. "And within the current system that we use to elect Congress, nothing can be done about it."

The report also emphasizes that "winner-take-all single-winner districts are not inevitable, and they are not in the Constitution."

In fact, "the Constitution specifically empowers Congress with the ability to change how its elections work, something Congress has done many times," the publication continues, urging federal lawmakers to pursue proportional representation.

Used by 80% of the world's democracies, proportional representation "disincentivizes binary conflict and showmanship and instead incentivizes coalition-building and compromise," the report states.

As the document explains:

Put simply, proportional representation is a system where a political party's share of votes in an election determines how many seats it holds in the legislature. Instead of each district electing one representative, a state divides into larger regions that each elect several representatives. The size of Congress—435 members—can be increased, or it can remain the same.

In a proportional system, voters can support multiple candidates, and each party wins seats in proportion to its share of the votes cast. For instance, if a region elects three representatives and the vote is 65% for Republicans and 35% for Democrats, it would elect two Republicans and one Democrat.

The existing U.S. system incentivizes "the us-vs-them conflict at the heart of the debt limit issue," the report concludes. "Thanks to the ever-escalating doom loop of polarization and dysfunction, the problem is worse than ever and will only grow more intractable. If we want to address this systemic problem, we need to look at systemic solutions."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama is reported to have become the first world leader to publicly congratulate US President-elect Joe Biden on his victory – despite there being no clear winner yesterday morning when he did so.

Bainimarama took to Twitter on Saturday to express his well wishes to Biden and called on him to work toward tackling climate change, which is a major problem for Fiji and Pacific nations, reports Newsweek.

“Congratulations, @JoeBiden,” Bainimarama wrote. “Together, we have a planet to save from a #ClimateEmergency and a global economy to build back better from #COVID19. Now, more than ever, we need the USA at the helm of these multilateral efforts (and back in the #ParisAgreement — ASAP!)”

• READ MORE: Joe Biden wins – says time for the US to ‘unite’
• Iran, Britain, France, rest of world welcome Biden’s victory
• Biden promises to be president for all Americans
• Kamala Harris makes history as first ‘Madam Vice-President’
• ‘You’re fired’: Trump on way out – and here’s how Twitter responded
• More Asia Pacific Report stories on the US elections

Biden has said he would rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement if he became president, saying the US would reverse President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the accord immediately after his inauguration.

Biden was declared victorious early today after successfully overturning his hometown state of Pennsylvania, giving him enough electoral college votes to surpass the required 270. Nevada was also declared for Biden a short time later.

Bainimarama has been Fiji’s prime minister since 2007, serving as acting prime minister from 2007 to 2014 following his 2006 military coup.

Congratulations, @JoeBiden.

Together, we have a planet to save from a #ClimateEmergency and a global economy to build back better from #COVID19.

Now, more than ever, we need the USA at the helm of these multilateral efforts (and back in the #ParisAgreement — ASAP!) pic.twitter.com/mhX9HWR5HI

— Frank Bainimarama (@FijiPM) November 7, 2020

Fiji was the first country to ratify the Paris Climate Agreement.

Bainimarama was not the first world leader to offer congratulations on the outcome of the 2020 election. Slovenia Prime Minister Janez Janša congratulated President Donald Trump for his false declaration of “victory” on November 5, according to Newsweek.

Janša’s tweet prompted criticism from some members of the European Parliament, while his claim that Trump would win the election was premature and mistaken.

It is common for world leaders to congratulate newly-elected presidents but most heads of government and heads of state wait until the election is concluded.

Ardern offers congratulations
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern shared a message of congratulations for Biden on his victory over Donald Trump.

Always happiest with a pencil in his hand, Malcolm Evans has been a professional cartoonist since the 60s and is one of the best in New Zealand. Approaching that milestone himself now, he tells everyone he’s twenty eight and often behaves like someone half that age. His cartoons are featured in The Daily Blog, Asia Pacific Report, Pacific Journalism Review and many publications.

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

Joe Biden is almost certain to be the next president of the United States, ushering in a welcome return to engagement with the climate crisis after four years of denial.

In contrast with Donald Trump’s premature declaration of victory and desperate calls to “stop the count”, Biden is modelling patience, with around 10 percent of ballots still to be tallied.

But he let his confidence in the eventual outcome show with a tweet promising his White House will rejoin the Paris Agreement, 77 days after the official exit of the United States, reports Climate Change News.

• READ MORE: Biden to address US, takes slim lead in Georgia, Pennsylvania
• US networks pull the plug on Trump’s live address due to ‘lies’
• Landslide that wasn’t: What the elections say about America – by Marwan Bishara
• Other Asia Pacific Reports on the US elections

That is the easy part. Much harder will be delivering emissions cuts, after disappointing Senate results for the Democrats.

They could yet scrape a majority — subject to a January run-off in Georgia — but do not have the 60 seats needed to pass a framework climate law.

A Biden administration will have to get creative to submit a credible 2030 climate target to the UN next year, as required under Paris.

Biden made climate change a cornerstone of his vision to recover the American economy from the impacts of covid-19, with a US$2 trillion plan to drive green investments and create jobs, reports Chloé Farand of Climate Change News.

Blue wave never materialised
But the blue wave Democrats hoped for in the Senate has failed to materialise, dampening Biden’s prospects of passing climate legislation.

While Democrats are confident they will retain control of the House of Representatives, the Senate election is down to the wire, with both sides having 48 seats as of Friday.

The contest is so tight, the Senate majority could be determined on January 5 in a hotly contested special election for at least one, and maybe two seats in Georgia.

Even with a slim majority in the Senate, Biden would need some Republican support to pass climate legislation. Under US Senate rules, policy changes beyond spending and taxation require at least 60 of the 100 senators to agree to move the issue to a vote.

Bipartisan backing will be required to introduce a clean electricity standard, for example, which would mandate a transition to zero carbon electricity generation by 2035 and help deliver on a campaign promise. So would a carbon pricing mechanism.

“Control of the Senate will have a huge impact on climate policy in the US,” said Jamie Henn, cofounder of US environmental group 350.org.

“There’s little hope for passing sweeping climate legislation if [Republican majority leader] Mitch McConnell keeps his claws on the gavel. There’s a lot the president can do through executive authority, but to really rise to the scale of this crisis, we need the votes in the Senate.”

Without congressional backing, “a sweeping economic regeneration policy… will not happen in the next two years,” said Nathan Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.

“Then we have to look at it as a stage process.”

Republished with permission from Climate Change News.

ANALYSIS: By Sarah John, Flinders University

Facing the gradual erosion of early leads in several battleground states — and increasingly likely defeat in the presidential election — the Trump campaign is launching a well-planned legal assault to challenge the validity of ballots and the process of vote-counting itself.

The Biden campaign is responding with an equally well-coordinated legal defence and a grassroots fundraising effort called the “Biden Fight Fund”.

Once again, the courts will be called in to resolve a US presidential election, although it is unlikely any rulings will change the results significantly — unless the election comes down to extremely narrow margins in Pennsylvania or Georgia.

• READ MORE: Even if Biden has a likely win, leading a deeply divided nation will be difficult
  
• Al Jazeera live updates – US presidential election still in limbo
• US vote too close to call as Trump falsely claims victory
• Ilhan Omar easily wins reelection to the House of Representatives
• Nightmare ‘haunts US dream’, says leading NZ newspaper

The unusual nature of the 2020 election — with a record 100 million people voting early — ensured a topsy-turvy election night. Compounding the problem has been the large partisan divide in how people voted, with Democrats favouring early and mail-in voting and Republicans favouring in-person voting on election day.

Many states quickly reported the results from in-person ballots on election night, giving Trump an early lead in several battleground states. Those leads were then offset as mail-in and early votes were added to the tallies.

Trump has been encouraging his supporters to view these shifting totals as fishy, claiming:

This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.

So far, Trump has indicated he will bring challenges in four states. This is what he is claiming and the chances that he could be ultimately be successful.

Wisconsin: Trump requests a recount
In Wisconsin, where Biden leads Trump by less than a percentage point, the Trump campaign announced it will seek a recount. This is a relatively routine occurrence when margins are tight. Indeed, small margins often trigger automatic recounts in many states.

After Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 by less than a combined total of 80,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, requested a recount. The courts denied the request in Pennsylvania, but partial recounts occurred in Michigan and Wisconsin.

As FiveThirtyEight noted in 2016, recounts rarely change the results of elections, except when margins are razor thin.

It is unlikely Biden’s current 20,000 vote margin over Trump in Wisconsin would be severely dented by a recount.

Michigan: Trup seeks a (temporary) halt to counting
In Michigan, the Trump campaign has filed a complaint seeking to halt the vote count on the basis that Republican Party “election inspectors” (that is, poll workers) do not have access to venues where the counting is taking place.

It is not uncommon for poll workers in the US to be affiliated with a political party. Many states, including Michigan, require poll workers from both parties to be present when votes are counted.

However, the filing provides no evidence that Republican poll workers have been denied access to vote-counting sites. Additionally, the legal bases of the claim appear weak.

For example, the complaint alleges Michigan is breaching the equal protection clause of the US Constitution because it is treating some voters differently from others in the state. Presumably, as the campaign alleges, this is because Democratic poll workers have been granted access to vote-counting sites that Republicans have not.

The complaint seeks a “speedy hearing,” which the Court of Claims has yet to grant. If it does, both the Trump campaign and the Michigan Secretary of State will have to provide evidence of the access given to poll workers of different parties on election day.

Pennsylvania: Taking it to the Supreme Court
In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign has initiated court procedings to stop the vote count.

The first part of the lawsuit is similar to the challenge in Michigan: the campaign is seeking to stop vote-counting until Republican poll observers are given access to the sites.

Deputy campaign manager Justin Clark alleges Republican poll observers were unable to observe vote counting because they were forced to be too far away – a claim conspicuously absent in the Michigan filing.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said the Trump campaign’s lawsuit to stop counting votes in the state is “simply wrong.”

“It goes against the most basic principles of our democracy,” he said.https://t.co/9SXNSmGndA

— NPR (@NPR) November 5, 2020

The second part of the Pennsylvania action seeks to reject mail-in ballots from first-time voters who did not provide proof of identity when they registered.

The campaign claims Pennsylvania’s secretary of state didn’t follow the proper process in deciding to accept the ballots from these voters — a breach of federal law. However, the campaign has yet to produce evidence that significant numbers of first-time voters did not prove their identity.

This is perhaps the more interesting legal argument. The Help America Vote Act of 2002, a federal law passed in response to the contested 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, does require new voters to provide identification to register to vote.

If the Trump campaign’s lawsuit is successful, it could result in the removal of a swathe of mail-in ballots from the Pennsylvania vote tally.

In addition to these two challenges, the Trump campaign is appealing a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to allow the counting of mail-in ballots received within three days after election day to the US Supreme Court.

The US Supreme Court rejected the Republican Party’s petition to fast-track a challenge to the decision in October, but appeared willing to consider it after election day.

As of yet, we do not know how many ballots could be affected by this ruling — and the counting of ballots continues.

Georgia: Confusion created by the courts takes centre stage
Finally, in Georgia, the Trump campaign has filed a petition to prevent any potential counting of late-arriving mail-in ballots.

In one sense, this action is the most straightforward of all the challenges. The petition seeks an order that the existing law be enforced: that all mail-in ballots arriving after 7pm on election day are excluded from the count.

However, the deadline for mail-in ballots in Georgia was also the subject of pre-election legal challenges — meaning voters could have been confused by the rules.

A court initially ruled these ballots could be counted for up to three days after the election, but this decision was then overturned by a higher court.

Challenges are unlikely to be Trump’s path to victory
For now, the Trump campaign has not launched any challenges in the other battleground states of Nevada and Arizona.

We may not end up seeing any challenges in these states, given the tight deadlines involved with elections. All litigation must be resolved or halted by December 8 so the election results can be certified and the Electoral College process can continue. This culminates in the vote that legally chooses the next president on January 6.

The legal challenges are a long shot for the Trump campaign to change the outcome of the election.

If Biden is declared the winner this week and the challenges fail, there may be another repercussion. It could further undermine confidence in the electoral process — a strategy Trump has employed, with varying degrees of success, throughout the race.

Dr Sarah John is of the College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

It has been billed as the most significant US election in generations, and with nearly 100 million votes already cast, it is well underway.

An estimated 50 million more votes are expected on the last day of in-person voting on Tuesday (Wednesday NZ time), with mail-in ballots still making their way through the postal service, including from overseas and military voters.

It is not only the White House up for grabs, but all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100-seat Senate.

In addition, 11 gubernatorial (state governor) races, various state legislatures, and a plethora of local judges, sheriffs, school boards and supervisory roles are also on the ballot. A quick glance at a US ballot illustrates how America has more democratically elected positions per capita than any other country in the world.

A turbulent four years of Trump
This election will be one for the history books. The White House incumbent, impeached on abuse of power charges and litigating against Congressional oversight of potential financial conflicts of interest, has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

In the year following more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors confirming President Donald Trump would be indicted if not for the current immunity the Oval Office provides him, Trump has stepped up rhetoric that any election that he does not win is “rigged”.

