“When Donald Trump determined US foreign policy, the Kurdish people suffered the most,” says Berdan Öztürk, foreign affairs spokesperson for Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party. Of all those concerned by Trump’s potential return to the White House, the stakes are among the highest for the revolutionary Kurdish movement, which has spent the past decade battling to build a grassroots, women-led democracy in the Middle East.

During his first administration, Trump infamously overruled the Pentagon to order a chaotic partial withdrawal of US troops stationed in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), opening the door to a deadly Turkish invasion that killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands of locals. “Turkey’s collaboration with mercenary forces documented as having committed crimes against humanity has worsened the situation in Syria, opening the door to wars which will continue for decades,” Öztürk adds.

But would a victory for Kamala Harris bring relief? On Joe Biden’s watch, NATO ally Turkey has continued to bomb Rojava with impunity, launching over a thousand punitive air and artillery strikes this week alone as part of a campaign explicitly targeted at destroying the region’s fragile humanitarian and energy infrastructure. “[We] don’t depend on any positive step from either candidate,” insists leading Syrian Kurdish politician Salih Muslim. “Only developments in the Middle East can build a new Middle East.”