The roots of hatred: here is who, and what, has poisoned the political debate in the US. And no, it’s not Trump
No doubt this election campaign in the United States will remain in the memory as one of the most violent in American history. If you read the reports provided by the correspondents of the Italian newspapers – or, at least, by the majority of them – it almost seems that the blame falls entirely on Donald Trump and his supporters.
Instead the reality is much more complex. There is certainly a very strong polarization between the two parties running to elect the new president. In fact, Democrats and Republicans had never been so distant, and it often happens to perceive a visceral hatred between the two sides, also expressed by prominent personalities (especially in the democratic field).
The fact is that the prevalence of single thinking, supported by the canons of the politically correct developed within several prestigious US universities, has poisoned the political debate. To the point that, in universities and in the mass media , it has become practically usual to deny the freedom of speech and opinion to those who do not conform to the aforementioned canons of politically correct .
And, quite frankly, it should be noted that this had never happened in the United States. The disagreement was there, but it had never stopped anyone from freely expressing their views in public. This is a worrying news.
The leading nation of the West risks becoming similar to the many authoritarian countries which have open accounts with the West itself, which seek to settle by imposing a vision of politics, civil society and the world tout court alternative to those of liberal democracy.
If you add the spread of cancel culture , the relentless killing of statues and monuments and the accusations against the police of being the source of all evil, the picture is truly disheartening. I am sure that Xi Jinping, the Iranian ayatollahs and the many other autocrats around the world are gloating over the current American difficulties.
After all, the supreme leader of China, often called "the new Mao", has for some time been striving to demonstrate to the world that the political model embodied by the People's Republic is superior to that of the West because it guarantees stability and continuity in the management of power. And it can also afford to swat like flies the Hong Kong demonstrators who dare to challenge the validity of the aforementioned model.
If we now return to the United States, it is possible to easily dismantle the legend of the violent police brutally suppressing demonstrations of dissent. The reality is that the US police have had a very high number of casualties in many cities, often killed for trivial reasons.
The incredible proposal, supported by prominent members of the Democratic Party, to cut the funds to the police (or even to abolish them altogether) has resulted in an increase in crime, which is already high in American cities. And this happened precisely in the cities where some neighborhoods were declared "free" from the presence of the police.
However, there is an important consequence that the press and mass media usually do not take into consideration. Several newspapers write that the black community is solidly aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement. Nothing could be more false. Vandalism and looting have primarily affected African-American shops and properties, which has caused many of them to withdraw from the movement.
Not only. This new situation is also causing a strong disillusionment of sizeable sections of the black community with the Democrats, with particular reference to the extreme left of the party (which is powerful, and capable of influencing Joe Biden's moves).
In short, today the Democratic Party is no longer sure of receiving the compact black vote in the polls as it previously imagined. And a further unknown comes from Latinos , whose electoral weight has grown steadily in recent decades. Many of them are conservative. Just think of the very large Cuban community hostile without hesitation to the Castro regime, and the many prominent republican exponents who have Hispanic origins.
It is no coincidence that pollsters, who previously gave Biden a significant advantage, have now become much more cautious. The Democratic candidate is still in the lead, but with tighter margins. And it is well known that what matters in the US electoral system is to conquer some key states, regardless of the amount of votes received nationally.
In short, the game is open, also because Biden – as we already knew – does not have much charisma or strong leadership qualities. Trump's continued insistence on the law and order slogan, even if criticized by the mainstream newspapers, could ultimately prove successful and break through, as I noted earlier, even in the minorities considered democratic reservoirs par excellence.
The post The roots of hatred: here is who, and what, poisoned the political debate in the US. And no, it's not Trump appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/le-radici-dellodio-ecco-chi-e-cosa-ha-avvelenato-il-dibattito-politico-negli-usa-e-no-non-e-trump/ on Wed, 09 Sep 2020 05:06:00 +0000.