Showing total disregard for the US constitution, Trump has said that this could be the last election to be held in the country.
A Trump presidency could lead to mass deportation of undocumented migrants and harsh family separation, warns Aseem Chhabra.
American politicians often make a statement -- especially when they are campaigning for presidential elections -- 'This is the most important election of our lifetime'.
The statement is repeated so many times that it sounds like a cliche. Yet it probably is most appropriate for the election that will be held on Tuesday, November 5.
Look at the options before us. On the one hand we have a woman running on a major party ticket and it is only for the second time in the history of the United States.
Half Indian and half Jamaican, Kamala Harris is the current vice president (the first for a woman).
She is a lawyer, was a senator from California, as well as the attorney general of the same state.
The US economy is in a fairly stable situation under the presidency of Joe Biden (Harris's boss) with the current unemployment rate at 4.1%.
Her opponent, former president Donald J Trump, made money by taking over his father's real estate business. He always over stretched himself while expanding his business.
He declared bankruptcy enough times and is notorious for not paying workers and even lawyers.
He became a household name with the reality TV show The Apprentice where he coined the infamous statement, 'You're fired!'
Trump has also been impeached twice, indicted on various criminal charges and found guilty on 34 counts by a jury in New York City for payment of hush money to a porn actor in his attempt to influence the 2016 election.
Trump has said America is a 'garbage can' and hence his call to 'Make America Great Again'. He has referred to his opponent as a person with 'a low IQ' and 'a Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist' and wants to put an end to her liberal agenda.
Harris has said that Trump is 'increasingly unstable and unhinged, and he is out for unchecked power'.
With days left for the election polls and pollsters cannot give a clear answer about who is most likely to win on November 5. Both candidates are tied in the national popular vote.
American presidential elections are decided based on electoral college votes and we keep hearing about the key toss up states -- Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And here too the candidates are evenly divided, and if either one of them have a slight advantage, it is mostly within the margin of error.
And this brings me to the two scenarios.
What happens if Donald Trump wins? There is all sort of speculation, but some things are clear. A Trump presidency could lead to mass deportation of undocumented migrants, harsh family separation, the stuffing of the US supreme court with more conservative judges to satisfy the right-wing agendas of the candidate's allies.
Showing total disregard for the US constitution, Trump has even said that this could be the last election to be held in the country.
In endorsing Harris's candidacy as the only patriotic choice, The New York Times said Trump 'will prosecute his enemies ... use soldiers again citizens, abandon allies (and) play politics with disasters.'
In her speech this week in Washington, DC Harris said Trump was 'obsessed with revenge'. At the same rally Harris said, 'Nearly 250 years ago America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant... The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.'
Harris's win may bring promise to millions of Americans looking for hope from a greater chance of reinstating the federal guarantee of women's abortion rights, to job creations and a fair government that could work in the interest of all Americans.
Remember what comedian Tony Hinchcliffe said at the Trump rally in New York City? He referred to Puerto Rico as a 'floating island of garbage'.
Trump never apologized for that comment. You will never hear this kind of racist, hate speech from Harris or her supporters.
But a Harris victory could lead to other potential complications. Trump never accepted defeat in the 2020 election.
His running mate J D Vance as well as MAGA supporters hold on to the false belief that the election was rigged even though courts and countless election officials have ruled that Biden won in 2020.
So there is no guarantee that Trump will accept next week's election results, if the numbers go in favor of Harris.
And if Trump loses, there is a very definite chance of his followers staging one more January 6 style insurrection which took everyone by surprise.
This time the law enforcement authorities will be prepared, but the anger that the MAGA supporters tend to express against the US government and the disregard they have for American institutions -- especially the US Congress -- is quite terrifying.
Either way it looks like a bleak situation.
Although there is no clarity, my sense is that Trump could win and that the polls are not reading the potential voters' sentiments accurately.
There is also a belief that sometimes people who support right wing candidates do not say so openly, especially to pollsters.
Last week statistician and elections analyst Nate Silver wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times that his gut feeling was Trump will win, although at the same time the headline of his opinion piece also said, 'But don't trust anyone's gut, even mine'.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
