A Trump Win Would Change the World

Martin Wolf: “Recent polls suggest that almost 55 per cent of U.S. voters disapprove of Joe Biden’s performance. They also suggest that Trump is slightly ahead of Biden in head-to-head polling before the election now a year away. Finally, they suggest that Trump is ahead of Biden in five of the six most important ‘battleground’ states. In all, a Trump victory is clearly and disturbingly plausible.”

“What would that mean? The most important answer is that the U.S., not just the world’s most powerful democracy, but its savior in the 20th century, is no longer committed to democratic norms. The most fundamental of such norms is that power has to be won in free and fair elections. Whether US presidential elections are ‘fair’ is debatable. But they do have rules. Efforts by the incumbent to overthrow those rules amount to insurrection.”

“That Trump attempted to do so is not debatable. Neither is the absence of evidence of fraud to support his attempted coup. He is properly under indictment. Yet he might still win a presidential election. One reason why he might do so is that close to 70 per cent of people who identify as Republicans say they believe his lies. This is shocking, though, alas, not that surprising.”