No election is as riveting as this one which will elect the next President of the United States of America (POTUS). It’s not just Americans that are treading on eggshells but in India and other countries as well, all news channels are reporting news of the counting and which way the stakes are moving. Even panel discussions across all news channels revolved around the US election almost as if who wins or loses will have a deep impact on their country. For India, the abiding interest in US elections is because of the huge constituency of Indian-Americans, many of them very influential and with their families back in India. An election in the US is bound to generate much interest. Also that Kamala Harris, the Democratic Vice- Presidential candidate is a person of Indian origin makes the race even more interesting for India. The tension-filled atmosphere prompted someone in Australia to coin the words United States of Anxiety (USA) even as the nail-biting finish takes longer and longer. As of writing this editorial, chances of a resounding victory for either President Trump or former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. have evaporated even as voters on both sides of the divide – red and blue steeled themselves for prolonged state by state legal battles over which ballots will be counted.
Both Republicans and Democrats have readied their lawyers and the prospect of legal battles intensified on Wednesday as closely fought swing states counted mail ballots and the petulant Trump alleged fraud in the counting process. He threatened to move the Supreme Court to try to prematurely shut down the election. From declaring his victory ahead of the final declaration to threatening that the counting should stop, Trump is far from accepting that victory could go either way.
Elections are unpredictable and Americans a deeply polarized polity. Considering Trump’s big mess-up in handling Covid19 and the large number of deaths in the US and his flip-flop stances on issues, it would have been expected that he would be voted out. Trump has not been able to perk out the economy as promised four years ago but it appears that large sections of Americans are allured by Trump’s overt anti-China posturing even as that country has been named as the culprit that spread the novel coronavirus worldwide. A section of Americans are wary of voting Democrats because of the Party’s socialist platform which is seen as catering to the constituency that lives off social security at the expense of tax-payers.
The intense interest with which the world views American politics reflects the considerable power of the USA, yet Trump has been a global disrupter in chief. He has redefined relations with American allies in Europe and Asia and has left no stone unturned to stonewall the rise of China apart from also cozying up to autocrats in North Korea and Russia.