Then came the “October surprise” from The New York Times that the president has at least US$400 million in personally guaranteed loans due over the next possible term and previously undisclosed Chinese bank accounts. This has brought the president’s priorities under intense scrutiny alongside a flailing economy and federal mismanagement of the covid pandemic response.

Citing these concerns, formal endorsements of Trump’s political opponent, former Vice-President Joe Biden, have come from unlikely places. Republican national security veterans, GOP governors and nonpartisan communities of scientists and physicians have endorsed Biden, some for the first time in the history of their organisations.

A group of 73 high-level former GOP US National security officials from administrations spanning Reagan to Bush Jr wrote in an open letter that Trump is “dangerously unfit to serve another term”, citing his undermining of the rule of law, failure to lead Americans through the pandemic, and damage to the US’s global reputation.

More than 780 prominent Republicans and Democrats, including former defence secretaries, ambassadors, and retired military brass, also decried Trump, writing that:

[…] thanks to his disdainful attitude and his failures, our allies no longer trust or respect us and our enemies no longer fear us.

A chorus of Trump’s own former administration officials have joined The Lincoln Project, Republican Voters against Trump, 43 for Biden (featuring members of the George W. Bush administration) and former staffers of late senator John McCain, to mount powerful testimonials targeting Trump’s base, independents and new voters.

The Biden camp has stressed a return to decency and cooperation, a United States of America. A popular ad encapsulates the message,

There is only one America. No Democratic rivers, no Republican mountains. Just this great land and all that’s possible on it with a fresh start. There is so much we can do if we choose to take on problems and not each other and choose a president who brings out our best.

Other “anyone but Trump” ads target voters who may have supported him in 2016 as a fiesty outsider, but have tired of the noise.

Ads, endorsements and of course polls are potentially useful indicators during the final week of voting. But what are some other trends that will likely impact electoral turnout and the results? Here are a few to look out for.

Millennial voter generation
Against the tight margins of the 2016 election in a handful of decisive states, a new generation of voters has emerged who may tip the balance of power. They drove a higher turnout in the 2018 midterm election and are not only voting but running and winning office. Enter the millennials.

The US is on the cusp of a generational shift. This is the first US presidential election in which the millennial generation is now the largest voting-age cohort, displacing the baby boomers who have held the title since the 1970s.

Younger millennials, who may have spent the previous presidential election in a high school walk out, or participated in the March for Our Lives for gun safety, are now eligible to vote.

Older millennials, who are approaching 40, grew up with high school shootings and are now watching their own young children do lockdown drills, rewarded with a candy if they remain quietly hidden in the toilet with their feet up to avoid detection.

Heartstopping PSA on school shootings released by Sandy Hook Promise.

Amid concern about growing economic inequality, the millennials will likely be the first generation to be less financially secure than their parents, and the most likely to compare themselves with international OECD peers who enjoy universal healthcare, gun control and better financial support during the pandemic.

None of these issues is well represented by the current administration, and so Trump’s approval rating hovers around 28 percent among that age group.

Trump has called climate change a Chinese conspiracy to undermine American manufacturing, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, and is suing to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

On these crucial issues, different informational diets between generations, political parties, and even families could drive very different voting patterns.

But the millennial vote could be decisive.

Young people will have a big say in the outcome of the 2020 election. Image: Josh Edelson/AAP/EPA

Disinformation – word of the year?
If “post-truth” was the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2016, “disinformation” is in the running for 2020.

Disinformation – the deliberate spreading of false or misleading information in order to deceive – is a growing problem in democratic elections. It was a key theme in the Republican-chaired Senate Intelligence Committee report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

These reports documented key disinformation techniques, narratives and purpose. Akin to Russian “active measures”, disinformation is used to undermine authoritative sources of information by blurring the line between fact and faction.

The most popular narrative, according to this report, was the myth of “voter fraud”.

While the 2016 disinformation campaign centred on voter fraud, the 2020 version targets mail-in voting. These ballots, cast in the middle of covid-19, are at the heart of competing narratives about the pandemic itself.

In this election, there has been a catalogue of disinformation about covid-19. While scientists, physicians and public health authorities have repeatedly warned the public and officials to take action to protect public health, the Trump administration has generally downplayed its severity.

Calling it “just the flu”, Trump said the problem impacts “virtually nobody”, even after nearly a quarter of a million Americans died. Recent research has shown Trump himself is one of the largest superspreaders of

‘If I Can Get Better Anyone Can Get Better’: Trump On covid-19 Recovery. Video: NBC News

Some of that disinformation will affect how people cast their ballot. While 19 states have expanded mail-in ballot options as a result of the pandemic, others have made voting harder by closing voting places while not expanding alternate options.

Texas, for instance, refused to recognise covid-19 concerns as a valid reason for those under 65 to request a mail-in ballot, with South Carolina only recently reversing a similar restriction.

Disinformation about mail-in ballots is likely to feature in court challenges. Trump has insisted the results be known on election day, which would necessarily exclude mail-in ballots postmarked in time but not yet received through the mail, including those cast by overseas military voters.

He has repeatedly signalled that his appointees in the judicial system (which number in the hundreds) will help secure his win.

While it is unprecedented for a president to attack electoral integrity, state level actions are also important to consider.

Elections run at state, county level
Voting in the US is not easy to summarise. Devoid of democracy sausages and a non-partisan federal elections commission, elections are run at the state and county level, from voter rolls to polling locations and everything in between.

Each state is in charge of its own election, and there are nearly as many systems as there are states.

Five states, including Oregon, vote entirely by mail. Five other states vote entirely on machine, including Georgia, with no traditional paper audit trail.

Other state variations include the option of early in-person voting, whether voting places are open on a Sunday, how far in advance you must register to vote, and requirements for voter ID.

Each US state has its own voting requirements, arrangements and ballots. Image: Juston Lane/AA/EPA

Each state’s ballots look different, with users selecting their choices via handmarked bubble sheets, hole punches or hanging chads, the latter made famous in the 2000 recount in Florida that delivered George W. Bush his first term.

One of the quirks of the US voting system is the electoral college. The college is essentially a distribution of electoral votes among the states according to population size, updated after every 10-year census.

In 2020, several large states are in the spotlight as toss-ups, including Texas, which carries a prize of 38 electoral votes in the race to 270. It will be one to watch on election day, with early voter turnout already surpassing its 2016 total.

Texas is also the site of one of the most blatant attempts at disenfranchisement, with the GOP failing in its attempt to stop more than 120,000 ballots already cast in one of its largest counties.

Until recently, states were not allowed to make changes to voting procedures without judicial oversight. Plans to close significant numbers of polling places in certain districts, for instance, had to go through pre-clearance processes.

However, these protections were dismantled by a US Supreme Court ruling in 2013. This year’s presidential election will be only the second without those protections, and voter disenfranchisement could result.

One key method of disenfranchisement could be mail-in ballots. In an interview in August, Trump said he planned to block funding for the US postal service to prevent increased voting by mail.

A Trump appointee to the head of the postal service in July recently oversaw the destruction and dismantling of 700 mail processing machines, leading to more delays.

Simple polls of voting intention do not capture voter disenfranchisement and intimidation.

Intimidation tactics have been increasing across several key states. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North Carolina, official Republican party mailers warned voters their voting history is a matter of public record.

In New Mexico, the GOP sent mailers that read:

When the Democrats win the White House and you didn’t do your part to stop it, your neighbours will know. Voting is a matter of public record.

Experts warn of potential violence and rioting after the result. Growing polarisation, extremist groups such as QAnon threatening the use of force, and the availability of tactical weapons are all warning signs.

This year has seen more than 8 million more gun purchases than 2019, and scholars warn of increasing militia activity. Trump has publicly praised supporters who commit violence, including the Kenosha shooter.

International allies are also concerned. After Trump used armed guards to teargas peaceful protesters in Washington DC (which Australia watched live as its reporters were bashed on air), the Scottish Parliament voted to suspend exports of riot shields, tear gas and rubber bullets to the United States.

Australia recently updated its “do not travel” advisory to the US, citing civil unrest around the election.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, some of the trends may continue beyond Inauguration Day on January 21, 2021, affecting not just the US but its relationships with allies and adversaries alike.

Australia would do well to watch carefully and wait for the final results.


Dr Jennifer S. Hunt is a lecturer at the National Security College, Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

ANALYSIS: By Jennifer S. Hunt, Australian National University

It has been billed as the most significant US election in generations, and with nearly 100 million votes already cast, it is well underway.

An estimated 50 million more votes are expected on the last day of in-person voting on Tuesday (Wednesday New Zealand time), with mail-in ballots still making their way through the postal service, including from overseas and military voters.

It is not only the White House up for grabs, but all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100-seat Senate.

• READ MORE: Nik Dirga: The one word that really matters for US election day – unity
• Trump has changed America by making everything about politics, and politics all about himself

In addition, 11 gubernatorial (state governor) races, various state legislatures, and a plethora of local judges, sheriffs, school boards and supervisory roles are also on the ballot. A quick glance at a US ballot illustrates how America has more democratically elected positions per capita than any other country in the world.

A turbulent four years of Trump
This election will be one for the history books. The White House incumbent, impeached on abuse of power charges and litigating against Congressional oversight of potential financial conflicts of interest, has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

In the year following more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors confirming President Donald Trump would be indicted if not for the current immunity the Oval Office provides him, Trump has stepped up rhetoric that any election that he does not win is “rigged”.

Then came the “October surprise” from The New York Times that the president has at least US$400 million in personally guaranteed loans due over the next possible term and previously undisclosed Chinese bank accounts. This has brought the president’s priorities under intense scrutiny alongside a flailing economy and federal mismanagement of the covid pandemic response.

Citing these concerns, formal endorsements of Trump’s political opponent, former Vice-President Joe Biden, have come from unlikely places. Republican national security veterans, GOP governors and nonpartisan communities of scientists and physicians have endorsed Biden, some for the first time in the history of their organisations.

A group of 73 high-level former GOP US National security officials from administrations spanning Reagan to Bush Jr wrote in an open letter that Trump is “dangerously unfit to serve another term”, citing his undermining of the rule of law, failure to lead Americans through the pandemic, and damage to the US’s global reputation.

More than 780 prominent Republicans and Democrats, including former defence secretaries, ambassadors, and retired military brass, also decried Trump, writing that:

[…] thanks to his disdainful attitude and his failures, our allies no longer trust or respect us and our enemies no longer fear us.

A chorus of Trump’s own former administration officials have joined The Lincoln Project, Republican Voters against Trump, 43 for Biden (featuring members of the George W. Bush administration) and former staffers of late senator John McCain, to mount powerful testimonials targeting Trump’s base, independents and new voters.

The Biden camp has stressed a return to decency and cooperation, a United States of America. A popular ad encapsulates the message,

There is only one America. No Democratic rivers, no Republican mountains. Just this great land and all that’s possible on it with a fresh start. There is so much we can do if we choose to take on problems and not each other and choose a president who brings out our best.

Other “anyone but Trump” ads target voters who may have supported him in 2016 as a fiesty outsider, but have tired of the noise.

Ads, endorsements and of course polls are potentially useful indicators during the final week of voting. But what are some other trends that will likely impact electoral turnout and the results? Here are a few to look out for.

Millennial voter generation
Against the tight margins of the 2016 election in a handful of decisive states, a new generation of voters has emerged who may tip the balance of power. They drove a higher turnout in the 2018 midterm election and are not only voting but running and winning office. Enter the millennials.

The US is on the cusp of a generational shift. This is the first US presidential election in which the millennial generation is now the largest voting-age cohort, displacing the baby boomers who have held the title since the 1970s.

Younger millennials, who may have spent the previous presidential election in a high school walk out, or participated in the March for Our Lives for gun safety, are now eligible to vote.

Older millennials, who are approaching 40, grew up with high school shootings and are now watching their own young children do lockdown drills, rewarded with a candy if they remain quietly hidden in the toilet with their feet up to avoid detection.

Heartstopping PSA on school shootings released by Sandy Hook Promise.

Amid concern about growing economic inequality, the millennials will likely be the first generation to be less financially secure than their parents, and the most likely to compare themselves with international OECD peers who enjoy universal healthcare, gun control and better financial support during the pandemic.

None of these issues is well represented by the current administration, and so Trump’s approval rating hovers around 28 percent among that age group.

Trump has called climate change a Chinese conspiracy to undermine American manufacturing, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, and is suing to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

On these crucial issues, different informational diets between generations, political parties, and even families could drive very different voting patterns.

But the millennial vote could be decisive.

Disinformation – word of the year?
If “post-truth” was the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2016, “disinformation” is in the running for 2020.

Disinformation – the deliberate spreading of false or misleading information in order to deceive – is a growing problem in democratic elections. It was a key theme in the Republican-chaired Senate Intelligence Committee report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

These reports documented key disinformation techniques, narratives and purpose. Akin to Russian “active measures”, disinformation is used to undermine authoritative sources of information by blurring the line between fact and faction.

