As America’s most contentious, abusive, bitterly tribalistic and absurdly theatrical presidential election in modern times winds down towards the main voting day on November 5, there are profound apprehensions about its Jeffersonian democracy staring into an abyss depending on who wins.
The race between the incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has been mostly considered too close for comfort for either candidate. That fact alone is disturbingly revelatory of the true nature of the woeful current state of U.S. democracy. In a reasonably mature democracy, let alone the one that claims to be the world’s most powerful, one of those candidates, namely Trump, should not have been even remotely so viable as to potentially win despite his riding roughshod over norms of decency and several laws of the land.
Political thriller
Here is a former president, who was impeached twice in 2019 and 2021, and then this year convicted on 34 felony counts, held liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial besides still facing grave charges of unauthorizedly possessing classified documents and instigating a mob attack on Capitol Hill, on the verge of potentially returning to the White House. Along the way he survived an assassination attempt and dodged another one.
All this even as his longest serving chief of staff and a former four-star marine general, John F. Kelly said Trump met the definition of a fascist. “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly told The New York Times.
If a political thriller writer submitted a manuscript to a publisher with this plot, they would have been laughed out of the commissioning editor’s office for its sheer unbelievability. And yet this has been real life in America.
VIDEO CAPTION: Into the mind of #DonaldTrump via Pulitzer winner David Cay Johnston talking to Mayank Chhaya, 22 Oct. 2024 (Note: The credit in the video misspells Johnston’s last name)
Contrasting that sordidness of one candidate has been the uplifting and historic rise of the first woman, and that too of a mixed Indian and Caribbean African parentage, as the nominee of a major political party in Kamala Harris. However, her ascension was also not without its equally improbable twists and turns. She stepped in during the final phase of the campaign after the incumbent President Joe Biden, who under normal circumstances would have been the near automatic party nominee for a second term, was essentially forced to step aside because of his apparently age-induced diminishment.
Relentless
Making the 2024 presidential election even more extraordinary has been a relentlessly brutal war nearly 6000 miles away in the heart of the Middle East involving Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Iran. The stunningly violent Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year and the latter’s disproportionately destructive response has had considerable impact on the presidential race.
Harris has had the unenviable task of balancing between America’s steadfast support for Israel and speaking out in support of the rights of the Palestinian people even as she faced intense pushback from the left-liberal sections of the Democratic Party to lean more heavily in favour of the latter.
Trump, on the other hand, has been cavalierly pro-Israel even as he courted Muslim American voters. He has not had to deal with any significant counter from within his Republican Party as he has gone about his near categorical stand in favour of Israel. That is in sharp contrast to what Harris has had to deal with.
Another war that has hovered over the electoral horizon is the Russian invasion of Ukraine where the Biden-Harris administration has unambiguously stood by Kyiv. Trump however has been dismissive of the issue, saying he could solve the problem in one day, a risible claim that astoundingly resonates with his supporters.
These wars have highlighted and laid bare diametrically opposite foreign policy views of Trump and Harris with some clear electoral consequences for both.
Given America’s decades-long military and other entanglements across the world, the international community has been closely watching the election and waiting for its outcome with a combination of anxiety and schadenfreude. Anxiety because who comes to the White House has serious consequences for scores of countries, and schadenfreude because of the ridicule America has opened itself to on account of the shockingly coarse and debased nature of utterances on the campaign trail.
It is not a given that the result of the election will be known on November 6 unless it is a landslide for either candidate. Trump, who is yet to concede the 2020 defeat against Biden, and his surrogates are expected to mount a multiplicity of challenges even if he loses convincingly. If he loses marginally, the aftermath could be even more combative and likely violent.
The international community generally and countries such as China and Russia particularly, which exulted over many chinks in America’s electoral armor in 2016, will derive even more vicarious pleasure if things do not work out this time.
In many ways, the 2024 U.S. election will be uniquely worrisome from the global standpoint for its sheer range of absurdities, irrespective of the outcome. It is also fraught with the prospect of further undermining America’s democratic credentials in the estimation of the world at large.
The writer is a Chicago-based journalist, author, filmmaker and lyricist from India. Email: mcsix@outlook.com.
This is a Sapan News syndicated feature available www.sapannews.com
