As Trump and Biden battle over who will become the 47th president of the United States in next year’s presidential election, its impact on American politics will be one that questions the legitimacy of the American political system.
In one year, America will be well within the 2024 presidential election where it will most likely be a rematch between former President Donald J. Trump and current President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
A fight between two of the most unpopular presidents in American history.
Current polling from FiveThirtyEight shows Biden with a 39.2% approval rate, lower than Trump who at the same time in his presidency had a 41.1% approval rate.
This is lower than every president before him since polling started recording presidential approval during Harry Truman’s presidency right after World War II.
As ballots consistently show that the economy is most important priority for voters, it should be worrying for Biden that “70 percent of voters thought Biden’s economic policies had either hurt the US economy or had no impact.” the Financial Times polled.
This is primarily attributed to the rise in prices, with 82% of respondents blaming inflation on their financial woes.
Echoing that the betterment of the economy over the course of Biden’s presidency as seen by statistics is being little felt by most voting Americans.
With polls starting to swing in favor of Trump as well as Biden’s weak showing as a candidate, his chance of victory grows ever greater.
If Trump would win, he would be the first president to serve nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland won the presidency in the 1884 and the 1892 presidential elections.
This is despite his many scandals leading back decades and a presidency mostly remembered for his petty rants on twitter, controversial handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and a cataclysmic end to his tenure.
The chaos of American politics reflects the “lack of stability and distrust of said stability”, teacher Elaine Wagstaffe said.
While ideally the sovereignty of the people still holds true, the faith in our democratic institutions by the population at large has been getting lower and lower.
This result is “reflective of a broken system” Wagstaffe said. “The manner of which power changes were handled is indictive of the democratic system that…needs something to change.”
This showing of popular anger towards the perceived injustices of the American political system is becoming ever more common; a poll from Pew Research Center polled that only 20 percent of trusted the government most or all the time.
A trend that has been declining ever since the Vietnam War and even more so with the evermore frequent scandals by prominent government figures.
Resulting in a disinterest from a government that people don’t feal represents them.
As evidenced by another study from Pew Research Center showing that out of 49 democracies studied, America ranks 31st, lower than much less developed countries such as India and Mexico among others.
But despite this, Wagstaffe when asked said that “it is my civic duty” to vote, showing that if nothing else, the American people still believe in the democratic ideals of which the United States was founded on.
