US election campaign: United States, divided country

Anyone who asks Americans about the state of their democracy discovers extreme contrasts: While a young idealist speaks of elections as a “superpower,” a pensioner is already dreaming of civil war.

“Voting is my super power” is written in large letters on student Mollie Duffy’s purple T-shirt. The 21-year-old tries to help students become more politically involved. To do this, she stands on her campus at Miami University Ohio after lectures and on weekends and distributes leaflets and information material. Whatever the weather, even if it is freezing cold, the trees on the grounds are bare, the lawn is brown and there are hardly any fellow students out and about.

She calls herself a democracy activist: “For me, democracy is a verb! A do-word, because I think that democracy always has to do with action. It’s about promoting people’s commitment.”

Because that is Duffy’s main concern: getting her generation, Gen Z, to the polls. According to statistics, there are almost 41 million young people between the ages of 18 and 27 in the United States. About eight million of them are first-time voters, just 18 or 19 years old.

Complicated voting

Unlike in Germany, you are not automatically entitled to vote in the USA. You have to actively register for it. The US election system is complicated and many first-time voters don’t know what to do. The bureaucratic hurdles are high and the polling stations are often far away from where people live.

That’s where Mollie Duffy comes in. In a political ideas competition she won a scholarship for the so-called “Democracy Bus”. The student used the money to rent a typical American yellow school bus and has her fellow students transported across country to the polling station during regional primaries in Ohio. The journey takes almost 45 minutes because the distances are long in Ohio. Corn fields to the horizon. If you don’t have a car here, you’re at a loss.

This is a hurdle that could prevent many young people here from voting. But not the only one. It is becoming increasingly difficult to cast your vote – also because many regulations have been tightened recently. At the polling station you must now be able to identify yourself with a driver’s license or passport. The student ID alone is no longer enough.

Choose “the lesser evil”.

Duffy repeatedly experiences how “voter suppression” makes itself felt in concrete terms: “I think that some states are passing restrictive voting laws shows clearly that they want to keep us young voters from taking part in elections,” she says . “Politicians who are in their 70s and 80s are afraid of us. Because they know they wouldn’t be re-elected.”

She doesn’t yet know exactly where she will vote in the presidential election in November because she doesn’t feel addressed by either candidate. Many people are like you: In surveys, more than 70 percent of those surveyed say they reject the new election duel between Trump and Biden. “The lesser of two evils” is how many laconically comment on their voting decision.

Duffy also: “I’m now choosing the lesser evil, probably Biden,” she says. “And then hopefully in four years we will have people who are able to lead a good presidency. Without us having to worry about them dying in office.”

Many believe in 2020 election fraud

This frustration and disinterest are a threat to democracy. What if hardly anyone goes to the polls under these circumstances? Does an active, loud minority then decide over the silent majority in the country?

Among the loud, convinced people is Sharon Anderson of Tennessee. Her red T-shirt reads: “I’m still a Trump girl.” She also has a blue one that reads: “I’m not voting for the Republicans, I’m voting for Trump.” The 67-year-old drives all over the USA to support her idol. To finance her trips, she sells homemade elderberry syrup.

With Trump as president, Anderson says, she felt “safer” and “more respected” in the world. She is firmly convinced that Trump’s 2020 election victory was stolen, although there is no evidence or evidence of this. Nevertheless, the majority of Trump supporters still believe that the 2020 election was rigged. With a view to the upcoming election in November, depending on the survey, only 64 to 69 percent of the total population trust that the system is working correctly. A massive loss of trust.

Political Willingness to use violence increases

Sharon Anderson goes even further. She said she was there when the Capitol was stormed in Washington on January 6, 2021, heard Trump’s speech, but didn’t do anything else afterwards. But: “I have the feeling that these people missed an opportunity that day… If Donald Trump had said: ‘Take the Capitol!…’ – And he didn’t do that, he said: ‘Leave us there peacefully “Go down, let’s fix this election’ – But if he had said from that podium, ‘Take the Capitol!’ I, a 67-year-old woman, would have walked home from the Capitol with a few bricks.”

According to an academic study conducted by several universities, eight percent of Americans now say they are willing to use violence to enforce their political opinions. In numbers, that’s almost 26 million people who, if in doubt, would be willing to commit to a revolution or a civil war if they saw political benefit in it.

Anderson says: “I would try to right a wrong. If it takes a civil war, then I would rather live through a civil war or be killed in a civil war to set the country right. I’d rather do that than be in the country live as it is now.” It seems as if this campaign and the election in November cannot end peacefully.

You can see these and other reports on Sunday, March 24th, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. in “Weltspiegel”.
You can now see the Weltspiegel documentary “WTF, USA?! Trump against Biden” in the ARD media library and Monday, March 25, 2024 at 10:50 p.m. on Erste.