For months, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have campaigned in city after city with similar messages. They have both painted their opponent as devastating to the United States and urged their supporters to vote as if their lives depended on it.
– Our fight is a fight for our future. A fight for our freedom, as Kamala Harris put it during one of her last campaign rallies in Michigan.
The harsh rhetoric has caused a long line of experts to warn of political violence in the aftermath of the election. Others go even a step further and speak fatalistically of a full-fledged civil war.
– We Americans are as polarized now as before the civil war, says American political scientist Dan Mallinson to SVT.
Proud boys mobilize
There are also signs that the dark prophecies may be about to come true. Among other things, the far-right group Proud boys, which played a central role in the storming of the Capitol in 2021, now appears to be mobilizing. It writes The Wall Street Journal which mapped a long line of Telegram accounts connected to the organization.
The political scientist is optimistic
Kirby Goidel, professor of political science at Texas A&M University, is optimistic, after all. America’s democracy has been shaken many times before, he reasons.
– We will manage just fine. This is not the worst crisis our democracy has gone through and it will not be the last, he told the AP news agency.