The most popular narrative, according to this report, was the myth of “voter fraud”.

While the 2016 disinformation campaign centred on voter fraud, the 2020 version targets mail-in voting. These ballots, cast in the middle of covid-19, are at the heart of competing narratives about the pandemic itself.

In this election, there has been a catalogue of disinformation about covid-19. While scientists, physicians and public health authorities have repeatedly warned the public and officials to take action to protect public health, the Trump administration has generally downplayed its severity.

Calling it “just the flu”, Trump said the problem impacts “virtually nobody”, even after nearly a quarter of a million Americans died. Recent research has shown Trump himself is one of the largest superspreaders of

‘If I Can Get Better Anyone Can Get Better’: Trump On covid-19 Recovery. Video: NBC News

Some of that disinformation will affect how people cast their ballot. While 19 states have expanded mail-in ballot options as a result of the pandemic, others have made voting harder by closing voting places while not expanding alternate options.

Texas, for instance, refused to recognise covid-19 concerns as a valid reason for those under 65 to request a mail-in ballot, with South Carolina only recently reversing a similar restriction.

Disinformation about mail-in ballots is likely to feature in court challenges. Trump has insisted the results be known on election day, which would necessarily exclude mail-in ballots postmarked in time but not yet received through the mail, including those cast by overseas military voters.

He has repeatedly signalled that his appointees in the judicial system (which number in the hundreds) will help secure his win.

While it is unprecedented for a president to attack electoral integrity, state level actions are also important to consider.

Elections run at state, county level
Voting in the US is not easy to summarise. Devoid of democracy sausages and a non-partisan federal elections commission, elections are run at the state and county level, from voter rolls to polling locations and everything in between.

Each state is in charge of its own election, and there are nearly as many systems as there are states.

Five states, including Oregon, vote entirely by mail. Five other states vote entirely on machine, including Georgia, with no traditional paper audit trail.

Other state variations include the option of early in-person voting, whether voting places are open on a Sunday, how far in advance you must register to vote, and requirements for voter ID.

Each state’s ballots look different, with users selecting their choices via handmarked bubble sheets, hole punches or hanging chads, the latter made famous in the 2000 recount in Florida that delivered George W. Bush his first term.

One of the quirks of the US voting system is the electoral college. The college is essentially a distribution of electoral votes among the states according to population size, updated after every 10-year census.

In 2020, several large states are in the spotlight as toss-ups, including Texas, which carries a prize of 38 electoral votes in the race to 270. It will be one to watch on election day, with early voter turnout already surpassing its 2016 total.

Texas is also the site of one of the most blatant attempts at disenfranchisement, with the GOP failing in its attempt to stop more than 120,000 ballots already cast in one of its largest counties.

Until recently, states were not allowed to make changes to voting procedures without judicial oversight. Plans to close significant numbers of polling places in certain districts, for instance, had to go through pre-clearance processes.

However, these protections were dismantled by a US Supreme Court ruling in 2013. This year’s presidential election will be only the second without those protections, and voter disenfranchisement could result.

One key method of disenfranchisement could be mail-in ballots. In an interview in August, Trump said he planned to block funding for the US postal service to prevent increased voting by mail.

A Trump appointee to the head of the postal service in July recently oversaw the destruction and dismantling of 700 mail processing machines, leading to more delays.

Simple polls of voting intention do not capture voter disenfranchisement and intimidation.

Intimidation tactics have been increasing across several key states. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North Carolina, official Republican party mailers warned voters their voting history is a matter of public record.

In New Mexico, the GOP sent mailers that read:

When the Democrats win the White House and you didn’t do your part to stop it, your neighbours will know. Voting is a matter of public record.

Experts warn of potential violence and rioting after the result. Growing polarisation, extremist groups such as QAnon threatening the use of force, and the availability of tactical weapons are all warning signs.

This year has seen more than 8 million more gun purchases than 2019, and scholars warn of increasing militia activity. Trump has publicly praised supporters who commit violence, including the Kenosha shooter.

International allies are also concerned. After Trump used armed guards to teargas peaceful protesters in Washington DC (which Australia watched live as its reporters were bashed on air), the Scottish Parliament voted to suspend exports of riot shields, tear gas and rubber bullets to the United States.

Australia recently updated its “do not travel” advisory to the US, citing civil unrest around the election.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, some of the trends may continue beyond Inauguration Day on January 21, 2021, affecting not just the US but its relationships with allies and adversaries alike.

Australia would do well to watch carefully and wait for the final results.


Dr Jennifer S. Hunt is a lecturer at the National Security College, Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

I conducted a highly scientific study among a handful of my Facebook friends back home in America this week, asking them for one word that sums up their feelings going into Election Day.

I got words like “terror,” “nauseous,” “distress,” “fearful,” “apprehensive” and “despair”.

A “hopeful” or two.

Also, “anticipointment” and “cautiomistic” – neither of which are actual words, but they really should be.

But mostly, the vibe is tension and exhaustion.

In some ways, the whole mad ride of 2020 seems to have been leading to this moment, when America decides between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on Tuesday.

How do you keep from losing your mind in the final days when everything that makes your country your country seems on the line?

A rare NZ and US match-up year
This is one of the rare years that New Zealand and America’s elections sync up together (the last was in 2008).

I cast votes a few weeks apart in two countries that couldn’t feel further apart today.

The New Zealand election already seems like a vague memory and life ambles along, cautious but chill.

America at the moment is anything but chill.

I’ve voted in every US election since 1992. My candidates have won some, and they’ve lost some. I’ve been pleasantly surprised and pretty bummed out by elections.

But I’ve never been scared, until now.

Look, I won’t pretend to be impartial – I moved to New Zealand in 2006, and Donald Trump has created an America I hardly recognise, a conman’s ignorant fantasyland. I hope he loses the election decisively, and this whole episode is seen as a misguided wrong turn for America.

America should learn from NZ
I wish America would learn something from the relative smoothness of New Zealand’s elections, where campaigns are far shorter and cheaper.

Having voted in five general elections now in New Zealand, I’m Team Parliamentary System all the way.

Smaller parties matter more here. The Greens, Māori Party, ACT and New Zealand First have all played major roles in New Zealand the past 15 years, while in America, a third party vote in national elections is still nothing but a token protest.

Our MMP system encourages cooperation. America’s two-party dynamic encourages tribalism.

New Zealand’s vote seems more malleable. A party that’s down in one election like New Zealand First can make a comeback, and then be gone again the next time around.

In a parliamentary system, party leaders are also more accountable to their peers and can be removed easily.

That can be messy – look at the National Party’s three leaders this year, or Australia’s round-robin of prime ministers for much of the last decade.

Had Trump been rolled in congress … ?
But if Trump could have been rolled in Congress with a no-confidence vote, the last few years might have unfolded very differently.

American democracy is a fine ideal with some massive, antiquated flaws that keep it from truly representing all its people. In the US Senate, both California and Wyoming have the same amount of senators – two – although one state has nearly 40 million people and one has 550,000.

How votes are counted and districts are created vary wildly from state to state, town to town, and it’s ripe for manipulation.

The Electoral College, which apportions a certain amount of “points” per state, has allowed the candidate who received the most overall votes to still lose the election in both 2000 and 2016.

The idea that an election should always be held on a Tuesday – a work day that’s not a public holiday – is an absurd hangover from the days of horses and carriages.

Due to the uncertainties of the pandemic this year, we’ve seen far more early voting than ever before in America. I’ve never seen engagement and queues like this in my lifetime.

Maybe the year of covid-19 will make it a habit, and we’ll see an election month instead of a single day.

Thinking less of my homeland
I’m a kind of pessimistic optimist who wants to believe the best of people even if they’re going to let you down.

But on the day Donald Trump won the presidency four years ago I suddenly found myself thinking less of my homeland … and its people.

When you’re an immigrant in another land, you find yourself becoming a bit of an unwitting ambassador for your home country.

Whether you hold it close or are running away from it, you’ll always be a part of the place you came from. You represent it.

So to watch the good in America overwhelmingly swamped by the bad has at times felt like an attack on who I am. Was Election Day 2016 who my country really is? Or a historical spasm of personality and timing just that once?

I know I’m not the country I was born in. But at times it’s easy to forget, to want to apologise to the world for these last four years, for the endless drama.

I have seen friends lash out at other friends online over the election. I’ve watched people repeatedly yelling at strangers on the internet.

Late-night tweets instead of leadership
I know I’ve got some friends and family members who have supported Trump, and we just don’t talk about that too much.

I’d sure like to see things get calmer. I don’t see that happening if Trump is re-elected. It would be another four years of late-night tweets from the White House and division instead of leadership.

I gave up on making predictions after 2016.

Intellectually, I think Joe Biden is in a pretty good place to make Donald Trump a one-term president. But emotionally, I’ve got no clue what might happen.

I am not my country.

But if I had to pick a word to describe my hopes for Election Day, it’s right there in that country’s name.

United.

Nik Dirga is an American journalist who has lived in New Zealand for 14 years. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

In 2018, he weakened the country’s ability to respond to pandemics when he decided to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for them. His Interior Department failed to update a pandemic plan that was first prepared over a decade ago. His administration failed to restock the Strategic National Stockpile, America’s store of medical supplies, which include the face masks that are in such dire need by doctors, nurses and health professionals at the front lines of the pandemic. Those supplies were depleted during the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009 and were never replenished: Millions of masks in the stockpile are now past their expiration dates. 

The lack of test kits, as well as faulty test kits produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), may have been the result of Trump’s budget cuts: The CDC’s current budget of $8 billion is a substantial reduction from the $12.7 billion it had a decade ago. “The debacle with the tests probably reflects underlying budget cuts,” said Scott Burris, director of the Center of Public Health Law Research at Temple University. “You can’t have surge capacity if you’ve already been cut to the bone.” 

And, strikingly, the United States had several weeks of advance notice of the coronavirus, which first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, but those early weeks were squandered and now the nation is on its back foot, perhaps with tens of thousands of lives at stake, maybe more. “Trump’s leadership team failed to ready the nation, despite explicit warnings of the need to do so,” writes Alice Hill, the senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and who was responsible for biological threat preparedness in the Obama administration.

Following the criticism that he has mismanaged the nation’s response to the coronavirus epidemic, Trump has attempted a bold rebranding campaign, declaring himself a “wartime president.” 

“Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation,” Trump said at a March 18 White House press briefing, recalling the courage and commitment of those who lived through and fought in World War II. “And now it’s our time. We must sacrifice together, because we are all in this together, and we will come through together. … And it will be a complete victory. It’ll be a total victory.”

His “war” rebranding appears to be working: A majority of Americans now approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released today. The latest figures—55 percent approve, while 43 disapprove—represent a flip in the president’s rating from the previous iteration of the survey, published a week ago, which found 43 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval.

But treating the pandemic as a war may have other consequences, like influencing the psychology of the American electorate during an election year. And it’s important to note that no American president has lost reelection during wartime, a fact that is likely not lost on Team Trump. James Madison was reelected in 1812 during that year’s eponymous war. A half-century later, Abraham Lincoln was reelected during the Civil War. In 1944, in the midst of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt was voted back into the White House. Voters put Richard Nixon back in office during the Vietnam War. George W. Bush, fighting the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, got his second term in 2004.

Trump made good on his characterization of wartime by invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA), which allows the federal government to compel private companies to manufacture goods for the benefit of the nation before making those same products for commercial sale; in this case, medical equipment to handle the pandemic. Inspired by World War II-era laws that allowed the government, for example, to request that Ford Motor Company manufacture hundreds of thousands of vehicles for the army, including tanks, the DPA was first approved by Congress in 1950 to support the nation’s production needs to support its effort in the Korean War.

Vox’s Alex Ward writes that Sasha Baker, a top aide to former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, told him that “some people may get scared or anxious hearing the act has been invoked because it makes it seem like the nation is gearing up for war.” But, as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the globe, followed by a steadily rising death toll, there may be another anxiety brewing, as CNN has suggested that there are “whispers” that President Trump could cancel the 2020 election and remain in power without being reelected. According to a Daily Kos poll, more than  60 percent of those polled (more than 340 respondents) are “concerned that President Trump will declare martial law and/or suspend the 2020 election.”

That concern was voiced by a leading conservative voice before coronavirus even made the headlines. On December 10, after Attorney General William Barr appeared to “whitewash” Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in an interview, Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute expressed grave concern that Trump may upend the Constitution to remain in power. “The Barr interview today is even more frightening than many Americans imagine,” Ornstein tweeted. “It seems clear that he will do or enable anything to keep Trump in office. And Trump will do anything to stay there. Suspension of the election, negation of the results, declaration of martial law.”

Trump has mused several times about staying in the White House longer than is legally allowed. In March of last year, for example, he mentioned the idea of remaining in power for life, after praising President Xi Jinping’s own lifelong rule, which was secured when China’s ruling Communist Party approved the removal of the two-term limit. “He’s now president for life,” Trump said about Xi. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” A few months later, in a Tweetstorm, Trump said that he would leave the presidency in “10 or 14” years. He did add “just kidding,” but that may offer little comfort to those who fear his autocratic tendencies, love of dictators and frequent disregard for the Constitution. Then in December, on the same day that Orenstein tweeted his warning, Trump, during a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, said that he may stay in office for another 29 years. (He would be 102 years old at that point.)

