Joe Biden narrow ‘win’ is America’s nightmare result – Bill Carmichael

I am in this unhappy position at the moment in trying to analyse the results of the US Presidential election when, at the time of writing, it is far from clear who the eventual winner will be.

As I type there is a growing consensus towards an incredibly narrow victory for the Democratic challenger Joe Biden. If so – many congratulations, Joe!

Perhaps by the time you read this matters will be more straightforward and a clear winner will emerge, although the way things are going it could be days, or even weeks, involving legal challenges going as high as the Supreme Court, before we can say with any confidence who the President of the United States will be come next January.

And that for me is precisely the problem because a close or inconclusive result will only increase the division, anger and bitterness that has caused immense damage to the world’s greatest democracy.

In fact I would go so far as to say that this election result is nothing less than a disaster for the United States and the rest of the free world.

I can’t claim to be Joe Biden’s biggest fan, although he seems a fairly decent guy by the standards of a career politician deeply embedded in the ruthless machine that is the American system.

There are also, I think, questions to be answered about his mental capacity and whether the 77-year-old will have the stamina to last through a gruelling four-year term. Perhaps we should prepare ourselves for a President Kamala Harris a little while down the line?

But I would have preferred a Biden landslide, as widely predicted by many pollsters, to the present impasse. At least then the boil would have been lanced and the poison allowed to drain away, perhaps permitting the healing to begin.

The Democrats made the election all about Donald Trump and asked the American people for a clear and emphatic repudiation of everything the current president stands for.

That clearly didn’t happen. The pollsters got it badly wrong – once again. They massively underestimated Trump’s support. The Biden landslide simply failed to materialise. Trump, as in 2016, hugely outperformed all predictions.

For example the national polls had Biden ahead by a massive average of 10 points leading into voting day – but that lead evaporated as the votes were actually cast.

Why? Simply because of the “Shy Trumpers” – in other words citizens who liked Trump but who were afraid to say so to opinion pollsters and perhaps anyone else, largely because of the very real fears of an establishment backlash including being fired from their jobs, ostracised on social media and even physically attacked for wearing a MAGA hat.

This is simply not a sign of a healthy, functioning democracy. You should be able to support whatever democratic politician you want, even one as divisive as Trump, without being vilified and assaulted.

The incontrovertible and uncomfortable truth for the Democratic Party and the American left is that millions of people in the US absolutely adore Donald Trump.

They love him despite his mishandling of the Corvid pandemic, and his bombastic tweets, and his boastful nature and questionable attitudes towards women, and the fact he is frankly a ridiculous figure.

They love him because he stands for the little guy, against the West and East Coast elites who sneer at the “rednecks” in the “fly-over” states, and who have ignored the unemployment and opioid crises that have wreaked havoc across Middle America.

I deplore Trump’s questioning of the result by alleging electoral fraud. By suggesting the result is illegitimate, he is playing a very dangerous game that could unravel the precious fabric of American democracy. He would serve his country better if he simply accepted the result with some degree of humility and grace.

But if Biden wins, as seems likely, this should be a wake-up call for the American left.

Do you want to continue to travel down the dead end of divisive identity politics and trendy woke ideology that clearly alienates millions of middle class Americans?

Or do you want to try to unite the nation? If Biden wins it is your call.

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