Question:
The US presidential elections this time were accompanied by tensions between President Trump and his Democratic rival Biden. Subsequently, Biden won as announced by news outlets, but Trump did not recognize the result. Are the tensions that accompanied the elections on their way to calming down after Biden’s victory? Will there be a smooth transfer of power in Washington? Or do the proceedings have deeper and more dangerous consequences domestically and abroad?
Answer:
Almost everyone agrees this time that these presidential elections in America are unprecedented. They were accompanied by severe tension, and US President Trump described the possibility of his election loss as only possible in the case of fraud. This was months before the elections, and his insistence on retaining the presidency was so evident that politicians in Washington were discussing how to deal with Trump if he refused to leave the White House! Therefore, it is important to clarify the circumstances that preceded the elections and those that followed, which are as follows:
First: Immediately upon taking office on 20/01/2017, Trump began to act domestically and internationally in a striking and provocative manner:
Internally, the President did not care about all his opponents, and change by dismissal or resignation was the prominent feature of his administration's pillars. The ministers and directors of his administration changed more than once within four years, and he continues to deal with the same mentality. He dismissed his Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on 09/11/2020, i.e., after the announcement of Biden’s election victory. Regarding the issue of the American police's racist treatment of Americans of African descent and the intense protests that broke out against him, Trump rejected all calls to exercise pressure on the police or reduce their budget. His statements carried a racist tone, sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit, and he significantly cut taxes for corporations under the pretext of creating jobs!
Externally, he ignited an economic war with China and inaugurated a new era for America of economic protectionism. He withdrew from international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). He withdrew from numerous international organizations such as the WHO and turned his back on his allies, such as the Europeans, publicly siding with Britain to help it exit the European Union, promising it a major trade deal. He attacked NATO countries, demanding they spend more, etc. Similarly, he dealt with great contempt toward America's agents and followers in the Islamic region...
Second: How America was divided: When the Trump administration began making sharp turns, the symptoms of many diseases appeared in America and surfaced clearly during the four years of the administration:
President Trump, since his 2016 election campaign, showed racist tendencies that soon found favor with large segments. White supremacy groups appeared; they existed before Trump, but they flourished and thrived during his rule. "White" police killed Black men, dividing America between white and black. The Black Lives Matter group emerged as a political group demonstrating, mobilizing, and calling for demands and equality. In contrast, armed white militias appeared in a more organized manner and began preparing to cause instability...
The Trump administration showed contempt for European allies, to the extent that his Secretary of Defense Mattis announced his resignation and wrote in his letter, "Allies must be treated with respect" (Youm7, 21/12/2018).
The US President, since taking the presidency in 2017, called for a protectionist economic policy, i.e., protecting the American economy from Chinese and European products invading his country, and stopping the series of factory closures due to their inability to compete under international free trade. Trump looked with one eye without his other eye seeing that he was thereby creating fierce enemies for himself domestically. Technology companies were among his fiercest enemies; they stood strongly against him, brought out thousands of their employees to demonstrate against him on various issues, and brandished the weapon of embarrassing leaks against him. This is because these companies, by their global nature, do not want barriers, nor do they want other countries to impose barriers on them in response to Trump's policy. When China began threatening to impose barriers on those companies that salivate for the large Chinese market, and France began demanding they pay taxes on their French collections, those companies determined to get rid of President Trump. They were the cornerstone of the anti-Trump campaigns and were at the heart of Joe Biden's election campaign.
The world was talking about public health, prevention, and protecting people from the coronavirus, while the US President, in his capitalist view, focused on talking about medicine, vaccines, commercial precedence, huge profits for those who produce the medicine, and patent rights. He appeared to lack any caretaking (ri'aya) perspective. Then the US President opposed closing the country to face the coronavirus, his pretext being the economy. A war of harsh statements ignited between Democratic leaders in the states and President Trump regarding closing the states to face the coronavirus. Trump was on the side of oil, manufacturing, and retail companies that wanted to operate the economy. Others, including Democratic Party leaders, out of opposition to him, stood on the side of closing the economy, citing the state of panic and terror that spread as a result of the coronavirus. However, behind the closing of the economy, behind those calling for it, and behind Trump's opponents, stood entities that did not appear publicly. These entities are the technology and artificial intelligence companies, which are growing continuously, even unprecedentedly in economic history. When the coronavirus came and people around the world sat behind small screens in their homes and economized on their other expenses, this turned into a visionary increase in the capital of technology companies. E-commerce companies, the most famous of which is Amazon, saw their profits and market values jump to levels that were not anticipated. Some (the founder of Amazon) gained six billion dollars in 24 hours as a result of the rise in his company's market value (American tech giants announced huge profits totaling $38 billion in the third quarter of this year. BBC, 30/10/2020). These astronomical profits achieved by Amazon, Apple, Alphabet (owner of Google), Facebook, Elon Musk's companies, and other American tech giants provoke the anger of companies losing under the coronavirus specifically, such as oil and energy companies, and tourism companies in which the US President himself invests, from his tower in New York to his resort in Florida to his sports investments in Britain, which were also affected by the coronavirus.