“As democracies around the world slide into autocracy, and nationalism and antidemocratic sentiment are on vivid display among segments of the American populace, Trump’s evident hostility to key elements of liberal democracy cannot be dismissed as mere bluster,” writes Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The moment the president declares a ‘national emergency’—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—he is able to set aside many of the legal limits on his authority.”

Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos ruled for 21 years, nine of them as a dictator while the country was under martial law, which he declared under the guise of suppressing civil strife and a communist threat after several bombings destabilized the capital city of Manila. With the pandemic striking fear in the hearts of Americans, Trump now has his perfect pretext to consolidate power. But will he declare martial law?

In fact, some are calling on Trump to declare martial law to help stem the spread of the virus. “I say to President Trump: Shut us down, sir. Please, just shut us down,” writes Gene Marks, founder of The Marks Group, a small-business consulting firm, in an op-ed on The Hill. “I mean the whole country. Not just New York or San Francisco, but Louisville, Denver, Harrisburg, Clearwater and Madison. Every small town, whether there’s a case or not. I’m talking martial law. Do it. You said you’re now a ‘wartime president.’ So act like one. … I ask you to do this because I’m a small business owner. What we’re doing right now is not helping the economy. By imposing a strict national quarantine, the effects for my business—and the economy overall—would be very, very positive.”

If our self-proclaimed “wartime president” were to declare martial law to fight the pandemic, would he have the authority to suspend the election in November? Josh Douglas, an election law scholar at the University of Kentucky Law School, doesn’t believe so. “Even [martial law] would likely not give him power to postpone election or delay end of his term on Jan. 20, 2021,” he tweeted. “As Supreme Court said in ex parte Milligan (1866), martial law does not suspend the Constitution.”

But Ian Millhiser, a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers Supreme Court issues, points out that the courts usually defer to national security decisions made by presidents, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Japanese-American detention camps during World War II and, more recently, President Trump’s Muslim travel ban. “American election law was not written with a pandemic in mind,” he writes. “Extraordinary measures may be necessary to control the spread of coronavirus for many months — possibly continuing well into the November election season. And if those extraordinary measures do disrupt the general elections, courts are likely to defer to public health officials even if those officials act with partisan motivation.”

John W. Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia, views the coronavirus pandemic not as a test of our ability to come together as a nation in a time of crisis, but rather as “a test to see whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights—can survive a national crisis and a true state of emergency.”

Today in America, we find ourselves caught in the crosshairs of two powerful, unpredictable and dangerous forces—Trumpism and coronavirus. The stock market has lost all its gains since Trump took office, a 20 percent unemployment rate is in the offing, and Americans are dying. Will we pass this test? Will the Constitution survive?

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, agrees with the wartime footing that Trump has initiated. “This is a war, we have to treat it like a war,” Cuomo said. “In a war, you need the federal government.” Sure, states need help from Washington to deal with the pandemic, from the health crisis itself to the economic crisis it has spawned. But before tanks start rumbling down New York’s Fifth Avenue and the Army Corps of Engineers cordons off neighborhoods with bollards and barbed wire, Cuomo might consider the warning of one of Trump’s more eloquent and sagacious predecessors, Thomas Jefferson: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”

This content originally appeared on Truthdig RSS – Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists and was authored by By Martina Moneke / Truthdig.

There is no dearth of examples suggesting that President Donald Trump lives in an alternate reality. But his belief that the coronavirus “came out of nowhere” and “blindsided the world”—even though public health experts had been warning about the next pandemic for years—may be the reason why the United States is so unprepared to deal with the crisis.

In 2018, he weakened the country’s ability to respond to pandemics when he decided to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for them. His Interior Department failed to update a pandemic plan that was first prepared over a decade ago. His administration failed to restock the Strategic National Stockpile, America’s store of medical supplies, which include the face masks that are in such dire need by doctors, nurses and health professionals at the front lines of the pandemic. Those supplies were depleted during the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009 and were never replenished: Millions of masks in the stockpile are now past their expiration dates. 

The lack of test kits, as well as faulty test kits produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), may have been the result of Trump’s budget cuts: The CDC’s current budget of $8 billion is a substantial reduction from the $12.7 billion it had a decade ago. “The debacle with the tests probably reflects underlying budget cuts,” said Scott Burris, director of the Center of Public Health Law Research at Temple University. “You can’t have surge capacity if you’ve already been cut to the bone.” 

And, strikingly, the United States had several weeks of advance notice of the coronavirus, which first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, but those early weeks were squandered and now the nation is on its back foot, perhaps with tens of thousands of lives at stake, maybe more. “Trump’s leadership team failed to ready the nation, despite explicit warnings of the need to do so,” writes Alice Hill, the senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and who was responsible for biological threat preparedness in the Obama administration.

Following the criticism that he has mismanaged the nation’s response to the coronavirus epidemic, Trump has attempted a bold rebranding campaign, declaring himself a “wartime president.” 

“Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation,” Trump said at a March 18 White House press briefing, recalling the courage and commitment of those who lived through and fought in World War II. “And now it’s our time. We must sacrifice together, because we are all in this together, and we will come through together. … And it will be a complete victory. It’ll be a total victory.”

His “war” rebranding appears to be working: A majority of Americans now approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released today. The latest figures—55 percent approve, while 43 disapprove—represent a flip in the president’s rating from the previous iteration of the survey, published a week ago, which found 43 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval.

But treating the pandemic as a war may have other consequences, like influencing the psychology of the American electorate during an election year. And it’s important to note that no American president has lost reelection during wartime, a fact that is likely not lost on Team Trump. James Madison was reelected in 1812 during that year’s eponymous war. A half-century later, Abraham Lincoln was reelected during the Civil War. In 1944, in the midst of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt was voted back into the White House. Voters put Richard Nixon back in office during the Vietnam War. George W. Bush, fighting the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, got his second term in 2004.

Trump made good on his characterization of wartime by invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA), which allows the federal government to compel private companies to manufacture goods for the benefit of the nation before making those same products for commercial sale; in this case, medical equipment to handle the pandemic. Inspired by World War II-era laws that allowed the government, for example, to request that Ford Motor Company manufacture hundreds of thousands of vehicles for the army, including tanks, the DPA was first approved by Congress in 1950 to support the nation’s production needs to support its effort in the Korean War.

Vox’s Alex Ward writes that Sasha Baker, a top aide to former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, told him that “some people may get scared or anxious hearing the act has been invoked because it makes it seem like the nation is gearing up for war.” But, as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the globe, followed by a steadily rising death toll, there may be another anxiety brewing, as CNN has suggested that there are “whispers” that President Trump could cancel the 2020 election and remain in power without being reelected. According to a Daily Kos poll, more than  60 percent of those polled (more than 340 respondents) are “concerned that President Trump will declare martial law and/or suspend the 2020 election.”

That concern was voiced by a leading conservative voice before coronavirus even made the headlines. On December 10, after Attorney General William Barr appeared to “whitewash” Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in an interview, Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute expressed grave concern that Trump may upend the Constitution to remain in power. “The Barr interview today is even more frightening than many Americans imagine,” Ornstein tweeted. “It seems clear that he will do or enable anything to keep Trump in office. And Trump will do anything to stay there. Suspension of the election, negation of the results, declaration of martial law.”

Trump has mused several times about staying in the White House longer than is legally allowed. In March of last year, for example, he mentioned the idea of remaining in power for life, after praising President Xi Jinping’s own lifelong rule, which was secured when China’s ruling Communist Party approved the removal of the two-term limit. “He’s now president for life,” Trump said about Xi. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” A few months later, in a Tweetstorm, Trump said that he would leave the presidency in “10 or 14” years. He did add “just kidding,” but that may offer little comfort to those who fear his autocratic tendencies, love of dictators and frequent disregard for the Constitution. Then in December, on the same day that Orenstein tweeted his warning, Trump, during a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, said that he may stay in office for another 29 years. (He would be 102 years old at that point.)

“As democracies around the world slide into autocracy, and nationalism and antidemocratic sentiment are on vivid display among segments of the American populace, Trump’s evident hostility to key elements of liberal democracy cannot be dismissed as mere bluster,” writes Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The moment the president declares a ‘national emergency’—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—he is able to set aside many of the legal limits on his authority.”

Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos ruled for 21 years, nine of them as a dictator while the country was under martial law, which he declared under the guise of suppressing civil strife and a communist threat after several bombings destabilized the capital city of Manila. With the pandemic striking fear in the hearts of Americans, Trump now has his perfect pretext to consolidate power. But will he declare martial law?

In fact, some are calling on Trump to declare martial law to help stem the spread of the virus. “I say to President Trump: Shut us down, sir. Please, just shut us down,” writes Gene Marks, founder of The Marks Group, a small-business consulting firm, in an op-ed on The Hill. “I mean the whole country. Not just New York or San Francisco, but Louisville, Denver, Harrisburg, Clearwater and Madison. Every small town, whether there’s a case or not. I’m talking martial law. Do it. You said you’re now a ‘wartime president.’ So act like one. … I ask you to do this because I’m a small business owner. What we’re doing right now is not helping the economy. By imposing a strict national quarantine, the effects for my business—and the economy overall—would be very, very positive.”

If our self-proclaimed “wartime president” were to declare martial law to fight the pandemic, would he have the authority to suspend the election in November? Josh Douglas, an election law scholar at the University of Kentucky Law School, doesn’t believe so. “Even [martial law] would likely not give him power to postpone election or delay end of his term on Jan. 20, 2021,” he tweeted. “As Supreme Court said in ex parte Milligan (1866), martial law does not suspend the Constitution.”

But Ian Millhiser, a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers Supreme Court issues, points out that the courts usually defer to national security decisions made by presidents, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Japanese-American detention camps during World War II and, more recently, President Trump’s Muslim travel ban. “American election law was not written with a pandemic in mind,” he writes. “Extraordinary measures may be necessary to control the spread of coronavirus for many months — possibly continuing well into the November election season. And if those extraordinary measures do disrupt the general elections, courts are likely to defer to public health officials even if those officials act with partisan motivation.”

John W. Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia, views the coronavirus pandemic not as a test of our ability to come together as a nation in a time of crisis, but rather as “a test to see whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights—can survive a national crisis and a true state of emergency.”

Today in America, we find ourselves caught in the crosshairs of two powerful, unpredictable and dangerous forces—Trumpism and coronavirus. The stock market has lost all its gains since Trump took office, a 20 percent unemployment rate is in the offing, and Americans are dying. Will we pass this test? Will the Constitution survive?

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, agrees with the wartime footing that Trump has initiated. “This is a war, we have to treat it like a war,” Cuomo said. “In a war, you need the federal government.” Sure, states need help from Washington to deal with the pandemic, from the health crisis itself to the economic crisis it has spawned. But before tanks start rumbling down New York’s Fifth Avenue and the Army Corps of Engineers cordons off neighborhoods with bollards and barbed wire, Cuomo might consider the warning of one of Trump’s more eloquent and sagacious predecessors, Thomas Jefferson: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”

There is no dearth of examples suggesting that President Donald Trump lives in an alternate reality. But his belief that the coronavirus “came out of nowhere” and “blindsided the world”—even though public health experts had been warning about the next pandemic for years—may be the reason why the United States is so unprepared to deal with the crisis.

In 2018, he weakened the country’s ability to respond to pandemics when he decided to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for them. His Interior Department failed to update a pandemic plan that was first prepared over a decade ago. His administration failed to restock the Strategic National Stockpile, America’s store of medical supplies, which include the face masks that are in such dire need by doctors, nurses and health professionals at the front lines of the pandemic. Those supplies were depleted during the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009 and were never replenished: Millions of masks in the stockpile are now past their expiration dates. 

The lack of test kits, as well as faulty test kits produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), may have been the result of Trump’s budget cuts: The CDC’s current budget of $8 billion is a substantial reduction from the $12.7 billion it had a decade ago. “The debacle with the tests probably reflects underlying budget cuts,” said Scott Burris, director of the Center of Public Health Law Research at Temple University. “You can’t have surge capacity if you’ve already been cut to the bone.” 

And, strikingly, the United States had several weeks of advance notice of the coronavirus, which first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, but those early weeks were squandered and now the nation is on its back foot, perhaps with tens of thousands of lives at stake, maybe more. “Trump’s leadership team failed to ready the nation, despite explicit warnings of the need to do so,” writes Alice Hill, the senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and who was responsible for biological threat preparedness in the Obama administration.

Following the criticism that he has mismanaged the nation’s response to the coronavirus epidemic, Trump has attempted a bold rebranding campaign, declaring himself a “wartime president.” 

“Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation,” Trump said at a March 18 White House press briefing, recalling the courage and commitment of those who lived through and fought in World War II. “And now it’s our time. We must sacrifice together, because we are all in this together, and we will come through together. … And it will be a complete victory. It’ll be a total victory.”

