The old Chinese proverb said, ‘The voice of the people is the voice of heaven.’ This is the principle and measure of democracy as well. Whether we like or dislike the results,whoever or which party receives the most votes from the people, even just one vote, becomes the leader or the one who forms the government. This is different from the superficial democracy of Thailand.
Although the American political system has two major parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, both parties have the same Ideology and the same basic policies. It is like having only one party, the right-wing party and the extreme right-wing party (according to a political science definition), namely, soft conservatives and extreme conservatives.
The Democratic Party’s campaign strategy emphasizing past policies and performance sending Kamala Harris to compete with Republican Donald Trump reflect and confirm the policy definitions of the two parties above, which are not much different to each other on ideologies.
The preliminary results of the 2024 US presidential election were released on the morning of 6 November, which confirmed a decisive victory in which Trump won much more than the 270 electoral votes needed.
Trump has already received 279 electoral votes, calculated from 72 million popular votes. Harris received 224 votes from 66 million popular votes. Although not all votes have been counted, the results will not change. Trump’s victory is a victory for the hawks. He became the 47th president and the oldest at 78 years old.
There are many factors that led to Trump’s victory, but one thing is for sure: the weaknesses of the Democratic Party. Their policies such as welfare, clean energy, wholehearted support for Israel caused some cities with large Arab communities not to vote for Harris even when she stated that she wanted the war in Gaza to end and wanted Palestine to be recognized as a country. As for the domestic economy, it could not solve the problem of high living costs while measures to reduce inflation were slow.
The Democrats abandoned their own base of voters by not protecting or having policies that meet the needs of these groups of people. They only sweet-talked these people, namely blacks, labour unions and Latinos.
The Biden administration threatened the exercise of freedom of expression, suppressed protests with violence against the middle class and intellectuals who protested Israel's genocide of the Palestinians, especially at leading universities across the country such as Columbia University in New York City. Many university professors were arrested and assaulted.
The Democrats, once known as the party with a long-standing civil rights stance, have swallowed their own saliva. Many voters consider the Democrats to have betrayed them, so they will voted for the alternative.
While Trump, despite having many serious lawsuits pending against him in court, received votes from people all over the country, particularly in the inner ring of the country, as shown in the red election results.
Trump is known as a man of words and action; right or wrong is another matter. He saw that immigrants were taking away American jobs, so he built a long wall to block them, cut funding for the UN, cut funding for NATO,and had EU member countries share more in the defence budget of NATO.
Trump campaigned by inciting racism, nationalism, America first and America great again. He says he will make America great again with a policy against China, their main competitor. He blamed both the economic problems and crimes on foreigners who illegally entered America, vowing to expel them all, saying they were taking away American jobs, and he says he’ll complete wall at the US-Mexico border.
He announced that he would reduce taxes on the rich and businesses from 28 percent to 21 percent, block Chinese goods and impose a 60 percent import tax on Chinese goods. He announced he would extract oil from underground to solve the economic problems.
The Republicans also won both houses of Congress in this election, winning 52 out of 100 members of the Senate and 197 out of 374 seats in the House of Representatives. The Democrats won 48 in the Senate and 177 in the House of Representatives. You can also say the extreme conservatives control a majority of the Supreme Court. Therefore, the US democratic balance of power will be completely lost under Trump. Trump will become an autocratic leader by default because he has achieved such absolute power.
Having absolute power is a double-edged sword, which can solve problems or create problems equally. Some analysts doubt whether he can achieve what he has promised.
For example, the rights and freedoms of the people will definitely be affected as Trump announced that he will use the military, or military force, to maintain peace and order instead of leaving it to the individual states to handle ineffectively. The right to abortion will certain be attacked during his term in the Oval Office. His plan to deport two million illegal immigrants is a concern for many. All these policies will also face strong resistance after Trump takes the oath of office in January.
