The poll released this week by the Washington Post may surprise some who are drawn to the high numbers that support authoritarian moves by the incoming president. They would be wrong to focus only on this…what I saw was something different.
The poll results surprised me, not because there was hardcore support for the incoming president’s more fascist-like proposals like investigating his political rivals (40%), rather, I was heartened by the lines drawn in the sand by a majority of Americans.
Unpacking the poll, we learn that 42% support using the US military to deport undocumented immigrants, 54% oppose it. That the figure supporting it is so high demonstrates why the incoming president’s campaign was so successful; he constantly hammered and demonised immigrants on the campaign trail and has done so from the time he descended the faux, gold coloured escalator at Trump Tower in 2016. He knows how to plumb the depths of human bigotry.
However sanctioning the use of the military on American soil is a very dangerous precedent. At least a majority of those polled realise this and would oppose this move. Others who see the reality of US soldiers arresting immigrants might reassess their positions. If it can be done to the undocumented, then how long before those same soldiers come for you?
Worryingly, 38% of respondents thought he should go after his political rivals, yet 60%, a good majority of Americans opposed this move. Here we begin to see the lines that Americans are willing to cross, or not.
The results on pardons for Jan 6th offenders (he too faced charges for his role in the attempted insurrection), was clearly another red line with 66% of citizens against the pardons. If inaugurated, I wonder if the incoming president will proceed with this threat. Early in his term, this would create a perception of criminality and that, combined with a failing economy, would likely hinder the remainder of his term like a bad apple on a bough. There’s no defying gravity once the rot sets in.
Respondents were strongly opposed to using police force against protestors (72%) and overwhelmingly against putting reporters in jail for stories unfavourable to the incoming president (88%). It seems there are some places even the majority of his own MAGA supporters won’t go.
There has been much soul searching since the election by Americans feeling shame such a man – a convicted felon – and previously facing multiple indictments for Jan 6th and for taking classified documents and obstructing their return, could be re-elected a second time. That the majority oppose his worst authoritarian tendencies is something that we can all ‘cling onto’ as we watch the tide undoubtedly turn on the incoming president.
I posted a video this week urging viewers to be open to all possibilities and the unexpected. Life can do that…the incoming president is precariously placed at this time, and in coming months, if he’s inaugurated. We should take nothing for granted in such times of global conflict, foreign governments interfering in democratic elections, highly partisan politics, and the rise of the oligarchy with their own agendas and plenty of cash to see they’re enacted.
The WaPo poll is, therefore, somewhat comforting. No majority supports any of the incoming president’s fascist proposals of retribution and cruelty. Perhaps all they wanted was the ‘billionaire’ celebrity to bring back the good times and deliver them from their financial and class struggles. They won’t get this of course, and so we must traverse this well worn pathway a second time while others learn the hard way they’ve been conned again by the ‘would be’ president.