Five years ago on an early hike to see the sunrise over the Annapurna range from Sarangkot, I took a diversion along a small dirt path into a village that caught my eye. The locals were friendly, and before even asking my name I was offered a fresh cup of chiya in a metal cup by an older gentleman who had been in the process of cutting grass with a sickle to feed to his animals. He asked me where I was from, and when I said I was American, he gave a big grin and said one word: “Obama.”

For the past eight years of my life, this is the sort of reception and fondness for President Barak Obama that I have found all over the world.  Soon this experience will be no more and the world will once again have to associate the USA with a new face.

But Obama was more than just an individual or a face—he was a phenomenon. The quasi-religious craze of hope that he instilled in people stretched all over the world. Never mind that his foreign policy didn’t actually divert much from the militarism of the Bush administration and that he furthered surveillance programmes on US citizens more than any other president in US history—he was Obama.

I’ll never forget the scene at the University of Virginia back in 2008 when it was announced that he had beaten John McCain. Good had overcome evil. There was a roar that sounded through the air and people popped bottles of champagne literally crying tears of joy. Whether you liked his policies or not, Obama radiated an aura of leadership that bore both assurance and the promise for forward momentum and change.

I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but Obama’s charisma was rare and is something that we find only once or twice a century if we are lucky. None of the current presidency candidates have the image that will bring the United States such a positive international image as Obama had done. Now, Americans are once again finding themselves in the all-too-familiar position of voting for one candidate simply so another candidate that they detest even more does not win.

To the terror of many, Donald Trump has been able to use his hate speeches to propel himself to be the frontrunner of the right-wing Republican Party. Many Americans find that his policies are just as hateful as those of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in the World War II era, and indeed he has used material from both of these individuals in his campaign without the slightest sense of shame.

Though her attempts to win the US presidency have been in the works for a long time and the “Clinton dynasty” does have a strong backing, many Americans find democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton equally unpalatable. To many she is a symbol for the American establishment and financial empires that are at the heart of cannibalistic capitalism and imperialistic conquest. These are empires that her opponent Bernie Sanders has based his campaign rhetoric around opposing, but many have doubts that he could ever topple the corruption that he is against even if he were to be elected president. Surprisingly, I have met more than a few individuals who consider themselves to stand far on the left wing but that have stated that they would rather Trump take the nomination than Hillary.  The American political parties appear to be exploding.

This election has brought more insanity and less restraint than has probably ever been seen in a US election, and unfortunately for the rest of the world the outcome of this election will be just as important for the citizens of other countries as it will be for Americans.

How the next president will choose to view and relate with South Asia will undoubtedly have a strong effect on Nepal-US relations, and we can only hope that this next era will be one of open-mindedness and goodwill rather than one of fear mongering and global antagonism. It is unlikely that people around the world will greet Americans with a smile associated with the president’s name in the way they did with Obama anytime in the foreseeable future, but we’ll have to cope with what democracy deals us and hope for the best, for all of the world’s sake.

(David tweets @caprarad)