As America prepares to elect its 47th president, the future balance of global power hangs in the balance. While the U.S. election campaign primarily focuses on domestic issues like abortion, women’s rights, high inflation, job prospects, and immigration policy, the outcome will undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences. Whether Democrat Kamala Harris wins, or a Republican businessman-politician takes the lead, the results will not only impact Europe, Poland, and Ukraine but will also reverberate through U.S. relations with the Middle East and Asia. The questions about the future are many, but one thing is certain—after tomorrow, the world will never be the same.
The Election Campaign vs. the U.S. Elections
If in Poland or elsewhere in Europe we are accustomed to the heated atmosphere of pre-election debates, filled with accusations, unpleasant revelations, and fake news targeting opponents, the pre-election climate in the U.S. takes it to another level. Here, nearly all tactics seem fair game, and this time, the battle is truly fierce.
Candidates are not holding back when it comes to harsh language. Kamala Harris and her campaign team have called Donald Trump and his supporters “fascists” and “racists.” Meanwhile, liberal, pro-Democratic media outlets in the U.S., including MSNBC, have compared the Republican convention held at Madison Square Garden—just 10 days before the election—to a Nazi rally that took place in the same New York venue shortly before the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
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“If Trump wins this election, America will never be the same again. Our freedom, the right to make our own decisions, freedom of speech, openness—these are values Trump does not understand. He wants to turn the U.S. into a dictatorship ruled by one man. He’s already promised to go after anyone who’s stood in his way,” says Heather, a professor at a New York university.
Her concerns are not unfounded. Donald Trump has openly hinted at such moves in his speeches. The conservative candidate’s revenge could be bitter, particularly for those who left his administration during his previous term, those who tried to impeach him, testified against him in court, or even simply didn’t support his campaign. “What’s worrisome about these statements is that they reveal Trump’s style. For Americans, it sounds like a promise of direct control over key national decisions, possibly even the judiciary. That’s not how democracy works,” Heather explains.
On the other hand, when you listen to Republican voters, it feels like stepping into an alternate reality. Trump’s supporters are convinced that Kamala Harris could be responsible for starting World War III. “I was the first U.S. president in 80 years under whom the U.S. didn’t start any conflicts or wars,” Trump said at Madison Square Garden. “When you elected me last time, they told you a terrible war would break out. And what happened? Nothing,” he added.
Trump: 30,000 Fake News Stories in Four Years
Trump’s supporters believe that the United States should stop engaging in conflicts around the world and instead focus on domestic policies, securing the country’s borders, and addressing illegal immigration, which Trump’s team argues has contributed to rising crime rates in recent years. At his Madison Square Garden rally, Trump pointed to the Tren de Aragua gang as an example. This criminal organization, which has grown significantly across Latin America, has been reported in Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Costa Rica. According to Trump, Latin American criminals, including members of Tren de Aragua, now have a presence in the U.S. and have allegedly taken control of entire neighborhoods in Aurora, Colorado.
Tren de Aragua originated in Venezuela, possibly forming around 2010 at the Tocoron prison. Initially, the gang operated by extorting money within the prison walls, but after expanding beyond the prison, it began targeting Venezuelan businesses with similar criminal activities. The gang’s expansion into other South American countries coincided with Venezuela’s economic crisis, which forced around 8 million people to emigrate in search of better opportunities.
There’s no doubt that the gang exists and generates revenue through various means, engaging in activities such as murder, kidnapping, money laundering, contract killings, human trafficking, drug dealing, and forced prostitution. But is this actually happening within the United States?
Jeremy McDermott of InSight Crime, a research center focused on organized crime in Latin America, stated in an interview with The Guardian that there is no evidence of Tren de Aragua’s regular activities on U.S. soil. Officials from Aurora, Colorado—who are Republicans—also responded to Trump’s claims, denying any threat posed by the gang.
