Winning the Vote and Losing the Election?

The apparent second attempted attack on former president and Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, along with the aftermath of his debate just a week ago with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, highlight the division reigning in the United States. And the fracture is not just between the left and the right; each side has its own complications.

The alleged perpetrator of the failed attack on Trump, Ryan Wesley Routh, is far from being a Democrat or leftist. Rather, he seems to be a politically frustrated right-winger. Trump’s first attacker, Thomas Matthew Crooks, also did not appear to have Democratic leanings.

He was killed after shooting Trump on July 13 during a rally in Pennsylvania. This time there were no shots fired at the candidate, but the U.S. press presented the incident as an assassination attempt and began speculating about its potential impact on the ongoing presidential campaign.

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The main question is whether it will halt the apparent momentum gained by the Democratic candidate after a debate that worked in her favor.

For traditional and liberal media outlets, Harris won the debate, showcasing the shortcomings and exaggerations of a Trump who seemed completely unhinged.

But for conservative media and social networks, Harris avoided or failed to address Trump’s claims about the economy and the ‘invasion’ of migrants, regardless of the fact that his statements were blatantly false.

Welcome to a country where political deadlock has been the rule for over a decade and which one prominent analyst describes as ‘ungovernable.’

According to Bill Schneider, a retired professor from George Mason University, the United States is politically at a literal standstill, divided between "an old conservative, white, male, religious, older, and rural America, and a new progressive America made up of African Americans, young people, working women, homosexuals, immigrants, educated professionals, and the non-religious."

The polarization between these two blocks seems unprecedented since the Civil War of 1861-65. According to the analyst’s description, traditionalists have the upper hand.

They have managed to thwart the political revolution that many believed inevitable given how the voters of the new America are reshaping the country’s political demographics.

In a recent article, John Kenneth Waite, a professor at The Catholic University of America, pointed out that “red states give Republicans advantages in Congress, especially in the Senate, while Republican-controlled state legislatures and governors work to keep Democratic seats in the House of Representatives to a minimum.”

The result is an Electoral College that, since 2000, has twice favored the losers of the popular vote and deepened the political divide.

BY JOSÉ CARREÑO FIGUERAS
CONTRIBUTOR
JOSE.CARRENO@ELHERALDODEMEXICO.COM
@CARRENOJOSE

Contenido originalmente publicado en El Heraldo de México.