In the recently concluded US elections, the Trump led conservative Republicans won the Presidential race with 312 electoral votes. Defeating Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party by 86 electoral votes, Donald Trump returns to the White House for yet another term after four years. Had she won, Harris would have been the first woman and the first woman of colour to have been elected as President of the United States. In Trump’s last Presidential tenure, he had pushed for anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-women and anti-queer policies, pushing the lives of marginalised people like women, queer people, people of colour and immigrants towards precarity in the US.
Defeating Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party by 86 electoral votes, Donald Trump returns to the White House for yet another term after four years.
However, what does Trump’s electoral win mean for the marginalised communities and immigrants in the US in this electoral tenure? What does it mean for women and gender minorities to exist in “the land of the free” at this time? How does Trump’s Presidency affect global geopolitics? America’s violent “war on terror” during the Bush presidency had innocent Arab civilians bearing the brunt of US missile assaults. How does the presidential tenure of yet another right wing government impact the ongoing and relentless genocide in Gaza?
Trump’s Presidency will inadvertently have multifarious effects on world politics and human rights. It is important to examine the policies that the incoming Republican government has taken up and might take up in the future to understand the great impact that the US government has in and out of America.
Understanding Trump’s politics: A history of hate
What started off in 1854 as an anti-slavery organisation fighting against the pro-slavery Confederates in the American Civil War, soon turned to right wing Populism, opposing universal healthcare, reproductive rights, trans rights and recreational drug usage and pushing for US interventionism, gun ownership and the relaxation of the separation of the Church and State. The Republican Party is one of the two major political organisations in the US, with their main opposition being the Democrats.
Being the Republican President, Trump’s policies have reflected the politics of his organisation. Hailing from a prominent business family, Donald Trump was first elected as US president in 2016 in a Presidential race against the Democrat’s Hilary Clinton. In his first term, Trump called for a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim majority countries such as Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
In an attempt to control undocumented immigration in the US-Mexico border, Trump diverted military funding to build a wall on the border and implemented policies that would separate immigrant families and detain undocumented immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities which are nothing more than government funded detention camps. His policies impacted the Affordable Care Act which promises affordable quality healthcare, adversely, thus making healthcare highly inaccessible.
During the COVID-19 crisis, Trump’s reaction was delayed and he spread misinformation, conspiracy theories and racist allegations. In 2020, when he lost the elections to Joe Biden of the Democratic Party, he refused to concede alleging election fraud. On January 6, the US Capitol was stormed by Trump supporters who vandalised the Capitol and disrupted Congress sessions. For having made a provocative speech to his followers after his loss to Biden, Trump was accused of domestic terrorism and an attempt at a coup d’etat.
Since the 1970s, Trump has been accused by at least 26 women of raping, non-consensual kissing, upskirting and groping.
Since the 1970s, Trump has been accused by at least 26 women of raping, non-consensual kissing, upskirting and groping. Although Trump has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct, he has made his sentiments towards women very clear through lewd and disparaging comments, derogatory epithets and his infamous ‘grab them by the pussy‘ remark. Trump’s ex wife Ivana Trump had also accused him of violently attacking her physically and sexually during their divorce proceedings. In Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives Of Donald Trump by Harry Hurt III, the author quotes Ivana:
‘[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape’, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.’
In 2019, author E Jean Carroll accused Trump of rape and later defamation. Trump denied the charges. A jury verdict in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and ordered him to pay US $5 million in damages to Carroll. Trump appealed to court and made an unsuccessful counterclaim.
Multiple charges of sexual assault and rape against a Presidential candidate should ideally have disqualified him from the race. However, Trump not only was in the Presidential race but was also elected US President for a second term. The apathy of his voters towards the narratives of women coming out with stories of sexual abuse at the hands of a Presidential candidate is telling and America has yet again proved to be strongly patriarchal and sexist despite being the epicenter of “Western liberalism”.
Project 2025 and right wing conservatism
The right wing think tank The Heritage Foundation published a list of policies to reshape the federal government that they expect to be taken up by Donald Trump once he becomes President. Although Trump has rejected these policies, the very conception of such conservative and right wing legislation shows the rabid white supremacy of Trump followers and aides.
