Election year in America

The critics feel that American ascendency, like the British Empire after the world War 11, is on decline. The high rate of inflation, mounting debts and trade protectionism with potential countries have made American dream, first time without sheen. Each succeeding generation since the Great

Depression in America has been enjoying better life chances from its preceding generation. It is first time, there is scepticism in youth. The youth is asking questions about shrinking of jobs, climate change, pandemic aftermath, and loss in U.S esteem of its economic policies. The youth conversations are all about high interest rates on car loan, government policies on credit card debt and mortgages. Enhanced Taxation and less money to invest on health and new enterprises with increased unemployment are usual concerns, both for Trump and Biden. However, on health and immigration, both have different views. Biden is soft on immigrant policy. He perceives immigration as asset and potential for US, while Trump is for selective immigration and promising stringent policy for US entry. Biden wants to strengthen the affordable care, while trump has no clear-cut policy on healthcare. Trump is for extending tax cuts while Biden is for tax raise after certain limit of earnings. Trump is severe critic of China. He wants to impose tariff sixty percent on Chinese goods, otherwise, ten percent tariff on all import goods. Biden is softer on tariff and is for more manufacturing. Trump has selective approval of friendly countries than Biden’s closeness with

NATO.

Beyond that, there is rising despondency among US economic experts. It is about failed US policies. In COVID years until March 2023, money was pumped into the homes. People would get more pay

packets during lockdown than by usual working. Money supply was more than 27 percent. It made

real state soaring business and policy was more to see interest rates than believing in the dynamics

of money supply. Since March 2023, the inflation has risen from 1.4 percent to 3.4 percent. The

critics say it is the bad monetary policy, moving more on interest rates and leaving behind the

conventional ‘Quality Theory of Money’. The results are that central banks do not trust the financial

system much. This has caused the surge for the gold and 'weaponization of dollar’. China is the

foremost country in accumulating gold.

The twin processes are happening simultaneously. On one side US is sanctioning the countries, which have potential in trade and a value in their geopolitical locale. These sanctions have not worked. For, the power elite in these countries find the US sanctions new glue to their legitimacy, while rallying round the flag. China without any considerations is exploring business partnerships all over the world. BRICS and other countries ignore dollar as the only form of trade. It is in its own currencies, which mean slowing down of dollar. US needs to change its financial policy, as the critics would say that it might not be in the same way as British sterling collapsed, just after world War 11, but it augurs gradual decline of US, as the only super power in the world.

China’s unprecedented rise for the last three decades has been astonishing. Europe attained it in three centuries. China mixed communism and capitalism to have its distinct make of private-public welfare and state monitored development; what India envisaged throiugh its founding fathers, as its long run policy. Its thirty years’ growth and poverty allievation, success stories of rural transformation and infrastructural networks are seen as the biggest miracle that history has witnessed.

What is then American worry about it? Irrespective of Trump’s verdict on 11 th of June, rise of China

stands as a paramount concern, both directly or indirectly, in the domestic and foreign policy concerns

of American think tanks. It is China’s expansionism through OROB, influencing American allies

and American rivals with equal strength. America would like India and South East Asian countries

to get convinced that Xi Jinping is not Deng Xiaoping. American finds Xi Jinping aggressively hegemonic leader, who moves on his market economy parameters with the predominance of public ownership and state to cage the world in its business chains. If Deng opened to the world for open market system, Xi Jinping’s opening to the world is with the purpose to go beyond Asia to counter the US hegemony and to wash off the last stains of ‘one hundred years of humiliations’, by acquiring full ownership of Taiwan. China does not want military bases unlike America, but connectivity of business corridors all over the world.

Both India and South East Asian countries, while respecting US proximities wish to keep principled distance with China as well. Instead of falling completely in the basket of America, these South East Asian countries have their own strategic adjustment policies with two super powers. In all probability, these countries do not want to give any edge to U.S or China in South Asian Sea of dash lines more than proportionality. This irks America. U.S is wooing Pakistan and Philippines in new found concerns. With Pakistan, US interests converge with China on the issues of Taliban and Islamic radicalization. U.S has been generous in giving aid and felicitating international aid agencies in bargain. China, all weather friend of Pakistan, enjoys that tacit understanding, which other than anti India centric policies has hardened its implementation of communist doctrine to homogenize the regions of Xinjiang, Gansu and Ningxia, where significant Muslims live. Although, there seems to be civilizational cycle of time that is being discussed in the rise of China, but China is not relenting on its past moves to make it BRICS versus G 7. NATO has lost its teeth and Russian dependency on china has increased, beyond measure.

Despite dismay over economic policies, there are experts in US, who perceive rebirth of America

through the anticipation of immigrant potential. The failed Melting Pot thesis in the post COVID

scenario has proven that American journey has taken a new turn for ‘more promising path in

cultivating the nurture of emergence of new hybrid identities and trans-cultural competencies.

These hybrid cultural styles creatively blend elements of the old culture with that of the new,

unleashing new energies and potentials’. They perceive IA of silicon valley and diverse nature of

immigrants an underestimated potential in the political discourse. The much hyped American crisis,

they perceive as the white American upper class inhibitions, stemmed from the unparalleled

economic influence of big corporations. For, the students from the Asian countries, who settle in

America, are no longer underclass, a challenge for not pathologising. This vindicates that maturing

of America from melting pot assimilation world view to acceptance of pluralism as the new reality. The notion of inter- group accommodation in plural society that India has shown the path is supposed to be ‘ode to a diverse and democratic ethos’, which is to be valued for future generations. America looks at it as a civilizational experiment for future. It would be a new America, where both Republicans and Democrats have to make a policy shift that shall include Blacks, Asians and White working class groups in a uniformity of merit, a public acceptance. AI and data reveal American potential still thrives to attract the talented ambitious youth from all over the world for making their future.

Prof. Ashok Kaul, Retired Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Banaras Hindu University