A new US president will be elected in a week's time. According to the polls, Donald Trump made significant gains in October and is now him neck and neck with his rival Kamala Harris. Europe's press examines why he has been able to catch up and what his return to power would mean.
A chilling prospect
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De Standaard (Belgium) is alarmed at the idea of the world's most powerful country once again falling into Trump's hands:
“The US remains the world's largest military superpower by far. In terms of economic growth, it is pulling ahead of all other Western countries. Technologically, it is developing intelligence that will surpass all human brainpower. And all this power is in danger of falling into the hands of a man who couldn't care less about laws, independent administrations or the separation of powers. A man who is driven by resentment, unapologetically authoritarian and adored by half of the electorate. It's a chilling prospect.”
A beacon for the right
Political scientist Nikolas Nikolaidis (Greece) writes on the news website Liberal:
“The most significant but underestimated change that a new presidency for Trump would bring for Europe would not be in the area of concrete policies, but in the ideological and political example it would set for his European admirers and political friends. In a Europe where the right is on the rise, fuelled by problems such as immigration for which the political spectrum has so far failed to offer citizens satisfactory solutions, a President Trump would not only be a political ally for leaders like Orbàn, but also an ideological beacon for those who think like he does.”
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Demonising will backfire
The Democrats' current strategy won't work, Kristeligt Dagblad (Denmark) concludes:
“The strategy of demonising Donald Trump by comparing him and his voters to Nazis has unfortunately become a central component of the Democrats' campaign in the final phase. ... The problem with this is that it reinforces the image many Americans have of the Democratic Party as an elitist and arrogant party that looks down on ordinary people outside the progressive bubbles of the big cities, and that they have tried this before in the fight against Trump - without success.”
Anti-heroes on the advance
Trump is backed by powerful capitalists for whom democracy has no meaning, Telegram (Croatia) complains:
“At first glance, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos remind us of characters like the Joker from Batman or the evil villains from James Bond films. ... But seriously, the mere fact that the American economy is now dominated by such obvious opponents of democracy as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos speaks volumes about how dramatic and unstable the situation in US society has become in the aftermath of the big financial crisis of 2008. ... If Donald Trump wins the election on 5 November, the world's most important country will see the decline of all those values that not so long ago made America one of the most desirable countries in the world.”
The end of the free ride
wPolityce (Poland) predicts that under a Trump presidency there will be more pressure on Europe to up its defence spending:
“Irrespective of the all the strategic and political assessments, Europe is simply not in a position to increase its defence spending by a large amount. If all the Nato countries excluding the United States were to boost their defence spending to three percent of the GDP, this would mean an increase of around 200 billion dollars. ... This explains why the elites in the Western capitals are so afraid of a potential victory for Trump. The option of 'free-riding' on security issues is running out and they will either have to radically reorient their spending, which few are prepared to do, or there will be a fundamental change in transatlantic relations.”
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