Chronic. From the American West, a journalist friend, who these days has the morale at the bottom of the canyon, tweets: ” I am worried, I wonder if the institutions will hold up. “ On the chain PBS, curator David Brooks, one of the most posed columnists in New York Times, declares: “I have never been so pessimistic about the state of the country. “” Not a single day goes by without the president casts suspicion ” on the presidential election of November 3, adds, still on PBS, Mark Shields, senior political scientist from the banks of the Potomac.
What is going on ? Are the journalistic elites playing at scaring each other on the other side of the Atlantic? This was before the televised debate between Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. The chaotic fight of Tuesday, September 29 will not have reassured them. Five weeks before the presidential election, the situation is unprecedented. The outgoing president and candidate for a second term still refuses to commit to recognizing the result of the November 3 ballot – if it is unfavorable to him.
This autocratic attitude should come as no surprise. Donald Trump makes his mark. Since entering the White House in January 2017, he has degraded, shaken, undermined American democracy – as none of his recent predecessors had done. None of these was a saint: the office lends itself ill to angelism. But all have respected the forms, if not always the spirit, of the country’s political institutions, however imperfect, incongruous and obsolete they may be. Trump has weakened these institutions, when he has not trampled on them. Today, he plays with the threat of violence ready to erupt, he insinuates, if he were beaten by Joe Biden.
Discredit on universal suffrage
As he was asked if he would undertake that the “Transition” policy unfolds peacefully in the aftermath of November 3, whether re-elected or not, Trump refused to say yes: “ We’ll have to look at what’s going on. “ The Republican majority in the Senate, which until then had always slept in front of Trump’s ukases, ended up worrying. Unanimous, Republicans and Democrats, the senators voted for a text condemning the president’s remarks.
But behind in the polls, not necessarily significantly, Trump is heating up his supporters. A television broadcasts images of ultra-right militias in combat gear, helmets and AR16 rapid-fire rifles slung over their shoulders, stopping traffic in broad daylight, like an intimidating Hezbollah raid on West Beirut.
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