AN AMERICAN COUNTDOWN

By Staff Writer

Once again, as America votes the world watches and waits…but this time it is different. The American and global stakes have not been so high in recent times.

It’s all to play for as the curtains come down and the expectation levels sky-rocket for next Tuesday’s Presidential Election in the United States.

Down and dirty as the saying goes, describes one element of the closing phases of the campaign for who succeeds Joe Biden to become America’s 47th president.

Will Donald Trump score a double with 45 and 47 (he was the 45th), or will Kamala Harris make history by scoring a double first; first woman and first Black woman to hold America’s top job? There are other historical firsts at play if she wins; first of Jamaican background and first of South Asian Indian background.

The aggressive and acrimonious take-no-prisoners tone of the Trump campaign with his running mate J D Vance might have strong appeal with the Trump base but will it translate into enough votes to give him a second stint in the White House in his third presidential run?

Or will it be that the rapid rise of Kamala Harris from being an almost obscure Vice President to a phoenix-like surge in noticeability elevate her to the top job? With her running mate Tim Walz in tow that would keep the White House and the US presidency in the hands of the Democrats for another term.

America sits squarely - and somewhat uncomfortably it can be assumed given the antics of the Trump campaign - in the unwavering gaze of the international spotlight and with the accompanying harsh scrutiny.

The world once more watches and waits with a collective bated breath. There are major international issues at stake; the state of the post-COVID world economy, wars in the Middle East involving America’s key ally Israel, the continuing war on Ukraine by Russia, NATO reassessing its role, climate change, and indications of a realignment of global power politics. And that’s just the shortlist.

Donald Trump’s unorthodox public appeal strategy fuelled in large terms by inflammatory rhetoric and rewriting established time-proven rule books seems from the outside to have overshadowed any rational perceptions of domestic and foreign policy.

On the surface, he seems unphased by a series of legal challenges swirling around him.

These include matters involving personal intimacies, business tax issues, being implicated in the January 6th 2021 insurgency at the Capitol building in Washington when his supporters rioted in a failed attempt to block the swearing-in of Joe Biden as president, and allegations of other election infractions.

Kamala Harris’s seemingly more measured and pragmatic approach has been struggling to be seen and heard above the noise from the other side, in spite of her meteoric rise to American and global attention…even though she’s been the ‘sitting’ Vice President since 2021.

But, even in the 21st century, the question remains: Is America yet ready for its first woman president...especially its first Black woman president?

With just a few days to go this US Presidential Election race is still close to call.

Will events of the past few days, mainly the Trump campaign’s self-inflicted own goal in a culturally insensitive rant against Puerto Rico, tip the balance by alienating the vital Latin American voting block?

Breaths have never been so bated as America votes and the world - including Cayman - watches and waits.