Project 2025 aims to cut back on healthcare aids, criminalise abortion and emergency contraception, ban pornography, deport undocumented immigrants en masse and promote a Christian authoritarianism that would lead the US into an autocratic future.
Various people close to Trump as well as potential future cabinet members are associated with drafting Project 2025.
Various people close to Trump as well as potential future cabinet members are associated with drafting Project 2025. Trump had endorsed the Heritage Foundation in 2022 and his name is mentioned 300 times in the document. Although Trump said that ‘some of the things [Project 2025 says] are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal‘, it is no secret that Trump’s Presidential win will fuel right wing organisations and promote the ethos that are associated with Project 2025.
A war monger vs a right wing megalomaniac
The 2024 Presidential election showed the world the limitations of the liberal Democratic system. Although the USA is not a bipartisan nation on paper and has other alternatives including the somewhat non problematic Green Party, headed by Jill Stein and other such organisations, the battle always seems to be fought out between the Democrats and the Republicans. Kamala Harris, the Democratic Presidential candidate has had several alarming stances on the genocide in Gaza.
As an ex prosecutor, Kamala Harris has incurred ire from communities which have historically been preyed on by the US prison system. Harris’ identity as a woman of colour, while it would have historically elevated her had she won the presidential election, does nothing to help her actually empathise with disadvantaged communities besides making a show of solidarity with communities of colour.
Harris’ racial and gender identity does not absolve her of criticism and flak for her claims and actions. Trump, unlike her, is openly discriminatory. Although Harris’ win would have no doubt assured slightly better policies and living conditions for minority communities, the real problem isn’t the fact that Trump won and a woman of colour, Kamala Harris, lost. The actual issue plaguing US democracy is the fact that despite hypothetically having many choices in the Presidential election, the system is skewed in such a way that the voters can either choose a Democrat or a Republican.
The quasi-bipartisan system in the USA is actually detrimental for the survival of liberal democracy as it limits choices, reinforcing the bipartite struggle between a liberal government and a right wing state.
How does Trump’s win impact marginalised people and the Indian community in the USA?
The Republican Party has been known to curb the freedom and privileges of women and queer people, from historically being staunch anti-choicers who could deny women safe and legal abortions and thereby encroach on their right to reproductive justice to being strongly anti queer by potentially denying gender affirming care to trans people and decriminalising hate crimes against the queer community. The Republican tenure could lead to more intermingling of the Church and the State, thereby not only putting queer and women’s lives in precarious conditions under right wing Christian conservatism, but also ensuring discrimination against non-Christian communities like Muslims.
Under Trump’s second tenure, we can expect the fear mongering around immigrants and refugees to increase and immigration laws to become more stringent with immigrants from Muslim majority nations falling prey to Islamophobia and profiling. Already, the genocide in Gaza is being funded by the US and one can expect the ravages in Palestine to increase under Trump’s second term.
While as an immigrant community of colour, Indians might face increased levels of racial discrimination, one also has to remember that Indians are the richest minority group in the US, often cited as the “model minority”.
The effect of Trump’s re-election on the Indian diaspora in the US is ambiguous. While as an immigrant community of colour, Indians might face increased levels of racial discrimination, one also has to remember that Indians are the richest minority group in the US, often cited as the “model minority”. Trump’s diplomatic relations with Modi are also friendly, thereby possibly ensuring that Indians, especially savarna high income Hindus are treated favourably. However, since Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programmes might receive fund cuts, the potential condition of Indian student immigrants in American universities might become precarious.
The 2024 US Presidential elections and Trump’s win proved yet again that whoever is the Presidential candidate, there is no winning for women, people of colour and the disadvantaged communities of the country. The US elections are a key factor in determining the state of global geopolitics in the next few years, thereby making foreign nations dependent on the US. The fact that the US elections garner so much attention worldwide goes to show how much of an impact an US President can have on world politics. The slow death of the liberal Democracy in the US also exposes the futility of the very system of having an electoral process in the first place.
As the world prepares for yet another term of rash decisions and attacks on human rights, one can only hope for what Western capitalism has promised the world- diverse and multiple choices, especially in the elections.
