left in the US election is just two words-chaos.
is particularly impressive. During the vote counting stage, protests continued to take place outside the North Gate of the White House. Biden's supporters and Trump's supporters had a physical clash.
Currently, Biden has announced that he has won more than half of the electoral votes and has been elected as the new president of the United States. The spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs congratulated Biden and Harris at a regular press conference on the 13th. Trump, his opponent, refused to admit defeat and repeatedly stressed that he won.
The votes that Biden and Trump have obtained in many key states are very close, and the Republican camp questioned the Democratic Party’s fraud and theft of votes in the election, which led to the election of "overtime."
△ On November 11, the Washington Post reported that a number of US government officials who did not wish to be named stated that Trump has instructed the White House Budget Office to require federal agencies to prepare budgets for the next fiscal year and prohibit Various departments cooperate with Biden's transition team.
The White House usually releases a new fiscal year budget in February each year. If Biden is sworn in on January 20, 2021, the new fiscal year budget should be submitted to Congress by the new administration. The decision of
to advance the budget has surprised many officials in the White House, and has also puzzled the people who eat melons-two governments will appear? What is this operation?
This has to start with the division of American society.
The continuous division of politics and society in the United States
In fact, this political division has already been revealed in the last presidential election.
In 2016, the controversial "political amateur" Trump unexpectedly won the election. After taking office, Trump's implementation of "anti-globalization" and a domestic policy with a strong populist color not only caused a lot of criticism, but also pushed the antagonism of American society hidden under the table to the front.
During the four years of Trump’s administration, the contradictions between American social knowledge, business elites, and the middle and lower classes have deepened. People with different political positions are hostile to each other, and mutual attacks and verbal abuses full of partisanship have replaced rationality and peace. Debate. This has led to repeated damage to the traditional liberal international image of the United States.
The 2020 general election set many records in the United States. About 160 million people voted in the general election, and both the number of voters and the turnout rate set the highest record since 1900. At the same time, even if Trump lost the election, he won more than 70 million votes, with a vote rate of about 47.7%, which is more than 10 million more than the 2016 election. The vote rate did not drop but rose.
However, behind the ultra-high turnout rate reflects not only the political enthusiasm of voters, but also the fact that the political division in the United States continues to intensify, and the reality of social tearing is increasingly severe.
For example, according to a report in the New York Times on November 8, “In the past few years, political disagreements have led to the breakdown of friendship among people and cooling of workplace relations. Some trivial matters may even trigger a political debate to some extent. Quarrel.” So much so that the US media lamented, “The current US is more like two countries.”
Even when the new crown pneumonia epidemic is raging in the United States, the American people still have huge differences on the issues that the country needs to solve first.
On November 7, data from Johns Hopkins University showed that 126,000 newly confirmed cases were reported in the United States, and the number of newly confirmed cases in a single day exceeded 100,000 for 4 consecutive days.
As for the country’s primary problem, according to the Associated Press survey of more than 133,000 people across the United States, about 60% of voters who support Biden believe that the epidemic is the most important issue facing the United States. But among voters who support Trump, half believe that the most important issues are the economy and employment.
Under the current situation of the enemy of the epidemic, the American people have expressed such different views, and the degree of social tearing can be seen. The root cause behind
's continued division The "difficult birth" of the
election result has caused American society to fall into endless protests, riots and lawsuits. In some places, there have even been multiple physical conflicts between voters who support Trump and voters who support Biden.
should say that the totalThe problems exposed by the general election are only appearances. There are deeper roots behind the continued division of American politics and society.
From an economic perspective, globalization after the Cold War has continued to develop in depth, causing the United States to "conquer cities and land" at the global economic level, while also "losing cities" at the domestic economic level.
The international industrial transfer triggered by globalization has had a certain impact on the domestic economy and industries in the United States. The consequence is that although the total economy of the United States is growing, the internal gap between rich and poor is widening, manufacturing is losing, and the middle class is shrinking.
, coupled with a series of factors such as the competition of foreign immigrants for jobs, changes in population structure, and imbalance in education, eventually led to the US's original social ecosystem from "balance" to "imbalance", which is expected by the middle and lower classes. The "American Dream" has become increasingly unattainable.
For this reason, the vast number of middle- and lower-class people in the United States have to resort to elections to seek change. They hope that a nationalist president will appear to seek their own economic security and express their inner anxiety and anger to the traditional elite. .
In this regard, the 2020 U.S. election is another departure between the grassroots and traditional elites in the United States.
As some scholars have pointed out, "The current political division of the United States is based on the contradictions and conflicts between the two economies-the globalist economy facing the world and the national economy facing the domestic It is brought about by the pains that have occurred in the transition from nationalization to globalization. This kind of social pain has caused some repetitions in American politics temporarily, and the emergence of ultra-right or ultra-nationalist governments." From a political perspective, the US political system Design has its advantages, but the "separation of powers" and "two-party system", which have been rigid for a long time and cannot keep pace with the times, may not completely adapt to the national conditions and world conditions in the new era, and there is also alienation into "two parties". "Vicious fighting", "veto politics" and other institutional risks hindering the development of the United States.
Especially when the economic foundation and economic structure supporting this kind of political system are "diseased", the related functions of the originally designed political system will inevitably be "disabled" and "failed".
It is foreseeable that even if Bi comes to power, the differences between the U.S. Democrats and Republicans will not end. Partisan struggles will cause the Biden administration to introduce economic relief, stimulus, and industrial adjustment policies, which in turn will exacerbate the violent struggle between the two parties and the division of society.
Therefore, an election will not only fail to bridge the division of American society, but will continue to enlarge the original rift. The 2020 presidential election is a true portrayal of this logic.
Of course, historically, the split in the United States in recent years is only temporary, and the outside world should not adopt an overly pessimistic attitude. In particular, compared with the Civil War in the history of the United States, the current political polarization and social tearing in the United States are naturally "little insignificant."
At the same time, the politics of the United States were originally quarrels, and the history of American political development is a history full of quarrels. It is in this quarrel that American politics can circle and progress from time to time.
However, for the time being, this kind of quarrel requires less "gunpowder" and more effective prescriptions. Only in this way can it help bridge the rift in the United States.
Author / Ma Jianying
(Associate Professor of Shandong Normal University, Researcher of Chahar Society, Researcher of Shandong University Institute of International Studies)
Editor / Zhang Jing
