The thing about living in America right now is that the whole thing feels so familiar. Gangs of faceless political party thugs threatening to upend law and order? Check. Fascistic narcissists who will use any means necessary to get into power? Check. Rampant social hypocrisy? Check. An entire class of rulers who haven’t yet adapted to the fact that their hamfisted policies of repression and intimidation, which worked for decades, can now be openly confronted by a well placed smartphone? Check. The spectre of power brokers and rigged elections? Check.
The last part is really getting to me actually. Election year is never a calming time to be in the States, but Election Year 2020 feels like an amusement park ride that won’t let you off no matter how many times you throw up. Things like debates and campaigning, once cornerstones of politicking - are now little more than pixelated side shows to an quickly unraveling circus. The confusion I have is in the twin narratives running through the American election in particular and, to a degree, in the world democracies in general.
One is that you must go out to vote to stop the rising tide of right wing fascism and xenophobia that has permeated through the leadership. Places like America, yes, but also the U.K, Brazil, Poland, Belarus, and India. Why just this week, India disallowed Amnesty International from operating within its borders, which I think we can all agree is never a good sign. (Do you get marks for being a democracy if your overwhelming popular opinion is genocide and sectarian submission away from from the scrutiny of human rights watchdogs? And yes, this is true of all of South Asia).
The other narrative is a general feeling that Trump gamed the system in 2016, helped by foreign powers who colluded to get him the White House. Most of the (admittedly left leaning) news pundits and op-eds state with startling certainty that they think the Russians interfered in the election. I think part of this is Americans trying to distance themselves from someone they don’t want to be associated with themselves, much like the collective amnesia around the bush years that suddenly took hold on Obama’s first day in office. But the collusion theory is mentioned enough times and enough places that everyone has at least heard it, and thats about as powerful as an idea can get.
like Amnesty International
My question is: how one is meant to reconcile the importance of a vote in a system that we don’t trust will count that vote anymore? People steal things all the time, especially elections. But the myth of checks and balances inherent in democratic system have been shown to be as vulnerable as the people running them. If they’ve been hijacked once, what’s the guarantee it won’t happen again?
Perhaps I have let myself fall into a right wing trap of undermining the very notion of democratic accountability in order to convince people that their vote doesn’t count so that fewer people vote at all. Considering that I’ve reached the age of 35 without ever having cast a single ballot in any country, (the only exception was when I voted for myself in most likely to succeed at high school, a promise yet unfulfilled) maybe it’s already too late.
It’s probably more likely that the many systems that govern the world, vestiges of the 19th century, are fighting back as they go to a modern world where everybody is plugged into a collective consciousness and can choose their own version of information about why we are where we are.
“But will he win?” I get asked a lot, as if my geographic location gives me any more insight than already out there. The truth is Trump could win, of course he can. White supremacy is not a fringe movement, it’s a global system. What concerns me more is that if he loses, does that mean we all go back to pretending the world is OK again? That none of it ever happened?
I hope not. And the more I hope the more the more aware I become of its power. I am in awe of the courage of public figures confronting powerful establishments - in America, Pakistan, India, everywhere. Seeing them reminds me that courage is a lot like love; it must have hope for nourishment.
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