Trump Harris Election – Britain must be braced for fallout from US election | Politics | News

Should I be stocking up on ammunition and shopping for a flak jacket?

As voters go to the polls in the US to elect their 47th president, Americans live in the shadow of Donald Trump’s threat of civil war and a “bloodbath” if he loses – or enduring an authoritarian dictatorship if he wins.

Arsonists and machete-wielding thugs have already attacked ballot boxes, and the latest polls show 62 per cent of Americans believe election violence is “likely”.

For months, Trump has been echoing his admonition before his 2020 electoral defeat: “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”

A Kamala Harris victory, if America survives Trump’s wrath, promises years of inchoate woke policies, pushing diversity, equity and inclusion programmes despite a growing backlash against them.

Americans are possibly more divided today than since their civil war ended in 1865, polarised between Republican former president Trump, aged 78, seeking his second term in the Oval Office, and Democratic Vice President Harris, aged 60, hoping to become the first woman president and the first of Jamaican and Indian descent.

As a Brit who has lived for more than three decades in the US, I have watched with dismay the degeneration of American politics, like human evolution in reverse, crawling back into the primordial swamp.

Having been raised on a heritage of sterling British Parliamentary debate and soaring oratory, it is dispiriting to see the US presidential election reduced to schoolyard name-calling.

Trump has branded Harris “retarded,” “lunatic,” “lazy as hell,” “scum” and “garbage.” Harris has called Trump “un-stable,” “unhinged,” “weird,” “unserious” and “a fascist”. The race is too close to call according to multiple opinion polls that either have Trump or Harris leading by razor-thin margins in the seven critical battleground swing states – but whoever ultimately emerges victorious, it could have major repercussions for the UK.

Without doubt this has been one of the most dramatic and controversial US presidential elections in living memory.

Trump maintained an iron grip on his core Make America Great Again supporters to win the Republican nomination in March, despite being impeached twice by Congress, found liable for sexual assault, convicted of business fraud and covering up a porn star hush-money pay-off, facing trial for election interference and mis-handling top secret documents, not to mention undermining democratic norms.

Running on a platform of xenophobic populism, though inarticulate and narcissistic, Trump appeared to be romping to certain victory after a televised debate in June saw him trouncing the frail, sometimes incoherent Joe Biden, three years his senior.

Barely two weeks later Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that could have been scripted by Hollywood. The bravura image of him standing bloodied on stage, fist punching the air and exhorting supporters to “Fight!”, seemed guaranteed to propel him back into the White House.

Yet only eight days later all bets were off when President Biden, bludgeoned by mounting public outcry at his apparent cognitive decline, reluctantly bowed out of the race.

With less than four months to the election, Democrats jettisoned the traditional year-long primary race, and by popular acclaim Vice President Harris quickly became their candidate.

After four years of being shunted aside by Biden, representing America at state funerals and cutting red ribbons at factory openings, Harris was the perfect candidate of last resort: a woman with name recognition who most Americans knew nothing about. She was a blank slate on which the Democratic Party could paint its blurry vision.

Yet what might either candidate mean for Britain?

Trump’s “America First” isolationism bodes ill for the UK. His first term as president saw him unilaterally end the nuclear deal with Iran and propose pulling out of the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq without consulting Britain, whose troops were battling there.

“He was an American president like no other,” confessed a flummoxed former prime minister Theresa May in her 2023 memoir. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy once called Trump “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” and a “tyrant in a toupée” – comments that are unlikely to enhance the UK’s “special relationship” with the US if Trump is elected.

Trump previously threatened to withdraw America from Nato unless member nations began paying their fair share of defence costs. He was ultimately dissuaded by the sounder minds of his generals and security advisers – many of whom now brand Trump “unfit for office.”

But a second Trump presidency promises to surround him with sycophants, which Harris warns will unleash him “with no guardrails.”

Global stability could suffer, at Britain’s expense. China, North Korea and Iran may feel encouraged by Trump’s isolationism to pursue their own interests more aggressively.

Trump has also threatened to withdraw US support from Ukraine, abandoning it to ignominious defeat and potentially emboldening Russian premier Vladimir Putin, who has threatened to invade other neighbouring nations, including Moldova.

Trump has also promised to hike US import taxes and tariffs and dismantle environmental protections, which could exacerbate global warming. He would also clash with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s desire for a more nuanced Western approach to China.

Notoriously focused on US domestic messaging, Trump often ignores the international ramifications of his actions. Starmer was mortified last month when Trump’s campaign alleged illegal “foreign interference” after a delegation of Labour staffers planned to campaign in America for Harris.

Starmer, a former human rights barrister, may reel in horror if Trump makes good on his promise to incarcerate and deport millions of illegal immigrants, use the military to quash domestic protests and jail his political opponents.

Meanwhile Kamala Harris, while ideologically closer to Starmer’s Labour government than Trump, has shown little interest in extending the hand of friendship to Britain. In Starmer’s three US visits since July, he met with Trump in September, while Harris was too busy to see him.

Harris is certain to maintain America’s strong support of Nato and has condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine but her hesitancy and indecision – she notoriously likes to consider possibilities ad nauseam – could make her a wishy-washy partner in a crisis.

Unlike Trump’s pro-Israel fervour, Harris has criticised Israel’s Gaza offensive, voiced sympathy for war-torn Palestinians and supports a two-state solution.

Yet Britain seems of little interest to her, as the US focuses increasingly on Ukraine, Israel, North Korea and China, which has threatened to occupy Taiwan by 2027, potentially drawing America into a clash of superpowers. Barring an unexpected voter landslide, the chance of today’s election producing a new president by tomorrow morning is as likely as Trump admitting that he lost the last election.

Mandatory ballot recounts in tight state races and the laborious counting of more than 76 million mail-in ballots could drag out the decision for days. Legal challenges could extend that for weeks.

Harris may concede if she recognises she is losing, while Trump will almost certainly claim victory, regardless of the outcome. He has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that this election is as rigged as the last.

A bitterly disputed final outcome could return America to the terrifying days of the Trump-orchestrated coup attempt on the Capitol building in January 2021 and might even plunge the nation into a second civil war – the “bloodbath” predicted by Trump if he loses.

Is it too late for me to start building a bunker?