The former president’s march toward the Republican nomination is prompting opponents living abroad to prepare to fight for democracy.
As Donald Trump inches closer to the Republican nomination and his opponents work to chip away at his support, the US presidential election is underway – and many Democrats are worried about Joe Biden’s standing.
The risk for Democrats is that, in the absence of truly competitive primaries to activate the base, Joe Biden will struggle to fully mobilize sympathetic voters until much later in the election cycle.
For his part, Donald Trump has officially been leading a re-election campaign for more than a year, and has had little other constraints than civil and criminal legal proceedings.
This disparity between the time available to candidates and the enthusiasm of their voters has many Democrats fearing that come summer, they will have to make up for lost time to try to re-elect a president whose popularity rating in the polls remains discouraging. Mobilization of the vote abroad constitutes an essential element of the response.
“Democrats Abroad”, the Democratic Party’s official organization for U.S. citizens living temporarily or permanently abroad, has chapters in more than 100 countries. Over its long history, it has enabled hundreds of thousands of American voters living abroad to go to the polls.
They can vote in both primaries and general elections, and for the latter, their ballots count at the state level, meaning they can be a decisive bloc in presidential races that sometimes only stand. ‘to a few tens of thousands of votes.
This is what happened in 2020, where Joe Biden’s victory depended on razor-thin margins in several key states. Based on current polls, Joe Biden will have to fight to hang on in many of these states, and votes sent in from abroad could give him the edge he needs.
Around the world
As things stand, the Democratic Party has a more advanced and complex system outside the United States than the Republican Party. According to Angela Fobbs, spokesperson for “Democrats Abroad” in Germany, there is “a world of difference” between how the two major American parties approach foreign campaigns.
While the Republican equivalent is a political action committee that essentially runs its own campaigns, “Democrats Abroad” is a full-fledged component of the Democratic Party, which means its ties to members run much deeper.
“Our organization was created to represent Americans abroad”explains Angela Fobbs, during an interview with Euronews, “and help them when they run into problems, like the fact that we have to file our taxes from abroad, that some people can’t get retirement benefits like Medicare or Social Security”.
“We can work with our members of Congress to help them solve their problems”says Angela Fobbs, which makes a huge difference.
But it’s not just organizational strength that could give overseas Democrats an edge: It’s the implications that a second Trump presidency would have both for Americans abroad and for their families at home. country.
As Angela Fobbs explains, one of the most serious concerns about Donald Trump is his well-established contempt for NATO and U.S. military obligations in Europe.
“Germany is home to the largest American military community outside the United States, at Ramsteinshe specifies, “and so people have specific problems that other countries maybe don’t have. One of them is that, honestly, the last time they were completely in control of the government, the Republicans spent a lot time to talk about the closure of military bases here.”
This would not only affect the lives of these soldiers and their families, but also European security as a whole.
The German government, one of Ukraine’s main supporters in its fight against Russia, has drawn up contingency plans in anticipation of a possible war between Russia and NATO breaking out within the next two years .
These plans rely on the possibility that NATO could deploy hundreds of thousands of troops in response to a Russian escalation – and if the United States began to withdraw its troops from Europe, the depletion of NATO resources which The result could give Russia a major opening.
“If America is doing well, the whole world is doing well.”
To maximize their potential impact on the election, Democrats must make it clear to Americans that their vote still matters. And even after the drama of the last two elections, there is still a lot of work to be done to make sure they vote, regardless of who.
“Sometimes people aren’t necessarily aware of how many people live outside of the United States and that we are still American citizens.”says Angela Fobbs. “I’ve had people ask me, ‘Oh, am I still an American citizen?’ Because I have lived outside the United States.” And the answer is yes! And I always care about what happens in the United States, not only because of political issues, but also because my family there lives”.
“So people are starting to realize that we exist and that we are a real interest group for the American government,” she adds.
For Fobbs, as for many others in the United States and beyond, a second Trump administration is a deeply frightening prospect in itself.
The word “fascism” is being used more than ever to describe his agenda and the attitudes of his base – and according to Angela Fobbs, the danger posed by the former president’s movement extends well beyond the United States.
“If America is OK”she said from Germany, “the whole world is doing well”.