With Hurricane Helene unleashing waves of misery last week, right from the landfall in Florida to some other parts of the country, the overriding focus of pretty much everyone in the US stayed riveted on the progress of the storm and the havoc it unleashed, including 65 lives. Consequentially, the bygone week could easily have been summed up as one that did not witness too many political upheavals.

Not so, as Friday saw two things happen. For one, former President Donald Trump held an hour-long meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A long-time proponent of the Russian point of view in the war with Ukraine, Trump continued his claim that he was confident of brokering a deal between the warring countries. Zelenskyy, however, did not seem too enthused with the outcome, at least he was not ready to say so. Trump continued to proclaim his readiness to broker more deals, including one between Israel and Iran. Clearly, he believes he can do that and more if he is made President again, which too he believes will happen. His detractors, of course, are quick to point out he has to believe that as otherwise, he would be considering a whole lot of unpleasant things like more prosecutions and indictments.

Kamala Harris, decided to go visit the US-Mexico border in Douglas, Arizona, only her second border visit since becoming VP. As if she was borrowing from the Trump playbook, she made a call for tougher security measures to clamp down on illegal immigration. As has been the drill during the past few weeks, Kamala had a few choice things to say about Trump’s Zelenskyy pow-wow that were far from complimentary. Likewise, Trump made some real cutting remarks about what Kamala was doing so close to the elections.

Does all sound all too familiar? This election continues to be about the two US presidential candidates being consumed by their readiness to offer a fresh beginning to the country. Donald Trump offers a complete break from all those things done wrong by President Joe Biden which he now says as the deeds of VP Kamala Harris. Cannot find fault with that line of thought as Biden’s withdrawal has left him with the distinct handicap of having to blame the vice president for faults that would normally get pinned on the President.

Now, Kamala herself is facing the flip side of the very same problem. She is presenting a to-do list that attempts to correct wrongs done during the last four years as if she had nothing to do with why these things could not be done during Biden’s presidency. All this, while Trump continues to keep his die-hard constituents across the country engaged by making sure there is no let up on his relentless attack on “Comrade Kamala and her liberal friends”, thus hopefully cementing the vote of the conservative white voters as also those who are averse to the post-Covid spike in immigration, both legal and illegal.

What was visibly different during the past few days were the frequent references made by both candidates to many economic indicators. Posted last week on Trump’s X handle was a cost comparison of nine daily use items like milk, bread egg, and coffee, all with pictures and prices under his tenure versus Kamala’s. There were other similar posts with percentile spikes in the cost of gasoline, electricity, house rent, and car insurance – Trump versus Kamala. The accompanying tag lines blamed her as if she had been the President for the last four years. Then there were a slew of charges raised, mainly on the runaway inflation, now pegged at around 9 per cent. Trump says Kamala is guilty by association, stopping short of citing the legal sections that make accessories to various crimes almost as culpable as the perpetrators themselves.

Even as Trump keeps saying, Day One for Kamala was 4 years ago’, the Harris economic outreach comes in the way of the things she plans to usher in as President, what she calls Opportunity Economy’. She has categorized her economic intervention plan into lowering costs in critical areas like healthcare, housing, food and groceries, by infusing funds at the source level. Though it is viewed by the pundits with loads of skepticism, her grand plans include lowering taxes for those earning less than $400,000 a year and a first home buy incentive of $25,000 to rejuvenate the languishing real estate market and $600 for the first year for parents once a child is born.

The nay-sayers ask why she has pegged the tax-cut threshold so high when a bulk of the people who struggle under the high cost of living fail to breach the $100,000 mark. Her answer is it will benefit more than 100 million Americans. Those who endorse her say at least she has an economic white paper on what she intends to do like injecting funds into start-ups and home-grown businesses. One issue Kamala faces will come in the shape of President Biden’s plans to make his last month in office through a series of farewell visits to different parts of the country, where he will also root for Kamala as his successor. That is one thing that Team Kamala would not wish to see happen, as she is pitching her Presidency as a fresh beginning, with no strings attached to Biden. It is a delicate issue that will require careful handling.

With barely five weeks to go for the American people to decide who their 47th President will be, the big question is what percentage of people will go out and vote on November 5. Consider the voter turnout statistics since 2020: From a lowly 59.5 per cent it touched 63.8, 63.6, 61.8 and 61.4 before touching a high of 66.8 per cent in 2020. But there is a catch, these are not a true reflection of the number of eligible voters in the US. While only 69.5 per cent of eligible voters registered their names in 2000, a good 27-30 per cent of voters have been keeping away since then from this exercise of electing their President every four years, with 2020 witnessing 72.7 per cent voter registration. In other words, in 2020, a year that witnessed the highest voter turnout since 2000, the actual turnout of eligible voters who turned out to vote for their 46th President was only 48.5 per cent.

This, by any standards, is an abysmally low participation by the citizens, especially as the country in question here is arguably the most powerful democracy in the world. Naturally, this leads to the question, what ails the US Presidential election? The experts seem convinced that it is the onus that the process puts on the individual citizen to become a wilful participant, minus any visible encouragement for them to do so. Unless, a new chapter begins in 2024, of which not many are convinced, a bulk of those who miss out on electing the next President of the US, between registering and voting, would be those in the lower income category. They would be the ones who cannot afford to miss a day’s work, as that would mean a day’s wages lost. Even many of those who have managed to register to vote and turn up on November 5, would turn their heels when confronted with long lines of voters.

For a country that kept pumping money and food stamps into the pockets of its citizens to revive its post-Covid economy, it is curious why November 5 is not declared a holiday so that there is maximum voter turnout and the elected President is a true reflection of the people’s will. Because any election process that has less than half of those eligible participating cannot be a true litmus of the citizens’ aspirations. Otherwise, it can only be factored as a level of apathy that borders on being downright dangerous.

- Vinod Mathew is a senior journalist and author; views expressed are his own.