By Zhang Zhixin
The election mirrors failure of US democracy by showing that the party elites try to manipulate the primary process, the election system cannot prevent a radical candidate from winning the primary, and as a result democracy has to yield to populism. The implications on Sino-US relations is that the end to pressuring China on political reform could pave foundation for mutual trust.
The chaotic 2016 US presidential election finally ended with the political outsider and real estate magnate Donald Trump winning the race. The election was characterised as the ugliest one in modern US history, and highlighted the defects of the US election system and the dysfunction of democracy. This will inevitably affect the future of Sino-US relations.
Why Does The Election Mirror the Failure of US Democracy?
First, party elites from both sides tried to manipulate the primary process. The email-gate uncovered by the release of the Democratic National Committee emails stunned the world, and showed that a so-called fair election is nothing more than a lie. If the emails accurately revealed the black box of how party elites and the political establishment manipulated the presidential election, the legitimacy of US democracy should be questioned. Even if their plots were not carried out, it astonished and alerted people outside the political circle as it suggested that this could be the common practice of the US campaign strategy.
On the one hand, the party establishment and the Democratic National Committee violated the neutrality principle by working with the Hillary Clinton campaign team to help her clinch the nomination. For this purpose, they attempted to attack her rival Bernie Sanders’ ethnic identity as a Jew as well as his religion. As is reported by CNN, ton May 5, a DNC employee asked colleagues to “get someone to ask his belief” in God and suggested that could make a difference.[1] They went so far as to plan cyber attacks on the supporters of Sanders, as the emails suggested that Super PACs were paying young voters to push back online on Sanders supporters. When the scandal was uncovered, Sanders’ supporters were furious but the candidate himself was calm, as if unsurprised by the shenanigans against him.
Meanwhile, the Democratic camp made great efforts to defame Mr. Trump by highlighting his discriminatory words against women, the disabled, minority groups, his past bankruptcies and his edgy temperament that Democrats said made him unfit to be the president. As was directed by the DNC members in the emails, they called him out for dividing and insulting Americans, used his derogatory quotes – especially those concerning women, and cited ties to and support from groups like KKK and incidents of violence. They also tried to emphasise that Trump was undermining US values and putting US security at risk, by highlighting the president’s responsibilities like the nuclear codes and pointing out that his inflammatory rhetoric encouraged terrorists.
It is very interesting that that was actually the image the mainstream media conveyed to the audience and readers. Such negative campaign strategy obviously has tarnished the so called fair and transparent election system in which Americans take pride. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was never treated this way by the media, although she also had numerous scandals that were difficult to shake off. What’s more, when the emails were uncovered, the Obama administration and Clinton campaign team wasted no time condemning Russia as the black hand behind the scandal, which made people suspect they were trying to sweep the issue under the carpet by making Russia a scapegoat.
On the Republican side, the “Never Trump” movement, pushed by some of the party establishment, continued even when the Republican national convention started in Cleveland. It is reported that the conservatives tried to create a GOP “unity ticket” to prevent Trump from clinching the nomination, although this failed.[2] The mainstream media also played a disgraceful role by standing with the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee Hillary Clinton long before the race entered the final stage, by describing Mr. Trump as a “disaster”, “disgrace” or “humiliation” of the Grand Old Party, trying to prevent him from winning the White House. This actually helped Trump’s camp to attract more voters, because the grass roots were convinced that the “corrupted media establishment” was trying hard to block Trump.
[ms-protect-content id=”3162″]
Second, the inherent defects of the US election system cannot prevent a radical candidate like Trump winning the primary. The de facto two-party system and the winner-takes-all delegates counting system make the radical candidates more popular in the primary. Therefore, the moderate and rational candidates could not stand out without support from the more extreme voters in the early races. As in the 2008 presidential election, the GOP moderates like Jon Huntsman quit the race very early because his rational policy positions were not appealing to the radical voters. This year, the same happened to the moderate candidates – Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former governor of Florida Jeb Bush – who were both highly expected to be the potential nominee of the party.
