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COMMENTARY
The 2020 Presidential Election: Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Balance
By Anh Lê
This presidential election is the most consequential one in our nation's history.
As the ballots in Pennsylvania and other states are still being counted, the president has tried to wreak havoc, sow confusion, and attempt to disenfranchise American voters who have cast their ballots.
Only a few hours after Election Day, he declared himself the winner, claiming falsely that the vote counts proved it, albeit Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris were ahead by a wide margin in the Electoral College at that time.
His attacks on the states' election operations and his accusations of "fraud" against them are smokescreens to destroy an orderly process to count every and all the ballots cast by American voters.
His lawsuits filed against certain states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan to halt the counting of the ballots, and other states such as Georgia to interfere with their handling of the ballots, are frivolous, spurious, and without substance.
Just as Michigan, Minnesota, and other states have declared Biden - Harris the winners already, so will Pennsylvania and the remaining states which are carefully counting their ballots.
During this presidential election campaign, for the first time in American history, both parties' candidates have made sure to use the term, "Asian Americans," along with the terms for the other major ethnic and racial groups, in their speeches.
Have the parties' candidates suddenly recognized the power and strength of the votes of Asian Americans?
Nevertheless, neither party nor their candidates have yet made the real deep outreach efforts in the Asian American communities that are required to be considered substantial by Asian Americans. This remains both parties' and their candidates' failure. In the future, both parties and their candidates need to address this remaining and glaring failure.
My prediction that Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris would win the election by a landslide did not come to fruition. The reality is that the election results thus far show a split right down the middle between the two parties and their candidates.
That the popular votes for both parties' candidates thus far are so close, reveal that almost half of the American electorate that voted have not repudiated the extremism of the current occupant of the White House and his authoritarian disregard for the rule of law.
Could part of this be due to the fact of the gender and ethnicity of Senator Kamala Harris?
The sobering reality and reminder is that the challenge to the security of the United States is our beloved nation is threatened not mainly from the outside, but from within.
One of the questions confronting us is, "How will the Supreme Court, with a warped and highly imbalanced 6 - 3 composition, and the recent ramming of its newest member to the court by the president and Republican senators, render its upcoming rulings regarding this presidential election?"
Will the tenets and values of a democratically elected Executive branch of government be upheld, or will they be crushed?
It is up to us as Americans.
Anh Lê is an independent journalist.
Copyright @ Anh Lê, November 5, 2020