November 6, 2020
All hail America’s voters. After an excruciating election, they appear to have edged out of power the man who wanted to be king, Donald Trump, and put into the White House an amiable, old pol who appears likely to soon be replaced by his vice-presidential running mate, half-Jamaican, half-Indian Kamala Harris.
This week’s election should have produced a landslide for Joe Biden and the democrats. Trump had so much against him – his shocking denial of the deadly Covid epidemic; overt hatred for Islam and total subservience to Israel’s far right; overt anti-black and Hispanic racism; a financial mess created by his ill-considered tax cut; boorish behavior; medical quackery worthy of 19th century snake oil salesmen; threats to use nuclear weapons – the list goes on an on.
But many Americans ignored all this bad mogambo in the hope Trump would keep the stock market on fire. Religion also played a key role: some 90% of so-called born-again Christian fundamentalists, misled by Fox News and powerful Protestant churches, promoted bad boy Trump as some sort of Christian savior or a reincarnation of rulers of Biblical Israel.
Trump’s fulminations against Iran led his chief paymaster, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, to fork over another $75 million to Trump on top of a hefty, $100 million donation, plus millions more from hedge fund moguls tied to Israel’s rightwing Likud Party while the media screamed about alleged Russian interference.
In spite of all this, ‘Sleepy Joe Biden,’ as Trump disparaged him, won the national vote. The US Postal Service, heavily sabotaged by the Trump minions, still managed to function and deliver the winning votes. Interfering with the mail is a federal crime. Those guilty should be prosecuted.
The United States emerged from this long, ugly electoral battle shaken, wounded and much diminished. Its standing as the world champion of democracy has been debased by an election characterized by yahoos in pickup trucks, welfare recipients and looters.
Trump’s lies and false accusations at the end of the vote confirmed his unfitness for the presidency. Let us hope the world does not conflate the United States with Trump’s boorish, unethical behavior.
States of little or no importance stole the limelight from big, significant states like my own New York and California. The election showed without a doubt that the antique system of the electoral college must be replaced or even better, junked.
What might Trump do? A new TV series of course. The political figure closest to Trump was Italy’s bombastic fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Copying the Duce, Trump might launch a mass march on Washington to seize power. Given Trump’s potent showing in the election, an attempted coup is not unthinkable.
This election also leaves key Trump allies cast adrift. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his most important supporter after casino king Adelson. Brazil’s fool of a president, Jair Bolsonaro, looks orphaned by Trump’s defeat. India’s Narendra Modi will miss Trump’s backing of ever-increasing Indian immigration to the US and ignoring of rising repression in Kashmir. Biden may be forced to face China’s brutal treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. The beastly Saudi regime will lose its most influential patron when Trump goes.
One hopes new president Biden will quickly rejoin the sensible Paris climate accords and the important nuclear control deal with Iran. Four years ago, candidate Trump promised to end America’s festering little colonial wars in Afghanistan, Africa and the Mideast. He never did. Now Biden has the chance to end these ill-starred, trillion-dollar misadventures with the stroke of a pen, recalling Founding Father Ben Franklin’s golden dictum, ‘no good war; no bad peace.’
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2020
This post is in: USA
Cher Éric,
Je me réjouis fort de votre retour. J’étais TRÈS INQUIET À VOTRE SUJET. Je viens de finir “AMERICAN RAJ”, un livre que toute personne le moindrement intéressée par la politique internationale devrait avoir lu, où qu’il-elle soit, et je m’apprête à lire War at the Top of the World.
Amitié sincère,
Francis Parmentier
The preliminaries are coming to a close. All the court cases in lower courts do not matter – this election will be decided by the Supreme Court. Until this happens, Biden is not the president.
Trump has appointed three of the nine justices. Recently four decided to accept the arguments made in Florida that gave Bush the win even though the justices at the time said the arguments should never be used again. Now that Barrett is confirmed, Trump has the numbers he needs.
Now, the only thing SCOTUS needs to consider is whether giving Trump the win will start a civil war. And based on the way the idiot Democrats are ignoring this final hurdle, it’s my opinion that Trump has the win.
Really?
Please reference any post-election court decision, including any by the Supreme Court, that gave any credence to the dozens of suits filed by the Trumpers.
I just realised… what if someone that was competent had the same intentions as Trump? I could get really scary.
.
Dik
You missed a reference to Lindsay Graham, a key enabler. Your summary belongs in all history books…
.
