American citizens and politicians are gearing up for this Tuesday’s Presidential Elections, the outcome of which, for some Americans, is one that could either make or break US democracy. Certainly, for many Americans the polls are about furthering their economic prosperity.
But, for the overall world community, the US politics is more about who in Washington will continue the sole superpower’s current multiple geopolitical interventions across the planet that either add to ongoing intensely destructive conflict in some regions or are the cause of regional tensions.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world: at least 50 children were among 84 people killed in Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza Strip on Friday, Israeli civilians were injured in a Lebanese Hezbollah drone salvo on central Israel and, on Thursday, North Korea test launched another long range missile that could hit the US.
The United States Presidential Election to be held on Tuesday, November 5, will be that country’s 60th such election. Voters in each state and the District of Columbia will choose electors to the Electoral College, who will then elect a President and Vice President for a term of four years.
With the voting age at 18 years, there are an estimated 230 million people who are eligible to vote in a national population that stood at 335 million in January this year. Only 160 million of them are registered voters, according to web data.
Turnout
Like in all other countries in which voting is not compulsory (as in Sri Lanka), not all of the registered voters will actually vote. In the 2020 election, the turnout was around 66 percent of eligible voters, the highest it has been for more than a century. Analysts are uncertain about the voter performance this time.
US politics is dominated by two parties, the broadly centre-left and “liberal” Democratic Party and, the right-wing and “conservative” Republican Party. To select their candidates, the Democrats and Republicans have a process of primary elections or caucuses in each state, which culminates in the victors accepting the formal party nomination at party conventions.
In Tuesday’s polls, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris contests against former Republican President Donald Trump.
There are usually several other candidates fielded by smaller parties or contesting as Independent candidates. This time they include the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the Libertarian Party’s Chase Oliver, and the anti-war academic, Cornel West.
Presidential candidates appoint their own running mates who will become Vice President if their candidacy is successful. Democrat and Minnesota state Governor Tim Walz and Republican Ohio Senator JD Vance are the rival Vice Presidential candidates this time.
First woman
If she wins, current US Vice President Harris will set some records: she will be America’s first woman Executive Head of State, the first Indian American in that office and, with her ethnically mixed heritage, the first African American woman as well.
Trump, if victorious, will hold the embarrassing record of the first President to be re-elected after being impeached twice in his previous term and also the first President to win even as he faces prosecutions in over a dozen criminal and civil cases at national and state level.
Given Donald Trump’s record of social misbehaviour, administrative manipulations and, general political incompetence, many people across the world must wonder how citizens of the world’s richest, most powerful, capitalist democracy could consider electing him their Head of State.
But the opinion polls system in America show the two main candidates running more or less even, indicating how much Americans value an even unsavoury character for their nation’s leadership. This is because, there are many Americans who value what they consider to be national prosperity, ethnic supremacy (Anglo-Saxon) and certain religious doctrine (protection of pregnancy) over and above any personal failings of the candidate who they expect to deliver these aspirations.
Thus, we see, at the very heart of the world’s richest group of states which practise liberal democracy as the ‘best’ governance system, the political behaviour of citizens being in complete dissonance with such liberal practices. At issue in the current US political contest, are such rights as full social equality of sexes (women’s reproductive rights, third gender inclusion), equality of races, and, access to social facilities like affordable housing and health for all.
Outside of the USA, however, the world’s citizenry is aware of the variety of governance systems practised across the planet from military dictatorships, socialist systems (with single-party governance) and hybrid politico-economic systems.
