This week, the contrast could not be more glaring between the two political camps facing each other in the United States in view of the presidential election next November.
On Thursday night, Donald Trump accepted “with faith and devotion” the nomination offered to him by Republican delegates at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee, amid pomp and cult of personality. That same night, Joe Biden was in quarantine at his summer home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this week forced him to cancel a political rally in Nevada.
While one has reinvigorated his campaign — and strengthened his heroic image and his image as a fighter following an assassination attempt last weekend — the other has continued to exhibit signs of weakness that were made clear during the televised debate on June 27 and that have since revealed signs of fracture within his party. Two worlds at odds with each other at the heart of an America preparing to go to the polls in an election year that will determine the future of the country.
“This must be hard for Democrats to watch,” admitted sympathetically Shirlene Ostrov, a former chairwoman of the Hawaii Republican Party and a delegate from the Pacific state who came to Wisconsin to crown the populist. “The difference between the two candidates is dramatic. We see it, and they must see it, too.”
Throughout the week, Republican activists and delegates were reminded of the divide by numerous stars, loyalists of the former president and personalities of the movement. Make America Great Again (MAGA), who came to address them at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
“America cannot afford four more years of a presidency that resembles the movie Weekend at Bernie’s “, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Tuesday night, delivering a hidden reference to the 1989 black comedy in which two young employees of an insurance company cover up the death of their boss to enjoy his summer villa in the Hamptons.
Every night, the television screens framing the scene showed painful images of Joe Biden stumbling up the stairs to board a plane or struggling to put on his jacket as he exited a helicopter. His confused face supported the many claims that a “weak leader” was weakening the country and increasing the threats to it — immigration, China, Russia, according to Republicans.
“Joe Biden can’t take phone calls at 3 a.m.” to address an international crisis, said Mike Pompeo, former head of American diplomacy under Donald Trump. “In fact, he doesn’t take calls after 4 p.m.,” he claimed.
An unusual campaign
“This is an unprecedented election campaign, with a completely unusual configuration of strengths and weaknesses,” summarizes in an interview, from the forecourt of the Fiserv Forum, Brandon Lenoir, professor of strategic communications at High Point University in North Carolina, who came to accompany journalism students to this convention. “We have on one side a candidate who survived an assassination attempt and who is taking political advantage of it by exposing his strength, his courage and his endurance. On the other side, we have a candidate who must suspend his campaign activities because of illness. Since the debate, Joe Biden has had one problem after another, with powerful images that increase the pressure on him to leave the race.”
On Thursday, as Donald Trump prepared for his coronation, in the unity and ecstasy of a party that he had placed at his beck and call and at the service of his ” “Alternate realities,” divisions have been expressed even more forcefully in the Democratic camp with new calls for the president to pass the baton.
According to Washington Postformer President Barack Obama reportedly told people close to him in the final days of his doubts about the “viability” of his former vice president’s candidacy in the November election. Fears raised by several other senior party officials, such as Nancy Pelosi, former Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, or Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who met Joe Biden last week in Delaware. According to sources cited by the Associated Press, Mr. Schumer reportedly told Mr. Biden about the concerns of several senators and representatives campaigning in fragile districts who believe that the Democratic candidate’s weakness could cost them their seats in November while giving a threatening majority to Republicans in Congress.
“It’s not clear yet whether the assassination attempt on one and the COVID diagnosis on the other are going to have any lasting significance on voting intentions,” political scientist Grant Reeher of Syracuse University in New York State admitted in an interview. “But where it could help Republicans and hurt Democrats the most is in voter turnout. That turnout relies on enthusiastic volunteers. If Joe Biden doesn’t generate excitement in the face of more confident Republicans with their reinvigorated candidate, then the party could be in big trouble.”
Towards an open Democratic convention?
On Friday, Joe Biden’s campaign, once again in turbulence, held an all-hands meeting. Earlier in the day, the Democrat’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, acknowledged a “decline” in support for the president but insisted that he was “absolutely” still in the race and that her team sees “multiple paths” to defeat Donald Trump. “We have a lot of work to do to reassure the American people that yes, (Joe Biden) is old, but he can win,” she said on MSNBC’s morning show.
Some 70% of Americans, including 65% of Democrats, believe that Joe Biden should drop out of the race and kick off an open Democratic convention in Chicago next August to allow activists to choose a new candidate, according to a poll conducted by the University of Chicago released this week.
For Democrats, the outlook remains bleak unless they make a radical change of direction. A poll conducted by Emerson College on July 15 and 16 confirmed that Donald Trump has a six-point lead over Joe Biden in national voting intentions. However, a “young Democrat qualified to hold office” could change the situation by increasing their chances of victory in the seven key states where voters will ultimately decide the fate of the two candidates. Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia are among them. In these states with a change of mood, 51 to 55% of voters say they are more likely to vote for this “younger” rather than for Donald Trump, who would only garner between 45 and 49% of the vote, the poll indicates.
This report was financed with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-
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