or Democrats the 2024 presidential elections are unprecedented: a weird millionaire with dictatorial tendencies, vengeance for critics and a disregard for facts and public decency is threatening the core values of American democracy. They are voting for those values and not the candidate. For Republicans, too, this is an unprecedented race: a candidate representing the liberal elite is pushing an ultra-Left coup on traditional American values. For those who take a religious line, Democrat’s Left agenda, backed by billionaires, is a threat to Christian values. It will permit excessive freedoms and personal liberties, encouraging life choices that realign gender relations and women’s social role. A volatile economy and two wars need a stronger leadership at home and abroad. Trump’s personal shortcomings, they believe, will not interfere with his presidential duties.

“They’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you; I’m just standing in their way,” Donald Trump told a live audience in June this year, true to his media persona. Trump knows his audience and speaks directly to them. His strongest point is economy. He has promised tax cuts at home and, at times, egregious tariffs abroad. To economists’ dismay, these tariffs will only raise costs for the consumer. But these claims stand parallel to Trump’s first and third presidential campaign: to make American great, again. Trump hits where it hurts the most – the American ego. “China, Russia, Iran and North Korea were in check and respected the United States. Quite frankly, they respected me,” Trump boasted while announcing his presidential bid in 2022. This idea that America needs to regain respect through aggressive diplomacy and radical immigration measures like mass deportation of mostly South American 8 million unauthorised workers, feeds into xenophobia in the same way it helped George W Bush get elected for a second term in the post 9/11 order.

Trump’s support base has shown loyalty and a parental compassion towards him. His controversial tapes in 2016 elections appear trivial misdemeanors compared to where he now stands in terms of his legal troubles. If elected, Trump will be the only president who is also a convicted felon. Historically, a lot less has cost presidential candidates their ticket to the White House. Think of Hillary Clinton’s nearly-successful campaign against Trump blown to bits after James Comey announced that she’ll be investigated for using private emails for sensitive official correspondence. Not Trump. His ‘base,’ isn’t limited to rural America with lower high school graduation number. His billionaire donors are filling the campaign coffers to ‘save’ America. For many, this election is like a billionaire derby. One of his now-unenthusiastic donors Nelson Peltz was quoted as saying that Donald Trump is “a terrible human being, but our country is in a bad place, and we can’t afford Joe Biden.”

The idea that one branch of government should not dominate the others stems from the principle of checks and balances rooted in Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers. The recent amendments in Pakistan allow the parliament considerable control over the judiciary.

Trump can make up everything about himself and his persecution. Kamala Harris trots out her middle-class upbringing as a singular American story. She was thrown into a fraying campaign after Joe Biden’s acquiescence to drop out of the race. As a vice president, Kamala Harris had largely remained in the background with many voters saying, they haven’t heard from her in four years even though vice presidentship is a largely ceremonial position. Now that she’s finally speaking, Harris hasn’t been able to step out of the shadow of Democratic Party’s elite. One of the most popular Democrats in recent history, Barak Obama, is standing next to Harris on the campaign trail. He even admonished black men – one of Harris’s weakest demographics – to quit coming forth with “all kinds of reasons and excuses. I’ve got a problem with that.” His words indicate her reliance on her party’s record as her own. It also indicates the nuances of demographical and social entanglements that need more time to sort out than she has got.

If one of the only two presidential debates in 2024 were any indication, for an unenthusiastic voter this election is about choosing the lesser evil. Both decided and undecided voters feel they’ve been left with weak candidates to choose from. Democrats will vote to prevent a second Trump presidency. Republicans will vote to avoid another Biden-as-Harris presidency. Harris has raised far more donations than her opponent. While that boosted her campaign, she is only marginally leading Trump in polls. Trump has been elusive about the details of his policies (in an interview question about healthcare he responded by saying he has a “concept of a plan.”) When he is more articulate, he proposes radical measures on issues like crime which, he says, will be solved by deploying the military to Democratic-run cities. Harris, on the other hand, has supported Biden administration’s general approach to policies on climate change, reproductive rights and economic spending and new taxes.

Historian Robert Paxton, who has written on European fascism extensively, argued that fascist movements and leaders thrive in anti-democratic environments where core democratic values are suspected for creating social and political division. Inadvertently, these perceived divisions are launchpad for Trump-like figures who mainstream nativist ideas. Disinformation and ultra-right have grown into a force parallel to mainstream media which, again, is mistrusted for bias. The 2024 elections have allowed an unprecedented playing field for political misinformation which, in a Trump world, has renewed academic interest in its long-term effect. As far as the United States is concerned, many fear it is here to stay.

With elections just a week away, all eyes are on the battleground states – seven states that have historically determined election outcomes enabling candidates to win the electoral college. That, for one, is a constant. The path to White House remains in the hands of undecided voters.

“We want to build back the better build back,” rambled Dana Carvey’s Joe Biden on Saturday Night Live. For the Left, Trump’s second term is the beginning of the end of American democracy. For the Right, Harris as commander in chief is a free pass for liberals to confiscate America from ‘real’ Americans.

The author is a freelance writer based in the US. She can be reached at sikandar.sarah@gmail.com