The importance of the 2020 US presidential elections
Tuesday’s presidential election will be a milestone for the United States. If the electoral process develops smoothly – something that, for the first time in the last century and a half, is considered anything but a given – Greece will know shortly before dawn Wednesday whether Donald Trump has secured another four years in the White House or if former vice president Joe Biden has been elected the 46th president of the United States.
The magnitude of what is at stake is highlighted by the fact that Trump insists that he will only lose if there is massive electoral fraud. None of his predecessors has so relentlessly compromised the electoral process.
For the rest of the world – especially Europe, America’s biggest ally, and Greece even more so, increasingly threatened by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey – these are the most important post-war US presidential elections. Trump’s indifference and even hostility to the pillars of the Western alliance, such as NATO and the European Union, his sympathy for dictators around the world (especially the Turkish president), his contempt for fundamental values such as freedom of the press, the separation of powers, the very concept of contributing to society, and his departure from the role of leadership in international crises, support the assessment that his second term will be a source of wider geopolitical destabilization.
On the other hand, a Biden victory will not change some of the key US foreign policy trends that had taken shape before 2016, such as the focus on Asia.
On the eve of the big showdown, Kathimerini spoke with a number of commentators from different ideological backgrounds and fields of expertise to gain a clearer picture of how the outcome would affect the international role of the United States. We have placed particular emphasis on the Eastern Mediterranean, where until recently the American presence was a guarantee of stability and where today peace seems to be hanging by a thread.
Use our US Elections tag to browse our coverage of the 2020 presidential race.