Third: The US Elections and Fraud:
The 2020 presidential elections in America were not like previous ones, as the announcement of the winner was delayed for nearly a week due to the continued counting of mail-in votes, through which Democrats mostly voted. President Trump, months before the election date, rejected voting by mail, saying it was a major door for fraud, and asked his supporters to vote directly. Democrats were calling for the expansion of absentee voting (by mail) and the removal of all legal obstacles to this type of voting, which was closer to shrewdness than being outright fraud.
As for it being shrewdness, the supporters of the Democratic Party do not fully participate in regular voting, and thus the party loses some votes. When the coronavirus came, the party could have lost many votes if it were not for absentee voting. Trump does not suffer from this problem, as his supporters vote for him solidly and in a nearly principled (mabda'i) manner, and they do not fail to show up. Therefore, the approval of the expansion of absentee voting under the pretexts of corona was a great blessing for the Democratic Party. Indeed, the results announced on the first day leaned decisively toward Trump, but when the swing states began counting absentee votes, the electoral curve began to lean significantly in favor of the Democrat Biden. Such results were expected; in Philadelphia, the capital of Pennsylvania, Biden's supporters were celebrating outside the main counting center even though Trump still led Biden by a hundred thousand votes, because they expected that the remaining absentee votes would be enough to turn the tables in favor of Biden. This is indeed what happened, leading the media to announce Biden's victory in this swing state, which enabled him to announce his victory in the elections, as Pennsylvania's votes were enough to bring him to the required number (270 votes) in the Electoral College.
Fourth: Where things are headed today:
The winning candidate makes almost daily statements confirming his election victory, such as his announcements about health briefings regarding corona and the imposition of a no-fly zone over his home as the winning candidate. He receives local and international congratulatory messages and contacts world leaders as the President-elect and the incoming President of the United States. As for Trump, he has not recognized his victory and considers the election campaign to be in full swing through legal lawsuits that will turn things around. He says Biden hastened to announce his victory without evidence that he won with legal votes... Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, hinted that Trump would be forcibly removed from the White House, calling him a trespasser!
The situation in America today is highly dangerous, described by the German Defense Minister as "very explosive." Some expected armed militias of Trump supporters to storm the counting centers and spread chaos, which did not happen to a large degree despite appearing in some states. Apparently, it is postponed as long as the President hopes for a second term through legal lawsuits and political maneuvers.
On the other hand, Al-Jazeera Net reported on 10/11/2020 from The Washington Post that the White House "ordered federal agencies to avoid cooperating with President-elect Joe Biden's transition team." The Trump administration refused to disburse sums of money established by US law for the winning candidate to rent offices and other expenses. Trump said on 10/11/2020 in a tweet on Twitter, "The election results will start coming out next week and we will win." His Secretary of State Pompeo spoke about a second term for Trump, only for a Republican senator to respond that this is a very dangerous statement from a government official. Thus, the United States has come to live in an actual crisis threatening its stability and territorial integrity, and it may develop into a serious threat. West Coast states, especially California, which have been Democratic states for a long time and house tech company headquarters, cannot accept a second term for Trump. As for the Republican states, especially Texas in the South, which is a parallel power to the state of California and houses major American oil and energy companies, they do not accept the victory of the President-elect Biden, who threatens them that immediately upon taking office, he will sign an executive order for the United States to return to the Paris Climate Agreement... As for Trump, he threatens that if he gets a second term, he will not be tolerant at all with tech companies that have degraded his value and blocked his tweets!
Fifth: The conclusion is that what is happening in the United States deserves pause and careful consideration of its course and events:
The democracy that America has long chanted for is being demolished today explicitly under judicial and legal pretexts to mitigate the atrocity of what President Trump is doing to retain power. America is open to all possibilities and acts of revenge. The next president may be the winning candidate Biden, or it may be the losing current President Trump, retaining a second term. Whoever the next president is, he will take revenge on the other party, a revenge closer to bone-breaking than arm-twisting. Thus, America is heading toward chaos and immersion in domestic worries and problems. The scenario of putting America on the path of disintegration is not excluded, where Texas would be a center for Trump, the Republicans, and the supporting companies, and California would be another center for Biden, the Democrats, and the supporting companies. This is not limited to the remaining two months of Trump's term, but will continue after that...
