Last Updated on Thursday, 14 November, 2024 at 10:04 am by Andre Camilleri
Last week, the American electorate chose their 47th president. Nobody expected such a result. I was convinced that Donald Trump will be elected. However, nobody was expecting such a landslide victory. The United States’ map lit up in red.
On the eve of the USA’s election, I read an article where it provided a summary of the result prediction, which put Kamala Harris at an advantage. Actually, it was The Economist’s prediction model. It explained the chances that Harris gained to win the election, which showed that it shifted to a narrower lead in the last round of data updates. The chances of Harris winning the presidency showed a lead from 50% to 56%. Well, we all know what happened. Certainly, something went really wrong with the model. The Economist did flaunt about the model’s prediction sharpness. However, if their prediction model is so sharp, then the result may be attributed to another Black Swan event. We have accustomed ourselves to Black Swan events by now. Taleb would tell The Economist to scrap the model and use a different distribution function if they are using the Gaussian. He would argue that the Bell Curve is a Great Intellectual Fraud. And he would be completely right!
After a few hours of the preliminary results, the social media was swarmed with memes. Some memes were even depicting the face of Harris with words like “we are unburdened by what has been”. Quite an explicit statement. I do not want to sound untoward. However, I did laugh about it. In my view, it was unfair on Harris to take the lead and a prominent role, a few weeks before the election date. I say weeks because to build a campaign, just a few weeks before the election date, is impossible. It was a mistake and a miscalculation by the Democrats. Not sure why President Joe Biden left it for so long to announce that he is not running once again for president of the USA. The signs were clear from the outset that President Biden will not manage to deliver a proper campaign. Sometimes, it is also human selfishness, or better put, the egoism of those around him. Certainly, those running the show did not want to lose power, even at the detriment of the Democrats’ abysmal performance. Well, I have been in this business for a quarter of a century, and I saw those around the centre of power clutching to every straw, to not lose an ounce of control and power. It is human nature, be they Americans, Italians or Maltese.
However, Harris did have a crucial role in convincing people to vote for Donald Trump. When I watched her interviews, at times, I could barely understand what political messages she was trying to deliver. The political discourse was off track. If you are holding the post of vice president of the United States, you cannot just blame what is at fault on others. Also, if you are in the driving seat, and if it is so easy to fix things, then the question of why you did not advise your President to solve them, begs.
What I mean is that the replies to her interviewers were at times overly vague. Saying that Americans are dreamers, and that their life is built on success, and loads of clichés is completely undone in today’s political world. Also, Harris’ accent changed overnight, sounding more like she was on an overdose of camomile. And many of her statements, during several TV interviews, came across truly forced and faux relative to her opponent. Indeed, Harris had not enough time to study and adjust to such a prominent role, even though she’s vice president of the United States. Personally, I am not a fan of Trump’s patronising behaviour. However, I can say that I was compelled by his foreign policy pledges. Indeed, I was rooting for him.
Certainly, the electorate did not buy the idea that the economy is doing well, and that if Harris is elected as the 47th president of the USA, they will do more to improve their standard of living. In fact, during the past four years, all the policies that we witnessed, were just skewed towards creating inflation, and excessive interference in foreign policy. Let us forget the miscalculated inflation forecasts in 2022, as a result of the sanctions imposed on Russia. They were just two dreadful years for households’ income, especially to adjust to high inflation and higher interest rates. Surely, such policies played a key role in this campaign. Households did not recover from the pinch of inflation, as it takes quite a long time to settle. It left many scars. The economic shocks of the pandemic, and the back-to-back energy shocks, left many people with less disposable income. People did not see any hope to improve their standard of living, by re-electing the Democrats. They viewed it as another four years of foreign policy interference, wars and open cheques to leaders involved in wars and military conflicts.
Surely, the biggest losers are the Europeans. I cannot imagine the President of the European Commission’s face when the result was out. Surely, President von der Leyen, does not afford to take the lead again in foreign policy, for obvious reasons. As I already stated last week, I was in Brussels on the day of the election results. Even though I do not work for the Maltese government, or interact with the EU institutions, the panic was felt across Schuman roundabout. Anyone you bump into, they tell you that they are worried with the result, and that Ukraine will be left on its own. Some experts I spoke to even told me that the EU cannot cope with the military demands. Several member states are totally indebted, with a total of 13 member states experiencing government debt ratios higher than 60% of GDP. The largest member states, Italy and France, are experiencing a government debt to GDP ratio of 134.8% and 109.9%, respectively. Actually, it is insane to think that the EU can replace the military aid that the US is sending to Ukraine, with its member states not even having money to provide for the basic services of their citizens. Germany is currently experiencing a political crisis, while France was told to cut down spending.
This means, that something must happen at an international or EU level, both to support Ukraine, and to bring this conflict to an end. Only diplomacy, and peace talks, can resolve this frozen conflict. As time passes by, the biggest losers are those who lost everything. True, we are not here to appease Valdimir Putin. However, everything comes at a cost. In reality, I prefer to have this conflict resolved and see how we can provide security guarantees that work for both parties in conflict. When I suggested to accelerate Ukraine’s membership in the EU, and to allow Article 42.7 to provide for its security, I thought it was the best option to keep diplomatic relations. It would have been a win for Ukraine to benefit from EU membership. However, wonder von der Leyen took the lead on Common and Foreign Security Policy and the rest is now history.
Perhaps, Malta can play a crucial diplomatic role in a few weeks’ time, while the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov is here for talks.
