What is going on?
The rise of perception politics
Warning: This article will discuss themes of political violence.
It is said we live in historic times.
Recent events have taken this beyond the joke. In one month, we have seen the worst presidential television debate in history, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and the incumbent President Joe Biden withdraw from the race – despite being the presumptive nominee.
From the Australian point of view, this is not new, American politics has long been regarded as a disorderly miasma.
Our relationship however has remained resilient, with the AUKUS pact signing in 2021 bringing newfound common ground regardless of whoever is president.
With the rise of global pressures such as conflict, climate change and supply chain shocks, the stakes for the presidency are higher than ever before. With all these challenges and changes, it begs the question;
What is going on?
Joe Biden signing military and humanitarian aid following the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine | whitehouse.gov
Trump v Biden round 1
Trump v Biden Round 1
Chaos. Chaos describes the year that was 2020. The emerging COVID-19 pandemic, which would go on to infect over 775 million people, sent businesses, schools and governments into lockdown. Racial injustice following the disproportionate deaths of black people, the high pandemic death count, political paralysis and the lack of toilet paper produced a thumping rejection of Trumpism.
Or so was thought.
The current political drama starts in 2020. The 2020 United States Presidential Election had record voter turnout of approximately 158 million people and saw 51.3% of voters eject Trump for President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris. Joe Biden’s own age and immense political wisdom – serving for over 50 years, ensured his victory.
“Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not the darkness”
This devastating result led Donald Trump and the Republican Party to perpetuate lies that the 2020 election was stolen from them – that large scale political fraud occurred. There was no evidence of this, with courts throwing out these cases.
The ‘big lie’, as it was be called, alongside Trump’s own rhetoric prompted hundreds of his supporters to storm the United States Congress where they smashed windows, attempted to hold lawmakers hostage and even assassinate then Vice-President Mike Pence.
Joe Biden being sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America | dvidshub.net
The Biden Presidency: Perception’s rise
“But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like you do, or worship the way you do, or don’t get their news from the same sources you do.”
Joe Biden is one of the most unpopular Presidents of America. But why?
There has been extensive analysis of the Biden presidency, and this article instead focuses on highlighting the rise of a new form of politics which has undermined both Biden and potentially our own politics in Australia.
See, the days of experience, rhetoric and policy are over – instead perception is what matters in the age of social media and memes.
Joe Biden, by all records – has had a successful presidency. Since assuming office, the Biden administration passed pandemic aid to minimise social inequalities ($1.9 billion), the bi-partisan infrastructure bill (the biggest spending in modern history), the CHIPS and Science Act ($52 billion spend to create jobs in semi-conductors and computer chips) and the Inflation Reduction Act (creating the biggest investment in renewable energy in history). All these achievements have contributed to a record creation of over 15.7 million jobs.
Following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden united a global coalition against Russia – with over $100 billion in military and humanitarian aid.
Beyond Ukraine; Joe Biden pulled America and other western forces out of Afghanistan (a war resulting in over 176,000 deaths) – whilst being highly criticised – was something no previous president had achieved.
In an Australian context, these achievements mirror Australia’s acclaimed Prime Ministers such as Bob Hawkes, Paul Keating and John Howard, if not outdoing them.
However Biden’s approval ratings have told a different story. Despite an initial approval rating of 55.3% in March 2021, it since has fallen to an astonishingly high 56.2% disproval rating as of July 2024.
These approval ratings have not only haunted Biden’s presidency but created a self-fulfilling media ecosystem beckoning Biden’s eventual fall from power.
It’s unclear why this happened. But the growing culture war in America has prompted extremes on both the left and right to view Biden as an establishment puppet focused on either woke ideology or rich elites.
Biden’s age was the unfortunate breaking moment in this rise of perception politics.
Joe Biden and advisers celebrating the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act | whitehouse.gov
Trump v Biden Round 2
“We finally beat Medicare.”
Four years on, the American nightmare continues. Political polarisation has been growing in the United States for decades now, but this year has seen American politics brought back to the era of 1968 – a time characterised by political assassinations and chaos.
Despite becoming a convicted criminal, Donald Trump’s influence has only grown as Biden has trembled. Literally.
The recent political debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden sent the Democratic Party into panic as Biden repeatably stumbled his way throughout the questions. Despite Trump’s own poor performance, Biden’s campaign seemed to begin its end.
Biden, who has spent his life navigating from political collapse to victory, naturally refused to abandon his candidacy, even as his own broad coalition of allies dropped their support for him. Biden’s own denial was Trumpian in a way, lasting over three weeks with multiple questionable press interviews.
Meanwhile, only weeks later during a campaign speech in Pennsylvania, numerous shots were fired towards Donald Trump – inches away from certain death, and resulting in the deaths of innocent bystanders.
Political assassinations are not new to America. Both the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy and of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luthor King have been a permeant stain on America’s democratic process. Another could have broken it.
All these tensions, backdoor dealings and growing division prompted a key weakness in the Biden Administration. Its inability to rebuild political unity in America.
Perhaps this is what finally forced Biden to withdraw.
Donald Trump thrusting his fist following an attempted assassination | gettyimages.com
Where to now
Americans go to the polls on November 5th to elect the next presidential ticket. The Trump-Vance ticket has major political momentum to perhaps start a new conservative era in American politics.
Biden, as expected, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who along with numerous celebrity endorsements has already become the presumptive nominee against Donald Trump. Despite Harris’s own experienced record as a prosecutor, she too has suffered from perception politics, diagnosed by chronic coconut tree memes.
Unlike in Australia where leadership changes to remove an unpopular leader are normal, to change a ticket so rapidly and so close to an election is uncharted territory in America. For the Democrats to retain their power they will need to defeat perception politics and re-motivate their original 2020 coalition to prevent a rebirth of Donald Trump.
The coming months will only become more confusing, not less.