Questions from abroad
Some election questions for Americans from people in Sweden watching intently
I’ve just returned from a visit to Lund University in southern Sweden – my university has several ongoing partnerships with them. My colleagues (Jesse Acevedo and Phil Chen) and I had several conversations and panel discussions with students, faculty, and some local elected officials about US politics. I found these conversations fascinating, and I thought it would be useful to write up some of the questions we received and some of the answers we gave.
What’s going to happen in the election?
Well, of course this got asked. And basically, I don’t know any more than anyone else does about what the future holds. All I can say is that Kamala Harris has had a stable lead of around three points in polls, that’s right around what Democrats need to pull to break even in the Electoral College, this will come down to roughly 50,000 voters in a handful of states, and polling just isn’t going to tell us much more than that from here on out. Sorry.
What kind of impact will election results have on US foreign policy and on Europe?
It’s pretty clear why Swedes and other Europeans would care about this election — not only does the US draw a lot of attention, but the outcome of this one could be consequential for their own countries. And the answer to this is tricky. Foreign policy, or at least parts of it, is one of the few areas of true bipartisanship in US politics. US policy toward Israel/Gaza is not likely to shift dramatically pending the outcome of this election. Nor would overall China policy shift all that much, aside from Trump blustering and seeking to ramp up tariffs. One area where the outcome will be highly consequential is Ukraine; Harris would maintain US military and humanitarian support for Ukraine, while Trump would likely end that almost overnight. The latter wouldn’t necessary force Ukraine to immediately capitulate, but a rapid Russian victory becomes a lot more likely, and the military and migration consequences of that would significantly affect nations throughout East and Central Europe. (Sweden, roughly 100 miles from Russia’s border, re-activated its selective service system a few years ago and joined NATO earlier this year, despite a long history of relatively neutrality, precisely because of fears of Russian aggression.)
What is the Deep State and is it real?
I loved this question. As both Phil Chen and I explained, the Deep State isn’t a specific thing, but rather a convenient catch-all for a lot of paranoid conspiracy theories about the US government. This is one area where Trump’s wing of the Republican Party really stands out — he and his supporters strongly believe in the idea of a secretive branch of the government that suppresses the truth and compels our behavior in some ways. Now, there’s a long history of this sort of belief within populist circles, and this isn’t unique to the United States. But people who hold these beliefs rarely end up in charge of anything, so seeing a former President of the United States continue to promote the idea of a secret government that is out of control is pretty novel. But it’s consistent with a guy who, as President, pushed the rapid (and successful!) development of a vaccine during a pandemic while leading the effort to publicly undermine faith in that same vaccine.
Would Kamala Harris be in a stronger position today if Biden had bowed out earlier?
It remains unclear just how intentional the timing of Biden’s July departure was. That said, it looks pretty shrewd. Not only did Biden step all over the messaging from a Republican convention that ended two days earlier, but the relatively little time remaining before the Democratic convention was a catalyst for Democrats to coordinate quickly behind Kamala Harris. If Democrats had had more time, it’s plausible that a few candidates would have challenged her, and while she’d probably still be the nominee, she might have been weakened and the party might have been more divided as a result. If there had been a full primary contest back in January and February, it’s plausible we’d still have the same result but with a more bloodied nominee. My impression is that the timing worked about as well in Harris’ favor as possible.
What’s the future of the Republican Party once Trump is no longer around?
If Trump loses next month, I remain convinced that he is the leading candidate for the 2028 Republican nomination. (I have some concerns that that will be true even if he wins the election next month.) Even Republicans skeptical of Trump who would be quite irate with him leading his party to yet another needless loss have neither the skillset for nor interest in actually dethroning him. Yet at some point, he simply won’t be around. What does that party look like?
I like to think of Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka shivving each other “Succession”-style for a chance to lead the movement, but I kind of doubt that will happen. But last year’s Republican presidential debates, which did not include Donald Trump, gave us a glimpse of what the party would look like. Debates between Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and others suggested a range of views on trade, on use of the military, on abortion, and more. The party doesn’t snap back to a Reagan-Bush coalition once Trump is gone, but his populist faction doesn’t prevail all the time, either. The party’s leadership would actually be in flux for some time, and a lot of these policy fights would be fought out in primary elections without an obvious winner. I rather doubt the party moderates much — its conviction that electability is a sucker’s game predates Trump and is pretty deeply ingrained at this point. But nor will the party just find a new Trump and pledge loyalty to that person.
Is American democracy in trouble and are the news media addressing that appropriately?
The US isn’t about to become a fascist dictatorship, but it has experienced some significant democratic erosion — in some states more than others — and if Kamala Harris wins Donald Trump will almost certainly organize some political violence to change Electoral Vote counts, to pressure Congress to not certify her victory, and to undermine her rule. Trump and his allies are already threatening election officials to produce election outcomes they desire, and his party largely backs him up on this or remains silent. This is, at best, a partial or flawed democracy.
And this is an area where the media have not always been great at focusing on the stakes of the election rather than just the horserace. I am sympathetic to them; they don’t want to appear biased, and media neutrality is a venerable, important, and useful tradition in news coverage. But it leads many reporters and editors to prioritize finding criticism for both candidates as long as there is criticism for one. That is, it’s okay to point out all of Trump’s democratic threats as long as they also point out that, say, Hillary Clinton has insecure e-mails, Joe Biden is old, people don’t think they really know Kamala Harris, etc. This does a real disservice to voters. I don’t know how much reminding they need of the violence Trump perpetrated the last time he lost an election, but down-playing it isn’t doing voters any real good either.
Seth, you have the tray but where is the coffee and cake?
Also could these meeting not be more economical to be held on Zoom with slides. No need to fly half way around the world…..