The world’s most powerful country goes to the polls this week in an election so close and consequential it’s giving much of the planet palpitations. Myriad questions abound.
Will foreign forces interfere?
Would Donald Trump’s supporters refuse to certify the result were he to lose?
And could America become more draconian if the Maga movement does get a second chance to ‘Make America Great Again’… again.
This is the most important democratic exercise in the most important year for democracy itself, with an estimated 40% of earth’s entire population eligible to cast a ballot in some sort of plebiscite in 2024.
Awful threats have been made, ugly slurs have been said and many fear we are facing a 1930s moment which eventually brought the world to war.
Much rides on whether the so-called ‘Leader of the Free World’, as the US has taken to styling itself since then, ensures their country remains just that: free. This is because an American president with scant regard for his country’s own democratic norms would give cover to despots everywhere else. And boy will they make use of it.
Trump has never hidden his respect for leaders of countries with little or no regard for their own people: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong-Un have all been on the receiving end of transactional Trumpian flattery.
In fact, the less popular these leaders are back home, the more the former President seems to like them, as long as they are strong enough to stay in charge.
It’s expected some of those US frenemies might try and repay the favour once more this year, by interfering in the final stretch of the campaign in a trend that has become commonplace since Trump first won office in 2016.
However, I’d argue that this time around, the most potent influence operation in America probably comes from within.
Eight years ago, as Hilary Clinton lost, I remember my American producer at CNN commenting that she had been beaten by a Twitter handle. This was thanks to Trump’s astute use of social media and his ability to dominate the news agenda at any given time, on any given day, with angry and often random pronouncements, usually articulated in capital letters.
It was relentless. We’d spend the whole morning preparing a thoughtful show on a specific topic, only to find ourselves pivoting at a moment’s notice towards the first Trump tweet of the day.
Now that the former President’s biggest supporter, Elon Musk, has bought that entire platform, filled it with conspiracies and offered to give millions of dollars away to supporters in key swing states, one might be tempted to argue election interference has essentially been reshored.
Meanwhile, outmaneuvered by the likes of what was once Twitter and is now called X, the established news brands we once looked to in times like these are no longer able – or in some cases willing – to offer the clarity of message we once expected of them.
Both The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have come under pressure for pulling their endorsements of Kamala Harris recently, as their owners sought to shield their other business ventures from the possible vengeance of a Trump 2.0.
You see, democracy isn’t so much dying in darkness, as the Post’s famous slogan goes, it’s atrophying in what Trump’s autobiography called ‘The Art of the Deal’.
So what can be done?
Education and greater awareness of the dangers of such democratic backsliding offer one path towards safeguarding our precious universal suffrage.
Advocacy by those who, like me, have covered flourishing democracies only to see them wither in one electoral cycle, is another way to shine a light on the issue.
After all, what happened in Georgia (the US state) in 2020, when a losing Trump demanded an official find him enough extra votes to win, helped set the stage for events in Georgia (the country) recently, where a once aspiring EU member saw its election allegedly rigged in favour of a pro-Russian incumbent.
The great American civil rights activist Maya Angelou once famously said that every voice is equally powerful. In today’s irate online echo chambers, that may not always appear to be true.
But she also said having the vote is the great equaliser and mercifully, that still remains the case.
Americans themselves do appear to be aware of how dangerous this moment is, if recent polls are anything to go by.
A survey conducted by YouGov in the run up to this election found that 84% of those asked said the US was more divided now than 10 years ago, when Trump first emerged as a potential presidential candidate.
Now, a quarter of them told the pollster they feared civil war could break out and 12% said they knew someone who might take up arms if they thought Trump was cheated out of a victory.
To us in Europe, these are terrifying prospects, and offer a window into a dystopian reality none of us hope will come to pass.
Yes, safeguarding a just, peaceful and functional democracy is a complicated business and defending it can be an all-consuming endeavour. Still, if you allow others to abuse it, one day you may well lose it.
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