Donald Trump and entourage stage a walkabout from the White House into Lafayette Square in response to demonstrations on June 1, 2020/White House image

Of all the ways in which this US presidential election campaign is already shattering norms and violating precedents is the previously unthinkable fact of a former president under multiple indictments running against the president he stands accused of attempting to violently prevent from taking office. Carleton University’s Fen Osler Hampson and longtime journalist Mike Blanchfield explore the global implications of this uncharted political territory.

Fen Osler Hampson & Mike Blanchfield

August 24, 2023

Americans are now living in two separate political universes at war with each other. In one, an overwhelming majority of Republican voters profess to pollsters that they either believe or suspect that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump because of electoral fraud. In the other, Democrats believe Joe Biden won the election fair and square, and Trump and his acolytes tried to steal it back, partly by stoking the January 6, 2021 mob attack on Capitol Hill.

Trump’s indictment on August 1 by a grand jury in Washington, D.C., on four felony counts —conspiracy to defraud the United States, witness tampering, conspiracy against the rights of citizens, and obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding—shocked Americans but failed to dislodge reality-denying Republicans from the position that Trump is a victim of a corrupt judiciary and political system.

Dire scenarios are rampant about what could happen in this presidential election campaign and its aftermath, ranging from outright civil war to a hung election to an election that ends up being decided in the Supreme Court because the losing party refuses to accept the outcome. Whether Trump’s prosecution succeeds or fails, however, it will have profound and lasting consequences for America’s political system.

What is also undeniable is that the consequences of America’s internal political chaos and who ultimately wins in 2024 are just as consequential for the rest of the world.

Of the various global risks, one existential threat reigns supreme: Trump would roll back action on fighting climate change at a time when extreme weather, flooding, drought, rising temperatures, wildfires and rising sea levels are threatening populations everywhere, including in the United States. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remarked in June, the world is “hurtling towards disaster” and must take urgent action to roll back the use of fossil fuels—coal especially—to cut carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 to keep the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

Even though seven-in-10 Americans support the U.S. prioritizing the development of alternative energy and carbon neutrality, if the Republicans win, the US will hinder the necessary global march towards the green energy economy of the future while coddling the fossil fuel industry. Trump ridiculed climate action when he announced his 2024 candidacy last fall. His view is supported by many Republicans, including the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the transition manifesto of the influential, right-wing think tank calling for the dismantling of all clean energy projects while boosting fossil fuel production.

The wild card is the impact of this summer’s heatwave, fires, floods, and drifting smoke into major U.S. cities from Canada’s massive forest fires, which tens of millions of Americans have experienced firsthand, and which could tip the scales, especially among undecided voters and wavering Republicans who fear the consequences of unravelling Biden’s policies on climate change.

A Trump win would also have geopolitical ramifications. Given his dalliances with Putin when he was president, a second Trump administration would undermine the coherent US leadership required to stay the course in Ukraine’s war against Russia and deal with America’s strategic rivals. Most Republican voters now believe that the US is doing too much to support Ukraine and want to see the war end quickly, even if it means Ukraine giving up some of its territory to Russia. Although Republican leaders in Congress have generally tended to express their strong support for Ukraine and rallied behind the administration, there is a growing rift within the party itself over the war.

If Trump is convicted, then secures the Republican nomination, he could fight the election from a jail cell.

In addition to Trump’s prosecution, a significant pre-election political risk is a drawn-out impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct and influence peddling in relation to his son, Hunter Biden’s, business dealings. The pressure on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from fellow Republicans to initiate such proceedings as retribution for Trump’s two impeachments and increasing number of indictments has grown. Revelations by Hunter Biden’s business associate, Devon Archer, that Joe Biden was sometimes on the speaker phone when his son was doing business, but only to talk about the weather or engage in pleasantries, have been greeted derisively by Republicans who want to punish the Biden administration and monopolize the pre-election coverage space with negative Biden headlines.

Previous impeachment inquests have proven to be an enormous distraction to Washington’s political class and the occupant of the White House. Such an inquiry—no matter how frivolous—coupled with deepening partisan struggles, will reinforce perceptions in Russia and China that the United States is chaotic, divided and weak, notwithstanding the exemplary leadership of the Biden administration in strengthening NATO and uniting the West.

China may not suddenly grab Taiwan — as some analysts fear — which would have dire consequences globally, but it may seize the opportunity while Americans are distracted by their internal political struggles to accelerate the building of overseas naval bases in Africa and Asia and intimidate its regional neighbours as part of Beijing’s continuing efforts to project its military power and exert total control in the disputed South China Sea.

The global economic consequences of mounting political chaos in the US are also worrying. The US debt ceiling deal in early June staved off an unprecedented debt default by the US Treasury. But the partisan rancour that preceded the agreement, coupled with growing concerns by investors about the political stability of the American system, rationalized a widely criticized downgrading of America’s triple-A credit rating by Fitch in early August for only the second time in US history.

There wasn’t a market meltdown as some feared, and the dollar shrugged off the downgrade, but it was not “insignificant.” It meant that the world’s largest economy might no longer be considered part of that exclusive club of countries which enjoy a triple-A rating. Furthermore, if surging deficits and political warfare over the US budget continue, spooked investors may eventually start offloading the trillions they hold in US debt because they no longer view the dollar as a safe haven.

The suspension of the US debt ceiling only lasts until January 1, 2025, after this US election but before the inauguration. Things could get dicey depending on who wins the White House and which party controls the US Congress after next November. A “hung” election where one party refuses to accept defeat will roil investor markets and credit agencies, as would a disastrous replay of the cliff-hanger debt negotiations this year.

Polls show Biden and Trump are in a dead heat if an election were held today, although voters are not enthusiastic about either candidate. Trump’s mounting legal troubles are keeping him in the political spotlight and only seem to strengthen his support among Republicans who buy into his narrative that he is the “victim” of a “corrupt” political and legal system and that it is not just his political fate that hangs in the balance, but also the fate of his millions of followers.

If Trump is convicted, then secures the Republican nomination, he could fight the election from a jail cell because there are no legal obstacles to preclude that, and he has been adept at exploiting constitutional loopholes. If he wins, his first act of office would likely be to pardon himself.

If Biden’s presidential campaign finally gathers momentum as American voters cool to the prospect of an indicted president returning to the Oval Office, many of America’s allies, including Canada, will undoubtedly heave a sigh of relief. There is little appetite for a return to the stormy and unpredictable years of the Trump presidency but the rocky road to the election we are now on may well get even rockier.

Fen Osler Hampson is Chancellor’s Professor at Carleton University and president of the World Refugee & Migration Council.

Mike Blanchfield spent three decades as an international affairs journalist for several major Canadian news organizations.