By the time this article reaches readers, the world is likely to know whether the former president, Donald Trump, or the incumbent vice-president, Kamala Harris, will occupy the White House for the next four years. Of course, the possible tightness of the race and legal challenges, for which both sides seem more than ready, may delay a formal announcement and put on hold the quaint ritual of the Fat Lady singing. However, unless collective madness overwhelms the United States of America and prompts citizens to recreate a modern version of the Civil War, the transition to a new president will, at best, be mildly choppy.

This is exactly as it should be. Over the past three months, an excitable media has gone into overdrive, hyperventilating on the consequences of an outcome that suits some people but not others. At the risk of being proved wrong — which seems unlikely — the prospect of the world’s largest democracy abruptly embracing a variant of totalitarianism in the event of a Trump victory seems extremely remote. Apart from the fact that it is not all that easy to overturn the US Constitution, the personality of Americans — not least their penchant for conflicting, high-decibel certitudes — makes fascism a stranger to this part of the world. Pundits who have seen multiple elections that are projected as make-or-break events will realise that whether it is Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump, the American way of life moulds itself to the new normal. Policies change, vote banks get periodically upturned, and the coastal elites continue to sneer at Middle America, but life goes on with modest changes. Trump was elected president in 2016 in an unexpected verdict, and life continued very much as before.

This is not to suggest that the sharp and often vicious polarisation that has been witnessed on the airwaves and in print since President Joe Biden was eased out of the race in a palace coup is totally contrived. There are obvious differences in the political cultures of the Harris and the Trump campaigns. It would be fair to say that the social convergence that characterised the Democratic and Republican Establishments is no longer as marked as it was during the presidencies of, say, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Over the years, the Democratic middle ground has veered quite sharply to the Left, embracing alternative sexuality and DEI. On its part, the Republicans have often obliterated the difference between old-style conservatism and aggressive evangelical Christianity. At the same time, there has been a near-seamless switch in social bases with the old working voters moving to the Republicans and the prosperous suburban voters shifting to the Democrats. Till 1964, the whites of the Deep South used to be rock solid Democratic; now, it isn’t all that unusual to find Dixie music being played at Republican rallies.

The question, therefore, arises as to what are the crucial differences that will define the administrations of Trump and Harris? Predictably, there will be differences between the Democratic and the Republican attitudes to personal wealth. A Harris administration will be inclined to tax personal and corporate wealth more to fund the expansion of welfare schemes. Harris has also indicated that she is likely to roll back some of the court-inspired restrictions on abortion rights. The Republicans will be loath to fight on this issue and will leave it to the states to push back the frontiers of progressivism. The coming years will witness vicious fights involving feminists and Christians, some of which will be inconclusive. However, the portrait of America will not be either beatified or disfigured by these battles.

In the realms of foreign policy, there is a caricatured view that Harris will undertake a more intrusive approach, highlighting human rights and social policy, that corresponds to the inclinations of both the globalists in the United Nations and the Eurocrats in the European Union. By this logic, the Democrats will be inclined to needle countries such as India, Hungary and maybe even Turkey. Ideally, the value system of a Harris administration should have led to a serious friction with China. However, while it is wrong to suggest that the Democrats are soft towards the regime in Beijing, the quantum of tension is likely to be far greater under a Trump administration. Whereas the Democrats view China as a rival that shouldn’t be allowed to cross a few boundaries, the Trump dispensation would want China to either retreat into a cubby hole or acknowledge the US’s global hegemony. Beijing is unlikely to do either. This means that a prolonged trade war with China could well be a hallmark of a possible Trump presidency. It is important, however, to note that the new ‘realism’* which defines Trump’s foreign policy almost inevitably eschews armed conflicts overseas.

It is extremely unlikely that a Trump presidency will see the US cross swords directly with the Ayatollahs of Iran. The indulgence that marked the US’s policy towards Iran under, say, President Obama is certain to be replaced by an approach that puts the onus on controlling, chastening and even defanging the regime in Tehran on Israel. The Biden administration, while largely sympathetic to Israel, was inclined to put checks on the path of Israel’s hawkishness. This resulted in the Israeli missile offensive against Tehran stopping short of that country’s oil and nuclear targets. It is difficult to know if a Trump administration will give a complete green light to Israel. However, judging from certain developments in the run-up to the November 5 election, the most profound changes are likely to affect West Asia if the Republicans regain control of the White House.

First, it is more than likely that Israel will not be asked to give any quarter to either the Palestinian movement in Gaza and in the West Bank or the Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. For the moment, the so-called two-state solution, which had been appearing unrealistic, will be shoved to the archives. Second, the Abraham Accords involving Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that Trump tried to negotiate in his first term will probably be revived. There will be an attempt by Trump to redraw the diplomatic architecture of West Asia, putting Israel on a par with the Sunni monarchies. If successful, this would be Trump’s most enduring contribution.

Alternatively, the debates that marked the election of 2024 will be replayed with a greater touch of monotonousness in 2028.