His “war” rebranding appears to be working: A majority of Americans now approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday. The latest figures—55 percent approve, while 43 disapprove—represent a flip in the president’s rating from the previous iteration of the survey, published a week ago, which found 43 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval.

But treating the pandemic as a war may have other consequences, like influencing the psychology of the American electorate during an election year. And it’s important to note that no American president has lost reelection during wartime, a fact that is likely not lost on Team Trump. James Madison was reelected in 1812 during that year’s eponymous war. A half-century later, Abraham Lincoln was reelected during the Civil War. In 1944, in the midst of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt was voted back into the White House. Voters put Richard Nixon back in office during the Vietnam War. George W. Bush, fighting the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, got his second term in 2004.

Trump made good on his characterization of wartime by invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA), which allows the federal government to compel private companies to manufacture goods for the benefit of the nation before making those same products for commercial sale; in this case, medical equipment to handle the pandemic. Inspired by World War II-era laws that allowed the government, for example, to request that Ford Motor Company manufacture hundreds of thousands of vehicles for the army, including tanks, the DPA was first approved by Congress in 1950 to support the nation’s production needs to support its effort in the Korean War.

Vox’s Alex Ward writes that Sasha Baker, a top aide to former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, told him that “some people may get scared or anxious hearing the act has been invoked because it makes it seem like the nation is gearing up for war.” But, as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the globe, followed by a steadily rising death toll, there may be another anxiety brewing, as CNN has suggested that there are “whispers” that President Trump could cancel the 2020 election and remain in power without being reelected. According to a Daily Kos poll, more than  60 percent of those polled (more than 340 respondents) are “concerned that President Trump will declare martial law and/or suspend the 2020 election.”

That concern was voiced by a leading conservative voice before coronavirus even made the headlines. On December 10, after Attorney General William Barr appeared to “whitewash” Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in an interview, Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute expressed grave concern that Trump may upend the Constitution to remain in power. “The Barr interview today is even more frightening than many Americans imagine,” Ornstein tweeted. “It seems clear that he will do or enable anything to keep Trump in office. And Trump will do anything to stay there. Suspension of the election, negation of the results, declaration of martial law.”

Trump has mused several times about staying in the White House longer than is legally allowed. In March of last year, for example, he mentioned the idea of remaining in power for life, after praising President Xi Jinping’s own lifelong rule, which was secured when China’s ruling Communist Party approved the removal of the two-term limit. “He’s now president for life,” Trump said about Xi. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” A few months later, in a Tweetstorm, Trump said that he would leave the presidency in “10 or 14” years. He did add “just kidding,” but that may offer little comfort to those who fear his autocratic tendencies, love of dictators and frequent disregard for the Constitution. Then in December, on the same day that Orenstein tweeted his warning, Trump, during a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, said that he may stay in office for another 29 years. (He would be 102 years old at that point.)

“As democracies around the world slide into autocracy, and nationalism and antidemocratic sentiment are on vivid display among segments of the American populace, Trump’s evident hostility to key elements of liberal democracy cannot be dismissed as mere bluster,” writes Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The moment the president declares a ‘national emergency’—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—he is able to set aside many of the legal limits on his authority.”

Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos ruled for 21 years, nine of them as a dictator while the country was under martial law, which he declared under the guise of suppressing civil strife and a communist threat after several bombings destabilized the capital city of Manila. With the pandemic striking fear in the hearts of Americans, Trump now has his perfect pretext to consolidate power. But will he declare martial law?

In fact, some are calling on Trump to declare martial law to help stem the spread of the virus. “I say to President Trump: Shut us down, sir. Please, just shut us down,” writes Gene Marks, founder of The Marks Group, a small-business consulting firm, in an op-ed on The Hill. “I mean the whole country. Not just New York or San Francisco, but Louisville, Denver, Harrisburg, Clearwater and Madison. Every small town, whether there’s a case or not. I’m talking martial law. Do it. You said you’re now a ‘wartime president.’ So act like one. … I ask you to do this because I’m a small business owner. What we’re doing right now is not helping the economy. By imposing a strict national quarantine, the effects for my business—and the economy overall—would be very, very positive.”

If our self-proclaimed “wartime president” were to declare martial law to fight the pandemic, would he have the authority to suspend the election in November? Josh Douglas, an election law scholar at the University of Kentucky Law School, doesn’t believe so. “Even [martial law] would likely not give him power to postpone election or delay end of his term on Jan. 20, 2021,” he tweeted. “As Supreme Court said in ex parte Milligan (1866), martial law does not suspend the Constitution.”

But Ian Millhiser, a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers Supreme Court issues, points out that the courts usually defer to national security decisions made by presidents, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Japanese-American detention camps during World War II and, more recently, President Trump’s Muslim travel ban. “American election law was not written with a pandemic in mind,” he writes. “Extraordinary measures may be necessary to control the spread of coronavirus for many months — possibly continuing well into the November election season. And if those extraordinary measures do disrupt the general elections, courts are likely to defer to public health officials even if those officials act with partisan motivation.”

John W. Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia, views the coronavirus pandemic not as a test of our ability to come together as a nation in a time of crisis, but rather as “a test to see whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights—can survive a national crisis and a true state of emergency.”

Today in America, we find ourselves caught in the crosshairs of two powerful, unpredictable and dangerous forces—Trumpism and coronavirus. The stock market has lost all its gains since Trump took office, a 20 percent unemployment rate is in the offing, and Americans are dying. Will we pass this test? Will the Constitution survive?

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, agrees with the wartime footing that Trump has initiated. “This is a war, we have to treat it like a war,” Cuomo said. “In a war, you need the federal government.” Sure, states need help from Washington to deal with the pandemic, from the health crisis itself to the economic crisis it has spawned. But before tanks start rumbling down New York’s Fifth Avenue and the Army Corps of Engineers cordons off neighborhoods with bollards and barbed wire, Cuomo might consider the warning of one of Trump’s more eloquent and sagacious predecessors, Thomas Jefferson: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”

Martina Moneke is a freelance writer based in New York City. 

But it was, and Illinois Democrats willing to risk getting the dreaded virus handed Sanders a decisive loss. Together with lopsided routs in Florida and Arizona (Ohio rescheduled its primary) this is, or should be, the end of the Sanders campaign. There are, frankly, no lessons to be learned here, nothing remotely generalizable. This was a race transformed, suddenly and inexplicably, at a critical moment by a terrible deus ex machina that threatens to inflict once-in-a-century damage on human civilization.

Whenever we talk about 2020, it will be in terms of before and after. Before the virus, there was a lively Democratic primary that began with more than 20 hopefuls, with many of the same fault lines, grievances and fears as 2016. After the virus, the remaining centrist candidates quickly and unexpectedly coalesced around former Vice President Joe Biden and dealt Bernie Sanders an almost unthinkable series of defeats in the Super Tuesday contests. Before the virus, this was a race dominated by a seemingly endless debate about health care policy and whether the United States should opt for a fundamental and far-reaching restructuring of its system. After the virus, there was hardly room for even trembling disagreement.

More importantly, as the scale of the Covid-19 crisis has dawned on a terrified public over the past two weeks, it became clear that a decisive majority of Democratic primary voters no longer had much of any interest in this contest. The measures put into place by states and cities, from shutting down restaurants, bars, schools, universities and public places to the shuttering of all major American pro sports, are so far outside the normal scope of imagination, so sudden in their obliteration of everyday life, so unsettling in their lack of even a rudimentary time horizon, as to annihilate all other concerns and considerations.

Over the past three Tuesdays, Democratic voters have made it clear that they want to consolidate around Biden, and they have done so in such staggering numbers as to make a Sanders delegate majority close to a mathematical impossibility. With many states in the coming weeks likely to punt their primary elections to early summer, and with Biden now holding double-digit leads in national primary polling, it’s not just that Sanders has no real path to the nomination. It’s that the park containing the path is closed. The race will be frozen with Biden holding a roughly 300-delegate lead that is insurmountable given the party’s proportional allocations rules even under normal circumstances. That is a shame, because Sanders has better plans for this crisis than Biden, along with a narrative that correctly blames the long-term hollowing out of the public sector and the gross failure of the neoliberal state to prepare us for this moment. We live in a wrecked society now being held courageously together by grossly underpaid grocery store clerks, harried Amazon delivery drivers and determined health care providers. In America, only the doctors and nurses receive their due, and even they are embedded in a tragically warped system that has led us to be nearly defenseless against a crisis that scientists have been warning us about for decades.

You don’t have to think that single-payer health care is the answer to our every problem or believe that a magic wand can be waved to bring it into existence to see that Sanders is the only candidate left in the race capable of seeing this fallen state for what it is and pursuing policies to remedy it. Sanders offers us a vision of society as it might be. Biden extends the nostalgic promise of returning us to a recent past that is already buried much deeper than he and his supporters believe it is. Think of it this way: the political class in this country is so fundamentally broken that they have already wasted precious days debating half-measures that no sensible economist believes will be remotely sufficient to prevent a massive economic collapse.

Nevertheless, it was not meant to be for Bernie this year. There is no sensible argument for staying in the race now that he needs to win more than 63% of the delegates to get to a majority. There will be no repeat of 2008 and 2016, when trailing candidates floated the idea of flipping the so-called ‘superdelegates’ at the convention and reversing the popular will of the voters. Due in large part to pressure from the Sanders campaign itself, the DNC changed the rules so that superdelegates can’t vote on the first ballot. There isn’t going to be a second one, so there will be no one inside the party left to persuade.

A zombie campaign premised on amassing delegates to influence the party’s platform at the convention is not worth running and is certainly not going to inspire the kind of donations he would need to compete in the remaining states. The platform itself is a hollow prize anyway. No one reads or cares about it, the nominee isn’t bound by it and before the ink is dry, Biden and his team will have taken over the party.

More than ever, Sanders is actually needed as a progressive leader in the Senate, to help shape the coming bailouts and spending packages in a more humane direction. He himself seemed to acknowledge this obliquely yesterday, when he snapped at a reporter asking whether he would drop out: “”I’m dealing with a f—ing global crisis,” he told CNN”s Manu Raju. “Right now, I’m trying to do my best to make sure that we don’t have an economic meltdown and that people don’t die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today?”

The best thing Sanders can do for the American people is dedicate himself to pushing the coming bailouts and stimulus packages and emergency response plans in as progressive direction as possible from his influential perch in the Senate. He’ll be much less effective at that if he’s halfheartedly campaigning to compete in primaries that might not happen for months. And as much as it comes as a disappointment to a progressive movement that just weeks ago seemed to be on the verge of capturing the Democratic Party’s nomination, this thing is over and the sooner Biden can start fundraising for the general election the better. He is not the ideal vehicle to lead the party through a historic crisis, but Donald Trump has proven again and again during this unfolding ordeal that there is an abyss where the president should be, a vacuum of moral, political and administrative leadership that may get hundreds of thousands or even millions of people killed. Fighting a two-front war against the president and the virus is enough. The third front – the primary – needs to be shut down, and progressives need to lick their wounds and hope there is something left of society to fight for in 2024.

This content originally appeared on Truthdig RSS – Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists and was authored by By David Faris / Informed Comment.

On Tuesday, I cast a joyless vote for the very much politically doomed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primary, in an elementary school where hushed whispers and fearful glances had replaced the normal din of an election day. There was no one standing just outside the perimeter hustling me to vote for this or that candidate. There were no throngs of voters with whom to share that elusory joy in exercising your basic democratic rights. It was the first, and I hope the last, ballot that I ever cast wearing latex gloves. There are, I think, very good and important questions about whether this election should have been held at all.

But it was, and Illinois Democrats willing to risk getting the dreaded virus handed Sanders a decisive loss. Together with lopsided routs in Florida and Arizona (Ohio rescheduled its primary) this is, or should be, the end of the Sanders campaign. There are, frankly, no lessons to be learned here, nothing remotely generalizable. This was a race transformed, suddenly and inexplicably, at a critical moment by a terrible deus ex machina that threatens to inflict once-in-a-century damage on human civilization.

Whenever we talk about 2020, it will be in terms of before and after. Before the virus, there was a lively Democratic primary that began with more than 20 hopefuls, with many of the same fault lines, grievances and fears as 2016. After the virus, the remaining centrist candidates quickly and unexpectedly coalesced around former Vice President Joe Biden and dealt Bernie Sanders an almost unthinkable series of defeats in the Super Tuesday contests. Before the virus, this was a race dominated by a seemingly endless debate about health care policy and whether the United States should opt for a fundamental and far-reaching restructuring of its system. After the virus, there was hardly room for even trembling disagreement.

More importantly, as the scale of the Covid-19 crisis has dawned on a terrified public over the past two weeks, it became clear that a decisive majority of Democratic primary voters no longer had much of any interest in this contest. The measures put into place by states and cities, from shutting down restaurants, bars, schools, universities and public places to the shuttering of all major American pro sports, are so far outside the normal scope of imagination, so sudden in their obliteration of everyday life, so unsettling in their lack of even a rudimentary time horizon, as to annihilate all other concerns and considerations.

