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America prepares for war, election on eve of vote

Tuesday, 03 November 2020 10:58 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 03 November 2020 10:58 AM ]

A board shows the results of the ballots cast shortly after midnight in the US presidential election at the Hale House at Balsams Hotel in the hamlet of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the US, on November 3, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

Ramin Mazaheri
Press TV, Chicago

In cities across the United States, battlements are going up as if people are preparing for war, but they are only preparing for a presidential election which has generated unprecedented tension, instability and hysteria.

The vote is expected to be decided by razor-thin margins, which would mean that - like in 2000 and 2016 - the vote with the most political weight is a third party vote.

Third parties are expecting record success, due to record dissatisfaction with the mainstream duopoly, 40 years of a declining standard of living and a catastrophic response to the coronavirus.

Perhaps a bigger structural problem than the increasingly-resented electoral college is a winner-take-all system which keeps third-parties almost perpetually sidelined.

The unexpected and controversial success of Donald Trump is due in large part to his outsider status and his open accusations of corruption in Washington. Challenger Joe Biden has been dogged by major corruption allegations in October, but many view Trump as unfit for office as well.

America’s major polling agencies were infamously wrong in 2016. If they are wrong by the same percentage in 2020 as they were in 2016, Trump will win the electoral college vote.

The only thing the country seems to know the day before the vote is that nothing seems knowable this year. Three out of four Americans are concerned about the possibility of violence on election day. American citizens are headed to the polls in survival mode, or quite possibly attack mode.

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