Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the last major U.S. campaign speeches for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, deadly flooding in Spain, and Botswana’s general election.
Also, check out FP’s 2024 Election Live Blog: a one-stop page to hear from our writers about how the world is watching the U.S. election and how the future of a number of policy areas hinges on the next U.S. administration. Bookmark the page, share it with friends, and come by often! We’ll update regularly this week and live next week as the results come in.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the last major U.S. campaign speeches for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, deadly flooding in Spain, and Botswana’s general election.
Also, check out FP’s 2024 Election Live Blog: a one-stop page to hear from our writers about how the world is watching the U.S. election and how the future of a number of policy areas hinges on the next U.S. administration. Bookmark the page, share it with friends, and come by often! We’ll update regularly this week and live next week as the results come in.
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Closing Arguments
With less than a week until the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump used their last major speeches to rally for America’s future. Although their policies clashed drastically—and their rhetoric carried vastly different tones—both candidates painted their prospective victories as vital to safeguard U.S. democracy.
“This election is more than just a choice between two parties and two different candidates,” Harris said in Washington late Tuesday. She delivered her speech in the same spot where Trump addressed his supporters shortly before they attacked the U.S. Capitol building in January 2021 to protest the 2020 election results. “It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or ruled by chaos and division,” Harris added.
Some 76 percent of U.S. citizens believe that “American democracy is currently under threat,” according to a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted this month. More than 60 percent of those surveyed said they believe that the U.S. government largely benefits itself and the elite rather than the common good, and nearly 60 percent of voters said Trump has made the partisan divide worse. Only 37 percent said the same of Harris.
No country is safe from democratic backsliding, Harris rally attendee Dawson Chute, 23, told FP’s World Brief. “To think that the U.S. is immune to that or, ‘Oh, this doesn’t happen here’—it could. So, I think that every election, especially this one, is important for the health of democracy,” Chute said.
Some Harris rally attendees painted a potential repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack as the greatest threat to U.S. democratic processes. “I am a veteran, and I know that we were sworn to uphold the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies,” Linda Jones, 67, said. “And the fact that we’re still hearing the buzz from those who say that if [Trump] doesn’t win, what they’re going to do [is another Jan. 6]. So, yes, democracy is threatened right now.”
Yet many Trump supporters—and the candidate, himself—have framed unauthorized immigration as the true “threat to democracy.” In a more than hourlong speech in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, the former president portrayed the United States as an “occupied country” plagued by “an army of migrant gangs who are waging a campaign of violence and terror against our citizens.”
Trump labeled Nov. 5 as “Liberation Day,” promising if elected to stop undocumented migrants from crossing the U.S. southern border, “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” and seek the death penalty for “any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.” He also pledged to cut taxes and increase fracking. “This will be America’s new golden age,” he said.
Trump also sought to portray Harris as merely a lackey for an “amorphous group of people” whom he labeled “the enemy within.” “We’re running against something far bigger than Joe [Biden] or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious, crooked, radical-left machine that runs today’s Democrat Party. They’re just vessels,” he said.
“For the past nine years, we have been fighting against the most sinister and corrupt forces on Earth. With your vote in this election, you can show them once and for all that this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you. It belongs to you,” Trump added.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Torrential rain. Flash floods battered the eastern Spanish region of Valencia this week, killing at least 95 people. Some areas have recorded a year’s rain within a span of just eight hours, according to meteorologists, threatening citrus fruit farms and destroying homes. “For those who at this moment are still looking for their loved ones, the whole of Spain weeps with you,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Wednesday after deploying more than 1,000 soldiers to the region for emergency response work. Madrid has declared three days of mourning, set to begin on Thursday.
Local authorities said this week’s flooding was the worst that Spain has seen in three decades. The Mediterranean has repeatedly witnessed the devastating effects of climate change firsthand. In August, the region recorded its highest-ever observed surface temperature—a record previously broken in July 2023—alongside warming oceans, a strong El Niño season, and a slew of wildfires.
Presidential vote. Botswana held a general election on Wednesday to determine whether the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) will extend its 58 years in power. Incumbent President Mokgweetsi Masisi is seeking a second five-year term against Duma Boko of the Umbrella for Democratic Change coalition, Dumelang Saleshando of the Botswana Congress Party, and Mephato Reatile from the Botswana Patriotic Front. Locals reported late openings at polling placing, a lack of voting stations, and long lines on Wednesday.
The BDP has controlled Gaborone since Botswana gained independence from British rule in 1966. Despite declining popularity after global demand for diamonds fell—Botswana is the world’s top producer by value of diamonds—the BDP maintains a majority in parliament, with 38 out of 57 seats. Yet with unemployment rising to 27 percent this year, some Botswanans are seeking change.
New allegations. Ottawa accused Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday of backing a series of assassination plots against Sikh separatists on Canadian soil. The allegations put India’s No. 2 power player front and center in an ongoing rift that has already resulted in more than a dozen diplomatic expulsions. India has not yet commented on the recent censure but has previously dismissed Canada’s accusations as politically motivated.
Last September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi of orchestrating the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia that June. The same day, Ottawa ousted an Indian diplomat, whom Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly had identified as an intelligence chief. The resulting diplomatic headache saw both countries squabble over whether Indian officials in Canada should receive diplomatic immunity. Ottawa’s latest allegation could further fracture already fragile bilateral ties.
Odds and Ends
After five years of provoking controversy, New Zealand is saying goodbye to its giant hand statue. On Wednesday, a local gallery in Wellington said the 16-foot sculpture of a human hand bearing a stoic face will depart to an undisclosed location in Australia on Saturday. “I am sure it will be missed,” sculptor Ronnie van Hout said. “But even Lovecraftian nightmares have to return to where they came from, and now you only have an absence to reflect on.”
The post Harris, Trump Paint Victory as Vital to Protect U.S. Democracy appeared first on Foreign Policy.