Over the past three Tuesdays, Democratic voters have made it clear that they want to consolidate around Biden, and they have done so in such staggering numbers as to make a Sanders delegate majority close to a mathematical impossibility. With many states in the coming weeks likely to punt their primary elections to early summer, and with Biden now holding double-digit leads in national primary polling, it’s not just that Sanders has no real path to the nomination. It’s that the park containing the path is closed. The race will be frozen with Biden holding a roughly 300-delegate lead that is insurmountable given the party’s proportional allocations rules even under normal circumstances. That is a shame, because Sanders has better plans for this crisis than Biden, along with a narrative that correctly blames the long-term hollowing out of the public sector and the gross failure of the neoliberal state to prepare us for this moment. We live in a wrecked society now being held courageously together by grossly underpaid grocery store clerks, harried Amazon delivery drivers and determined health care providers. In America, only the doctors and nurses receive their due, and even they are embedded in a tragically warped system that has led us to be nearly defenseless against a crisis that scientists have been warning us about for decades.

You don’t have to think that single-payer health care is the answer to our every problem or believe that a magic wand can be waved to bring it into existence to see that Sanders is the only candidate left in the race capable of seeing this fallen state for what it is and pursuing policies to remedy it. Sanders offers us a vision of society as it might be. Biden extends the nostalgic promise of returning us to a recent past that is already buried much deeper than he and his supporters believe it is. Think of it this way: the political class in this country is so fundamentally broken that they have already wasted precious days debating half-measures that no sensible economist believes will be remotely sufficient to prevent a massive economic collapse.

Nevertheless, it was not meant to be for Bernie this year. There is no sensible argument for staying in the race now that he needs to win more than 63% of the delegates to get to a majority. There will be no repeat of 2008 and 2016, when trailing candidates floated the idea of flipping the so-called ‘superdelegates’ at the convention and reversing the popular will of the voters. Due in large part to pressure from the Sanders campaign itself, the DNC changed the rules so that superdelegates can’t vote on the first ballot. There isn’t going to be a second one, so there will be no one inside the party left to persuade.

A zombie campaign premised on amassing delegates to influence the party’s platform at the convention is not worth running and is certainly not going to inspire the kind of donations he would need to compete in the remaining states. The platform itself is a hollow prize anyway. No one reads or cares about it, the nominee isn’t bound by it and before the ink is dry, Biden and his team will have taken over the party.

More than ever, Sanders is actually needed as a progressive leader in the Senate, to help shape the coming bailouts and spending packages in a more humane direction. He himself seemed to acknowledge this obliquely yesterday, when he snapped at a reporter asking whether he would drop out: “”I’m dealing with a f—ing global crisis,” he told CNN”s Manu Raju. “Right now, I’m trying to do my best to make sure that we don’t have an economic meltdown and that people don’t die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today?”

The best thing Sanders can do for the American people is dedicate himself to pushing the coming bailouts and stimulus packages and emergency response plans in as progressive direction as possible from his influential perch in the Senate. He’ll be much less effective at that if he’s halfheartedly campaigning to compete in primaries that might not happen for months. And as much as it comes as a disappointment to a progressive movement that just weeks ago seemed to be on the verge of capturing the Democratic Party’s nomination, this thing is over and the sooner Biden can start fundraising for the general election the better. He is not the ideal vehicle to lead the party through a historic crisis, but Donald Trump has proven again and again during this unfolding ordeal that there is an abyss where the president should be, a vacuum of moral, political and administrative leadership that may get hundreds of thousands or even millions of people killed. Fighting a two-front war against the president and the virus is enough. The third front – the primary – needs to be shut down, and progressives need to lick their wounds and hope there is something left of society to fight for in 2024.

On Tuesday, I cast a joyless vote for the very much politically doomed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primary, in an elementary school where hushed whispers and fearful glances had replaced the normal din of an election day. There was no one standing just outside the perimeter hustling me to vote for this or that candidate. There were no throngs of voters with whom to share that elusory joy in exercising your basic democratic rights. It was the first, and I hope the last, ballot that I ever cast wearing latex gloves. There are, I think, very good and important questions about whether this election should have been held at all.

But it was, and Illinois Democrats willing to risk getting the dreaded virus handed Sanders a decisive loss. Together with lopsided routs in Florida and Arizona (Ohio rescheduled its primary) this is, or should be, the end of the Sanders campaign. There are, frankly, no lessons to be learned here, nothing remotely generalizable. This was a race transformed, suddenly and inexplicably, at a critical moment by a terrible deus ex machina that threatens to inflict once-in-a-century damage on human civilization.

Whenever we talk about 2020, it will be in terms of before and after. Before the virus, there was a lively Democratic primary that began with more than 20 hopefuls, with many of the same fault lines, grievances and fears as 2016. After the virus, the remaining centrist candidates quickly and unexpectedly coalesced around former Vice President Joe Biden and dealt Bernie Sanders an almost unthinkable series of defeats in the Super Tuesday contests. Before the virus, this was a race dominated by a seemingly endless debate about health care policy and whether the United States should opt for a fundamental and far-reaching restructuring of its system. After the virus, there was hardly room for even trembling disagreement.

More importantly, as the scale of the Covid-19 crisis has dawned on a terrified public over the past two weeks, it became clear that a decisive majority of Democratic primary voters no longer had much of any interest in this contest. The measures put into place by states and cities, from shutting down restaurants, bars, schools, universities and public places to the shuttering of all major American pro sports, are so far outside the normal scope of imagination, so sudden in their obliteration of everyday life, so unsettling in their lack of even a rudimentary time horizon, as to annihilate all other concerns and considerations.

Over the past three Tuesdays, Democratic voters have made it clear that they want to consolidate around Biden, and they have done so in such staggering numbers as to make a Sanders delegate majority close to a mathematical impossibility. With many states in the coming weeks likely to punt their primary elections to early summer, and with Biden now holding double-digit leads in national primary polling, it’s not just that Sanders has no real path to the nomination. It’s that the park containing the path is closed. The race will be frozen with Biden holding a roughly 300-delegate lead that is insurmountable given the party’s proportional allocations rules even under normal circumstances. That is a shame, because Sanders has better plans for this crisis than Biden, along with a narrative that correctly blames the long-term hollowing out of the public sector and the gross failure of the neoliberal state to prepare us for this moment. We live in a wrecked society now being held courageously together by grossly underpaid grocery store clerks, harried Amazon delivery drivers and determined health care providers. In America, only the doctors and nurses receive their due, and even they are embedded in a tragically warped system that has led us to be nearly defenseless against a crisis that scientists have been warning us about for decades.

You don’t have to think that single-payer health care is the answer to our every problem or believe that a magic wand can be waved to bring it into existence to see that Sanders is the only candidate left in the race capable of seeing this fallen state for what it is and pursuing policies to remedy it. Sanders offers us a vision of society as it might be. Biden extends the nostalgic promise of returning us to a recent past that is already buried much deeper than he and his supporters believe it is. Think of it this way: the political class in this country is so fundamentally broken that they have already wasted precious days debating half-measures that no sensible economist believes will be remotely sufficient to prevent a massive economic collapse.

Nevertheless, it was not meant to be for Bernie this year. There is no sensible argument for staying in the race now that he needs to win more than 63% of the delegates to get to a majority. There will be no repeat of 2008 and 2016, when trailing candidates floated the idea of flipping the so-called ‘superdelegates’ at the convention and reversing the popular will of the voters. Due in large part to pressure from the Sanders campaign itself, the DNC changed the rules so that superdelegates can’t vote on the first ballot. There isn’t going to be a second one, so there will be no one inside the party left to persuade.

A zombie campaign premised on amassing delegates to influence the party’s platform at the convention is not worth running and is certainly not going to inspire the kind of donations he would need to compete in the remaining states. The platform itself is a hollow prize anyway. No one reads or cares about it, the nominee isn’t bound by it and before the ink is dry, Biden and his team will have taken over the party.

More than ever, Sanders is actually needed as a progressive leader in the Senate, to help shape the coming bailouts and spending packages in a more humane direction. He himself seemed to acknowledge this obliquely yesterday, when he snapped at a reporter asking whether he would drop out: “”I’m dealing with a f—ing global crisis,” he told CNN”s Manu Raju. “Right now, I’m trying to do my best to make sure that we don’t have an economic meltdown and that people don’t die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today?”

The best thing Sanders can do for the American people is dedicate himself to pushing the coming bailouts and stimulus packages and emergency response plans in as progressive direction as possible from his influential perch in the Senate. He’ll be much less effective at that if he’s halfheartedly campaigning to compete in primaries that might not happen for months. And as much as it comes as a disappointment to a progressive movement that just weeks ago seemed to be on the verge of capturing the Democratic Party’s nomination, this thing is over and the sooner Biden can start fundraising for the general election the better. He is not the ideal vehicle to lead the party through a historic crisis, but Donald Trump has proven again and again during this unfolding ordeal that there is an abyss where the president should be, a vacuum of moral, political and administrative leadership that may get hundreds of thousands or even millions of people killed. Fighting a two-front war against the president and the virus is enough. The third front – the primary – needs to be shut down, and progressives need to lick their wounds and hope there is something left of society to fight for in 2024.

There’s also a huge open question: If the virus continues to infect large numbers of people, how can the general election take place safely this fall?

Just this week, Arizona, Florida and Illinois held primaries, and Ohio postponed its election at the last minute, causing widespread confusion. Several states with upcoming primaries, including Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maryland, also announced they would postpone their elections. Voting rights advocates have recommended states expand early voting and access to no-excuse absentee voting, among other measures. One advocacy group, Common Cause, called for a delay in in-person voting for “at least the next few weeks.”

Given the daunting logistical challenges of holding elections in the time of the coronavirus, we had a lot of questions for Rick Hasen, an election law expert and a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s the author of several books on elections, including “Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust and the Threat to American Democracy,” published this year. This interview has been condensed for clarity.

So what happened during voting in four states this week?

Well, we only had voting in three of those four states [that were scheduled to vote] because in one state at the last minute, the governor and Ohio election officials essentially postponed the primary, despite a court saying that the primary should not be postponed. In other states where the voting actually took place, we saw a number of problems, including missing poll workers, last-minute people deputized as election judges, some unsanitary conditions at polling places and what will probably turn out to be a decline in in-person turnout at those elections.

How can states hold elections without being in violation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance of avoiding gatherings of more than 50 people?

Well, I’m not all that familiar with the CDC guidance, but I believe that the guidance relates to social activities. I’m not sure it relates to government activities. So a group of firefighters, for example, at a fire, there might be more people than the CDC recommends. [Editor’s note: Earlier this week, the CDC issued guidelines for large gatherings of more than 50 people, with separate guidance for workplace, first responders and polling places.] But I think a better question to ask is how can elections be conducted safely under these conditions where we need to practice social distancing? I think it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge because people queue up to vote on Election Day. People are handling the same machinery, the same surfaces. Those can’t be constantly cleaned between each voter. So it’s going to be difficult. I think this is why you’re seeing so many government officials trying to delay their primaries to a later point in time. And of course, increased use of absentee balloting can vastly increase the safety of voting at this point because you’re keeping people further away from each other, and allowing people to vote in the comfort of their own home.

What legal authority do states have to postpone elections like happened in Ohio?

So this is a state-by-state question if we’re talking about something besides the presidential election. The presidential election is set by federal statute, the date of the presidential election. So it could not be easily postponed. And there are provisions of the Constitution for what happens if the election cannot take place. The question of whether or not a state can postpone a primary is a function of what the state constitutions and state statutes say. One of the points I make in my book, “Election Meltdown,” which was written before this coronavirus crisis arose, is that many states do not have adequate Plan Bs in place to deal with questions of election emergencies, whether it’s a hurricane, a cyberattack or in this case a pandemic. So, we really need state legislatures and Congress right now to be thinking about what steps need to be taken in November to assure that as many people as possible will be able to exercise the franchise and vote.

So, on the local level, for example, who decides what changes get made on Election Day?

Again, these are state-by-state questions. Often decisions about closing polling places or making voting changes are done by county election boards. Sometimes they come from a state’s directive. Because we have such a decentralized election system in the United States, we don’t run a single election for president — we run something like 8,000 or 9,000 elections for president. Given that we have that, it’s really hard to generalize about who has authority.

I should add that until the Supreme Court’s decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013, before any polling places could be closed in a state that had a history of racial discrimination in voting, approval had to be obtained from the Department of Justice or [from] a court in Washington, D.C. That protection for voters is now gone.

When changes are made on Election Day, like they were this week, for example, how are election officials communicating those changes? How are voters supposed to find out if their polling place was moved?

So this is very problematic because often there is not adequate communication. Often this information will appear on a government website. Sometimes voters don’t learn that a polling place has moved or changed until they try and show up to vote. Another good practice is that election officials should be doing whatever they can to use a variety of methods of communication, including social media, to try to get the word out about any changes in polling place or rules. One of the things we saw earlier in Ohio was that there was tremendous confusion about whether the election was on or off. Poll workers didn’t know if they were supposed to show up until the day before. I think what we saw on Tuesday in Ohio and in other states is a good indication, for those states that still have primaries, that they better have good plans in place, including the extended use of absentee balloting. I think we’re going to see a huge increase in absentee balloting for the remaining primaries, given the dangers of going to the polling place.