The evils of the capitalist-democratic system are inherent in it, and anyone who examines with a discerning eye and a conscious ear will see this clearly. The most prominent values in the capitalist-democratic system are utilitarianism (nafi'iya), i.e., material interest. This is decided, directly or indirectly, by the president according to his powers and the influence of his party in the representative councils. Therefore, decisions that determine the degree and quality of benefit differ from one president to another. For one president, it achieves utility according to his desire, so he issues a positive decision regarding it, while for another president, before or after him, it does not agree with his desire but is harmful, so it is prevented or canceled—all while each of them emphasizes that he is implementing the capitalist-democratic system and is committed to the man-made constitution. Each follows his own whims!
For example, immediately upon taking power on 20/01/2017, the then-new President Trump began sharply demolishing what the Obama administration had built. He canceled the health insurance "Obamacare", withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement for the benefit of American oil and energy companies, rejected any calls to regulate gun ownership in America, tried to impose many restrictions on American tech companies like electronic censorship, and tried to push them to leave China, etc. All of this was in contrast to the president before him, Obama, and in contrast to his electoral rival Biden, who declares exactly the opposite. Biden supports health insurance, tries to regulate gun ownership, and announces a principled policy for his party and country if he takes power to return to climate change policies—meaning opposing the interests of oil companies, and even imposing more taxes on them, taxes that Trump had reduced. This puts him and the technology companies behind him in an intense conflict with oil and energy companies as well as weapons companies from which Biden plans to collect most of the state's budget... etc. Knowing that the major American oil companies are concentrated in Texas while the major tech companies are concentrated in Silicon Valley in California, this has reflected on the view of both the Republican and Democratic parties toward Texas and California!
Thus, the interests of the capitalists, owners of technology companies who want openness and "globalism," clash with the oil, manufacturing, and agriculture companies that want protection from Chinese competition to stop the bleeding of their losses... Presidents and their aides support these companies or those according to the measure of utilitarianism that they see as achieving their interests, even if their rivals see it as harmful! Everyone, those who benefit and those who are harmed, says they are applying the capitalist system. It is enough for this system's evil that the two opposites (benefit and harm) are equal in it according to the desires of its implementers!
- As for why these evils did not appear so blatantly in the United States except in the circumstance of these two rivals, Trump and Biden, it is for three reasons:
First: That each of the two rivals, winner and loser, has a wide audience of people who support them, benefiting from their benefit. Benefit is the supreme value in capitalism. At the same time, if the rival becomes the president, a backbreaking blow will take the place of benefit, and in this, there is what there is.
Second: That the prevailing systems in the world are capitalist systems and are worse than the American system. Therefore, any comparison the American citizen makes with other systems finds the evils of the system they have to be less than the evils of other systems, so they accept what they have and see it as the lesser of two evils!
Third: There is no correct system standing against America and the capitalist system so that it becomes clear to them how truth is opposed to their false system. If the system of Islam were implemented on earth, filling it with goodness and blessing, justice and tranquility, people's confidence in the capitalist system would be shaken, and they would look forward to the goodness in the Khilafah (Caliphate) State, the State of Islam, the state of La Ilaha Illa Allah Muhammad Rasulullah ﷺ.
Finally, we say if falsehood has a round, the truth has rounds and rounds, especially since the Ummah has a party, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which connects its night with its day until the dawn of the Khilafah breaks anew, and the thrones of tyrants in the East and West collapse. Allah the Almighty spoke the truth:
وَتِلْكَ الْأَيَّامُ نُدَاوِلُهَا بَيْنَ النَّاسِ وَلِيَعْلَمَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَيَتَّخِذَ مِنْكُمْ شُهَدَاءَ وَاللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ الظَّالِمِينَ * وَلِيَمُحِّصَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَيَمْحَقَ الْكَافِرِينَ
"And these days [of varying conditions] We alternate among the people so that Allah may make evident those who believe and [may] take to Himself from among you martyrs - and Allah does not like the wrongdoers - And that Allah may purify those who believe and destroy the disbelievers." (QS. Ali 'Imran [3]: 140-141)
5th Rabi' al-Akhir 1442 AH 20/11/2020 CE