Imagining a World Post-Worldwide Elections
Unpacking and Predicting the Unpredictable 2024 Election Season
From Mexico, to India, to South Africa, and now, to Europe. The whole world is watching as the results come in. Why? Because the fate of the whole world is at stake. These elections, the past elections, and the elections to follow will be pivotal for the future of world democracy.
2024 happens to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and that coincidence should only put greater focus on the new battle we must fight. It is a battle against ideas that threaten to undermine what those brave men fought and died for on those beaches. For many in the world, that battle begins at the ballot box. When they head to the polls, they will be forced to choose between the new “saviors of the people” and the new 21st-century demagogues.
Of course, we already know what direction countries like imperialist Russia will take at this critical crossroads. We also can be relatively sure that imperialist Iran’s election contest later this June will mostly be a competition amongst hard-liners, religious zealots, and brutal autocrats.
What choice will the people across Europe make? Well, no one can be sure, although many predict a turn to the far-right. For many observers, it is only a matter of how strong a showing Europe’s radical right-wingers will have. If they perform well, and unite around a dangerous antidemocratic agenda, they could gain enough political power to gradually remold the EU according to the desires of European Trumps like Viktor Orban.
From there, it would all come down to America’s November elections. Only a Trump loss could stop the advance of the far-right forces dedicated to the slow death of American democracy. If Trump wins, on the other hand, the international far-right movement will secure a huge and historic victory.
To many, the picture may appear understandably bleak. One thing, however, gives me hope. The 2024 elections have been anything but predictable. As one headline proclaims, “Halfway Through an Epic Electon Year, The Winner Is: Surprise.” One surprise in particular may provide us a telling lesson in the failures of radical right populism.
Take the recent elections in India. Exit polls originally “pointed to a strong win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party.” Even before then, Modi looked as politically strong as ever. By all accounts he was “immensely popular,” with his brand of extremist right-wing Hindu nationalism seemingly on the rise. True, like Donald Trump, he was an at times polarizing figure. Yet he was a polarizing figure who could successfully manipulate election politics to his advantage.
Unfortunately for Modi, the exit polls were wrong. His appeals to identity politics and anti-Muslim bigotry fell far short of the landslide victory he expected. Instead, he and his party actually lost ground, most surprisingly in places once considered some of his greatest strongholds.
Voters called Modi’s government too “arrogant.” They correctly complained that Modi’s brand of politics was a distraction. Modi has been in power for an entire decade, they observed, and yet he stood by as India made a hard turn towards widening income inequality.
At the ballot boxes across India, these voters demanded change. In an era where Europe takes the return of Trump to be almost a foregone conclusion, we should take note. In one of the world’s largest democracies, the right-wing populist playbook failed. Modi could not buy off the Hindu heartland of his country by stoking cultural war controversies.
The people of India expected their politicians to deliver real results, not fiery rhetoric and grievance politics. Trump should take warning. He too is “arrogant,” just as Modi’s government was just a few days ago. He thinks he can run a presidential race on baseless complaints and promises of retribution without any accountability whatsoever. He believes he can distract the American people from his party’s 40-year record of failure and income inequality. He pretends he has a real agenda to combat inflation, whereas in reality his policies would only increase it. Worst of all, he somehow pretends he can con Black people into supporting the man who took out a full-page ad for the execution of the innocent Central Park Five.
Like Modi, he thinks he can pull off this massive swindle. The voters may get the chance to tell him otherwise.
So look beyond “the polls.” They have been wrong before, and they will be wrong again. At the end of the day, the best measures of public opinion are the voters themselves. And in 2024, they have already shown us their capacity for surprises. Perhaps another one is due soon. If not in Europe, then in America.