The 2020 U.S. presidential election: A litmus test

• Author: Juma Kasadha,Abdulhamid Mpoza,Nan Zhang,Adam A. Alli
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1994
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Date: 01 February 2020

COMMENTARY

The 2020 U.S. presidential election: A litmus test

Juma Kasadha

1,2

| Nan Zhang

1

| Abdulhamid Mpoza

3,4

| Adam A. Alli

5,6

1

Department of Media and Communication,

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,

SAR, China

2

United Nations University Institute on

Computing and Society (UNU-CS), Macau,

SAR, China

3

Institute of Communication Studies (ICS),

University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

4

School of Creative Arts, University of Lahore,

Lahore, Pakistan

5

Department of Computer Science and

Engineering, Islamic University of Technology,

Gazipur, Bangladesh

6

Department of Computer Science, Islamic

University in Uganda, Mbale, Uganda

Correspondence

Juma Kasadha, Department of Media and

Communication, City University of Hong Kong,

5/F, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, 18

Tat Hong Avenue, Hong Kong.

Email: jkasadha2-c@my.cityu.edu.hk

This paper provides an overview of what lies ahead of the United States in the event

that Donald John Trump either lost or won a reelection bid. The uncertainty of the

election outcomes is what we refer to as a litmus test. In this paper, we reflect on the

ongoing events shaping the United States ahead of the 2020 presidential election

and their implications on the United States. We suggest that the election provide a

litmus test in shaping the politics of the United States in answering numerous ques-

tions raised in the current Trump administration. We deduce that the election could

give birth to the new form of Brexit in the form of “U.S. exit”in the event the United

States ignores processes that foster institutional legitimacy and civic engagement to

build lost “trust”in the Americanized system.

1|INTRODUCTION

From the myriad polls and poll aggregators, to the vaunted oracles at

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight and The New York Times' shiny forecast

interface, most U.S. election predictors misjudged Trump's chances of

winning the 2016 U.S. presidency (Newkirk, 2016). The declaration of

Donald John Trump as the 45th President of the United States defied

American election pollsters yet continued to show Hillary Clinton with

a modest but persistent edge that threatened convulsions throughout

the country and the world, where skeptics watched with alarm as

Mr. Trump's unvarnished overtures to disillusioned voters took hold

(Flegenheimer & Barbaro, 2016).

Questions of who was to blame for the 2016 Hillary Clinton failed

contest still linger in minds of many Americans. However, the 2020

presidential election and Trump's reelection contest raises more dust

than it does settle. According to Graham (2019), if Trump lost his bid

for reelection and perhaps even if he won the 2020 Republican pri-

mary, it would be a mystery for future political scientists to puzzle

over especially in answering questions of how a historically

“unpopular”president won renomination to contest for presidency

amidst pending impeachment threats without a serious challenge. In

addition, he gets reelected as the 45th President of the United States

in 2020. In the event that Trump lost his reelection bid, what would

become of the long treasured American democracy? America would

then experience characteristics of “African”democracy where incum-

bents seem pressured to stay in power irrespective of election results.

This is evidenced in calls from Trump supporters, for his prolonged

stayed in the White House beyond the established two terms

(Sonmez, 2019). Will the 2020 election divide America more than the

already felt 2016 polarization of a society widely divided between

party ideologies? Scholarly opinions differ in examining levels of polar-

ization in the United States. Though Bennett and Iyengar (2008)

deduced that the U.S. electorate was more polarized, Holbert, Kelly,

and Laurel (2010) connoted that greater polarization reflected attitude

strengthening and reinforcement derived from the persuasive effect

of consumed political media.

Is 2020 a repeat of the 2016 defeat to the democrats or a redo

for the achieved 2018 victory that saw the democrats take leadership

of the Congress and launch a series of investigations into Trump's

presidency? The question of what went wrong with the 2016

American election pollster predictions (BBC, 2016; Flegenheimer &

Barbaro, 2016; Roberts, Siddiqui, Jacobs, Gambino, & Holpuch, 2016)

seems valueless to the pending question of what will happen if Trump

refused to hand over power to the 46th President of the United

Received: 21 June 2019 Accepted: 22 June 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1994

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https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1994