The 2020 election, a missed opportunity


Articolo
Angelo D'Agostini

After Bernie Sanders announced his concession to the disappointment of many Americans on April 8th, Joe Biden is now running unopposed. All that is left to officially ensure Biden’s candidacy is a simple majority vote of 1,991/3,979 by delegates at the Democratic National Convention in mid-August.

It is difficult to ignore the hypocrisy of Biden’s election among Democrats. Joe Biden, a national Senator representing Delaware for 36 years, and the 47th Vice-President of the United States, encapsulates the notion of the neoliberal Democrat. In recent years, his party has criticized Republicans for their “cookie-cutter” representatives characterised as older white men who cannot relate to the diverse populace of the United States, only to elect Biden, an elderly white man with a less than progressive record and a history of sexual assault accusations. Biden’s primary election is a prime example of American hypocrisy and the struggle for power that Americans too nonchalantly neglect.

Nonetheless, Biden will need to adjust his platform to be much more progressive in an attempt to mend the division within the Democratic party; which can be accomplished by selecting a historically disenfranchised person as a running-mate. In addition, Biden must fight recent allegations of sexual assault and his perceived mental deterioration. On the other hand, Donald Trump’s objective is to defend his party-proclaimed accomplishments amid the global pandemic that is devastating western economies, while simultaneously keeping his base engaged, which he will struggle to do without his nationalistic campaign rallies.

However, as Biden will almost certainly be approved by the DNC due to Sanders’ concession, this means the United States, and possibly the globe, will miss a unique opportunity to listen to the debates surrounding the two starkly different, but popular, economic policies; those of democratic socialism and capitalism.

The United States, which is starkly divided among economic ideological lines, could have benefited from a debate stage that featured two populist candidates, successful in their own domains. Donald Trump, a poster-boy of capitalism who turned $1 million into an international brand, and Bernie Sanders, who miraculously transformed a once laughable system into a logical and widely accepted alternative amid growing global economic inequality. Due to their knowledge and experience, the 2020 presidential debates would have been valuable to the ongoing economic discussion, giving millions the ability to listen to compelling arguments and increase the level of understanding when considering a fiscal direction, which would successively influence the economic future of the world’s strongest economies. Rather, millions must listen to the same talking points and political slander that have characterized American politics for decades, resulting in little change and more mounting frustration.

Ufficio stampa e Comunicazione dell'Istituto per la Competitività (I-Com). Nata a Roma nel 1992, Giulia Palocci si è laureata con il voto di 110 e lode in Scienze Politiche e Relazioni Internazionali presso l’università Luiss Guido Carli con una tesi sul contrasto al finanziamento del terrorismo nei Paesi del Sud-est asiatico.

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