Voting in the US elections has finished, but the counting is far from complete. Results are known for much of the country, with only a handful of swing states still to be decided - Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada. These results may not necessarily be finalised until November 12.
And then there will be the inevitable recounts. In a number of states these will be automatic depending on the margins. In Arizona the margin has to be equal to or less than 0.1%, in Georgia, in Pennsylvania less than 0.5%; in Michigan less than 2,000 votes. In North Carolina and Wisconsin a recount can be requested if the margin is equal to or less than 1%. It is also possible in some states (e.g. Nevada) for losers to get a recount on demand.
Joe Biden is within a whisker of winning the presidency. It is therefore not surprising that President Trump has foreshadowed recounts, which in any event he and his fellow Republicans are entitled to do. Nor is it surprising, given his political behaviour over his past four years as president, that he has embarked on legal action on numerous fronts.
These are not divisions that will be easily healed should Biden get elected.
Biden cannot be allowed to win as that would make Trump a loser. Biden cannot be seen as a winner, he must be seen as worse than a loser, a stealer. Hence, it was entirely logical for Trump to declare himself a winner (and Biden a loser) before the counting had finished. Par for the Trump course.
In part this might be seen as a typical part of a robust democracy, merely just another facet of the cut and thrust of power politics. However, it is more than that. It fits into his pattern of leadership and governing. For some months prior to the election Trump claimed repeatedly, without evidence, that the elections would be rigged because of postal ballots. Over and over. He was so popular only a rigged election could defeat him. If he loses it proves the system was rigged, if he wins it will be despite the rigging and he triumphs against the odds.
This has been the pattern of his presidency. It is a pattern of behaviour well-honed on his reality television shows - blustering, bullying, intimidating, abusive, petulant and dishonest - a deal-maker convinced of his own infallibility. The presidency has merely been a larger stage. Unfortunately, unlike reality television (a complete misnomer if ever there was one) presidential utterances and decisions have actual world consequences, often of life and death.
Yet despite his record as president of inveterate lying, racial divisiveness, sexism, his lackadaisical handling of the Covid threat, his refusal to push the Republican-controlled Senate to pass Covid support measures, his opposition to Obamacare and lack of an alternative health care plan to succeed it, his reneging and dismantling of many international agreements resulting in potential destabilising of the international order, his nobbling of regulatory agencies, his disregard for the various conventions of governing and the institutions of governing, his reshaping the US federal and Supreme Courts, and enriching himself through the Presidency, he remains immensely popular with his supporters.
The record turnout for the election (66.5%) might be seen as the one ray of light. It might suggest that Americans do care about their democracy and facts. The next closest turnout (62.2%) was in 2008 when Obama was elected. And we could also point to Biden's presidential vote, the largest in US history at 73.4 million. But against that there is Trump's presidential vote of 65.5 million (just 2.6% less than Biden's). The large turnout suggests that Americans do care about democracy as a process but not necessarily about how it works or should work.
This support for Trump confirms the deep divisions within American society, divisions that Trump deliberately fans and exploits. It also suggests that some of Trump's behaviours (e.g. rampant nativism and ethnocentric nationalism) sit well with supporters. He empowers his supporters to vent their emotional frustrations on anyone they do not like or who is not like them. Similarly his disdain for international agreements and anti-internationalism taps into a very deep vein of US isolationism that stretches back well into the previous century.
These are not divisions that will be easily healed should Biden get elected. Indeed, they are divisions that Trump might exploit between the announcement of Biden's victory and the inauguration on 20 January 2021. Trump might also pull other, as yet unanticipated, moves during this hiatus to create even more turmoil. And after 20 January Biden faces a Senate committed to frustrating his every initiative. Yet should Trump manage to get elected the future does not bode well for the US. Emboldened by success, freed of the need to worry about re-election, and with a docile Senate at his back, and a stacked Supreme Court, he will be virtually free to do as he pleases.
Professor Jim Jose is Vice President Australian Political Studies Association and Professor of Politics at the University of Newcastle
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