Whatever happens, the ominous US presidential elections will change the world.
The only safe verdict may be that Hillary Clinton, the consummate politician, and Donald Trump, the snake-oil businessman, fall short of what the international community needs of the leader of the world in these very unstable and dangerous times for global relationships.
A Clinton victory would be a relief. But the damage to outside esteem for the American electoral process will take time to repair. And the US may find it harder to earn loyal friends.
The dismaying spectacle is not just of anger still spreading from the campaigns of the two candidates.
Importantly, it is about the apparent abandonment by American voters of their duty as citizens of a uniquely free and democratic Constitutional Republic to be accountable for who governs and how they are governed.
In this regard, the elections are ominous and will change the world. Even if the wonderfully experienced Clinton wins, the five billion people yearning for democracy in their own countries may not again look upon American voters as examples of appropriate behavior in a mature democracy.
The global family of nations is likely to be less safe whoever wins next week. US leadership has helped to lift hundreds of millions out of destitution, turned world trade into an open system, driven prosperity in poorer nations, and brought medicines to the deprived.
It shone light to help lift nearly two billion women and girls out of social oppression into a new era where they can dare to hope for equal treatment and respect for their human rights.
Such a gifted nation does not deserve such lack of care from its electorate. Even those rooting for Clinton are being careless because their internal divisions might cause her presidency to be the weakest in recent decades, were she to win.
It would be naïve to think that the world’s nations sought out the US to be their leader and “policeman”. Were it so, American youth would not have had to fight in so many wars around the world and successive Presidents would not have had to accumulate awesome alliances and military power.
The US was accepted by many as a leader because of its democracy and commitments to alleviating poverty and promoting human rights.
It would be bias now to accuse only Trump of adding indignity to the frequent mud fights of American electoral process. As a person, Clinton is also inglorious in different ways.
Yet, the American electoral system has raised both to the only choices for President.
The blame, if it must be apportioned, lies with the people. They have turned elections into a reality show on entertainment television.
Others from resilient ancient nations are finding the people of the “greatest nation on earth” to be so confused that they behave as if they are alone in the world.
Their moral compass, which for decades was a beacon for peoples struggling for liberal democracy, has been lost in the encouragements they now offer to nasty squabbles between Trump and Clinton.
Neither Clinton nor Trump should be blamed for the grubbiness. Each does whatever seems to win praise from voters and might bring them out to the polls.
Trump has financed himself to some extent so his “aiming low” could reflect his own low character. Yet, tens of millions of Americans support him with fervor.
But Clinton is financed mostly by others so her tens of millions cannot escape responsibility for her talking high but acting low.
The sharp partisanship has turned what should have been a momentous rolling out of liberal democratic process into fratricidal warfare among frenemies.
Voters cannot shift all the blame to the media. Whatever its faults, it is just an intermediary. The people are the deciders.
Americans no longer seem interested in the dignified adherence to responsible policy deliberation that caused so many around the world to emulate their love of democracy and fairness in its process.
In the eyes of outsiders, voters cannot brush aside liability for making this election a parochial affair about the flaws of Trump and Clinton, with no apparent thought to the world within which the US lives.
Like it nor not, the US military, corporations and banks are omnipresent around the world. No significant country is free from interference from them. So, who rules this great global machinery from the White House does matter to billions of people.
Outsiders would care little were it not for US military bases in their vicinity; American warships in their oceans; American corporations aggressively seeking profit in their lands; US spies digging into their secrets; and American banks and insurers vigorously trying to operate freely among them.
Now, foreign supporters of US electoral process will have to think again about whether they should look elsewhere.
graphic: shutterstock.com