Next US president has many social rifts to heal

A girl poses for photos with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump posters at Hofstra University in New York, the United States on Sept 26, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The final debate in the 2016 US presidential election was held on Wednesday. The most memorable thing about the debates has not been the two candidates' positions and visions on the important issues concerning the United States and the world, but rather the personal attacks exchanged between "a liar" and "a cheat", as they called one another.

It seems the ding-dong insults and accusations have appealed to people as viewers－if not as voters－as the final debate between them set a 60-year record in terms of audience ratings, with people eager to see if the two candidates' verbal punching would leave either of them lying bloodied on the canvas or reveal any new scandals.

In fact, although Thursday's debate still entertained with the two candidates' histrionics, it lacked the venom of the previous two debates. It was Trump's refusal, which he made twice, to clarify whether he would accept the outcome of an election if he lost, that attracted the most attention, with most rebuking him for being a bad loser if not his strategy to attract votes by claiming a rigged election against him.

Hilary Clinton is a career politician and has been playing the game as it has come to be played with policy proposals and the occasional barb. Donald Trump, a businessman with no political experience, has been upsetting the established apple cart by pretty much ignoring policy and promising those who vote for him he will make their dreams come true by being a president who can make everything they don't like miraculously disappear－behind a wall in one outlandish proposition.

Throughout the three rounds of debate between the two, Trump has portrayed himself as a challenger and exploder of the current US policy arrangement and political system. His strategy and its effects are aimed at those voters who feel they have been excluded from the mainstream discourses of US politics.

The fact that Trump is in with shout of being US president shows US voters' dissatisfaction with the political status quo and disappointment with the government's slow economic and tax reforms, controversial trade and foreign policies, and failed management of the racial and gun problems at home.

The debate on Wednesday was more like a what-do-you-say-to-that spat between a divorcing couple than a constructive exchange of views on how to fix the country, which is what the United States badly needs.

Rather than offering voters any practical solutions to the problems confronting the US, the election has only further exposed the fractures and problems confronting the US. The tit-for-tat slurs of Clinton and Trump are expressions of the bitter divisions that have become ever more evident in US society.

With Nov 8 fast approaching, the bell will soon ring for the start of the final round. The loser will not get to fight again, so the fight has added drama of knowing one of them is stepping into the ring for the last time.

Latest polls suggest Clinton will emerge the victor. But it is still too early to declare the coming of the US' first female president. Given the dramatic plot twists in the election show this year, Trump could still end up as Rocky.

However, it is the voters that are the real losers. The more sensational the scenarios the two candidates have staged, the less clues they have provided about their future policies and positions. One thing is certain: whoever wins is going to have to reveal them swiftly as he or she faces the urgent and daunting task of sewing up the social divides.

The author is a writer with China Daily. liyang@china daily.com.cn