THE 2024 AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CYCLE IS FAR FROM NORMAL

Much depends on the outcome of the 2024 election for India, the U.S. and all our partners and allies in the titanic struggle against the PRC.

- JAMES E. FANELL BRADLEY A. THAYER WASHINGTON, D.C.

The U.S. presidential election of 2024 is an odd one for America. Nothing like this has ever been experienced in American political history. Given that Americans are nonplussed, it is understandable that Indian citizens likely share in that confusion. What has happened thus far reveals how strange, and dangerous, the 2024 election has been and portends to be.

First, President Biden was the Democratic Party's presidential candidate until he was not. His disastrous performance in first presidential debate in June, before either candidate was officially their party's nominee, led to his "decision" to leave the race. It is clear now that Biden did not want to step aside. He was forced out at the insistence of major Democrat party figures like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hollywood and Silicon Valley donors that demanded that he do so. Incredibly, before that action, the American people were assured that President Biden was fit and healthy-despite what Americans and the world could see with their own eyes-until he was not.

Second, in July the next major event that illuminated this quixotic election year was the failed assassination attempt against former President Trump.

This despicable event was shocking and naturally energized Trump supporters, but more importantly and incredibly impacted independent voters-those not formally tied to one of the two major political parties, but who play an exaggerated role in American politics, often tipping the balance to one candidateto vote for Trump. Yet, for much of the American media, this event has been, as Orwell described, memory holed. While it was mentioned by President Trump in the recent debate, as an attempt to start a consideration that he took a bullet for democracy, he was immediately and abruptly cut off by one of the moderators in order to avoid attention to the issue-an unambiguous form of censorship directed by a corrupt media.