How are the states protecting voting rights when changes are made? And what more should states be doing?

Some states do not have a very good record of protecting voting rights. So it is going to require the public or voting rights groups to push the states to make sure that people are not disenfranchised. I think states need to be asking themselves: How can we ensure that as many voters as possible under these difficult conditions still may be able to exercise their constitutional rights and register and vote?

And I want to underline this point about voter registration, because I think it’s getting a lot less attention in this conversation than voting itself. Many people would ordinarily be registering to vote between now and November. Under state laws, there are different cutoff times for when you can register to vote. If people have to register to vote in person, this can also create problems if there are orders to not visit government buildings, and government buildings are closed. So I think it’s very important for states, if they actually care about voting rights, to move to online voter registration if they don’t already have it. Many states have online voter registration, some don’t. But providing ways that people can exercise their constitutional rights without having to show up in person is something that should be on the minds of all election administrators around the country.

Has something like this happened before in terms of a big crisis? And if so, what did states do and what did we learn?

Well, we had voting taking place on 9/11 in New York. That was not a federal election. They were able to postpone that election and reschedule it. I think the lesson we should have learned is that it’s crucial to have a backup emergency plan in place in the event of a disruption. The closest thing is probably the voting that took place during the flu pandemic in 1918, and voting was disrupted in a number of places. Vote-by-mail was not really a thing back then. And so many people ended up being disenfranchised. There are pictures of people lined up wearing surgical masks at polling places which, you know, seems like such a strange image. But it probably won’t seem strange to us now.

What about hurricanes?

So, Florida is a state that often has problems with hurricanes occurring during voting season. They have enacted rules for dealing with voting and they do make accommodations, for example, extending the period of early voting, or allowing people to vote outside their polling place in the event of an emergency. As I detail in “Election Meltdown,” even with these rules, sometimes election administrators take matters into their own hands, such as an election administrator in one county in Florida who allowed people to vote electronically, sending in a ballot by email, which was against the rules and not part of the emergency rules.

I think it’s very problematic for election administrators, even with the best of intentions, to change voting rules, even to enfranchise voters, if it’s in violation of state law. And so this is why I think states need to be thinking now before we get to the next set of voting as to what the rules should be in the event of an emergency. So everybody’s on the same page. Because we don’t want different election administrators coming up with different rules that may or may not be fair and secure as a means of voting.

What do you think will be most affected by changes to voting regulations caused by the coronavirus? Are there some states it could affect more than others or some demographics it could affect more than others?

If we don’t make accommodations for increased vote-by-mail, I think there is a special burden that’s going to be placed on older voters who are most susceptible to having serious complications if they get this virus.

And so I think that the most important thing right now is for election officials to think about those vulnerable populations and ask what they can do to ensure that they’re not disenfranchised. We don’t know what things are going to look like now in November. I certainly hope that things are better, but we should plan as though things are not going to be better and provide the tools now, so that every eligible voter will be able to have a means of safely casting a ballot.

Given the potential impact of the virus, does the U.S. need to make changes to how it votes before November on a federal level?

I support federal legislation. I recently wrote a piece in Slate advocating that Congress pass a law requiring states that don’t currently offer no-excuse vote-by-mail to require that the states do so in November. I think Congress also needs to come up with funding. Assuming we continue to have problems, there’s going to be a flood of new vote-by-mail voters. It’s more expensive to process those ballots, and states are going to need all the help they can get in this environment. So I support folding into some of the coronavirus bills that are coming before Congress now additional funding and this mandate for states to allow this option. We also need to have protections for voters who are voting by absentee [ballot], because one of the things we know is that absentee ballots are much more likely to be tossed for noncompliance.

And also, we know that although voter fraud is very rare in this country, when election crimes do happen, they tend to happen with absentee ballots. And so we need rules to make sure that there’s no ballot tampering.

Given all of the logistics involved with vote-by-mail and the decentralized nature of our elections, is it logistically possible that we could roll out a full-scale vote-by-mail system by November?

I’m not advocating a full vote-by-mail system for November. I’m not saying we should have only vote-by-mail. I think that would be extremely difficult to do. It took the states that have moved in that direction years to get their systems in place. What I’m suggesting is that voters have the option of voting by absentee ballot. I think that is something that is doable so long as there’s enough planning and resources and we start thinking about it now.

Can the general election be postponed or canceled? Can you talk about the constitutional aspect of that?

The Constitution gives Congress the power to be setting the time of the election. Congress has done that in the statutes in order to change the election date. That statute would have to be changed. I don’t foresee that happening. That’s not really a concern I have, although I hear that a great deal.

I’m much more concerned that the federal government, or state officials, as we saw in Ohio recently, say people have to stay away from the polling places on Election Day. That would not be postponing Election Day, but that would be disenfranchising potentially millions of people. And that’s why I think we need to have an absentee ballot backup system, because if the election takes place and people can’t go to the polling places, the vote would then be either done by those who were able to vote early or by absentee before there might be some restrictions.

Or in the case of the presidential election, state legislatures might take back the power that the Constitution gives them to appoint electors to the Electoral College directly. That is, the state legislature in Pennsylvania might say, you know, we’re not going to let voters vote for president this time. We’re going to decide who gets Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes. I think that would be profoundly anti-democratic and dangerous. I don’t want that to happen, and I don’t want the excuse to be “Well, voters can’t vote,” which is all the more reason I think we need this vote-by-mail backup system in place in as many places as possible.

There is a dispute over whether a state legislature could decide to take back the power to appoint electors directly, and whether that would have to happen through ordinary legislation signed by the governor or [being passed into] law over a veto or if it could be done by the state legislature acting unilaterally. I hope we never have to test this to find out the answer.

Rachel Glickhouse contributed reporting

You can read the original ProPublica article here

This content originally appeared on Truthdig RSS – Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists and was authored by By Rachel Glickhouse / ProPublica.

There’s also a huge open question: If the virus continues to infect large numbers of people, how can the general election take place safely this fall?

Just this week, Arizona, Florida and Illinois held primaries, and Ohio postponed its election at the last minute, causing widespread confusion. Several states with upcoming primaries, including Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maryland, also announced they would postpone their elections. Voting rights advocates have recommended states expand early voting and access to no-excuse absentee voting, among other measures. One advocacy group, Common Cause, called for a delay in in-person voting for “at least the next few weeks.”

Given the daunting logistical challenges of holding elections in the time of the coronavirus, we had a lot of questions for Rick Hasen, an election law expert and a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s the author of several books on elections, including “Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust and the Threat to American Democracy,” published this year. This interview has been condensed for clarity.

So what happened during voting in four states this week?

Well, we only had voting in three of those four states [that were scheduled to vote] because in one state at the last minute, the governor and Ohio election officials essentially postponed the primary, despite a court saying that the primary should not be postponed. In other states where the voting actually took place, we saw a number of problems, including missing poll workers, last-minute people deputized as election judges, some unsanitary conditions at polling places and what will probably turn out to be a decline in in-person turnout at those elections.

How can states hold elections without being in violation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance of avoiding gatherings of more than 50 people?

Well, I’m not all that familiar with the CDC guidance, but I believe that the guidance relates to social activities. I’m not sure it relates to government activities. So a group of firefighters, for example, at a fire, there might be more people than the CDC recommends. [Editor’s note: Earlier this week, the CDC issued guidelines for large gatherings of more than 50 people, with separate guidance for workplace, first responders and polling places.] But I think a better question to ask is how can elections be conducted safely under these conditions where we need to practice social distancing? I think it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge because people queue up to vote on Election Day. People are handling the same machinery, the same surfaces. Those can’t be constantly cleaned between each voter. So it’s going to be difficult. I think this is why you’re seeing so many government officials trying to delay their primaries to a later point in time. And of course, increased use of absentee balloting can vastly increase the safety of voting at this point because you’re keeping people further away from each other, and allowing people to vote in the comfort of their own home.

What legal authority do states have to postpone elections like happened in Ohio?

So this is a state-by-state question if we’re talking about something besides the presidential election. The presidential election is set by federal statute, the date of the presidential election. So it could not be easily postponed. And there are provisions of the Constitution for what happens if the election cannot take place. The question of whether or not a state can postpone a primary is a function of what the state constitutions and state statutes say. One of the points I make in my book, “Election Meltdown,” which was written before this coronavirus crisis arose, is that many states do not have adequate Plan Bs in place to deal with questions of election emergencies, whether it’s a hurricane, a cyberattack or in this case a pandemic. So, we really need state legislatures and Congress right now to be thinking about what steps need to be taken in November to assure that as many people as possible will be able to exercise the franchise and vote.

So, on the local level, for example, who decides what changes get made on Election Day?

Again, these are state-by-state questions. Often decisions about closing polling places or making voting changes are done by county election boards. Sometimes they come from a state’s directive. Because we have such a decentralized election system in the United States, we don’t run a single election for president — we run something like 8,000 or 9,000 elections for president. Given that we have that, it’s really hard to generalize about who has authority.

I should add that until the Supreme Court’s decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013, before any polling places could be closed in a state that had a history of racial discrimination in voting, approval had to be obtained from the Department of Justice or [from] a court in Washington, D.C. That protection for voters is now gone.

When changes are made on Election Day, like they were this week, for example, how are election officials communicating those changes? How are voters supposed to find out if their polling place was moved?

So this is very problematic because often there is not adequate communication. Often this information will appear on a government website. Sometimes voters don’t learn that a polling place has moved or changed until they try and show up to vote. Another good practice is that election officials should be doing whatever they can to use a variety of methods of communication, including social media, to try to get the word out about any changes in polling place or rules. One of the things we saw earlier in Ohio was that there was tremendous confusion about whether the election was on or off. Poll workers didn’t know if they were supposed to show up until the day before. I think what we saw on Tuesday in Ohio and in other states is a good indication, for those states that still have primaries, that they better have good plans in place, including the extended use of absentee balloting. I think we’re going to see a huge increase in absentee balloting for the remaining primaries, given the dangers of going to the polling place.

How are the states protecting voting rights when changes are made? And what more should states be doing?

Some states do not have a very good record of protecting voting rights. So it is going to require the public or voting rights groups to push the states to make sure that people are not disenfranchised. I think states need to be asking themselves: How can we ensure that as many voters as possible under these difficult conditions still may be able to exercise their constitutional rights and register and vote?

And I want to underline this point about voter registration, because I think it’s getting a lot less attention in this conversation than voting itself. Many people would ordinarily be registering to vote between now and November. Under state laws, there are different cutoff times for when you can register to vote. If people have to register to vote in person, this can also create problems if there are orders to not visit government buildings, and government buildings are closed. So I think it’s very important for states, if they actually care about voting rights, to move to online voter registration if they don’t already have it. Many states have online voter registration, some don’t. But providing ways that people can exercise their constitutional rights without having to show up in person is something that should be on the minds of all election administrators around the country.

Has something like this happened before in terms of a big crisis? And if so, what did states do and what did we learn?

Well, we had voting taking place on 9/11 in New York. That was not a federal election. They were able to postpone that election and reschedule it. I think the lesson we should have learned is that it’s crucial to have a backup emergency plan in place in the event of a disruption. The closest thing is probably the voting that took place during the flu pandemic in 1918, and voting was disrupted in a number of places. Vote-by-mail was not really a thing back then. And so many people ended up being disenfranchised. There are pictures of people lined up wearing surgical masks at polling places which, you know, seems like such a strange image. But it probably won’t seem strange to us now.

What about hurricanes?

So, Florida is a state that often has problems with hurricanes occurring during voting season. They have enacted rules for dealing with voting and they do make accommodations, for example, extending the period of early voting, or allowing people to vote outside their polling place in the event of an emergency. As I detail in “Election Meltdown,” even with these rules, sometimes election administrators take matters into their own hands, such as an election administrator in one county in Florida who allowed people to vote electronically, sending in a ballot by email, which was against the rules and not part of the emergency rules.

I think it’s very problematic for election administrators, even with the best of intentions, to change voting rules, even to enfranchise voters, if it’s in violation of state law. And so this is why I think states need to be thinking now before we get to the next set of voting as to what the rules should be in the event of an emergency. So everybody’s on the same page. Because we don’t want different election administrators coming up with different rules that may or may not be fair and secure as a means of voting.

What do you think will be most affected by changes to voting regulations caused by the coronavirus? Are there some states it could affect more than others or some demographics it could affect more than others?

If we don’t make accommodations for increased vote-by-mail, I think there is a special burden that’s going to be placed on older voters who are most susceptible to having serious complications if they get this virus.

And so I think that the most important thing right now is for election officials to think about those vulnerable populations and ask what they can do to ensure that they’re not disenfranchised. We don’t know what things are going to look like now in November. I certainly hope that things are better, but we should plan as though things are not going to be better and provide the tools now, so that every eligible voter will be able to have a means of safely casting a ballot.

