Peter Espeut | What is happening in US elections?

At time of writing (Wednesday afternoon) it is still not known who will be the next president of the United States (US). The count is 248 Electoral College votes for Biden and 214 Electoral College votes for Trump; 270 is the target, with six states still to be decided – three leaning one way, and three the other; anyone could win.

I am not surprised at the closeness of the race; three weeks ago I titled my column ‘The race is not over’ because I got the impression, listening to the commentators on Jamaican radio and US television, that the media were predicting a Biden landslide. That was not my impression, and I said so.

Some people (in Jamaica and elsewhere) vote according to the likeability of the candidates – they don’t like Peter Phillips or they don’t like Trump – and not on the issues each candidate stands for. I titled my column on August 21 this year “An election without issues’ because with the party manifestos out so late, and so little discussion on them, Jamaicans were going to vote on personality.

If the US election was being fought on personality, then Donald Trump wouldn’t stand a chance, and he and his party would lose by a landslide: he is abusive, pathologically mendacious, and denigrates women. Not that Biden has the magnetic personality of an Obama; but he shines in comparison to Trump. No! Trump is the kind of candidate you vote against. And many analysts – wrapped up in their own intolerances – can’t understand why so many tens of millions of Americans have voted for Trump.

As I have written before, being a sociologist I am not interested in the actions of Trump himself (I leave that to the psychologists), but in the behaviour of the American people.

One of the first assumptions sociologists make is that people are rational and, therefore, to understand their behaviour, one must seek the logic under which they operate.

Why would Christians – Catholics and Protestants – support a candidate with such low personal morals? We in Jamaica can understand that because many of us vote for candidates who maintain garrison constituencies, and who are alleged to be involved in political scandals. Actually, many of us don’t, and that is why our voter turnout in September was the lowest in history! But that is another story.

MORE AT STAKE

Sincere Christians voted for Donald Trump because more was at stake than Trump’s boorish behaviour, which many of us just can’t seem to get past.

The Democrats – including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – stand for something that many Christians detest more than Trump’s behaviour and personality, and that is why they voted for Donald Trump, the lesser of two evils.

All over the world today, voters are presented with unsuitable options, and are forced to vote for the least unsuitable candidate – or not at all. Most Jamaicans chose not to vote in September, which makes that win not something to celebrate; Prime Minister Holness said as much.

Many Americans held their noses, swallowed their spit, and voted for Trump. I think Biden will eventually win and become president, but he should be under no illusions: large numbers of Americans do not support some of the central policies of his party.

The Democratic Party supports legal abortions – even for late-term pregnancies; many Christians think abortion is murder.

The Democratic Party supports the normalisation of homosexuality as acceptable and morally equal to heterosexuality. Whereas Christians believe that LGBT people must be treated with respect, many Christians consider homosexuality to be fundamentally disordered, and consider the Democrats to be setting the USA on the path to social disintegration.

The Jews rejoiced when King Cyrus – a pagan – liberated them from captivity in Babylon; even pagans, they rejoice, can be instruments in the hands of God. And that is the rationality behind the support by Christians for Donald Trump.

If Trump wasn’t so racist, he might have won even more support.

Verbum sapienti sat est.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com