Venezuelan journalist Ronna Risquez, author of a book on Tren de Aragua, asserts that the scale of the gang’s activities in the U.S. has been exaggerated and used for political purposes. According to McDermott, even in Latin America, the gang has not achieved much beyond effective public relations. As he explains, the catchy and fear-inducing name is often leveraged by smaller, unrelated criminal groups to present themselves as significant players. “In reality, Venezuelan criminals have not reached the level of power held by organizations like Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital or Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels,” McDermott contends.
So why the need to create a legend? One of Donald Trump’s widely discussed proposals is his plan for the deportation of illegal immigrants, including criminals who have entered the United States. At Madison Square Garden, he also claimed that Kamala Harris is responsible for this issue, while video clips displayed on the screens featured various individuals calling the Democratic candidate a “murderer.”
Some estimates suggest that mass deportations could affect between 15 and 20 million people. “This is typical Trump and his xenophobia. Mass, forced deportations? We’ve seen this before during his presidency, where people were dragged from their homes and forcibly sent back to their countries of origin. This time, Trump wants this process to occur on a massive scale, including the separation of families,” says a source from one of New York’s colleges in an interview with PostPravda.
Project 2025 – Is This Donald Trump’s Program? Candidate Denies It
Mass deportations of illegal immigrants are one of the key points outlined in the so-called Project 2025. This highly conservative plan was developed by the think tank The Heritage Foundation in 2023. Critics of the project argue that its provisions amount to a complete reconfiguration of the traditional power structure in the United States. It suggests that one of the changes would involve consolidating executive power in the hands of the president, assuming that Donald Trump will emerge victorious in the upcoming election. Tens of thousands of civil service employees would be replaced with individuals loyal to the Republican candidate. The authors claim that these measures are intended to “de-bureaucratize” the U.S.
Among other proposed changes, party control would be introduced in federal agencies such as the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Homeland Security. Programs initiated by the Department of Education and most reforms implemented by Joe Biden would be terminated. Open religious and ideological expressions would be replaced by conservative and Christian values.
Project 2025 also calls for the elimination of coverage for emergency contraception, commonly known as the “morning-after pill.” Additionally, it seeks to impose a nationwide restriction on abortion rights as a form of healthcare for women after six weeks of pregnancy. This stringent law would apply across the entire U.S., overriding local policies, as states currently have the authority to make decisions on certain aspects of public life. Under Trump, this would change, which some experts view as an attempt to introduce autocracy in the United States.
Another significant aspect of the current elections in the U.S. is the rights of sexual minorities. According to Project 2025, legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity would be eliminated, meaning that being gay, transgender, or lesbian could potentially be penalized in some states. Additionally, as proposed by the conservative side of American politics, criminal proceedings could be initiated for what they term “anti-white racism.”
It is therefore not surprising that at Donald Trump’s rally outside Madison Square Garden, we encountered individuals with radical, and at times outright racist, views. Alongside a man parading down one of New York’s streets with a sign reading “Heil Hitler 88” stood another Trump supporter wearing a Jewish kippah and holding a “Jews for Trump” flag. The attempt at a joint display of support for the Republican candidate faltered when the first man mocked the other’s request. Clearly offended by the rejection, the Jewish supporter tucked away his original flag and pulled out another one, also supportive of Trump, but this time without the “Jews for Trump” inscription.
Such individuals were not numerous at the New York rally and can be seen as a hyperbolic extremist interpretation of Republican conservative views rather than a true representation of the movement.
