Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1307485
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 8 NOVEMBER 2020 election I have seen so far – all equally jubilant at the prospect of Donald Trump's seemingly inev- itable defeat – there is no sign of the winner, Joe Biden, anywhere to be seen. And with the possible excep- tion of the Biden campaign team itself… nobody else, among the vast multitudes now counting the minutes until Donald Trump fi- nally becomes history, seems even remotely enthusiastic about the Democratic candidate's imminent victory. All along, then, the only real aim in this contest was to 'get rid of Trump' – to quite literally cata- pult him out of existence, as fanta- sized by that cartoon: so much so, in fact, that the entire campaign was even condensed into one, sin- gle-word hashtag: '#out'… (which, apparently, is American for: 'Bar- ra, Barra!')… only without any real thought as to what to actually re- place him with. Meanwhile, even the fact that Biden's claim to the Presidency is still not watertight, four days into the count, suggests that the race it- self was a lot closer than originally predicted. A lot, of course, could be read into that: for instance, it might suggest that a campaign built on- ly on demonizing one's adversary (no matter how eminently 'demo- nisable' he may be) is only ever destined to provoke a sympathy backlash (and if so, there would be clear, unmistakable analogies with the local context, too). Another interpretation, however, is that Joe Biden simply failed to enthuse American voters: partly because he happens to be some- what uninspiring to begin with (he sort of reminds me of an 'Alfred' to Obama's 'Batman', if you know what I mean) but partly also be- cause…well, it's hard to generate any real warmth for a man whose only claim to fame is 'not being someone else'… and whose only electoral asset is representing the 'lesser of two evils'. And OK: to be fair, Joe Biden might even surprise us all, by turn- ing out to be the best US President since… um… I don't know: Harri- son Ford in 'Air Force One'? But that he will also surprise us by bringing about real, generation- al change - you know, of the kind that the anti-Trump faction (for you can't really call it the 'Biden fan-club', can you?) have been de- manding for years – that, I fear, is a possibility we can all safely ex- clude. Hence, presumably, the apparent 'reluctance' with which a clear ma- jority of Americans seems to have backed Biden over Trump in this vote: though undeniably prefera- ble to the President he will hope- fully replace soon… there has been nothing, so far, to suggest that PO- TUS Biden even wants a change of direction for his country at all. Even the few electoral promises he bothered to make during the campaign – for instance, that he would re-ratify the Paris Conven- tion on his first day in office – are of course very welcome, in and of themselves; but they're still just reversals of previous policies and decisions taken by Donald Trump. So the only 'change' we can really expect is a return to the way things were before 2016. And – here's the rub – it was precisely popular dis- content with that system (coupled with a disastrous choice of candi- date by the Democrats) that re- sulted in Donald Trump becoming President of the USA in the first place. And there, in a nutshell, you can observe the only end the two-party democratic system can ever pos- sibly evolve towards: not only do the two parties invariably converge on all key policy issues – sparring only on issues of 'cultural warfare': abortion, civil rights, racism, im- migration, etc.; while both firmly plugged into the same old 'mili- tary-industrial-commercial com- plex' … … but the system itself ultimate- ly forces voters to choose govern- ments, not on the basis of any mer- it they may possess… but simply because they're 'slightly less crappy than the only other alternative on offer.' Honestly, though: how else can such a hopelessly flawed system possibly be expected to end… but in a state of self-perpetuating me- diocrity? STARTUP CAFÉ Online Edition