In the primary, the two party’s national conventions can actually function as the goal-keeper. Together with the Electoral College, the party’s national conventions are designed to work as the cooling system, which was created by the founding fathers to prevent a demagogue from hijacking the public and winning the race. In fact, the Republican National Committee could have adjusted the rules and prevented controversial Trump from being nominated. However, the RNC chose not because the anti-establishment sentiment was so strong that the traditional candidates like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio would have less chance of winning, and the party could not find any capable alternative to replace Trump in such a short time. So they had to accept the hard reality and stand behind Trump to fight against Hillary Clinton.
Third, democracy had to yield to populism when the party was hijacked by the radical politician. The nomination of Trump clearly showed that GOP was not able to control the process of election. Nor could GOP abandon the radical candidate, but rather had to flow with the populist trend. Thus, democracy had been distorted and did not reflect the people’s will, and they would not benefit from the result either. In the post-Cold War era, globalisation has hastened economic inequality. The financial crisis has made the middle class shrink and the lower classes more discontent. Politically, ever since the Clinton administration, party politics has widened the gap between the elites and the grassroots. Politicians made irresponsible promises for the sake of election, but broke their word after being elected. It resulted in the overwhelming anti-establishment sentiment in this election year. Trump is very smart in making good use of the sentiment and succeeded in both a hostile takeover of the Republican Party and a final win of the presidential race.
Even though Mr. Trump succeeded in winning the election, he has irreversibly damaged the US democracy with his radical rhetoric. Meanwhile, his success actually tells us half of Americans believe in what he said about their society. Discrimination against minority groups, the disparity between the rich and the poor and the money politics would not disappear just because the mainstream chooses to ignore them. In the 2016 presidential election, the right wing and the left wing have reached one important consensus: the special interest groups have “hijacked” the government and the US needs political reform. Mr. Trump’s government could actually have the chance to reform the political system as he promised, or would be changed by the establishment and the status quo.
Implications for Sino-US relations
There are several implications for Trump era Sino-US relations. First, as some of the media pointed out the US presidential election has become “an object lesson in everything that ails a country long seen as a beacon of freedom and hope”,[3] it is highly possible that the US may not be able to promote its model of democracy to other countries confidently in the coming years. As Mr. Trump once said, the US should work with its alliance to restore western values and institutions, but not to spread the so-called universal value, because not everyone accepts such values. If Trump actually believes so, it could be a piece of good news for the whole world, China included.
Second, if the Trump administration indeed gave up promotion of democracy, it will pave the foundation for China-US bilateral mutual trust and confidence building. One of the most famous Chinese scholars of the China-US relations Wang Jisi once observed that, one major conflict between the two countries is that China is suspicious that the US is pursuing the idea to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party’s rule in China, through so called colour revolution or peaceful evolution. While the US denied the accusation from time to time, it actually wanted the Chinese economic liberalisation, so that this could lead to political democratisation. Therefore, relieving China from the pressure of the political reform that the West has wanted, will help to construct more stable bilateral relations.
Third, the US presidential election this year highlighted that there could be more than one model of democracy, and even a comparatively mature one could produce unexpected results and invite more risks and challenges for the country. Therefore, it is predictable that China will be even more committed to develop its own model of democracy in accordance with Chinese national condition and developing stage. In history, China has contributed the model of official selection to the Western world, and hopefully China will contribute more to global governance. By any means, democracy is only one way to reach good governance; this itself should not be the end that nations pursue.
[/ms-protect-content]
About the Author
Dr. Zhang Zhixin is an associate research professor of Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. His research focuses on US politics, foreign policy making, and China-US relations. He was visiting scholar of the Henry Stimson Center (2006-2007), the James Baker Institute of Public Policy, Rice University (2013).
References
1. Theodore Schleifer & Eugene Scott, “What was in the DNC email leak?” , July 25, 2016， http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/24/politics/dnc-email-leak-wikileaks/index.html, accessed on November 13, 2016
2. “Conservatives Grasp For a Plan to Stop Trump”, Time, March 18, 2016, http://time.com/4263396/donald-trump-contested-convention-conservative-activists-third-party/, accessed on March 20, 2016
3. Griff Witte, “In America’s democratic showcase, the world sees a model of what not to do”, the Washington Post, November 5, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-americas-democratic-showcase-the-world-sees-a-model-of-what-not-to-do/2016/11/05/dc4505e6-a03c-11e6-8864-6f892cad0865_story.html, accessed on November 13, 2016
