THE democratic countries of the world would be watching with some disbelief and amazement, if not anxiety and fear, as the presidential campaign proceeds in the US. Of course, developments in that country are of vital importance to us here in T&T.

The concern is because one of the contestants, Donald Trump, has consistently maligned the US electoral system since his defeat in 2020 and has convinced the vast majority of his supporters that the election was stolen from him.

His efforts to overturn the results through calls to persuade election officials to change the vote tally, or to have invalid delegates to the Electoral College or have the certification in the Senate manipulated in his favour by his vice-president, who was threatened by mob violence on January 6, 2021, were not successful.

However, he is not done. It is a case of-if I win, I win, and if I lose, I win. He has already openly intimidated election officials whom he and his supporters may suspect of having engaged in ‘unscrupulous behaviour’, threatening that they would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including long-term prison sentences.

Donald Trump’s views on women are well known and he has been convicted by a court for sexual assault of E Jean Caroll. He and his followers will not accept defeat by a woman, more so by a black woman, if the outcome so turns out. He will not countenance what he believes to be a contrived humiliation. He will encourage his fanatical supporters to engage in unprecedented levels of violence.

The upheaval will shake the US to the core. Will the so-called guard rails in the US socio-political system hold, or will they fail, given that Trump has sympathisers in all sections of the legislature, in the higher reaches of the judiciary and in many sectors of the security forces? Time will tell. The irony, however, is that Trump will not gain the national popular vote.

If Trump becomes US president, he has boldly announced his agenda. The public bureaucracy, the judiciary and security services will be made to serve his purpose. Laws will be changed or ignored, citizens’ rights will be undermined, dissent will be suppressed and autocracy will rule supreme, all in furtherance of the pretext to ‘Make America Great Again’.

One gets the impression that the debates, the rallies, the platform presentations and the policy declarations are merely formalities and will not change the opinion of the vast majority of Trump’s or Harris’ supporters.

The independent voters would only provide a very narrow advantage, if at all. The reason is that the contest is not, at its core, about policies, programmes, legislative proposals or promises. It is about the role, status and prospects of white control and dominance in the US as against the unrelenting demands of the increasing non-white population (supported by white liberals) for a merited place in the political and socio-economic system.

In any other functional democracy, a candidate with a questionable background, multiple egregious transgressions and the demeaning language of Donald Trump would not see the light of day. The US, however, is different.

Trevor Sudama San Fernando