Nothing Good Will Come of a November Grudge Match

With only a few months until Nov. 5, any sensible person in the world must be shuddering about what that day could bring. More than 230 million U.S. voters may go to the polls to elect a president. The two almost certain candidates, Democrat Joe Biden — barring something unforeseeable along his way — and Republican Donald Trump — a shoo-in after the equally extremist Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign and because Nikki Haley, like the comet of the same name, will have a short trajectory, herald international insecurity.

Naturally, domestic problems and achievements — above all in the cost of living for households — will determine how voters mark their ballots and what the final tally will be. The popular vote is then followed by the complicated and not at all democratic Electoral College balloting process, which tallies the percentage of votes in each state and will inevitably lead to a second term in the White House for either Biden or Trump.

But U.S. politics have repercussions for the whole world, and everyone is worried about the results because Biden and Trump are both known evils, not evils we have to get to know.

We know that Biden and Trump favor military action to promote the defense industry and its destructive power of death and injury, or for a policy of selective, unilateral and illegal sanctions. In both cases, they both contribute excessively to a global economic instability that has been playing on repeat in recent years. This instability operates to the detriment of underdeveloped nations and generates multimillion dollar profits for a minuscule group of the world’s inhabitants known as the 1%. The remaining 99% don’t count, although we are the majority.

For the record, both of the two likely election rivals uses one or another of those imperial resources. However, after Trump’s decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses — making it clear that Trump will be his opponent — Biden rushed to distance himself from these policies and said on X, “This election was always going to be you and me versus extreme MAGA Republicans.” This is a huge lie about the alliance Biden once again promises but has not delivered at this stage of his administration, which will soon come to an end.

Worst of all are the factors that present major problems in the Nov. 5 election, among them the current political blindness of a good part of the U.S. electorate.

Who in their right mind can understand that, while more accusations and legal cases surround Trump, his approval rating increases among his extremist Republican base? This is contributing to threats of violence and verbal attacks against political opponents and even judges, prosecutors and journalists who cover the candidate.

How can Biden repeat his success in the 2020 election after he failed to fulfill his campaign promises from four years ago? And rather than undo Trumpian policies, he followed in Trump’s footsteps on the economic, immigration and climate crisis fronts.

There’s not much to choose from between a resuscitated insurrectionist who subverts his own country and bruises the Constitution and a Made-in-the-USA democracy and a withered octogenarian commander in chief who hands who hands over the arsenal to whomever starts a new war.

There are no other contenders in a system that treats red and blue, elephant and donkey, Republican and Democrat equally. There is no space for other visions in the country’s political system, even though the U.S. demands a variety of parties in other settings outside the U.S.

It will be a grudge match in which there appears to be a favorite to win. That would be the Republican, but whoever ends up in the White House will lose the world. In a second term, a Tyrannosaurus rex will be in power, demonstrating his behavior, voracity and predatory capabilities.

In all honesty, I don’t know where we could see anything worse. There’s just a hope; dinosaurs and empires disappeared at some point in history, so we might have to accelerate the T-rex’ extinction.