US presidential poll and implications

US presidential poll and implications

It is surprisingly unsurprising. Contrary to most polls and pundits, incumbent United States President Donald J Trump did not lose by a landslide in the presidential election this week. The final results are so close that both candidates, Mr Trump and Democratic Party rival Joe Biden, have claimed victory. Despite ongoing rancour and acrimony until the next US president is sworn in next January, several outcomes and implications are already clear.

First, just as Mr Trump has alleged all along, there is indeed a liberal bias among the media, pollsters, academics, and intellectual elites -- altogether known as the establishment "swamp", as Mr Trump called it. A cursory look at CNN, Bloomberg, The New York Times, and Washington Post, among others reveals anti-Trump prejudices. These media platforms have been conducting a crusade to unseat the incumbent president, labelling him a racist even when more non-whites have just voted for him compared to four years ago. Yet he persisted and defied them through his tweets and the smaller pro-Trump media, particularly Fox News. From faraway Thailand, a balanced and informed view of the US requires watching both sides of the US media divide.

Moreover, there is something about the anti-Trump bias. It has deep roots in liberalism that perhaps goes all the way back to the enlightenment more than two centuries ago. More recently, this overarching liberalism was recast after the Second World War into a US-constructed global order based on free trade, open markets, progressive values, pluralistic politics, economic integration, multilateral cooperation, democratisation, and globalisation. Even if Mr Biden takes power, his administration will be forced to mitigate and slow down the adverse effects of this trend but it is unlikely to be able to reverse it.

Being pro-Trump is simply uncool because Mr Trump is the antithesis of the rules, values, and practices of liberalism. No wonder the polls have been wrong and misleading both in 2016 and this year. Trump sympathisers are as reticent in exposing their position as much as anti-Trump/pro-Biden supporters are enthusiastic in declaring theirs. There is a perceived righteousness in standing up to Trumpism and its bullying tactics and parochial tendencies, akin to doing the right thing and fighting the good fight between good versus evil. Mr Trump's opposition to immigration, trade, multilateralism, integration, globalism, and all other virtues of liberalism renders him repulsive and reprehensible.

Yet his messages resonate and reverberate because global liberalism as we know it has come to the end of the line. Middle America and middle-class Americans, let alone those further down below, are hardly better off after the long globalisation boom from the 1990s. Inequality has widened alarmingly in view of empty rhetoric about equality and justice, breeding resentment and despair. To nearly half of the US electorate that have come out in the last two elections, Mr Trump answers their call for the US to come home, to look after themselves and rebuild in the face of peers and competitors who thrived and rose up to challenge US pre-eminence. America is a tired, old superpower, at war within and overburdened without. This election shows that Mr Trump is not an aberration, and that his nativist politics and economic nationalism are here to stay, even if he ends up out of the White House.

For Thailand and Southeast Asia, it will matter crucially whether Mr Trump or Mr Biden comes out on top because there will be fundamental differences in policy posture and approach. If Mr Trump somehow secures a second term against the odds as final vote counts favour his opponent, it would be a boon for Thailand and other regional states in Asia that want to counterbalance China's weight and role because the incumbent president is likely to push back even harder against Beijing, providing leverage to Asean and other countries. Vietnam and the Philippines, for example, are most vocal in their support of the Trump foreign policy projection in the region. But a Trump victory would not be supportive of pro-democracy forces in Thailand and regional democratisation more broadly. It has been clear that commercial interests come before democratic values under the Trump administration.

As he hails from the Barack Obama era as vice president, Mr Biden would likely bring holdovers and old policy hands from a decade ago. A Biden presidency would be tested by China. If Mr Biden proves weak on China like Mr Obama, despite the latter's highly touted "pivot" and "rebalance" geostrategy, we will likely see China's dominance grow in Southeast Asia. A Biden presidency would also have to square with the "free and open Indo-Pacific", as propelled by the Trump administration. What happens to the whole geographic centrality and geostrategic aims under the FOIP will be watched closely in the region. If Mr Biden comes into office and sheds Mr Trump's entire geostrategic outlook and the FOIP with it, then the US will be seen as fickle and unreliable.

A Biden government would see more professionalism where career diplomats and policy technocrats would have greater latitude while the president delegates more rather than tweeting and centralising authority under his watch. And a Biden administration would likely be more supportive of pro-democracy forces and democratisation in the region, re-prioritising values on a more equal footing with interests.

Instead of becoming an Obama 2.0 government in relations with Asia, Mr Biden's administration could take a leaf or two from Mr Trump, promoting values, rights and freedoms the US stands for but also standing up to China. Mr Biden can shore up what's left of the liberal international order and heal rifts at home by narrowing the wealth gap. Despite his advanced age and one-term likelihood should he win, Mr Biden has a rare opportunity to repair and remake international institutions for the rest of the 21st century based on liberalism with fundamental reform to reflect global power realities, discarding Mr Trump's protectionism and nativism and embracing openness and greater equality at home and abroad.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University

A professor and senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science, he earned a PhD from the London School of Economics with a top dissertation prize in 2002. Recognised for excellence in opinion writing from Society of Publishers in Asia, his views and articles have been published widely by local and international media.

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