US election counterintuitives

美国大选违反直觉

The Foreign Desk

新闻

2024-11-02

45 分钟
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Trump the peacemaker, Obama the deporter, George W Bush the foreign aider. Ahead of the election, we interrogate the counterintuitive positions candidates have taken against their party’s (and their own) image, once in office. Why do so many US presidents campaign in one direction and govern in another? Andrew Mueller speaks with former USAID administrator Andrew Natsios. Plus: a roundtable with Leslie Vinjamuri of the US and the Americas programme at Chatham House and Charles Hecker of geopolitical risk consultancy, Control Risks.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  • On Tuesday, as you may have heard, American voters will elect a new president.

  • If there is one positive thing to be said about the presidential election campaign of 2024, it is that American voters cannot complain that they were not presented with a meaningful choice.

  • A woman of colour who came up as a prosecuting attorney campaigning on a platform of inclusive centre leftish reform versus a white male convicted criminal with demagogic nativist inc inclinations who seeks to impose himself as a sort of American Franco.

  • However, American history reminds us that US Presidents are not always quite what they seem or quite what we remember.

  • Almost as if motivated principally by an urge to convince, reassure or head off their opponents, US Presidents often end up confounding expectations, possibly including their own.

  • The Vietnam War was started by a Democrat and ended, if in admittedly murky circumstances, by a Republican.

  • A Republican freed the slaves and went to war with the conservative rural south to do it.

  • The Civil Rights act was signed into law by a swaggering white cowboy from Texas, but not before being infamously filibustered for 24 hours by a Democratic senator.

  • A Democrat armed the Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviets.

  • A Republican suggested, suggested to a Soviet leader that both countries dismantle their nukes by the numbers.

  • Democrats have been enthusiastic deporters, Republicans lousy on the economy.

  • Whoever wins on Tuesday may not end up being quite the President their supporters or themselves thought they would be.

  • Why do so many US Presidents campaign in one direction and govern in another?

  • Does being thought a liberal actually give you licence or even obligation to be more conservative?

  • And are the ostentatious conservatives actually likelier to be liberal?

  • This is the Foreign Desk.

  • The Democrats always over promise, never do anything.

  • The Republicans never promise on this and always deliver a lot more.

  • President Obama deported very large numbers and it sort of flew below the radar.

  • But because Donald Trump's rhetoric was so significant, it was very visible and it really caused a huge split in the American political classes.