Top Key Issues Shaping the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election: Economy, Immigration, and Abortion
The 2024 U.S. presidential election will have a strong impact on both at-home policies and international relationships. Key issues that will shape the election and its aftermath are discussed through some insights from Tufts University’s Fletcher School faculty.
Technology Policy and AI Regulation
Assistant Professor Thomas Cao pointed out how Silicon Valley’s tech leaders and government regulators are divided on AI regulation. Where in the tech industry, even Donald Trump’s supporters argue for very light regulation in the interests of innovation, the Biden administration is concerned with how best to manage the immediate risks of AI.
Even some leading figures in the tech industry, like Mark Andreessen, have publicly opposed the regulatory stance taken by the Biden administration, claiming that the regulatory approach would strangle innovation.
Both Republicans and Democrats, having united concerns over content moderation, differ in how to deal with it. Media analysts insist that social media networks stifle conservative voices, and Democrats want more onerous restrictions to shut down the spread of misinformation. The next president will finally dentingly define the future of AI in America and also in its global spread.
Inflation and Economic Policy
Professor Michael Klein states that it is another key issue-inflation. As much as it has decreased from the high that was seen during the pandemic, inflation remains relatively high, keeping the public on an edge.
END. Trump has promised to cut prices, but Klein asserts that drastic cuts in prices could only be financed by a crippling recession. Harris appears to support a ban on price-gouging but won’t elaborate. As Klein notes, both plans are flawed.
Actually, he says rising wages since the coronavirus have outstripped inflation, so there is some room to breathe economically. This is how the candidates will address inflation and what the public thinks about it that will make all the difference in 2024.
Cross-Atlantic Relations and National Security
Professor Daniel Drezner looks at the global consequences of the foreign policy of Donald Trump, in large part on NATO and what he would do, or promise to do, to end all forms of U.S. assistance to Ukraine.
The promise to end assistance for Ukraine and withdrawal from NATO could reshape global relations into a multipolar world, accelerating nuclear proliferation and weakening dollar hegemony as the global reserve currency.
Europe may counter that by bolstering strategic autonomy and thus breaking free from reliance on the United States. These would be ominous developments in terms of global security and trade options, especially if Trump were to get his way in 2024.
Immigration Policy
Professor Katrina Burgess sets the focus of her paper on Trump’s promise regarding the greatest deportation operation in U.S. history aimed at illegal immigrants. She notes that logistical, political, and legal obstacles would make this hard to do.
And whereas the undocumented immigrants today are much more diffuse and heterogeneous, and many entered the United States legally, in fact, overstaying their visas. All these challenges aside, immigration hardliner Trump is at the very center of his campaign.
The 2024 election will shape not just domestic immigration policy but debates on wider immigration reform and border security issues as well.
In other words, the outcome of the 2024 election will determine many matters: from technology policy and economic management to global security and immigration. Every candidate has, both at the domestic and international levels, a very different idea about the kind of future he wants to achieve.