The United States of America is no longer the solid monolith of racial harmony and financial prosperity it once used to be in the twentieth century. For the past few years, America has been witnessing a partially perceived and partly politically motivated racial division that has attained gigantic proportions. This phenomena is markedly pronounced in the predominantly rural (agricultural) pot-belly states than in the better educated metropolitan America. Amid politically generated sharp differences, America conducted her latest presidential election in October and November of 2020.
The last day of polling was Tuesday November 3rd. After several days of hectic counting at about 11:30 am American Eastern Time on November 7, 2020, the former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Presidential Candidate, clinched the fiercely contested presidency as projected by several internationally respected news networks. He did so by winning 273 electoral votes out of a total of 538 electoral college votes.
Lately we have been witnessing two distinct Americas pitted against each other. One lives on the better informed Eastern and Western sea-boards of this vast country. This group of states on the Eastern flank starts from the coastal state of Virginia and moves up towards the North including Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and the cluster of small New England States located in the East of the country. The Western cluster consists of the most heavily populated and the richest coastal state of California North-wards including Oregon and Washington states. Some Northern industrial states called Rust-belt States including Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are clearly under the influence of Eastern Sea-board states like New York. Similarly Nevada, where the biggest center of gambling Las Vegas is located is coming under the spell of its giant neighbor to the West California.
Barring these ocean hugging metropolitan states with a huge college educated population and studded with a multitude of international airports, rest of America is ideologically conservative and heavily agricultural and influenced by evangelist religious preachers. The metropolitan America tends to be more liberal and accommodative of religious and cultural diversity. The inhabitants of the pot-belly states and the Southern Sun-belt states have been comparatively less educated and tutored to believe that the foreigners, especially those from Mexico and the Hispanic countries are taking away their jobs and livelihood. Some of them, remnants of the believers in the slavery era, hate the African Americans too. This racial divide was dormant for a long time, but has exacerbated suddenly and widened many-folds during the past four years.
The US Presidential Election 2020 was held under a tense atmosphere further complicated by the spread of dreadful Corona virus. In order to fight Corona virus, the forward looking leaders of Democratic Party instructed its supporters to have faith in science and prudent medical advice. They were told to keep a social distance of two yards between two individuals and to wear face masks in public. They were instructed to shun crowds and prefer to vote by mail and other means. On the other hand, the Republican voters were told by their conservative leaders to vote in record numbers on the last day of polling, that is on the 3rd of November, 2020. Supporters of Both sides by and large did what they were told to do.
The President Donald Trump was under the impression that the counting of the last day’s polling will take place immediately after the polling hours end and he will build up an un-assailable lead and before the start of counting of mail in votes, his people, who are well armed will raise the alarm that bogus votes are being counted. He hoped that the counting process will be disrupted and chaotic conditions will develop all over and based on the already counted votes, the incumbent president will be declared the winner. But in reality this kind of strategy backfired. The counting process kept on un-interrupted and in several key states, his opponent Joe Biden started building up lead. At the time of filing of this report, although counting and in some cases recounting of postal ballots is still continuing in Georgia and Arizona, but in the three crucial states of Wisconsin, Michigan and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania counting has been completed and Joe Biden has been declared the winner. These are the states, which Donald Trump won in 2016 and the fancied to win Hillary Clinton lost unexpectedly. The results of Wisconsin and Michigan were declared after one day, but the largest prize Pennsylvania was not announced for a long time after Joe Biden took the lead. But at about 11:30 am on the 7th of November, even the result of Pennsylvania became public. Joe Biden was declared the winner. In addition Joe Biden is unexpectedly leading in the Southern state of Georgia, if he picks up that, his margin of win will increase. In two Western states of Arizona and Nevada also Joe Biden was leading. The result of Nevada was announced later during the day and Joe Biden picked up 6 more electoral college votes to take his total to 279, nine more than victory. Due to very small difference in votes in Georgia and Arizona, recount is underway in both these states.
In accordance with several nationwide pre-election and exit polls, the Democratic candidate Joe Biden has already amassed enough votes in the all important electoral college for becoming the president. Arizona commands 11 votes, Biden leads, but the result of which has not yet been declared. But his narrow lead in Georgia will also give him 16 more votes, which makes it a 306 to 232 land-slide win. Joe Biden is poised to do that after the end of recount. On the other hand, the incumbent president Donald Trump refuses to accept defeat. He is going to challenge this result in the courts. Some of his staff is calling upon him to concede defeat, but he is stubbornly rejecting all advice. Let us see what will turn out in America’s judicial adjudication.
America has been known as the nation of prosperity and a land of opportunity. In the past two centuries, all those, who were outright failures in life in Europe, succeeded immensely after one generation’s hard work. The Chinese were imported to work as cheap labour when the railways were being built all over America. They are millionaires now. Without college degree some Sikhs came to work on agricultural fields in California, now they are landlords owning huge farms. The Sikhs came to New York, they worked in gasoline stations during long freezing nights and became owners of gasoline stations. The Sikh taxi drivers became the owners of limousines and taxi companies. The Mexicans worked below minimum wages all over America, some of them became rich within decades. But in the past four years all immigration came to a grinding halt. A wall was being constructed between Mexico and the neighboring states of the USA. This is absolutely a disgusting behavior towards a less affluent neighbor.
In his first speech after election, Joe Biden promised to be the President of all in America and not of the Democrats or the Republicans. His vice presidential running mate Kamala Harris is half Asian Indian and half Jamaican black. She is the first non-white female who got elected as the vice president. Vice president is the second most powerful office in America. Joe Biden’s foremost priority will be to overpower the deadly Corona Virus. If the most powerful man in the world promises to eliminate a deadly virus, we must take it as a good omen. He promises to bring racial peace. Another of his priorities will be the thwart global warming, which resulted in devastating fires in California and Australia. With this election, America has undergone a sea change, it will change the world. I hope no Sikh or a person of any other faith will be deported savagely in the near future. We should now hope for the resumption of H-1 B visa for technical persons with exceptional merit and qualifications. We should now expect humane treatment to the Mexicans crossing the border in search of greener pastures. We should expect that America will regain its reputation of being the promised land of plenty, prosperity and opportunity.
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