Americans go to the polls on Tuesday in elections that ordinarily should not have been of much interest to outsiders, but with President Donald Trump acting increasingly more erratically, irrationally and even dangerously, people around the world will be scrutinising the outcome for signs of any chink in his armour.
Trump is not on the ballot but midterm elections are generally regarded as a verdict on a sitting president. A poor showing by Trump's Republican Party could be interpreted as a sign that his hold on power is weakening and that he could mercifully be a one-term president. However, a better-than-expected showing will galvanise and embolden reactionary forces both in the US and around the world. A frisson of unease and anxiety would descend on world capitals. Not only has Trump become an embarrassment to many of his compatriots, he's left America's traditional allies around the world tearing their hair out in utter frustration.
Every significant world leader except Vladimir Putin has been the target of Trump's sharp and reckless tongue. He has not only imposed tariffs on China, but on traditional allies too. Allies such as Canada and the EU are accused of having taken advantage of what he terms the naiveté of past US administrations. With Trump, everything is about money, and everything has its price.
Nato, that sturdy postwar military alliance which stared down and saw off the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, has not escaped his caustic denunciations. The US cannot continue to pay for the defence of rich European countries, he says. Nato's role during the Cold War is lost on him. Everything's about money.
Trump's cross-examination of the military pact has left many countries in Europe feeling vulnerable to Russian aggression, especially the Baltic states. Putin's daring annexation of Crimea, a part of Ukraine, under conditions which at the time were not conducive to his expansionist tendencies, has left many pondering what he could do now that there's a more pliable occupant in the White House.
And Trump's efforts to tinker with or destabilise Nato seem to chime nicely with the agenda of Putin, who has never hidden the fact that his aim was to weaken and probably destroy it. He's on record saying the collapse of the Soviet Union "was the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century". Nothing will please him more than to see the break-up of the alliance. And Trump seems to be unwittingly doing his bidding.
But that's no coincidence as far as Trump's detractors are concerned. They believe the US president was a Russian asset even before coming into office. The Russians are alleged to have interfered in the 2016 presidential elections to help Trump against Hillary Clinton. That is now the subject of an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. But Trump's behaviour and demeanour towards Putin seem to betray his innocence and caused consternation among the Washington establishment.
He has criticised every leader under the sun except the Russian president. He says Russian interference in US elections is a hoax and a pretext by his opponents to undermine his own victory, even as his own intelligence tells him otherwise. In Putin's company during their Helsinki summit, he was as meek as a lamb. If the Russians have indeed fixed the US elections, it would be money well spent. There could be no more valuable asset than a US president.
There are some on the Left who welcome Trump's advent on the world stage. He would, they contend, disrupt and probably ultimately destroy, a smug and complacent postwar consensus which has hoarded the world's resources for the benefit and gratification of a few, abandoning the poor to a bleak and hopeless existence. Trump apparently could help to unravel the current order and from its ashes a more equal and compassionate society would rise. It's a fool's paradise.
Trump is no Robin Hood. He's a narcissist. Everything is about him; and he'll stop at nothing, including dabbling in bigotry, to achieve his goals. Bigotry was the foundation of his political career - he notoriously and repeatedly uttered the unspeakable canard that Barack Obama was not born in the US and was therefore an illegitimate president. It was the turn of Mexican immigrants when he launched his presidential campaign, calling them rapists and murderers. These insults, despicable as they are, have served him well.
Within a short time, he has completely changed the character of the GOP from a party whose anti-communist stance was critical in the destruction of the Soviet empire to one that loves Putin's Russia; from a party that believes in a free market economy and free trade to one that is marching in lock step with Trump in imposing tariffs on all and sundry; and the party of fiscal responsibility is doling out huge tax cuts to the rich, thus increasing the national debt.
Trump has been successful thus far, and that makes him even more dangerous. He's not only changing the character of the US; he's changing the conduct and perception of other international actors. Does anyone, for instance, believe that Saudi Arabia would have dared to murder Jamal Khashoggi if they didn't think they had a soul mate in the White House?
As polls indicate his party may lose on Tuesday, Trump has ramped up his incendiary language and has despatched thousands of troops to confront unarmed immigrants on the Mexican border.
But that's only a precursor to the presidential campaign in two years.
Fasten your seatbelt...