One month to go: Biden vs Trump

Is history set to repeat itself? Holly Baxter recalls the disappointing 5am call in November 2016

Even in liberal New York there are many more Trump supporters than you would think (AP)

When I spoke to my sister in Newcastle earlier today, she told me that all she’d heard about the US election was that: “Biden is a hero and Trump has just accepted his fate.” I wasn’t surprised. 

Last week, at an Independent Premium event, one questioner asked if  “history is due to repeat itself” from 2016 with another “shock win” for Trump. And most people I know in Britain think America won’t vote in Trump again because “surely they realise” how bad he makes them look on the world stage.

Back in 2016, I was one of those people who also thought it was impossible for a reality TV star with no political experience to ascend to the Oval Office. I was so confident about that fact that I wrote my weekly column – due the morning of the US election result – well in advance, praising the US for electing a female president and looking optimistically forward to what great strides Hillary Clinton might make for the country over the following four years. 

When my then-editor called me at 5am, as rain battered London in the pitch black, to tell me the election had gone the other way and I needed to come into the office ASAP, I was astounded.

‘Now I pay hardly any taxes,’ he said. I asked him about healthcare, social security and pensions; he was nonplussed. ‘I vote for me,’ he said. ‘Other people should take care of themselves’

I whispered to my sleeping boyfriend that the unthinkable had happened, stumbled out of my pyjamas and into something resembling office clothes, and battled the harsh November weather to the station in order to hop on the first train to the newsroom. I rewrote my column as the sun rose over London tower blocks, wondering how I could have been so naive.

That was long before I moved to the US, and I consider myself a little more cautious in my predictions now. Just under two years here has taught me that no, many Americans don’t care that much how Trump “makes them look” on the world stage (“he cuts through the BS and puts on a strong show” is the general impression of such people); and no, the election this time round is certainly not a done deal. 

Despite the fact that Biden has been leading in the polls for some time, it’s by single digits – and if Brexit and the 2016 election taught us anything, it’s that polls are unreliable. At this moment in time, it’s 50/50 to my mind: I’d be just as surprised if Biden won the election as I would be if Trump got in for a second term.

To get to this point requires some on-the-ground understanding of America as a country that really can’t be gained by a two-week holiday in New York or Florida. I can’t pretend to have the sort of knowledge that comes from growing up here, but there’s a few things I’ve realized from having my feet on the ground in Brooklyn for this amount of time. 

One is that states like New York or California are not monoliths: I’ve visited numerous towns in Long Island or upstate New York where car parks are full of trucks with Make America Great Again bumper stickers and streets have gun shops filled with scary-looking rifles and pictures of the president.

Even in liberal New York City, boats will sometimes go past on the Hudson River pulling huge “Trump 2020” flags. And the number of people I’ve now spoken to who grew up in small, conservative California towns where everyone votes Republican and the word “socialism” is effectively banned disavowed me of the idea that the west coast is a haven for bleeding-heart liberals and ageing hippies.

Such individualism is par for the course in the US and often means that people shrug their shoulders and vote with their tax dollars

In Montgomery, Alabama, last year, I spoke to two men of the same age while I waited for my pasta dish to arrive at a local restaurant. One was dressed in his factory dungarees with oil smeared on his shirt, and he told me he’d voted for Trump in 2016 but he wouldn’t again because the ruckus with trade deals with China had meant people doing the same job as him on the factory floor were now being laid off. 

The other, who approached me to “set the record straight” after the first man left, was smartly dressed in a tailored suit and told me he’d voted for Trump in 2016 and would be doing so again this year. Why? “Now I pay hardly any taxes,” he said. I asked him about healthcare, social security and pensions; he was nonplussed. “I vote for me,” he said. “Other people should take care of themselves.”

Such individualism is par for the course in the US and often means that people shrug their shoulders and vote with their tax dollars. 

Two Trump supporters on Twitter who live in the midwest recently had a conversation with me where they said they were voting Trump again because where they live, miles away from anywhere else, there’s no government involvement in their lives, and that’s how they’d like it to stay. 

Similarly, members of the “Boogaloo Bois” on social media told me that they are “not political” but they are more likely to vote for Trump because of their libertarian, small-to-no-government views.

It’s easy to caricature Trump voters, but the truth is that there are many more groups than you might expect who “hold their nose and go Republican” at the ballot box. What an immigrant like me hopes is that there are enough hidden Biden voters to balance them out on 3  November.