US Diary: There is just about a week to go and it is still anybody’s game. The pollsters keep reiterating this is one of the closest races to the White House ever and the win by either of the incumbents will be by the thinnest of margins when compared to the 40-odd Presidential elections to date. Was it always so, from the day Donald Trump was originally pitted against Joe Biden and then against Kamala Harris? How big a grip did the anti-incumbency sentiment have over the people of the US, after three-and-a-half years of the Biden Presidency, once the Democrats and the Republicans got into electioneering mode by the middle of this year?

One thing is for sure. The world is waiting with bated breath to see who will be the next big leader of the free world. Perhaps, that is because many countries are but clients of the US, one way or the other, if one could hold in suspended animation, the concept of sovereign nation states. That is primarily because political sovereignty is more often than not superseded by their economic vassal status. There is no better case in point than the Israel-Iran stand-off. The muted response of the Iran leadership to the Israeli strike on their missile facility that they are not rushing into seems more in deference to the US and its upcoming elections than anything sovereign.

It is not as if the bygone week has been bereft of incidents. To date, no President of the US has ever been called a fascist by his own Chief of Staff. That, and more, have come out into the public domain, owing to some startling statements made by John F Kelly, the longest-serving Chief of Staff during Trump’s Presidency, in an interaction with the New York Times. Kelly, a decorated General with the US Marines, does nothing to window-dress Trump’s admiration for Adolf Hitler. Strangely, the American public does not seem too bothered that their next possible President has been called a fascist in no unambiguous terms by his own Chief of Staff who said it would not be a surprise if Trump ruled as a dictator if he second shot at Presidency. Kelly also went to town lampooning Trump on his inability to comprehend the tenets of the US Constitution or the fundamentals of the rule of law.

The Trump camp seemed unperturbed by their leader being named as one who fits the fascist bill to perfection. Instead, they lodged a rather bizarre complaint made to the Federal Election Commission by the Trump camp that Labour party workers from the UK are now on US soil, actively campaigning for the Democrats, thus triggering a breach of US election rules. The Labour Party have shrugged off the charge, saying if they are, they are doing so in their capacity, with no funds allocated by the part for such activity.

Certainly, this is an issue that would have snowballed into a major scandal in many other countries. However, the US election is still transfixed by what it probably feels are more pertinent issues – mostly illegal immigrants coming across its borders and women being deprived of their right to decide on keeping their unborn child alive. The election is still too close to call, though one may be excused for assuming that being openly labelled a fascist would have blown away Trump’s prospects of having a second occupation of the White House. Sure, Harris did try to leverage the fascist title bestowed on Trump by Kelly at some of her rallies in the past couple of days, but surely the issue was much larger than a campaign weapon for the Harris camp. It deserved a national debate, cutting across party loyalties.

As is the practice when facing the final test or examination of any sort, both Harris and Trump now have time only to do a quick re-run of their best arguments. Thus Trump keeps up his tirade on how the Biden-Harris administration left open the border gates, leading to the US being occupied’ by illegal immigrants, to the extent that the country has become a garbage can’. Harris, of course, has pounced on such denigration of the country by her opponent, calling him out for his crude efforts to win votes, driving home the point, “America deserves better” (than Trump as its President). Harris has got her team of celebrity heavy-hitters appealing to all women to convince the men in their household that it is as much their fight as that of the women to fight for upholding their right to make reproductive choices.

Trump is more into direct attack, going the distance and calling Harris anti-Christ, doubling down on his over-arching claim on all those who are aligned to the Christian faith, one way or the other. And, he has an array of public faces, though nowhere near as many as Harris, blowing his trumpet. The biggest name in his corner, without a shadow of a doubt, is Elon Musk. Harris has Barack and Michelle Obama, the Clintons and numerous celebrities painting a doomsday scenario of the dangers that will befall the great land, by not voting for Harris. With their respective blue and red states in the bag, they have time now only to work the swing states.

There is a perceivable level of anxiety on display with the two sides unsheathing multiple weapons of psychological warfare. The air is rife with desperation as the Dems and the GOP vie with each other in building strong narratives of alternate realities, more about their opponents than about themselves. While maintaining a façade of complete confidence about their invincibility, at least for public consumption, the camps of both Harris and Trump are only too painfully aware of what they stand to lose, if some of their calculations go even minutely awry.

In the final analysis, there is this American version of ethnocentrism, where the migrants of yore team up against the more recent variants in a land whose hallmark has been that of migration from all over to the Land of Opportunities, which is holding supreme over other arguments. There is this other version of what could be the future of the US, where plurality takes precedence, arguably to the detriment of those who have, for lack of a better simile, already landed, on the boat.

Yet, the realpolitik is a strange beast, not bothered about all these juxtapositions. There, all that matters is how big is the anti-incumbency wave against the higher cost paid by the Americans to stay where they were four years ago. And if they wish to revisit the kind of governance they witnessed in the preceding four years or go for a continuation of the current government, under a new leader who promises change.

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