News / Interviews

What wins presidential elections in United States

Friday, 14 August 2020 6:31 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 14 August 2020 6:31 PM ]

“Today you have two near identical candidates, elderly, white male, very conservative in their positions, and a whole lot of negative personal qualities that don’t need to be enumerated!” Myles Hoenig told Press TV.

By Myles Hoenig

Without a doubt, this is the most unusual election we’ve had in a very long time. President Carter, an incumbent, lost mostly because people felt he wasn’t effective enough and he was up against a dynamic candidate whose profession was based on presenting an image of strength, real or imagined. Bush Sr. lost to Clinton for very similar reasons, that Clinton projected a very different, younger image. Nixon lost to Kennedy for similar reasons. Today you have two near identical candidates, elderly, white male, very conservative in their positions, and a whole lot of negative personal qualities that don’t need to be enumerated!

The difference in today’s race is that the incumbent is an outright lunatic, openly hostile to a majority of the American voters, despised by his political opposition, and survived an impeachment removal vote more narrow than Clinton’s when he was running for re-election. The issues of today, though, are what would normally carry the day for the victor, but with Trump as the focal point, we could be at peace, the air could be clean, and children could be happily playing in the streets would not guarantee his victory.

Under normal circumstances, whether a family can feed itself and see a positive future is what wins elections. Bill Clinton had a winning slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Unless we are at war, foreign policy is not much of a factor.

Trump might think bringing Israel and the UAE together would be a major triumph, but most Americans couldn’t even find UAE on a map, let alone care with whom it opens diplomatic relations. Nixon scored a diplomatic coup when it opened up to China but we were engaged in the war against the Vietnamese people at the time, and that was a major deciding factor in the election of ’72.

People in the US care more about their own lives and the problems of others do not play into American electoral politics to any extent that would really make a decisive difference.