Only Trump: “Price Doesn’t Matter”
Most of the people waiting in line at Madison Square Garden were composed and calm, but after a brief conversation, it became clear what mindset they would take to the polls on November 5, 2024. “Kamala Harris, as vice president, destroyed the American economy. Joe Biden has embroiled the U.S. in military conflicts we shouldn’t be involved in. We don’t want our money supporting Ukraine, for example,” said
On the other hand, during a speech in New York, Trump emphasized that if he had been president of the United States on February 24, 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would never have happened. He further stated that it was none other than the Joe Biden administration that allowed the Kremlin to spread its wings by giving the green light to the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. “I would never have allowed that,” Trump said, clearly appealing in both statements to American citizens of Eastern
How can such contradictions coexist in one person? “Trump is primarily concerned with controversy,” explains Heather, a supporter of the Democrats. “It doesn’t matter how many people he offends, how politically incorrect the issues he raises are, or how many vulgarities he uses. His cult followers will forget quickly, and the effect of ‘quoting’ will be achieved. In this way, Trump is aiming to secure the votes of t
“Propaganda doesn’t have to be consistent. We can trace this process, for example, through news published in the regime-controlled Russian press over the past few years. In some reports, Poland is depicted as a mortal enemy that wants to partition Ukraine, while in others it is presented as a partner in such endeavors. It all depends on the current need,” explains Professor Jędrzej Morawiecki, co-founder of the think tank PostPravda.Info. The Washington Post, meanwhile, has calculated that over the past four years, Donald Trump has strayed from the truth or misled people 30,573 times.
For many of Trump’s voters, it is not a barrier that the tenets of Project 2025 are presented by Trump at campaign events, nor that the candidate himself vehemently denies any connections to The Heritage Foundation when asked. “I know nothing about that. This is not my program. Some of its provisions are downright pathetic,” he claims in his statements. At the same time, it is well known that many people associated with Trump’s previous administration were involved in creating Project 2025. However, openly supporting any political option would mean the end for the conservative foundation, as American law prohibits such involvement.
Nevertheless, one can surmise that radical ideas, such as mass deportations, could come to fruition. Many politicians associated with Donald Trump, when asked about the controversies surrounding issues like family separations or abandoning children if one parent is a U.S. citizen and the other is not, respond that there is nothing to prevent “the deportation of the entire family.” However, these are still not Trump’s own words.
In a similar way, Donald Trump denies any connections with Russia or with Kremlin-associated oligarchs. One of them is Lev Parnas. This Soviet businessman with an American passport, born in 1972 in Odessa, testified before the United States Congress in March 2024, claiming that he was engaged by Donald Trump in 2020 to carry out a disinformation campaign against his opponent, Joe Biden. According to Parnas, Trump wanted to compromise Biden by spreading lies about the alleged involvement of his son, Hunter, in corrupt activities in Ukraine. This narrative has been repeatedly debunked, and Donald Trump himself has denied any acquaintance with Parnas, even though Parnas presented as evidence photographs and recorded private conversations with the former U.S. president, which were revealed in a recently published documentary titled “From Russia with Lev.”
Before Congress, Parnas said: “The American people have been deceived by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and various groups of individuals in government and media positions. They created forgeries to serve their own interests, knowing that it would undermine the strength of our nation. Congressman Pete Sessions, former Congressman Devin Nunes, Senator Ron Johnson, and many others understood that they were pushing a false narrative. The same applies to John Solomon, Sean Hannity, and the media staff, particularly at Fox News, who used this narrative to manipulate public opinion before the 2020 election. Unfortunately, they continue to do so as the 2024 election approaches. The only information ever conveyed about the Bidens and Ukraine came from one and only one source: from Russia and from Russian agents,” claims Parnas.
In 2021, Parnas was convicted by a U.S. Federal Court and found guilty of six counts related to the illegal financing of Donald Trump’s 2020 election campaign. The Soviet oligarch and businessman, who has been associated with Russia for many years, asserts that “Trump knew everything.”
Polls? Throw them out; they are garbage
As various public opinion polls in the U.S. indicate, the chances of both candidates are extremely close. American media, which often clearly favor one side or the other, complicate the understanding of the situation. According to NBC News, Kamala Harris wins the election by a narrow margin. In contrast, conservative outlets like Fox News and Elon Musk’s X platform (which supports Trump) present data suggesting that as many as 70% of Americans will vote for the Republican candidate. Women could play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of this election, which is why Democrats have focused heavily on issues related to personal agency and reproductive rights during the ongoing campaign.
Most polls show that over 60% of women in the U.S. intend to vote for Kamala Harris—not necessarily because they fully endorse her platform, but due to the fear instilled by the near-total abortion bans and potential penalties looming in many states.
