Outside the major international sporting events, i.e. the Olympics and the football World Cup, the US presidential election may well lay claim to being the greatest show on Earth.
Every four years, it captures the world’s attention (sometimes even its imagination, although that is becoming increasingly rare) unlike any other electoral race, and due to the particulars of the election calendar, we can now see it more or less dominate the news agenda for the entire year in which the election is held.
When the race is as close as the one this year between Donald Trump, representing the Republican party on the ticket for the third time in a row, and vice president Kamala Harris, representing the Democrats, it makes for an even more engrossing contest.
Harris and Trump are crisscrossing the country to rally voters in the states that matter most. They’re trying — with varying degrees of success — to stay focused on a clear and concise closing message. At the same time, each side is investing massive resources to drive up turnout for the final early voting period. And in these critical days, the flow of misinformation is intensifying.
This time, the results on Election Day will come down to seven ‘battleground states’: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited them the most.
Together, these states are likely to deliver the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to get a majority of 270. Nate Silver, the polling guru, writing in the New York Times, said that in an election where the seven battleground states are all polling within a percentage point or two, “50-50 is the only responsible forecast”.
That is how close it is this time. With the US handling of the Israel-Hamas war and conflict in the Middle East looming over the White House race this time, many American Muslim voters — most of whom backed President Joe Biden four years ago — have been wrestling with who to cast their vote for this time.
Read: When polls close in battleground states on Election Day
After US support for Israel left many of them feeling outraged and ignored, some seek a rebuff of the Democrats, including by favouring third-party options for president. Others grapple with how to express their anger through the ballot box amid warnings by some against another Trump presidency. For voters in swing states like Georgia, which Biden won in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes, the weight of such decisions can be amplified.
In 2020, among Muslim voters nationally, about two-thirds supported Biden and about one-third supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast. That Biden support has left many feeling betrayed or even guilty.
The reasons behind what is essentially a choice for the American electorate becoming a global hot button issue every four years, with stakeholders seemingly spread in every corner of the world, are many-faceted. What is common among them all is that they each derive from the US hegemony that still prevails in the world today.
That means as the world’s most powerful nation, which is only one component of its hegemony, America is uniquely placed to involve itself in global hotspots, and frequently does so. As the world’s richest nation, or at least its biggest economy, the number of people looking in its direction for reasons of trade alone far outnumber any other nation.
The occupant of the White House is often described as ‘the leader of the free world’, positioning itself as the world’s leading democracy, as well as its leading defender of democracies. This of course has also extended, controversially, to propagating democracy in other parts of the world, even at the barrel of a gun, with the overall record being mixed at best. Last but by no means least, the cultural hegemony or ‘soft power’ that America established over the course of the 20th century means that events in the American cultural or political calendar attract global interest.
Having said that, what is also not deniable is that the gap between America and the rest of the world has been closing, with a new, multipolar order set to emerge on the horizon. US hegemony persisted through the bipolar era that emerged in the aftermath of World War II, and lasted till the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The unipolar era that followed has completely flipped the script in its manifestation, heralding a world of democratic backsliding, and capitalism beset by crises. Accordingly, despite its leading position, US power and influence around the world today are in relative decline.
Read more: Harris and Trump focus on Sunbelt states during final weekend push for votes
Throughout 2023, and in fact going back further, we saw the Biden administration deploy all the levers at its disposal, to impress upon the now deposed Awami League government that it needed to deliver a free-and-fair election, and by doing so return the country to the path of democracy. But in a sign of America’s relatively diminished stature, the government here was able to successfully resist these attempts and hold another farcical vote on January 7.
One of the most salient features of the interim government in Dhaka is the almost unanimous show of support it has received from Western governments, particularly Washington. Yet a nagging concern among Bangladeshis has been whether a changeover in Washington may occasion a change in their Bangladesh policy as well.
A tweet by Trump on Thursday, incorporating Indian talking points about the situation here, probably serves as the strongest indication yet, that such an expectation is not at all unfounded. But in choosing how to react to it, the IG will do well to also remember the limits on American power in this day and age. And instead of wedding itself to the result one way or another, the IG must forge ahead with its resolve undiminished.