Trump will lose the November 3 US election in a big way; here’s why

Get your popcorn and find a TV couch. That’s because on November 3, 2020, the sorriest – and saddest – chapter in recent American history will be put to an end. President Donald J. Trump, an evil and dangerous man who shocked the world by capturing the White House in 2016, will be sent home to New York, or to Mar-a-Lago, his gaudy resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Make no mistake – the irredeemably flawed man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC – is going home, wherever that is. Only time will tell if he will also go to prison after voters send him packing. I can state without equivocation that America’s long four-year nightmare will be over on Tuesday.

President Trump will lose the election in a landslide. It won’t be close. The business mogul and tax cheat will suffer an electoral shellacking seen only once in a generation.

As several Republicans who’ve stood by him even during his most destructive actions have openly admitted, November 3 could be a “bloodbath” for the party of Abraham Lincoln.

I’ve lived in America for nearly four decades and I have never seen such a catastrophe in the White House. It’s as though the gods sent America the deadliest pestilence and vermin in the form of a human called The Donald. The man has singlehandedly burned through every cherished norm of democracy and human decency.

Let’s dig deeper. America was born in sin. Its Original Sin was the enslavement of Black Africans. The coerced free labour of enslaved Africans built the mightiest state in the history of the planet.

This is a demon America has never exorcised as witnessed in the gruesome murder of George Floyd by a white policeman this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The lynching of Black people in America has never ended. White supremacy is a cancer that lives in the bone marrow of America.

This has been the underbelly of America. This demographic of America loves Mr Trump. It’s an America that thrills in his call to “Make America Great Again,” a euphemism for a return to American apartheid.

There’s another America. That’s the America of the Rev Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama and the late John Lewis, the civil rights icon.

That’s the America of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and many unsung champions of human rights. It’s the America of hope, opportunity, equity, and social justice. This is the America Mr Trump and his legion of haters have sought to extinguish. This is the vision of a democratic America they have sought to kill. That’s why he must be eviscerated on November 3.

Mr Trump’s sins didn’t start with his utterly inept handling of Covid-19, nor have they ended with the blood of the hundreds of thousands of dead Americans on his hands. Mr Trump is not only the first truly un-American President in my lifetime, he’s also the first anti-American President ever.

He’s un-American because he’s actively undermined and gutted the noble ideals of democracy, rule of law, and anti-discrimination. The world loves these ideals about America. Not the hate and bigotry of White supremacy, the oppression and exploitation of Blacks, Asians, Native peoples, women, gays and lesbians, and Hispanics. Of course the world loves America’s scientific and technological advances, but there’s more. Mr Trump is the first anti-American President in the history of the republic. He’s tried, and often succeeded, in destroying pillars of American democracy. At least, he’s seriously compromised their credibility and legitimacy. This includes the federal courts and Supreme Court that he’s packing with hateful ideologues.

He’s attacked science and scientists and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Centers for Disease Control, hitherto the world’s leading health agency. He’s laid waste to the Republican Party. He’s sided with dictators such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin against the United States.

Truly mind-boggling. Most of all, he’s destroyed the Office of President, hitherto often a voice of sanity, calm, and leadership in times of crisis.

Opinion polls show former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party nominee, will handily beat Mr Trump on Tuesday. Equally, perhaps more importantly, the polls also show that Democrats will flip the Senate and keep the House. Democrats are also favoured in many down-ballot [state] races.

It’s more than likely that Mr Biden’s victory will be so overwhelming that it will fundamentally reset global politics leftward. Democrats will likely control the White House and the Congress.

The question is whether they will be tempted to add more justices to the Supreme Court to flip it back. In any case, get your champagne ready for November 3.

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Makau Mutua is a Professor at SUNY Bufalo Law School