The list of the report on post-election events in the USA, the supposed strength of social networks and the legacy of Donald Trump spoke with the American political scientist Morris Fiorina from Stanford University. “It’s a miserable time for the presidency. But if you ask who else – better – I would put in place, it would be Biden, but in a younger version, “says expert Fiorina in an interview.
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Morris Fiorina, political scientist at Stanford University.
We talked together a month before the election about the darkest scenarios for the presidential vote. That for weeks will not know who won. More than a week after the election, you could say it went well, don’t you think?
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Certainly, we are happy about it, the worst fears have not come true. People in the legal environment feel that none of the lawsuits filed by Donald Trump will go far, let alone to the Supreme Court. That all this will be resolved at the level of state courts. The unfavorable scenarios concerning the endless counting of correspondence cards, especially in countries that did not have much experience with this, did not materialize.
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As for the voting process itself, we were satisfied with it, we can now work to make it better in the future. To avoid the delay in which the votes came in some states, so it took a long time to get to the end result. Even here in California, there are a few more places where it is not fully decided where it still counts – these are the votes from the congressional elections. And it will take another week before we know how many seats the Democrats have lost in the House of Representatives.
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How do you read the post-election situation?
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It’s not that the country is divided in half – 50 to 50. There are a lot of people who have simply opted for this or that “better” option at their own discretion. The impression that the country is divided comes from people on social networks or from those who appear in the media. They represent only a small part of society. I believe that some Trump voters are disappointed, but I think the rest will do it and maybe lean slightly towards Biden, but time will tell.
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Read an interview with Morris Fiorina in early October:
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Are you talking about social networks – what role did they play in this election?
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I feel like not that big. Studies examining the impact of social networks on the outcome of the vote show that in the end it is not significant. What I would emphasize, however, is the power of social networks to mobilize people, to get them to vote. Especially at a time when it is not entirely possible to carry out a door-to-door campaign. Although Republicans did, for example, Democrats did not – they used social networks to mobilize.
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And now he is celebrating Biden’s victory. But that was not as confident as expected. Donald Trump may soon be out of the White House, the less than 48 percent of voters who voted for him, but he remains. What does this close battle say about contemporary America?
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It is not possible now to speak – even if some do – of a party or candidate having a mandate at a time when victory is so close. That’s stupid. To put it bluntly: Americans do not give seats. Rather, they choose the candidate for the exam, and if it suits them, they extend the contract.
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The result of the election is certainly reinforced by the fact that there is no such thing as a national majority. Neither side won a majority. By contrast, Democrats in the House of Representatives have lost their seats, and the ruling president’s party has traditionally lost in the midterm elections. They are likely to lose most.
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Election polls were wrong in this regard, as they were four years ago.
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Surveys are known to have overestimated Biden’s election performance. They simply failed to capture some groups, such as less educated people. And the researchers knew it was a problem, but they still didn’t succeed. This part of the electorate is suspicious, does not answer as many phones, does not participate in surveys. The fact is that surveys have not been able to cover this part of the population for a long time.
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A time of real problems
I would return to the composition of Congress. What will it look like if the Democrats lose their won majority in the House of Representatives and both chambers go to the Republicans? Something like that would tie Biden’s hands significantly.
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He still has some options. I wrote a text about it, that it would not be so bad if the Democrats lost their majority. The demands of the progressive wing of the Democrats would automatically go away, because the Republicans would never nod to them. And Biden, as a moderate centrist, would spare wars with progressives.
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And as for the specific things that could go through – for example, the approval of funds flowing into the infrastructure, which would resonate positively in both camps, Republican and Democratic. There was such an effort after the last election, but it did not work out.
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What will Joe Biden inherit from Donald Trump in January?
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Well, honestly, now is a terrible time to become president. We have covid-19, which will be addressed for at least another six months before we get a reliable vaccine. And from an economic point of view, it’s quite complicated now. Biden comes to a time of real problems that would not be easy for anyone to solve. Especially with the divided Congress, which is the icing on the cake.
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But he comes as a moderate candidate. And you yourself said he could negotiate a lot with the Republicans.
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Yes, I really can’t think of anyone better suited for the post of president at this time. It’s a miserable time for the presidency. But if you’re wondering who else – better – I’d put in the position, it would be Biden, but in a younger version.
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How did members of Czech foreign newsrooms experience the US presidential election? Listen to an episode of Checkpoint:
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“We want our president to be able to behave properly”
Has American society changed during those four years of Trump’s presidency?
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I do not know how the whole society, but some aspects of it have definitely changed, for example, activists within the Democratic Party have moved further to the left. This is definitely a change. But otherwise, I’d say the company has remained fairly stable in the White House over Trump’s four years. What was fascinating to me, for example, in the presidential election was how well Trump did with the minorities – a lot of people are still trying to figure it out. But it’s not so surprising, Hispanics – Venezuelans, Cubans and others – are simply conservative. Overall, we can talk about a coalition of minorities, which people at universities do not manage to track as well as they like to think.
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I ask about this change mainly because after Biden’s win, it is often said that “America will return to normal.”
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I think this must be taken from the point of view that we want our President to be able to behave properly. Leaving aside Trump’s policy, he behaved as we would not want our children to behave. No one wants the leader of his country to be childish and insult others. So when it comes to returning to normal, I would say that people mean the traditional figure of the president, not his politics. The head of state should lead by example, and I think Biden is determined to do so. They talk about unification, which is a bit stronger, but people want to hear it. For a change, we simply want an adult in this capacity to act as an adult.
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Did Trump’s presidency surprise you in any way?
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He demonstrated what he had been working on for years. The white working class has deviated from the Democrats since the mid-1960s. So Trump is not the cause, but rather the symptom, waiting for his opportunity. Democrats, like other similar parties around the world, have become a choice for the upper classes, for more educated people, intellectuals. They have distanced themselves from those who dig in coal mines or work in the timber industry. It’s obvious Trump isn’t going anywhere, and I’d bet Republicans will follow in his footsteps. He has successors, such as Missouri Senator Josh Howley.
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However, there is already speculation that Trump will run for president again in 2024.
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Well, he’s such a wild card, no one knows what Donald Trump will do. He is currently raising money to pay for this year’s presidential campaign. There is also talk of starting his own television station, which could do a lot of harm to Fox News. It will depend on his other decisions – it would be practically impossible to predict his actions given the circumstances, such as his behavior.
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