The Insanity of American Politics

Kamala Harris and the Democrats should be sailing their way to a second term in the White House. Especially when faced with the unhinged Donald Trump campaign, easily the most racist and misogynistic effort mounted by the Republicans in recent times. Here in Britain, when a party last presented itself as the representative of capital in its naked glory it was sent packing. In the United States, the same is within spitting distance of winning. The polls, naturally, are no help. Early voting projections, MRPs, and polls by reputable local surveys suggest anything from a narrow to a handy lead for Harris with boosted turn outs from constituencies one would expect to lean the Democrats' way. And there are others suggesting Trump will just about edge it. In 48 hours we'll have a good idea which way the electorate jumped.

There shouldn't be any doubt, but there is. It is often said the Democrats do a bad job of talking up their achievements, and you would think that under Joe Biden, before his forced retirement they would have a good story to tell. The US economy is expanding faster than any other major advanced industrial nation. Biden has got inflation back under control and real wages are growing again. Unemployment has decreased since the summer and vacancies are on the rise. Yet, clearly, "it's the economy, stupid" isn't working as it should.

The Democrats got themselves into two difficulties. Just like the so-called centre left across Europe, they've tried leaning into immigration. The Trump-era walls, detention areas, cages, and border militias have got through the last four years untouched, and none of it has stopped people from coming. Their adoption of a Fortress America approach is on a hiding to nothing. They could have moved to neutralise the issue by, again, challenging the assumptions that right wing anti-immigration politics rests on. It wouldn't be a panacea, but the job is to diffuse it as an issue and limit its mobilising appeal for the right. Treating it as a technocratic, managerial issue only invites accusations of failure or, at worst, feed racist great replacement narratives. A lesson Labour here would do well to heed, but it won't.

And then on the left has been the utter disgrace and hypocrisy over Gaza and Israel's massacre of the Palestinians. Or, to be more accurate, the US State Department's attacks on civilians in the occupied territories and Lebanon. That you have celebrities, such as Michael Moore, running around the rust belt states pleading with left wingers and Arab-Americans not to vote for third party candidates demonstrates the unerring ability of the Democrats to put the US state's interest before those of their political careers. You would never catch anyone on team Trump being so foolish. Luckily for Harris, as forecast the Democrats haven't put a woman's right to an abortion on a legislative footing because, in the absence of positive messaging, they needed it in the tack to power progressive voters to the ballot box. And the early forecasts seem to indicate this cynical delay has worked out as intended. Early voting reports suggest bigger than usual turnouts from women.

Looking over at Trump, no candidate anywhere has ever run such a disastrous campaign and still remained within a shout of winning. Never underestimate the power of blowjob mimes and rambling delivery, I guess. Racism and misogyny is the glue that keeps his effort together, though one would think his anti-politics edge was blunted by the disastrous years spent in the White House. Not least his negligence during the initial wave of the Covid pandemic, which disproportionately impacted the conspiracy-tinged base of the Republican party and killed them off in their tens of thousands. But what is also interesting is his pull among fellow oligarchs. If fascism is the terroristic and open dictatorship of capital over labour, Trump's programme - often revealed on the hoof - is the closest to it we've seen so far in American politics. He might be incompetent and incapable, but those around him and the billionaires supporting him are looking at using the state to shake down the body politic for billions, if not trillions of dollars. Regulations are to be ripped up, the power of the law circumscribed. The most unhinged American conservatism preaching authoritarian moralism while it ignores the subordination of everything to the cold, hard cash nexus is the dystopic vision of the United States Trump is offering.

Weighing the two up, it's not difficult to see why millions will, again, be fastening on the nose pegs and trudging along to vote for the lesser evil. And given such insanity and without viable alternatives, who can blame them?

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