Trump is going to win the US election, regardless of the name of the new president. The problem is not even that other top-rated Republicans are merging in Trump's favor, but that Trumpism, a populist ideology that America would be better off if it isolated itself from the world and focused exclusively on its internal problems, is winning among Republicans.
This ideology is populist because in reality, the United States cannot afford to isolate itself from the world - it is too closely connected to it in terms of security and economy.
Few Republicans understand this, and among the Republican presidential candidates, only Nikki Haley, who adheres to a balanced, responsible American foreign policy, is one of them.
However, populism has taken over the political scene in Washington... I must say that all developed democracies, including the United States, are suffering from populism. The world needs to prepare for the fact that the world hegemony will be consumed by the disease of populism. I have no doubt that it will eventually pass. The only question is what price it will cost the United States and the world.
There is nothing good for Ukraine in this. Although there are reasons to believe that if elected, Trump's populism will quickly end.
After all, Trump has already been president, and he was very quickly shaped by other American institutions, such as the parliament and intelligence services, which purged dubious people from his entourage and forced him to adhere to the usual American foreign policy. Ukraine, by the way, then received its first Javelins, which, by the way, is something that today's Trumpists are proud of, strangely enough.
But Ukraine needs to be prepared for a possible new capricious American president, who will have to prove that by supporting Ukraine, Washington is maintaining its own security. But at the same time, we need to be prepared for a difficult game. After all, neither the current US administration nor Ukraine has any clear plans for victory, so if Trump is elected, the prospect of some kind of war freeze looks very likely. The only question is on what terms.
About the author. Serhiy Taran, political scientist.
The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.