DC Edit | US election may be most consequential in history

In the biggest election year in history in which nearly four billion people would have voted before 2024 bows out in two months, the US presidential election on Tuesday (Nov. 5) will be the most consequential. It will be a far-reaching election not just for American citizens, who alone can decide who is to be their leader, but also for citizens of the world because the US still is the most significant international actor in matters of security and peace.

The toss-up between Joe Biden’s vice-president Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is certain to be a riveting affair as the votes are counted and possible legal challenges of various kinds crop up in the world’s oldest formal democracy that dates to 1776. The race is said to be so close that not even the shrewdest pollster is willing to back any forecast with conviction, leaving the field open to crystal ball gazers.

With the US having lost its moral high ground with its double standard on conflicts such as the one raging in Ukraine as opposed to the one in the Middle East involving Israel, besides what is happening in Sudan that has generally been forgotten by the rest of the world, America’s power to resolve conflicts may have considerably diminished.

Even so, it will matter much to the world who the next occupant of the White House will be, come January 2025, because the one who resides there can influence the course of history with the heft of the economy and the power of the US military. Both candidates may like to see the conflicts end though Mr Trump is said to have expressed the opinion that Israel “must do what it must” (to secure itself) while Kamala Harris has said that the killing of innocent Palestinians must stop.

The European picture is more clouded with Trump, a known critic of Nato who has constantly threatened to stop funding an organisation on which the US spends almost as much as the other nations put together. Ukraine may have a reason to fret because of Trump’s stated antipathy to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as opposed to his love of authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin with whom he said he would be ready to seal a deal over Ukraine.

A prominent newspaper in the city of the Capitol Hill may have forsworn its right to express an opinion on the more suitable candidate. That is not a constraint the rest of the world will face in sizing up the race between a racist, misogynist man who proved a maverick President in one term and a more empathetic woman whose record may not be great as Biden’s deputy but whose values appear to be far more in sync with what are considered traditional democratic ideals.

The element of chance will be very high indeed as many voters stay undecided till voting day and anyway it will matter more how the seven swing states vote in a nation polarised as never before. While a little more than half the Indian Americans are said to favour Kamala Harris over Trump, the feelings towards the candidates are more ambivalent in India where a section of the people also put their trust in the Trump-Modi friendship.

The stakes are high for the world and may we venture the opinion that for the sake of constancy in world affairs, including trade, and for the good of the United States that has been a beacon to the world through modern history, which may have begun with it joining on the side of the Allies in World War II, Kamala Harris, who is taking a more centrist stand than far-left, is the candidate who promises stability and continuity.