‘I volunteered for Harris campaign to save the world from a catastrophic Trump presidency’

When I was on a trip to the swing-state of Pennsylvania earlier this month for the Mirror, I had a day off. And I went campaigning for the Democrats in the rural plains of Chester County. With not a moment’s hesitation.

This is an election that not only may be the most important of my lifetime – but may also come down to a handful of votes. If it does, because of the US electoral system, they will more than likely be votes cast by Pennsylvanians.

“I’m curious,” one elderly Republican woman asked me. “You’re a long way from home. Why do British people care about this election?”

The US elections, which happen in just two-weeks’ time, matter not just for the lady covering her clapboard house in Halloween decorations for her grandchildren, but for all our children too.

In the Middle East, in Ukraine, and in Sudan, millions of lives depend on who the next President of the United States is. The next leader of the Free World will dictate whether this enormous country believes in – let alone tackles – the climate change emergency.

Our chances of being blown to smithereens grow exponentially with a man as happy to play at being Kim Jong Un as a McDonalds server in charge of international diplomacy, let alone the actual nuclear button.

Meanwhile, the great dictators of the world in Russia, China and North Korea and their authoritarian populist allies in places like India, Hungary, Austria and Italy, are just waiting for a Trump Presidency.

This is a knife-edge election, literally headed down to the wire. Which means every single one of us who cares about peace, universal prosperity or our planet will have reason to be grateful to any activist crossing the Atlantic over the next two weeks to fight a Trump Presidency and win for Kamala Harris.

So, no wonder, Trump is agitated by news that UK citizens are heading over to knock on doors to persuade voters to vote Democrat, as they say “up and down the ballot”.

Now, he has filed an extraordinary complaint against the UK’s Labour party for what it claims is “interference” in the US presidential election. Labour has denied the claims, saying no such interference has happened.

But no one should be surprised if Labour supporters, trade unionists and others are heading over to the US to roll up their sleeves and knock doors for Harris. Activism, after all, is not defined by international borders. There is a long history of progressives crossing the seas to support each other’s struggles that dates back well beyond even the Spanish Civil War.

Maybe the legal complaint is just another Trump stunt, as the golfing gazillionaire covers himself in the stars and stripes of the American revolution while misspelling “Britian” in his outraged letter.

But it’s also an attempt by the master gas-lighter to distract voters from the manipulations of his own side.

In the last few days, his new best friend Elon Musk – who is promised a big job in the new Trump administration – has set up a lottery giving out one million dollars A DAY.

The X boss, who set up America PAC to support Donald Trump in the presidential contest, calls on registered voters – who just happen to live in seven swing states – to sign a petition. Each day until the election, one signatory is selected at random to receive a million-dollar prize.

Russian bots have been linked to a series of deep fakes and conspiracy theories, that guess what all favour President Trump – including even the bizarre and utterly false claim that Kamala Harris killed a child in a road accident.

Meanwhile, Trump doesn’t seem to be bothered that his old chum Nigel Farage – an actual sitting MP of the British government – has made his way to America to see Steve Bannon, the man many held responsible for the storming of the capitol.

And, of course, all the while, the Far Right, Radical Right and white supremacists of America are allegedly stockpiling weapons for a re-run of the storming of the Capitol, that could make January 6 look like Toy Story.

As for the lady making the Halloween decorations. The Democrat canvassing app had her and her husband down as Republicans.

“That’s not the case this time,” she told us. “I can’t vote for that man, and I won’t. And my husband won’t be voting for Trump either.”

That’s why every single door in Pennsylvania and beyond is worth knocking on. And if you’re heading out to volunteer from any corner of the United Kingdom over the next two weeks – thank you.