THE WINNER WILL BE DECIDED BY THE POLITICAL CENTER

Who is it going to be, Trump or Biden?

 

By Avi Bareli  

 

Israel Hayom

October 20, 2020

 

Many people are searching for the answer to this question in the polls. But the polls tend to get it wrong. People fear socioeconomic punishment and don't answer pollsters honestly in this polarized, political atmosphere.

So, maybe it's best to ask how much both candidates put off voters in the political center. Allegedly, this leads to the same result the pollsters predict – Biden. Trump is a provocative president. His coarse language raises objections in the "center." In the well-known political method in English-speaking America, the "winner takes all," this should lead to defeat. The voters who will decide who rules are the undecided, residing between the two political blocs that this method creates. These voters are, of course, in the political center, between the two blocs.

And indeed, in presidential elections over the past seven decades, there were two prominent examples of deviation from the center that led to resounding defeats: Goldwater's loss to Johnson in 1964, and McGovern's loss to the incumbent Nixon in 1972. Allegedly, the American system is conservative at its core – whoever suggests a sharp turn from the center (to the left, right, or any other direction) is destined to fail.

Allegedly Trump is destined to lose. So how can we explain his win in 2016? Then too he deviated from the center. And how can we explain Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries and over McCain in the general elections - both candidates from the mainstream, the continuation of Bush Sr. and Jr., and Bill Clinton?

The answer is that the American system is less conservative, less fixated to a stationary center, and more reflective of movements in the center. This is its democratic virtue: it forces leaders to understand where the center is moving and respond to its desires. One can't say there aren't changes, even significant ones, in countries like the US, Canada, Britain and Australia. The system used there forces leaders to identify the desires of the sovereign people (or "punishes" them severely for not identifying) and allows them to formulate and empower them into an effective platform for action.

It can be seen in the actions carried out by Reagan, a supporter and student of Goldwater. Less than 20 years after Goldwater's defeat, he won and implemented a neo-liberal conservative shift in policy, in the spirit of Goldwater. He felt the movements in the center to the right on socio-economic issues and offered a practical leadership response.

Obama and Trump are examples from our time of the ability of the American system to reflect movements in values and interests of the American public, and of the fact that leaders can formulate, empower and solidify these movements into policy. Although, Obama camouflaged his views in the elections, due to the fear of "the center." And afterward, Congress blocked him from carrying out far-reaching reforms. But he divided the political discourse, turned the Democratic party into a party of radical identity politics, and used federal agencies in the party arena. His foreign policy and his covert alliance with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood caused massive disasters around us.

Trump, his bitter rival, brought massive change. He led the GOP in a populist direction. He overturned the US trade policy and its relations with its enemies and allies. Domestically he adopted a new calibration when it came to American workers and fought for their workplaces, as opposed to the policy of his predecessors in previous decades, although he continued to cut taxes and avoided fighting the growing disparities characterized by those decades. He very much fulfilled the platform he proposed in 2016, and brought about considerable change that even the coronavirus pandemic cannot obscure.

As opposed to him, Biden is the continuation of the Clintons (including their corruption), more of the same 40-year-old thing rejected by many voters in 2016: the globalism legacy from Reagan and beyond.

The plans of the socialist wings of the Democratic party have been hidden in the platform that no one reads and removed from the propaganda for the usual reason: sticking with the "central" image. But the Democrats don't take into consideration what was proven in 2016: the center has shifted. Trump has deciphered that movement and given it a leadership response. One should hope that what will decide these elections is precisely that, and not blaming the administration for the pandemic.

EDITOR'S NOTE: It remains to be seen which of the two - Trump's tweets or the Democrats' shift to the far-left - has turned off the voters in the center the most..