Peter Espeut | The ongoing culture wars

Well now, the voters in the United States of America (USA) have chosen their evil. As I have written twice before in this space, the choices offered to the US electorate were not between good and evil, but between evil and greater evil, between wus’ and wus-a-rah; and they chose wus-a-rah!

As I have also pointed out, electorally we here in Jamaica are faced with a similar moral dilemma.

Judging by the response, it seems that many Jamaicans would have preferred wus’ as the result in the US elections. Let me repeat: a candidate being black, a woman, or of Jamaican descent provides no reason for anyone to vote for them. Voting for any of those reasons would be just as immoral as voting for someone because they are white and racist. The duty of citizens is to support the better candidate, the one that will best navigate the nation in the direction of the common good. Time will tell whether the worst fears about Donald Trump are realised.

It seems to me (from a distance) that the big issue surrounding this US election was abortion (and possibly homosexuality). Many women in the USA deeply resented Donald Trump for intentionally setting out in his first term to appoint justices to the US Supreme Court who would overturn the 1973 judgment (Roe v Wade) which created abortion “rights” for pregnant women.

The fear of some is that in a second term, President Trump will appoint more pro-life (and anti-LGBT) Supreme Court judges who might ban abortions altogether, and possibly reverse the 2015 Obergefell v Hodges decision which granted same-sex couples the legal right to marry.

The sexual revolution in the USA in the 1960s separated sexual intercourse from procreation, and promoted sex as recreation – for the sheer pleasure of it – with whosoever one wishes. The problem was that sexual intercourse between men and women is associated with pregnancy, and easy legal abortions was the ticket to free hetero-sex without consequences.

When people (euphemistically) say “reproductive rights” what they really mean is the right NOT to reproduce.

Kamala Harris was not slow in declaring from every platform on which she stood that if she became president she would make sure that abortion-on-demand became legal everywhere in the USA. She felt that with women in the majority among US voters – and with lots of tomcat males – that was a sure ticket to the White House.

GUESSED WRONG

Well we now know that she guessed wrong. She misjudged the power of the pro-life movement in the USA. Clearly there are tens of millions of US voters – including Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women and Jamaicans – who did not support Roe v Wade (and possibly Obergefell v Hodges) and who rejected Harris’ pro-abortion agenda, clearly because they had other more important things on their minds (like their personal economies).

The slogan oft-repeated by Harris that “a woman has the right to choose what happens with her own body” sounds like it should be obviously true and persuasive, except that the new life growing inside the womb of a pregnant woman is not her own body; the new human being has a different body with different DNA, and maybe even a different blood type to the mother. Many see the slogan as an attempt to obfuscate.

Many Christian groups mobilised against Harris just on the issue of abortion alone; they were one-issue voters. We must not undervalue the power of the conservative Christian lobby in the USA (or in Jamaica, for that matter). The religious right have declared victory! Read social media.

Harris needed to develop her economic and other policies (like Obama did) to attract support. She relied too much on people voting against a fascist Trump (PNP take note!)

I am convinced that many persons who voted for Donald Trump this week dislike him personally, and abhor much of his conduct and behaviour, but could not bring themselves to vote for Kamala Harris. They held their noses, swallowed their spit and voted for Trump.

Knowing the strong pro-abortion sentiment in the USA and probably reacting to the Harris campaign, Trump moderated his extreme anti-abortion stance, but not enough to lose his anti-abortion reputation. The contest on Tuesday was part of the ongoing culture wars in the USA.

FAR FROM OVER

That war is far from over.

We cannot discount the redneck and racist element – particularly in the US South – who simply could not bring themselves to vote for a black woman.

There is a great deal of trepidation and uncertainty about what a Trump administration will do in the US and internationally. Deporting undocumented Jamaicans could swell the ranks of our unemployed, and US protectionism could cause our exports further to decline. Trump’s support for Putin’s Russia could make the difference in Ukraine; his anti-China policies could affect us in Jamaica.

Having a convicted felon in the White House who is prepared to use his political clout to further the business interests of his friends could set back our local efforts to reduce political corruption. Trump has an earned reputation for disregarding environmental concerns and promoting unsustainable “development”. The reason we have our present environmental regulatory framework is because of pressure from a previous pro-environment US regime.

The next four years or so will be difficult, but we have to press on regardless.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com