If The World Voted In the US Presidential Election?

By Pierre Guerlain,

The World Post

It is sometimes said that since the US is a global superpower, all citizens of the world should be allowed to vote in US elections. The global hyperpower does indeed impact the daily lives of many around the globe, be it militarily, economically or culturally, but so far it’s never been realistic to expect non US-citizens to vote in a US election. Some US citizens already find it hard to vote for they are excluded by voter ID laws, felony laws, rumors and various tactics developed by the GOP, so an international extension of the franchise will remain a utopia.

Still let us pick up where Ivan Krastev has left off in his New York Times op ed: “America Hasn’t Gone Crazy. It’s Just More Like Europe”. Krastev is right to point to similarities between Trump and Berlusconi, another buffoon, but saying that he finds Sanders “about as exciting as a cucumber sandwich” is just a conservative point of view which many on the right and far right would share.

Democrats abroad gave Sanders a big vote of confidence and there is also a kind of correspondence there. Globalization has not erased all national characteristics but it’s fair to say that if Trump appeals to the quasi-fascists, the racists and the loonies on both sides of the Atlantic, Sanders appeals to progressives in both the US and Europe. His references to Denmark could actually encompass most countries in Western Europe.

There is some doubt about whether Sanders could break the mold of the Deep State, defeat the billionaire class and reorient US foreign policy. Doubt which also comes from the Obama experience, Obamania followed by disappointment. Obama was immensely popular in Europe and his inability to improve the lot of African Americans or significantly change US foreign policy has led to some soul searching. Wouldn’t Sanders be caught in an even worse trap than Obama who after all promised a lot less progressive stuff? All the lobbies and special interests that fought Obama, so well described by Jane Mayer in her latest book Dark Money would not disappear if Sanders by a kind of magic were elected. Even FDR who enjoyed support among the wealthy at first could not get anti-lynching laws passed and let Japanese Americans go to interment camps.

There are two ways to plunge into the abyss: one is to follow the demagogic loonies on the right, whether Trump or Cruz who differ only superficially, the other is to give in to the business as usual crowd so that nothing changes. Sanders points the way forward, like Elizabeth Warren, and indicates that the worst can be avoided. He is not the ideal man, the ideal candidate, the perfect future president but he keeps alive the flame of possibility. Sanders does not encourage a personality cult which is as it should be for what needs to be believed in is an idea and a cause, not a human being. A more peaceful, racially integrated, more equal US would be a boon to all global citizens. Preparing the long goodbye to neoliberalism is the task of our time. Sanders is a reminder that this is not only desirable but possible and many of us as global citizens welcome this sudden emergence of an American spring. He embodies the America we like.

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