Given the potential impact of the virus, does the U.S. need to make changes to how it votes before November on a federal level?

I support federal legislation. I recently wrote a piece in Slate advocating that Congress pass a law requiring states that don’t currently offer no-excuse vote-by-mail to require that the states do so in November. I think Congress also needs to come up with funding. Assuming we continue to have problems, there’s going to be a flood of new vote-by-mail voters. It’s more expensive to process those ballots, and states are going to need all the help they can get in this environment. So I support folding into some of the coronavirus bills that are coming before Congress now additional funding and this mandate for states to allow this option. We also need to have protections for voters who are voting by absentee [ballot], because one of the things we know is that absentee ballots are much more likely to be tossed for noncompliance.

And also, we know that although voter fraud is very rare in this country, when election crimes do happen, they tend to happen with absentee ballots. And so we need rules to make sure that there’s no ballot tampering.

Given all of the logistics involved with vote-by-mail and the decentralized nature of our elections, is it logistically possible that we could roll out a full-scale vote-by-mail system by November?

I’m not advocating a full vote-by-mail system for November. I’m not saying we should have only vote-by-mail. I think that would be extremely difficult to do. It took the states that have moved in that direction years to get their systems in place. What I’m suggesting is that voters have the option of voting by absentee ballot. I think that is something that is doable so long as there’s enough planning and resources and we start thinking about it now.

Can the general election be postponed or canceled? Can you talk about the constitutional aspect of that?

The Constitution gives Congress the power to be setting the time of the election. Congress has done that in the statutes in order to change the election date. That statute would have to be changed. I don’t foresee that happening. That’s not really a concern I have, although I hear that a great deal.

I’m much more concerned that the federal government, or state officials, as we saw in Ohio recently, say people have to stay away from the polling places on Election Day. That would not be postponing Election Day, but that would be disenfranchising potentially millions of people. And that’s why I think we need to have an absentee ballot backup system, because if the election takes place and people can’t go to the polling places, the vote would then be either done by those who were able to vote early or by absentee before there might be some restrictions.

Or in the case of the presidential election, state legislatures might take back the power that the Constitution gives them to appoint electors to the Electoral College directly. That is, the state legislature in Pennsylvania might say, you know, we’re not going to let voters vote for president this time. We’re going to decide who gets Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes. I think that would be profoundly anti-democratic and dangerous. I don’t want that to happen, and I don’t want the excuse to be “Well, voters can’t vote,” which is all the more reason I think we need this vote-by-mail backup system in place in as many places as possible.

There is a dispute over whether a state legislature could decide to take back the power to appoint electors directly, and whether that would have to happen through ordinary legislation signed by the governor or [being passed into] law over a veto or if it could be done by the state legislature acting unilaterally. I hope we never have to test this to find out the answer.

Rachel Glickhouse contributed reporting

You can read the original ProPublica article here

As the novel coronavirus spreads through the U.S. during presidential primaries, election and government officials are scrambling to figure out how to allow voters to cast their ballots safely ― or postpone primaries altogether. Managing in-person voting during an unprecedented pandemic has forced authorities to overcome new virus-related hurdles: providing sufficient cleaning supplies to polling places, moving polling places out of nursing homes and ensuring there are enough poll workers.

There’s also a huge open question: If the virus continues to infect large numbers of people, how can the general election take place safely this fall?

Just this week, Arizona, Florida and Illinois held primaries, and Ohio postponed its election at the last minute, causing widespread confusion. Several states with upcoming primaries, including Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maryland, also announced they would postpone their elections. Voting rights advocates have recommended states expand early voting and access to no-excuse absentee voting, among other measures. One advocacy group, Common Cause, called for a delay in in-person voting for “at least the next few weeks.”

Given the daunting logistical challenges of holding elections in the time of the coronavirus, we had a lot of questions for Rick Hasen, an election law expert and a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s the author of several books on elections, including “Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust and the Threat to American Democracy,” published this year. This interview has been condensed for clarity.

So what happened during voting in four states this week?

Well, we only had voting in three of those four states [that were scheduled to vote] because in one state at the last minute, the governor and Ohio election officials essentially postponed the primary, despite a court saying that the primary should not be postponed. In other states where the voting actually took place, we saw a number of problems, including missing poll workers, last-minute people deputized as election judges, some unsanitary conditions at polling places and what will probably turn out to be a decline in in-person turnout at those elections.

How can states hold elections without being in violation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance of avoiding gatherings of more than 50 people?

Well, I’m not all that familiar with the CDC guidance, but I believe that the guidance relates to social activities. I’m not sure it relates to government activities. So a group of firefighters, for example, at a fire, there might be more people than the CDC recommends. [Editor’s note: Earlier this week, the CDC issued guidelines for large gatherings of more than 50 people, with separate guidance for workplace, first responders and polling places.] But I think a better question to ask is how can elections be conducted safely under these conditions where we need to practice social distancing? I think it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge because people queue up to vote on Election Day. People are handling the same machinery, the same surfaces. Those can’t be constantly cleaned between each voter. So it’s going to be difficult. I think this is why you’re seeing so many government officials trying to delay their primaries to a later point in time. And of course, increased use of absentee balloting can vastly increase the safety of voting at this point because you’re keeping people further away from each other, and allowing people to vote in the comfort of their own home.

What legal authority do states have to postpone elections like happened in Ohio?

So this is a state-by-state question if we’re talking about something besides the presidential election. The presidential election is set by federal statute, the date of the presidential election. So it could not be easily postponed. And there are provisions of the Constitution for what happens if the election cannot take place. The question of whether or not a state can postpone a primary is a function of what the state constitutions and state statutes say. One of the points I make in my book, “Election Meltdown,” which was written before this coronavirus crisis arose, is that many states do not have adequate Plan Bs in place to deal with questions of election emergencies, whether it’s a hurricane, a cyberattack or in this case a pandemic. So, we really need state legislatures and Congress right now to be thinking about what steps need to be taken in November to assure that as many people as possible will be able to exercise the franchise and vote.

So, on the local level, for example, who decides what changes get made on Election Day?

Again, these are state-by-state questions. Often decisions about closing polling places or making voting changes are done by county election boards. Sometimes they come from a state’s directive. Because we have such a decentralized election system in the United States, we don’t run a single election for president — we run something like 8,000 or 9,000 elections for president. Given that we have that, it’s really hard to generalize about who has authority.

I should add that until the Supreme Court’s decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013, before any polling places could be closed in a state that had a history of racial discrimination in voting, approval had to be obtained from the Department of Justice or [from] a court in Washington, D.C. That protection for voters is now gone.

When changes are made on Election Day, like they were this week, for example, how are election officials communicating those changes? How are voters supposed to find out if their polling place was moved?

So this is very problematic because often there is not adequate communication. Often this information will appear on a government website. Sometimes voters don’t learn that a polling place has moved or changed until they try and show up to vote. Another good practice is that election officials should be doing whatever they can to use a variety of methods of communication, including social media, to try to get the word out about any changes in polling place or rules. One of the things we saw earlier in Ohio was that there was tremendous confusion about whether the election was on or off. Poll workers didn’t know if they were supposed to show up until the day before. I think what we saw on Tuesday in Ohio and in other states is a good indication, for those states that still have primaries, that they better have good plans in place, including the extended use of absentee balloting. I think we’re going to see a huge increase in absentee balloting for the remaining primaries, given the dangers of going to the polling place.

How are the states protecting voting rights when changes are made? And what more should states be doing?

Some states do not have a very good record of protecting voting rights. So it is going to require the public or voting rights groups to push the states to make sure that people are not disenfranchised. I think states need to be asking themselves: How can we ensure that as many voters as possible under these difficult conditions still may be able to exercise their constitutional rights and register and vote?

And I want to underline this point about voter registration, because I think it’s getting a lot less attention in this conversation than voting itself. Many people would ordinarily be registering to vote between now and November. Under state laws, there are different cutoff times for when you can register to vote. If people have to register to vote in person, this can also create problems if there are orders to not visit government buildings, and government buildings are closed. So I think it’s very important for states, if they actually care about voting rights, to move to online voter registration if they don’t already have it. Many states have online voter registration, some don’t. But providing ways that people can exercise their constitutional rights without having to show up in person is something that should be on the minds of all election administrators around the country.

Has something like this happened before in terms of a big crisis? And if so, what did states do and what did we learn?

Well, we had voting taking place on 9/11 in New York. That was not a federal election. They were able to postpone that election and reschedule it. I think the lesson we should have learned is that it’s crucial to have a backup emergency plan in place in the event of a disruption. The closest thing is probably the voting that took place during the flu pandemic in 1918, and voting was disrupted in a number of places. Vote-by-mail was not really a thing back then. And so many people ended up being disenfranchised. There are pictures of people lined up wearing surgical masks at polling places which, you know, seems like such a strange image. But it probably won’t seem strange to us now.

What about hurricanes?

So, Florida is a state that often has problems with hurricanes occurring during voting season. They have enacted rules for dealing with voting and they do make accommodations, for example, extending the period of early voting, or allowing people to vote outside their polling place in the event of an emergency. As I detail in “Election Meltdown,” even with these rules, sometimes election administrators take matters into their own hands, such as an election administrator in one county in Florida who allowed people to vote electronically, sending in a ballot by email, which was against the rules and not part of the emergency rules.

I think it’s very problematic for election administrators, even with the best of intentions, to change voting rules, even to enfranchise voters, if it’s in violation of state law. And so this is why I think states need to be thinking now before we get to the next set of voting as to what the rules should be in the event of an emergency. So everybody’s on the same page. Because we don’t want different election administrators coming up with different rules that may or may not be fair and secure as a means of voting.

What do you think will be most affected by changes to voting regulations caused by the coronavirus? Are there some states it could affect more than others or some demographics it could affect more than others?

If we don’t make accommodations for increased vote-by-mail, I think there is a special burden that’s going to be placed on older voters who are most susceptible to having serious complications if they get this virus.

And so I think that the most important thing right now is for election officials to think about those vulnerable populations and ask what they can do to ensure that they’re not disenfranchised. We don’t know what things are going to look like now in November. I certainly hope that things are better, but we should plan as though things are not going to be better and provide the tools now, so that every eligible voter will be able to have a means of safely casting a ballot.

Given the potential impact of the virus, does the U.S. need to make changes to how it votes before November on a federal level?

I support federal legislation. I recently wrote a piece in Slate advocating that Congress pass a law requiring states that don’t currently offer no-excuse vote-by-mail to require that the states do so in November. I think Congress also needs to come up with funding. Assuming we continue to have problems, there’s going to be a flood of new vote-by-mail voters. It’s more expensive to process those ballots, and states are going to need all the help they can get in this environment. So I support folding into some of the coronavirus bills that are coming before Congress now additional funding and this mandate for states to allow this option. We also need to have protections for voters who are voting by absentee [ballot], because one of the things we know is that absentee ballots are much more likely to be tossed for noncompliance.

And also, we know that although voter fraud is very rare in this country, when election crimes do happen, they tend to happen with absentee ballots. And so we need rules to make sure that there’s no ballot tampering.

Given all of the logistics involved with vote-by-mail and the decentralized nature of our elections, is it logistically possible that we could roll out a full-scale vote-by-mail system by November?

I’m not advocating a full vote-by-mail system for November. I’m not saying we should have only vote-by-mail. I think that would be extremely difficult to do. It took the states that have moved in that direction years to get their systems in place. What I’m suggesting is that voters have the option of voting by absentee ballot. I think that is something that is doable so long as there’s enough planning and resources and we start thinking about it now.

Can the general election be postponed or canceled? Can you talk about the constitutional aspect of that?

The Constitution gives Congress the power to be setting the time of the election. Congress has done that in the statutes in order to change the election date. That statute would have to be changed. I don’t foresee that happening. That’s not really a concern I have, although I hear that a great deal.

I’m much more concerned that the federal government, or state officials, as we saw in Ohio recently, say people have to stay away from the polling places on Election Day. That would not be postponing Election Day, but that would be disenfranchising potentially millions of people. And that’s why I think we need to have an absentee ballot backup system, because if the election takes place and people can’t go to the polling places, the vote would then be either done by those who were able to vote early or by absentee before there might be some restrictions.

Or in the case of the presidential election, state legislatures might take back the power that the Constitution gives them to appoint electors to the Electoral College directly. That is, the state legislature in Pennsylvania might say, you know, we’re not going to let voters vote for president this time. We’re going to decide who gets Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes. I think that would be profoundly anti-democratic and dangerous. I don’t want that to happen, and I don’t want the excuse to be “Well, voters can’t vote,” which is all the more reason I think we need this vote-by-mail backup system in place in as many places as possible.

There is a dispute over whether a state legislature could decide to take back the power to appoint electors directly, and whether that would have to happen through ordinary legislation signed by the governor or [being passed into] law over a veto or if it could be done by the state legislature acting unilaterally. I hope we never have to test this to find out the answer.

Rachel Glickhouse contributed reporting

You can read the original ProPublica article here