Dear readers,
For many years in the Persian section of Peyk, we have had a column that has been allocated to debate and dialogue between two fictional brothers, Abel and Cain. These brothers are two years apart and, although they have been brought up in the same family, they have different and sometimes opposing points of view. The column has been a success in the Persian section, and we have decided to translate these discussions into English to see whether they would have a similar impact in our English section. Abel and Cain typically discuss current affairs and talk about their views. We present these views without any judgment and leave the judgment to the readers. The subject of discussion in this issue is the recent presidential election.
Abel: It feels like a heavy weight is removed from my shoulders. After such a long time, I felt a deep sigh of relief. After 4 years of nightmares, lies, and the hoax that was the ruling period of President 45, the fact that, finally, people are coming to the office that know what they are doing gives me a strange feeling! Even though all signs and polls showed that the election would end in Biden and the Democrats winning, I had some worries and expected the Republicans to do something in the last moments to change the results, either with the help of foreign countries such as Russia and Ukraine or through a military coup! It seemed impossible for Trump to accept his loss and concede.
Cain: It is not such a big deal! Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose! The truth is that with all those polls and surveys, I expected it to be even worse. But life goes on. I can’t understand why you guys take this stuff so personally. It is an election after all, and out of our control, with billions of dollars spent on winning and losing. Finally, someone wins and someone loses. At least this time I didn’t hear anything from the media and politicians regarding foreign intervention. And if Trump got more than 70 million votes, they are truly his. Do you know what this means? It means he has more votes than in 2016. Many of the minorities and women voted for him, again! Probably you guys haven’t figured out how to analyze this! It is difficult for you to accept how a third of Hispanics and nearly 20% of black men have voted for Trump, even with all your propaganda against Trump and calling him a racist, anti-minority, and misogynist. Does it mean that all these women and minorities who voted for him are racist and misogynistic? You know very well that Biden didn’t win easily. I know you want to bring up the Electoral College stuff again and that Biden has won the popular vote by 6 or 7 million people. But in the battleground states, the votes were very close. Moreover the Democrats not only couldn’t get the majority in the Senate, but they also lost many seats in the House. So what happened? How come Trump is more popular than in 2016?
Abel: I’m happy that at least you accepted the results of the election and didn’t bitch and moan! But I accept what you are saying that the results were much closer than I expected. Although after the 2016 elections, I understood that I should not take the polls and surveys seriously. Again I believe that this time no foreign interference was mentioned and the election was “fair” and “square,” unlike in 2016 when Putin and Russia were deeply involved, although Trump still claims that there was cheating and the election was rigged and stolen from him. The fact that we consider elections as something personal is due to the fact that politics is important for our generation. We pay attention to the games played in politics. Certain phenomena are important to us. Human rights, democracy, social justice, peace, and the environment are important to us. When a president or politician is racist, doesn’t believe in democracy, makes clear that social justice is not important to him, constantly lies, has no respect for others, champions policies that only serve the rich, undoes all progress made before him, and lets thousands of innocent people perish for political gains, yes, it does become personal. Then, of course, we would try to prevent such a disasterfrom being repeated for another four years. To answer your question, I don’t believe that all those 70 million who voted for Trump are racist, misogynistic, and want to serve the rich. I have to admit, however, that one major benefit out of Trump’s presidency was that it brought to the surface all those hidden feelings–racism and fascism dared to show up bluntly in society. Again, I repeat myself that I don’t think all those voting for Trump are racist and support all those ugly qualities, but apparently, they don’t have any problem with them! But we do!
