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These days, a huge ideological and practical change is being seen in the political and electoral culture of the United States of America, which claims to be the world’s oldest democracy. The way US President Donald Trump has started redesigning the American election system has attracted the attention of political analysts. Recently, during the Republican Midterm Convention held in Dallas, Trump presented such an attractive and direct proposal to the American voters, which has given rise to a new debate in the political circles. Trump has openly promised the people of the country that if the Republican Party is brought back to power with an overwhelming majority in the upcoming elections, then every adult American citizen of the country will be provided a huge dividend or cash benefit of $5,000 by the government. This type of election announcements and the culture of giving cash incentives may seem a bit new and unique to the western countries, but for those familiar with the political history and electoral scenario of large democracies like India, this style seems very familiar and traditional.
Political experts believe that this $5,000 proposal presented by Donald Trump seems to be largely inspired by India’s successful and popular welfare schemes. If we look at the Indian political and administrative history of the last decade, there has been a revolutionary change in the nature of India’s welfare state. The ‘Direct Benefit Transfer’ i.e. DBT scheme launched by the Narendra Modi government at the Center has completely changed the traditional financial relationship between the government and the general public. Under this digital system, government assistance money is being transferred directly to the bank accounts of eligible citizens and voters without middlemen. Today the situation is that in any country where the money from government help or scheme directly reaches the bank account of the common voter sitting in any corner, he does not need any political leader or speech to explain the policies or achievements of the government. In India, this method has proved to be a surefire and very effective weapon in terms of election results, which has been further expanded by the governments of various states of the country in the form of cash assistance for women and youth. This policy of Trump may not be exactly the same due to the legal constraints and complexities of the US Congress, but the political psychological thinking behind it is the same which Indian politicians have long used as the basis of their electoral success.
Apart from the cash incentive, another major change in the US electoral system is visible in Donald Trump’s tough stance in which he is strongly advocating making strict photo identity card (Voter ID) mandatory for voting. In one of his important executive orders issued in March 2025 to improve federal election processes and election transparency, Donald Trump specifically cited large democratic countries like India and Brazil. In his orders and speeches, Trump had praised how countries like India and Brazil use biometric databases and strict photo ID cards to verify voter identities, virtually eliminating the possibility of fraudulent voting. On the same lines, to bring electoral purity in America, Trump has demanded immediate passing of ‘The Save America Act’. Under this proposed strict law, it will now be made completely mandatory to have solid proof of citizenship and an official photo ID issued by the government to vote in all elections held at the federal level, which is being considered a big and tough step in American electoral history.
These new and aggressive political proposals of Donald Trump clearly show that America’s two-party electoral politics has now moved beyond traditional and ideological debates and is directly linked to economic benefits and the personal welfare of the voter. Although there is strong opposition to these proposals of Trump in the US Parliament i.e. Congress and the opposition Democrats and many Republican leaders are also apprehensive about the huge impact it will have on the country’s treasury, yet this style of Trump has been completely successful in attracting a large section of the American people. Analysts also say that when the world’s largest and oldest democracies start learning from or adapting each other’s electoral strategies and welfare models, a new form of democracy emerges at the global level. Only time will tell to what extent these populist and tough administrative promises of Trump affect the election results in the upcoming US elections, but it has proved that in modern politics, the issues of direct empowerment of the people and identity protection have become the biggest electoral weapons.