Although the US presidential campaign was highly competitive, in the end, Republican candidate Donald Trump won decisively over his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris. It will, however, take some time to analyze the reasons for the return of the rightwing politics to the political foreground in the US. In a sense, this turn of events is of a piece with several countries in the rest of the world where rightwing leaders have won elections with large majorities in recent years. Trump as US president will only further strengthen this trend.
One major factor in Trump’s spectacular comeback may have been the liberal disillusionment with the incumbent president Joe Biden and his Vice President Harris – the defeated Democratic candidate – whose unqualified support for genocide in Gaza by Israel has not just disappointed many of their admirers around the world but also within the US. More so, the Muslim voter base of the Democratic Party which has felt betrayed by Biden and Harris’ complicity in the ongoing carnage in Gaza, and now in Lebanon. To stop the Trump juggernaut, the Democratic party needed to get its supporters to believe in its liberal credentials, but that didn’t happen, blurring the differences between the two parties.
But Trump as Biden’s replacement is akin to going from frying pan into fire. As some media commentary has pointed out, America has once again chosen for itself “a great disruption.” In his first term in power, the US largely abdicated its global role, except in matters of protecting its core interests. And this abdication detrimentally impacted the world. One such negative fallout was on the working of the United Nations. Trump’s reluctance then to put the US weight and money behind the UN reduced the profile and role of the world body in managing the global faultlines. If repeated, this state of affairs portends a dangerous world. In the absence of international oversight and the weakening of global multilateral institutions, countries around the world will become more adventurous in their dealings with weaker countries.
Not that Biden and Harris combo has been any better. Under their watch and with their backing, the world has been witnessing a catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. The two have also ensured that the war in Ukraine doesn’t end. Is Trump capable of making a redeeming difference? He may very well end up doing better. To his credit, in his first term, he shied away from wars and the US involvement in the disputes between other countries, a foreign policy his Vice President nominee JD Vance too has championed. As for the US relationship with India, Trump and prime minister Narendra Modi share a close bond and the bonhomie between the two is expected to extend into Trump’s new term.
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