Dik
President Trump was a revolutionary figure in American politics. As one veteran observer of the scene put it; in 2016 there was attempt in both the Democratic party and the Republican party to overthrow the established order. The Democrats were able to prevent their insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination (which should have been his). The Republicans were not, and Trump became the candidate. To his credit, Trump was not a career politician, and therefore did not have all the baggage that comes with being one. Hindsight will provide a clear view of his positive impacts on American life (and they did exist, contrary to what much of the media will try and convince you of otherwise) and of course his more obvious failings. I suspect the Democrats will do their best to start a war with Russia, as well as Turkey, and will alienate much of Europe in the process. It should be remembered it is the Democrats that are the war hawks, not the Republicans. The current Democrat administered American cities have sunk into chaos, as was evidenced this summer. The entire West Coast of America is rapidly degenerating into anarchy. As the very astute and erudite Douglas Murray has pointed out, these communities have homeless encampments reminiscent of slums from large third world cities. He has also opined on the number of armed militias parading around in these locales, and not without some irony asked what other Western nations would have such groups openly occupying public space and attempting to circumvent the rule of law. When President Obama came to office, many of America’s minority groups assumed that this was a sign that everything was now going to dramatically improve. Of course that didn’t happen. and nobody should expect anything different from this incoming administration. I honestly hope for the best, but we should be realistic and prepare for the worst.
Did Donald Trump deserve to lose, yes. His lack of leadership during the Covid situation proved that.
Joe Biden won by keeping his mouth shut and letting Trump destroy his candidacy by continuously talking and over reacting.
The voting shows that not everyone believes in the message from the Democrats. The Paris climate accords assume that people in North America are idiots who want to destroy the world when in fact we have the toughest environmental rules on the planet.
If the Democrats are to be believed then the American petroleum industry can expect to be put out of business, one little step at a time. One day the Democrats will have to explain why the USA is held hostage to middle east oil.
China of course can keep building hundreds more coal burning power plants every year. Russia’s oil system spills hundreds if not thousands of barrels every day. Who do protestors target? The easy choice, Canada. They will not dare protest in China or Russia where they could easily disappear.
As for the USA, no one questioned the Democrats about the Green New Deal they are about to impose on the country. Who analyzed the proposed $7 trillion of environmental spending over the next decade? Who asked where the money will come from?
As Eric points out, Kamala Harris will be officially in charge in the near future. She will be in charge behind the scenes while Joe Biden gets his PR time. Did anyone question Kamala as to whether she is ready to take over? What are her policies and priorities? Or was everyone focused on what Trump would say next?
The biggest shame is that Donald Trump and Joe Biden were the best “leaders” the USA could find for the 2020 election. One is ready to ask if we can resurrect Abraham Lincoln.
Amen, but this election has exposed America’s ugly racist, misogynist, neo-fascist underbelly.
The Corporate Democrats rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders because they cared more about getting a man who would support and maintain the American Corporate Empire than defeating Donald Trump. Biden would have crushed Trump had he even pretended to be progressive. This election was the episode of the Simpsons where the two aliens ran for president. You could vote for an evil alien of another evil alien. The Democrats and Republicans are two branches of the same rotten tree. They agree on all the worst aspects of America, endless war, destroy the earth, for profit healthcare and prisons, overthrow any governments that fail to fall on their face beford the American Corporate Empire, oppression and exploitation of the poor. Liberals said “If Donald Trump is re-elected he will destroy America.” and my response is, “If Donald Trump destroys America the rest of the world will build statues of him the size of the kings of Gondor.” Soon the American Corporate Empire will collapse and the world will dance in the streets and rejoice.
Perfectly said, Eric!
Thank you for your long awaited insight, Eric.
Regarding, the comment: “Let us hope the world does not conflate the United States with Trump’s boorish, unethical behavior.”
Sorry…
It did not go unnoticed that US chose Nixon over McGovern, Bush over Gore, Clinton over Saunders, Trump over Clinton….ad nauseum…visionaries need not wanted.
Those stories are indelibly written.
Win or lose, it is a fact that 50% of Americans supported this disgusting man and enabled his behaviour.
My fellow Canadians (75% in the latest poll) have had enough. It has been cringeworthy to watch Trudeau tip-toe around shallow, unethical policies on climate and Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UN.
Europe has moved on.
The damage is done for one or two generations, just as it was in Germany in 1939.
The world moves on.
USA owns this one…..
I do feel sorry for the hundreds of conscientious Americans I met on Habitat builds in Central America, or fact finding trips in Palestine.
They, and their likes are the candles of light on the horizon.