Opinions #01/24

The new year will see elections held in about fifty countries around the world. In total, more than two billion people will be called to the polls, which is a quarter of the world’s population. An electoral round that concerns, among others, the United States, Europe as a whole, Taiwan, and Russia.

Only a few times in the past has the outcome of an electoral transition been predicted to be as decisive as that of USA 2024. This vote, which will take place in early November, the international system is expecting to determine the direction of American foreign policy, designed to influence and condition current relations. The condition of which, among the main players on the planetary stage – the USA, China, Russia – has deteriorated significantly, revealing, on the one hand, Washington as the leader of the West in trouble, and on the other, Beijing and Moscow, leading the “rest,” striving for new collective organizations such as BRICS.

Much will depend on who wins: Biden again, Trump again, or an outsider for the first time, such as independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. With Biden Washington would confirm the position shown in favor of Kyiv, against Moscow, pro-Israel, rhetorically threatening Beijing. As for the other two, it could be foreseen that the foreign approach will provide a decrease in tensions with Russia and an attempt to develop a road map for resuming dialogue to find some solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the confrontation with China, the positions of Biden and Trump do not differ significantly: “containment” of the Asian power has been at the core of White House policy since Obama’s “turn to Asia.”

With RFK Jr. the approach could be different. “The United States has spent eight trillion dollars on wars over the past twenty years. While we were bombing bridges, roads, ports, schools, universities, hospitals, they (the Chinese) were building them,” said JFK’s nephew during the election campaign.

What keeps the spotlight on Washington and the American universe is not just the outcome of the presidential election, but the path that will lead to this event. In fact, nothing is taken for granted at the moment. Biden’s negative polling results are coupled with legal investigations into his son Hunter that are increasingly affecting the incumbent president. In the Democratic Party, many are advising Joe Biden to take a step back in spring, after early problems in the primaries that could still put him in a decent position.

On the other hand, Trump will face dozens of lawsuits in more than thirty states between now and the November election. The status of indictment that, on the one hand, strengthens the resolve of the “core” of his voters to support him, but, on the other, threatens the remaining “traditional” component of the Republican Party.

But in addition to and beyond the differences between the two, the uncertainty calls into question the US electoral system itself, which is under an unprecedented stress test. Trump’s disqualification from the Republican primary, decided in Maine and Colorado, began a dispute that goes beyond specific cases. The issue is not only the interpretation and application of a clause that has remained unclear for more than 150 years – Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution – which excludes the participation of candidates who supported or joined insurrections against the state. A rule that arose from the Civil War and which Democratic Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows applied to Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The choice was followed by the Colorado Supreme Court (4 members in favor and 3 against), but not shared in other states, even with Democratic leadership, such as California. But above all, it is destined to once again propose a showdown between the highest constitutional authorities: individual State Supreme Courts and the US Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority. A tug-of-war that will last throughout the election campaign and that, given the political composition of each court, will turn the legal dispute into a further clash between Democrats and Republicans, with predictable mutual delegitimization. This is somewhat similar to what happened in 2000, with Bush Jr.’s disputed victory over Al Gore by a handful of dubious ballots in the state of Florida, which was then led by Jeb Bush, the brother of the Republican nominee. But in comparison, the situation is considered more serious.

“Neither the Supreme Court nor the country can afford another election-altering ruling that takes such an obvious partisan side,” Stephen Mazey and Stephen Vladeck warned on Christmas Eve, in the columns of New York Times Christmas.