Washington, November 2 On November 3, the United States will usher in the four-year general election, seeking re-election for the current president, Republican presidential candidate Trump, and Democratic presidential candidate, former presidential candidate.
Vice President Biden competes for the White House.
Analysts here believe that the 2020 US election is an unconventional, unconventional, troubled and exhausting election.
An Election Year
The new crown epidemic continues to ravage the United States. One week before the election day, it has become the “worst week” since the outbreak in the United States.
The number of new cases in a single day has reached new highs many times. The epidemic has hit the U.S. economy severely. In the past eight months, the U.S. GDP has suffered the largest drop in recorded history.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that almost half of Americans say they or their families have suffered income losses due to the epidemic.
In this election year, incidents of abuse of African Americans by the police continue to occur. The epidemic and economic recession have exacerbated the long-standing racial inequality in the United States.
In May, Freud, an African-American man in Minnesota, died after being pressed by a white policeman on his neck for nearly 9 minutes, triggering a long and large-scale protest against racism and police abuse across the United States.
Americans also have to face endless and intensified party struggles. Compared with the last election year, the political division of the United States in 2020 will be more prominent.
Thomas Zezoff, professor of political science at the American University, believes that the United States today is more polarized than at any time since the Civil War.
As election day approaches, the Democratic and Republican parties are nervous about the result of the vote count and possible election disputes.
Due to concerns about social unrest after the election, many businesses and even some federal government departments in the capital Washington have recently used wood panels to reinforce their doors and windows. The National Guard has set up a response force.
Industry data show that sales of guns and ammunition in the United States have continued to rise this year. The Atlantic Monthly report quoted American University scholar Cynthia Miller-Idris as saying: “All signs indicate that the current risk of violence is high.”
Weary American
Since the beginning of this year, the plight of the epidemic, economic anxiety, political estrangement, and social turmoil have made American society in the election year seem to be entwined with a kind of tired and helpless “brain fog.” According to a survey, 56% of American adults believe that this year’s presidential election is a major source of stress.
An engineer named Dave Finckenberg in Idaho said that election fatigue, news fatigue and epidemic fatigue are intertwined. “We (Americans) may be tired of the new crown virus, but it is not tired of us.”
In Vernon County, Wisconsin, one of the “swing states” of the general election, a large billboard read: “Enough.” Wade Lawler, chairman of the county’s Democratic Committee, said that he often heard people talk about “feeling exhaustion,” and many people were fed up with the two parties’ constant attacks on each other. The chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, Andrew Hitt, said that part of the reason for the region’s “swing” is that people have been exhausted by politics.
Scholar Anne Peterson said that this kind of “exhaustion” is not only due to concerns about the epidemic or who will win the election, “More importantly, how will my community, my state and my country benefit from this public Recovery from health and economic disasters?”
Transformation “hinge point”?
This year’s election is full of suspense: American voters value the epidemic response or economic recovery more? Candidate’s character and policy, which is more important? After the election, will American society “bandage the wound” to rebuild unity and trust, or will there be new turbulence and further division?
“The Atlantic Monthly” senior editor Ronald Brownstein wrote an article that the 2020 election is one of the sharpest and most divisive elections the United States has ever experienced, and it may become a “hinge point” in American history.
The divergence and opposition between the Republican and Democratic parties reflect different attitudes towards the population, cultural and economic transformation of the United States in the 21st century, and this transformation is reshaping and changing the United States, and may make the 1920s become the United States for a century and a half.
