There are two sentences. One says “The following sentence is right. The other says “The previous sentence is wrong”.
Which sentence should we believe? There is no way to make a conclusion. Both sentences cancel each other out completely.
It’s an unsolvable and thus perfect paradox, like asking if God, who can do “everything”, can make a stone so heavy he can’t lift it.
The American puzzle is easier, although US citizens will go to the presidential poll in November like people contemplating those two sentences all the same.
If Donald Trump is right, his Democratic opponent must be wrong, and vice versa. Yet both still can be right or both can be wrong. It’s an electoral headache of supreme proportion, and one of democracy’s greatest tests.
Talking about right and wrong, we can never really tell who is what in America, whether democracy will produce “the best” outcome for those adhering to it. We can only feel deep down that some people in America must be hiding behind the ideology.
Always deemed “a threat to democracy” by his enemies, Trump has told a rally in Michigan that he “took a bullet for democracy” a few days ago, and that it must have been a divine intervention that saved his life.
Trump and his campaign accuse the Democrats of being a shameless hypocrite who wouldn’t hesitate to do what every dictator does, or specifically weaponising the justice system against political enemies.
This accusation followed President Joe Biden’s repeated remark that he is willing to die defending democracy, against the ideology’s big enemies like Trump.
It also followed a criminal conviction against Trump, who was found guilty of falsifying business records.
Biden dropping out of the presidential race this week does not dilute the anti-Trump Democratic rhetoric.
It seems to have re-amplified it, in fact, because a candidate withdrawing from the presidential race after the primary showed a Democratic determination to stop Trump at all costs.
Look at what th e Democrats are doing, the Republican apparatus is telling the public.
After they failed to put Trump away legally, they have made their own nominee who had won their primary, a vital part of American democracy, stepaside so that a new candidate can be promoted against key democratic principles, the Republicans say.
Biden quitting the race is a minor brainteaser in the main paradox. If he thinks _ or if they think _ he is too old to run, the conclusion should have arrived some time ago, not now.
The fact that he will be 85 during his possible second term was always glaring the whole time, so why after the primary, and especially negative popularity polls?
So, whoever wins the White House in November, American voters will never know if they have made the right choice. They may believe they do, but they will never know for a fact.
The media are a big part of the American paradox. If one half of the badly-split media is right, the other half must be wrong.
Their unequivocal support and condemnation make it impossible for, say, CNN to embrace Trump and Fox News to respect a Democratic president.
This week, the pro-Trump apparatus is lambasting Kamala Harris, a strong candidate to replace Biden.
Pro-Biden figures, meanwhile, have lauded through the media and social media the president’s decision to stand down as the greatest sacrifice a leader can ever make.
If you are a pro-Biden American, the president is a strong and brave patriot who will do anything for his country.
If you are pro-Trump, Biden is a vegetable who somehow announced his withdrawal from the presidential race via a text (which others could have written entirely) instead of doing it on live TV.
Character assassination should not be a part of a good democratic politics, because it causes undue, acrimonious and irreconcilable national divisions, discourages qualified people from serving the country and leads to a certain slippery slope that turns a promise of transparency into big cover-ups.
Character assassination and cover-ups or alleged cover-ups then contribute to a political turmoil that can’t end. Turmoil is long-lasting because the contributing factors feed on one another.
Check out the dark or suspicious developments that are coming thick and fast in America, where the fateful debate between Biden and Trump took place only less than a month ago but it seems like ages.
After the debate on June 27, gossips, justified speculation or pure rumours revolved around Biden’s health, his ability to serve, “real powers” behind the government and who actually controls the Democratic Party.
His poll numbers plunged, and reports came out about attempts to replace him as the party’s presidential candidate.
Then at the height of the Democratic desperation, Trump got shot, sparking all kinds of rumours that are continuing until today, and his popularity rose even further.
After that, Biden, despite having said repeatedly that he would fight tooth and nail and no matter what for the second term, announced through a tweet that he had decided to drop out from the race.
Kamala Harris, the vice president, unofficially replaced him as the Democratic nominee. Attention on her overshadowed the resignation of the secret service head, Kimberly Cheatle, over the Trump shooting.
Over the past few days, concern about Biden’s well-being nearly climaxed because he had not been seen for many days, immediately before the much-scrutinised announcement and after it.
Rumours only died down after a footage of him boarding the Air Force One was publicised.
American politics has reached a point where it was openly asked during a high-level political hearing whether it was actually a conspiracy on Trump’s life and citizens are debating online whether a Biden body double has been used.
It’s extremely disturbing, at least for the status quo. This is not to mention another major development _ mushrooming discussions on long-standing conspiracy theories like what really happened to JFK.
Chances are things will get uglier. People are kissing the general agreement, made in the immediate aftermath of the Trump assassination attempt, that hate rhetoric must stop, goodbye.
Let’s get back to the paradoxical sentences at the beginning of this article.
Both of them can’t be right at the same time obviously. They can’t be wrong at the same time either.
This is where the American riddle is easier. Both Republicans and Democrats can be right together in saying that the other is a destroyer of democracy. Or both can be wrong in calling themselves protectors of democracy.
There are also other possibilities. First, the Republicans are right and the Democrats are wrong. Second, the Democrats are right and the Republicans are wrong.
It does not really matter which possibility is the most probable, though. Millions of Americans will always wonder after the election day whether the country has made the right choice.
Democracy must inspire confidence, not undermine it.
Tulsathit Taptim//Photo: AP
