It is late night in Paris when the phone jolts me out of my pre-sleep somnolence. It is a fellow-Iranian who wants to know who I think will be the United States' next president.
As I mumble in search of an answer, the distant caller darts: So who will win?
"The winner will be the American system," I say, and immediately realize that this might sound more like a dodge than a proper answer.
Nevertheless, I stick with my answer because I know that citing either Donald J. Trump or Kamala Harris as the possible winner will lead to an avalanche of speculation about what will happen if he or she ends up in the White House.
The avalanche has been sliding down for weeks as pundits across the pond project contradictory predictions.
The Washington Post, a Harris cheer-leader, claims that Trump's win will push the world back into the 1930s when the slogan "Might is Right" led to the Second World War.
At the other end of the spectrum, Newsmax supporters of Trump claim that a Harris win could transform the United States into an upmarket version of the Third World.
The belief that the US is in decline has been the theme of several TV talk shows here in Paris, where I currently spend time.
The talking heads differ on whose tenure would slow down or accelerate the decline. But they all agree that the future belongs to China as leader of a new world order, in which the US should be thankful if it is cast as a bridesmaid.
The idea that the US is on the way of becoming a "has-been" superpower isn't new.
In the 1920s, people like Armand Hammer believed that the future belonged to the emerging Soviet power and the "new Socialist man" it was creating. In the 1930s, of which we are now reminded, people like Charles Lindbergh saw Germany as the future global power and arbiter of human destiny. In the 1960s, all bets were on Japan and in the 1970s futurologists put their chips on France.
Some pundits speak of a new multipolar world order in which the US will be a pole among many poles. That such an analysis is defective in its very nature only if because poles are supposed to be two opposite points that balance each other to give the system stability.
In other words, you can't have many poles here and there and everywhere, at times even attached to each other like Siamese twins.
At any rate, the fact is that the US remains the "indispensable nation" that it has been at least for the past century or so.
The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East won't be ended without Washington offering the necessary guidance and inspiration, backed by military, economic and soft power of a class no other nation can offer at present. The same is true when we come to major reforms needed in the very structure of the United Nations and its agencies, along with an overdue review of global trade rules.
As far as the November 5 election is concerned, the question is what the two candidates offer on those issues.
The answer is: not much.
US presidential elections, indeed as French General Charles de Gaulle once noted about presidential elections everywhere, are seldom about concrete policies.
"It is a rendezvous between a man and a nation," he insisted. (Now we must say a man or a woman.)
The current US presidential campaign has been focused on the personalities of the candidates rather than policies. Republican nominee Trump has always projected himself as a personality rather than a policy wonk. His campaign has amounted to a long monologue in which he reveals himself, warts and all, inviting the voters to judge him as a person. Interestingly, Trump's opponents, including Harris, have danced to his music by making him the target of ad hominem attacks never before seen in the rough-and-tumble of American elections.
This doesn't mean that Trump has avoided tackling all issues.
He has done so in an oblique way, by telling a story that draws attention to an issue without subjecting it to classical analysis. His opponents have dubbed the method as telling lies pretending that the truth -- their truth -- trumps the Republican's narrative.
That attitude has helped Trump by persuading his supporters that he is "one of us," an anti-establishment candidate who shares our sufferings and aspirations.
Harris, on the other hand, has been caught in a web of contradictions. She has been unwilling to assume President Joe Biden's full record without being able to reject it.
She has flirted with the idea of casting herself as a policy wonk but has been forced to backtrack because she tries to constitute a coalition of minorities with diverse if not contradictory interests and aspirations.
By continuing his never ending monologue, Trump tells the voters more and more about himself. Harris, in contrast, talks to hide herself. The more you listen to her, the less you know about her.
Trump's opponents castigate his egocentrism and praise Harris's altruism. However, Trump's egocentrism is authentic, while Harris's altruism is ersatz.
Barack Obama's intervention in the campaign has hurt rather than helped Harris, by causing confusion about the new-old persona she has tried to construct.
The current election has not escaped the usual clichés of "historic" and "epoch-making." However, no matter who wins, it is unlikely that the United States' broad strategic positions will change on major issues. On November 6, the Wall Street indices will rise and the skies won't fall.
The real issue in this election is which of the two candidates Americans, or at least the 50 percent who vote, will feel more akin with. And that in itself is a huge question, huge enough to make this election historic.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat and is reprinted with some changes by kind permission of the author.
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