Unprecedented! Never seen it before! Incredible! There is no shortage of superlatives to describe the presidential campaign among our neighbors.
However, voting intentions are stagnating, the electoral map seems immovable and the dynamics underlying this deeply atypical campaign resemble those which prevailed in most past campaigns. For what?
A circus
If the scenario for this campaign had been submitted to Hollywood, it would surely have been rejected: too implausible!
On the one hand, there was the melodrama of Joe Biden stepping down and being replaced by Kamala Harris, who few observers could have predicted would fare so well.
On the other hand, there is a convicted criminal and compulsive liar whose cognitive abilities are visibly deteriorating and his penchant for autocracy is becoming increasingly evident.
It shouldn’t be tight.
And yet, nothing moves
Voting intentions are almost static and even major events like debates or assassination attempts barely move the needle. Contrary to Galileo’s words, this campaign is not going well.
Donald Trump continues to cross the line. Even the blatant corruption of his recent scams (DJT Media shares, cryptocurrency, bibles, watches and other schemes to extort his naive supporters or collect disguised bribes) has changed nothing. As for Bob Woodward’s revelations about his cronyism with Putin, they will probably also go unnoticed.
Not only does opinion hardly move, but the structural factors that explain partisan choices and their overall movements are remarkably similar to those that prevailed in previous elections.
“Calcified”, ignorant and cowardly supporters
Political scientists will have their work cut out to explain this election, but three factors already seem obvious.
First, after several decades of political polarization and social divisions, the parties have become tribes from which very few seem inclined to break away. This is especially true for the Republican Party, which has become a personality cult of Donald Trump.
At or near parity in the electorate, the parties are “calcified” and American democracy is struggling to react flexibly to the changes it faces.
To complicate matters, the segment of the electorate that can still make a difference in elections is made up of voters who are poorly informed and vulnerable to misinformation, who form opinions based on a superficial and often distorted understanding of the reality.
Added to ignorance is cynicism, which leads too many voters to disenchant politicians and confuse the minor failings of some with the criminality of others.
Much of the responsibility for this normalization of an aberrant situation lies with the media and other opinion leaders. For fear of losing the favor of Trump and his cult, these cowards confine themselves behind the sacrosanct tradition of balance, which normalizes Trump’s excesses, disguises his lies and whitewashes his insanities, while amplifying the slightest fault of his opponents.
This is how an election which is not very normal and which some describe as historic presents itself to analysts with all the signs of exasperating normality.
