Nasty polls: The heated and divisive campaigns of the US election are similar to South Korea’s polarised politics, perhaps because the East Asian country borrowed its political system from the republic. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
NOW that the US presidential election is over, with former President Donald Trump’s victory, it may be time to review the heated and divisive campaigns of the election, along with its close resemblance to South Korea’s polarised politics.
Perhaps because Korea borrowed its political system from the United States at the time of its inception, there are alarming similarities between the two countries’ politics, notably during elections. It is alarming because the bitter and destructive nature of the US presidential election is something that can be easily found in Korean elections as well.
The two-party presidential system of the US and Korean governments no doubt is a breeding ground for a winner-takes-it-all political culture. For that reason, their political parties conduct excessively confrontational and combative election campaigns.
In doing so, election platforms and pledges become increasingly extreme as their campaigns progress. Although their extremism somehow retreats in terms of actual policy implementation after winning elections, the divisive nature of election campaigns continues to divide and polarise their societies until long after elections are over.
Currently, the US is divided over many issues, including the economy, immigration, race and gender. The Democratic Party champions a progressive agenda, such as the expansion of social welfare, immigration, climate action and minority and women’s rights. On the other hand, the Republican Party pursues more conservative policies. Tax cuts, a smaller government, traditional family values and nativistic immigration regulations are their hallmarks.
Such policy contrasts have always existed in the US politics, but the gap has widened significantly in recent years, thanks in no small degree to the arrival of Trump. His populist push has brought the Republican Party rapidly to the far right in everything from immigration to minority rights. The 2022 reversal of the Roe vs Wade ruling on abortion by the Supreme Court, led by Trump-appointed Justices, was the culmination of that rightward move.
As a result, the confrontation within the US society has grown into a wide and ugly culture war where everything progressive fights against everything conservative. On the Democrats’ side are people of colour, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, younger generation and urban and coastal elites. On the Republicans’ side, there are white men, evangelical Christians, less-educated heartland residents and older generation, among others. The divide among young women and men in their 20s is particularly acute. Vice President Harris had a strong following among young women, while former President Trump was strongly supported by young men.
Interestingly, such divisions are very similar to what is happening in Korean politics. The main supporters of the Republican Party happen to resemble those of Korea’s conservative ruling People Power Party. They tend to be older males who constitute Korea’s mainstream force. On the other hand, the profile of the US Democratic Party’s followers is very similar to that of Korea’s Democratic Party. They tend to be younger women and less privileged groups.
As Korea becomes more multicultural with new immigrants, even the immigration-related divide and debate gets stronger in Korea, albeit to a much lesser degree than in the US. For example, a recent plan to build an Islamic mosque in the southern city of Daegu invited angry protests from Christians and other conservative political forces.
But ironically, the close alignment between the two parties of the US and Korea takes an opposite form when it comes to foreign policy. The US and Korean Democratic Parties, which are perfectly aligned in terms of domestic economic or social policies, diverge widely when dealing with international affairs.
The US Democratic Party highly values international cooperation and alliances as well as an active US role in global governance, in a stark opposition to President Trump’s isolationist propensity. But Korea’s Democratic Party seeks a more independent, if not isolationist, foreign policy, while the People Power Party places more emphasis on alliances and partnerships, particularly with the US and Japan, for a greater Korean role in international affairs.
Those alignments and divergences between the two countries’ political parties are a result of a shifting political environment at home and abroad. The US Democratic Party, for example, has long opposed free international trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, in the name of protecting US workers. But more recently, it lessened such opposition and embraced more global trade in a pushback against the Republican Party’s protectionist move under President Trump.
But one can also trace the political divisiveness of the US and Korea to their political institutions. Their two-party presidential system seems much more destructive than multi-party or cabinet systems of Europe where power-sharing is common, even among adversaries. For that reason, there is an increasing voice in both countries for a genuine multiparty system. Currently, Korea does have a few political parties, but in the end, smaller parties somehow disappear or get swallowed by the two main parties.
For the time being, a fundamental change in the political systems of the US and Korea seems highly unlikely. That means their people have to put up with the ugliness of their politics and elections for some time to come. Worse yet, the ugliness will definitely get bigger as their societies become increasingly polarised. The past few US presidential elections clearly prove that. Each election has become nastier and uglier than the previous one. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening in Korea too. — The Korea Herald/ANN
Lee Byung-jong is a former Seoul correspondent for Newsweek, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News. He is a professor at the School of Global Service at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul.