The voting outcome may hinge on a very small number of voters, particularly in so-called swing states. Out of around 250 million eligible voters, it could come down to just tens of thousands deciding the victory for either side. In many regions, the situation is relatively clear, as certain states have consistently voted for Democrats or Republicans over the years. Thus, the key to victory lies in those undecided states where political support can sway back and forth.
In this election, there are seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The battle for Pennsylvania’s votes is particularly fierce, as it has 19 representatives who will choose the next president on behalf of its citizens. Americans do not vote directly for the head of state but elect representatives instead. The winning faction claims all the electoral votes from that state.
Consequently, some results can be anticipated now, as conservative states like North and South Dakota, Utah, Montana, and Alabama will almost certainly award their electoral votes to Trump. Meanwhile, states like California and New Mexico, which have large Latino populations, are likely to support Kamala Harris. However, the differences indicated by the polls are so slight that making definitive predictions remains challenging.
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Civil War, Third World War, War of the Worlds
Uncertainty and fear are two powerful emotions that will accompany Americans during this election. Old demons from the Civil War, the bloody internal conflict that ravaged the United States in the second half of the 19th century, have awakened among citizens. This conflict was largely ideological, with the anti-slavery Unionists of the North battling the conservative, pro-slavery Confederates of the South. Today, many people fear the calm before the storm—not just the act of voting itself, but what might unfold after the ballots are cast.
The specter of civil war, riots, or insurrection is frequently mentioned alongside January 6, 2021, the date of the “Attack on the United States Capitol.” Aggressive protests erupted when Trump supporters stormed parts of the Capitol in opposition to the election results in which the Republican lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
Concerns are heightened by the narrative pushed by figures like Elon Musk. “Publishing such polls, which indicate an overwhelming advantage for Trump in the elections, effectively lays the groundwork for questioning the results, which is deadly for democracy. Our system relies on the peaceful transfer of power, even when we disagree with our successors. I believe Trump’s supporters may again refuse to accept defeat, leading to potential unrest. We’ve already seen a preview of this, along with the hate speech directed at Harris. Before one of the conventions, a performance was staged where the Democratic candidate was depicted as being tied by the neck to a car pulling her along while dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit. This crosses a line,” Heather expresses.
In Arizona, where Donald Trump recently spoke, the state prosecutor has initiated an inquiry to determine whether the Republican candidate for the 47th President of the United States violated state law. Critics of Trump assert this occurred during a rally when he addressed Liz Cheney, a Republican politician who publicly supported Kamala Harris. In response, Trump suggested she should be “lined up against a wall and shot with machine guns.” According to Arizona state law, such words could be deemed criminal threats.
Moreover, there are growing voices regarding the potential use of military force against American citizens, whom Trump labels as internal enemies. This notion is unfathomable for many, primarily because the military’s duty is to protect the residents of the United States, not to expel them, as Trump suggests. Additionally, the U.S. military is independent; it is not commanded by the president, yet Trump frequently refers to it as “his.” He also disparages generals who disagree with him, calling them “fools.” This lack of respect breeds dissent, says James, a former American soldier and now a physician at a hospital in New York.
“Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot of gunfire near my home in the woods. It’s rifles, not ordinary hunting weapons. This worries me, especially since it’s not hunting season,” shares Camille, a resident of Maryland, where Harris currently holds a significant 28% lead over Trump. “I worry it’s paramilitary militias. I’m afraid they are preparing for some kind of attacks,” she adds. Her state borders Virginia and is about a two-hour drive from the District of Columbia, home to the capital, Washington, D.C.
Long lines form at military supply stores as firearms are purchased by women, older citizens, and regular Americans alike. Some are stocking up on ammunition, water, and food supplies, fearing a scenario akin to a war movie titled “Civil War,” set in 2024. This atmosphere of apprehension reflects a society grappling with the potential for unrest and conflict, as citizens prepare for uncertainties that lie ahead.
