How Does This Year’s Election Affect America’s Standing In The World?

Do candidates’ words affect the way the rest of the world views us as a nation?

Jake Neher/WDET

In recent presidential elections, it seems it’s the candidates’ tone and tenor that grabs the most attention. It also seems to have big implications in how the rest of the world views America.

Remember after 2008 when newly-elected President Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize based at least partly on his campaign message of unity and diplomacy? There was plenty of debate at the time and since then about how deserved that award was.

But now it seems we’re seeing the flip side of that rhetoric, particularly from GOP nominee Donald Trump.

 

When a major party candidate calls for blocking certain people from foreign countries from entering the United States, building a wall along one of our borders, or putting up invisible walls in terms of isolationist trade policies, how does that affect the way people in other countries view us as a nation?

As part of our election year project with NPR, Detroit Today is looking at America’s standing in the world and how this election affects it.

Arab American News reporter Ali Harb joins Detroit Today to examine those questions.

“The world looks at us. The world watches us” as the leader of the free world, says Harb. “(Trump’s rhetoric) is reinforcing notions that extremists use to recruit or to spread their ideology that there’s a war against Islam.”

To hear the full conversation, click on the audio link above.

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