With the election happening in only 2 days, votes streaming in across the U.S., and unrest rising, I decided to write about it. Of course, Americans are preparing for the inevitable anger and the aftermath of the results – once again stores are rapidly being emptied, people are filling their gas tanks, and businesses are preparing to completely shut down as many board up windows and doors across the nation. In D.C., George Washington students are being warned and told to “be prepared” for the disruptions that will erupt post-election. The university emailed students with a list of supplies to stock up on for at least a week. It appears that no matter who wins, a surge of violence will inevitably come. According to NPR: “Several human rights and conflict resolution groups that typically monitor elections abroad, mostly in fledgling democracies or places where sectarian violence could erupt, are now turning their attention to the United States for the first time.” But while anxiety and tension increases and is almost palpable in the air across the country, other nations appear ready to distance themselves from the U.S.
Over the past four years, Europe’s opinion and trust in the U.S. has drastically changed. So low is their trust in the free word that in a survey conducted by Pew Research, many survey respondents place less hope in Trump doing the “right thing regarding global affairs” than Chinese President Xi Jinping. Though support for Biden to win seems to be the popular opinion across Europe, it does not appear as if his winning will undo the damage done to the U.S.’s reputation. WaPo reports “Europeans do not believe they can depend on the United States as they did before. They want to be ready to act, with or without Washington.” The article cites this administration’s disregard for the many eruptions of unrest across EU borders and how that forced them to deal with the issues on their own. This reality has shown these nations that perhaps they do not need the U.S. as urgently as they had once thought. As our allies gradually distance themselves, what will it mean for the U.S?
Victoria,
I am writing this response to your post, which will be brief because I am still grading papers, on the morning of Election Day. No one knows obviously what will transpire after the results of the election are announced–and we probably won’t know the outcome officially for several days at least. We hope, first, that there is no violence or intimidation at the polls. But the larger question is, if the president loses (as the polling suggests), will he or won’t he encourage his supporters to take to the streets? And we know that many of them are heavily armed. Hopefully, sanity and calm will prevail, but I think the authorities are right to encourage people to be prepared.
–Professor Wallerstein