Cain: It seems you still have a problem with digesting the facts that a lot of minorities don’t see the issues the same way as you do. I know you understand numbers. So have a look at these statistics published by Reuters (and mentioned by the BBC). I’ll just summarize them. These are the different social layers that voted for Trump in 2020: 61% white male, 55% white female, 19% black male, 5% black female, 36% Hispanic male, 30% Hispanic female, and 38% Asians and other minorities. I knew whites would vote for Trump, but 55% of white women voted for him even though Trump is considered misogynistic. That is 3% more white women than voted for him in 2016. And don’t 19% of black men have any problem with his so-called racism, as you put it? Thirty percent of Hispanic women don’t have any problem with his anti-immigrant policies? I don’t think your answer is yes. Perhaps your criteria is wrong?
Abel: No, my standards in knowing which politicians and policies are correct are quite clear. Of course, there are certain other standards, too. I have seen those statistics, too, and they were questionable for me. The fact that the majority of whites voted for Trump is not surprising. In many states, particularly in the “Bible Belt,” the race issue is still alive and kicking. For many of them, Trump’s tax reforms show that he advocates for capitalism. Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and the sham fight with China coupled with Republican propaganda in calling Biden a socialist who would limit individual rights paid off in the broad base of support Trump received. Moreover, Trump’s being “religious” and anti-abortion honestly can be the sole reason many people supported him, which may be especially true with respect to Hispanics. Mind you, I’m against categorizing Hispanics as a unified and consistent group, as they are from different countries with different cultures and their only commonality is the Spanish language. Argentina, Mexico, and Cuba are very different from one another. In these countries, racism and discrimination also exist. The whites of European origins still have issues with the native Americans and blacks. Also for many of them who are pious Catholics, abortion and religion are extremely important, and that could have made them “single-issue” voters who would be more likely to go with the candidate who espoused pro-life views.
Cain: OK. What about African Americans? What about Asians and other minorities like Muslims and Iranians? You know that many of our fellow Iranians voted for Trump. And again how do you explain not having enough votes for the Senate and the House? Before the election I read in Time that the Democrats lost many seats in state legislatures during Obama’s administration; they got some of those seats back in the 2018 midterm election and were hoping to get the rest back in the “Blue Wave” of 2020. They not only couldn’t get those seats back, but they lost a couple more states. Wasn’t this the “Red Wave” that got the force out of the Blue Wave?
Abel: As I said, values like human rights, peace, social justice, and democracy are still very important for the majority of voters. For some people from any race and color, this might be insignificant. There are other things that are important to them. The reason that Iranians or Muslims, who were the main targets of the “Muslim Ban,” supported Trump goes back to their social and class awareness. Many of the Iranians living in the U.S. voted for Trump because they believed his policies would topple down the Islamic Republic. We could hear them on social media. They would argue that Trump would add to economic sanctions and Iran’s Regime would fall. We would ask them what came after the collapse of the regime, and they answered it was not important. Just the fall of the government is important! You could tell them that Trump was not trustworthy, that he could turn around and negotiate with the regime, that he had no belief or respect for democracy, but they wouldn’t budge. Even that previously famous “artist” was so blunt in saying that a vote for Biden is voting for the Islamic regime! I leave the judgment to you. The annual survey by PAAIA, published last month, showed less than 30% of Iranian-Americans support Trump.
It seems that the “Blue Wave” was not as successful as some thought it would be, but Biden and Harris did get 7 million more votes. Their 80 million votes for a presidential ticket is the highest in history. Some of the states which were historically Republican turned Blue, like Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. This can’t be underestimated!
Cain: Don’t you think the leftist mottos of some of the Democrats like Universal Healthcare or “Defunding Police” scared some of the moderates and undecided and made them vote for the Republican candidate?
Abel: I don’t know. Maybe for some people in some states that was the case. But do remember that all these mottos made the youth and the left-wing of the Democratic party, like the Sanders and Warren supporters, mobilize to help win the election.
Anyhow, the Democrats and Biden must try to satisfy those 70 million who voted for Trump and believe that they have been stiffed in the election. The Republican Party also must see how they want to work with Trump the bully and what Trump’s role will be in the GOP’s future. There is a good possibility that the “Trump Cult” breaks the GOP. There are many things to be seen and done.
