Post Convention Punditalia '24 Political Outlook

 In my post of July 8th  I described how things looked for the upcoming elections, as of early July, and what the choice between Democrats and Republicans entailed.  I have described what has transpired since then in a two-part illustrated piece called Satanic Summer which will appear on my Substack as soon as I can resolve, or work around, the technical difficulties related to my printer/scanner failure.  

The political conventions went on as scheduled and the Democratic Convention in Chicago avoided violence by keeping demonstrators several miles away by use of extensive barricades.  Bibi Netanyahu got to make his speech to  Congress with all the record number of standing ovations he was promised,   I had predicted, to anyone who asked me, that the party which managed to replace its candidate before the election, i.e. Trump or Biden, would win the election.  At first that seemed to favor the Republicans when Trump was convicted on all thirty-four felony charges in New York, and later when there were two attempts to assassinate him.  There was some talk of a conspiracy to kill him, with no evidence to support it.  However, the constant hysteria about the threat to democracy that Trump represented and how he must be stopped at all costs, and such talk by Democratic pundits and politicians including the Vice President, certainly fostered an atmosphere to bring emotional gun nuts out of the woodwork.  Those failed assassination attempts may have offset any election bump in the polls for the Democrats that derived from the Trump felony convictions. 

Meanwhile the principle change in the election outlook was the withdrawal of the candidacy of President Biden after his very shaky performance in the first scheduled debate with Trump in the campaign.  Joe didn't really want to go, as he had convinced himself  that he was the best man for the job, but he failed to convince very many of his fellow Democrats, as well as the major donors to the party and the campaign. His withdrawal came quickly after the debate performance but after most of the Democratic primaries had been held, with virtually no other candidates being allowed on the ballots, so the Democratic Party leadership got together and decided that V.P. Kamala Harris was their candidate.  That decision was announced before the convention, where she would be officially anointed  along with her choice for vice president. 

By late spring it looked fairly certain that Donald Trump would once again be elected.  While that is no longer a given, the result looks slightly more likely to be the opposite, although Democrats are very good at losing elections.  Trump seemed confident of defeating his visibly aging opponent and ridiculing him.  To his dismay, he is now facing a  candidate capable of turning the tables on him, by simply reminding people that Trump is almost as old as Biden and nearly as incoherent. Indeed, should Trump win the election, by the end of his term he will be the oldest US president in history.

Despite the long duration of US electoral campaigns, there is very little discussion of issues by the public, the main stream media, or the candidates.  There is no lack of issues worthy  of debate and in earlier election years I have made my own views on most of them clear.  This year, most of those issues fade into insignificance due to the two issues which are virtually absent from discussion in this campaign.  We are closer than ever to nuclear war which could escalate into a nuclear holocaust making all these discussions irrelevant.  Should we escape that through some rational thinking, which seems to be in short supply right now, we will have to face the devastating consequences of climate change.  This has been discussed a good deal in the past decade or so but in this election year, it has vanished from the agenda.  While we've seen pledges to reduce carbon emissions and to make heating and lighting ever more efficient, the constant push to war and increased military expenditures by the US Empire has more than offset all the efforts made thus far to combat climate change. 

I've mentioned the imminent threat of nuclear war and the effects of climate change as the two issues that make all the others insignificant, but I haven't forgotten the other important elephant in the room.  The new axis of genocide, formed by the US and Israel with the UK and the EU as junior members, shows no signs of going away, at least not due to any US elections.  The US "leadership"  declared its intentions three decades ago to take control of the world through its economic power, backed up by its military might.  The US has roughly 800 military bases spread over three quarters of the countries of the world so it is close to effective control of the planet by now. Ironically, the US government, and I include all three branches, is now controlled by Israel, a small dependency of the United States and the largest recipient of US foreign aid.  

Donald Trump won the election of 2016 in large measure by outpandering Hillary Clinton in her attempt to be Israel's strongest supporter.  We may see a repeat performance.  Genocide has bi-partisan support and US efforts at world hegemony may run into opposition as its alliance with a pariah nation destroys the trust, the good will and good reputation the United States has built over the past eight decades.  

We've seen who Donald Trump is and the damage he can wreak.  The only conceivable positive trait we've seen in him is that he may be less enthusiastic than the current regime about promoting unending war.  We know little about Kamala Harris and how she might handle the decision making in the White House.  She was a candidate for the Democratic candidacy in 2016 and she was a terrible candidate who dropped out early.  So far she's given no indication that she would deviate from the policies of the Biden Administration.  Both candidates fully back the genocide that we're participating in. At the Democratic Convention, Harris announced a new politics of joy.  A little joy may be needed in these dismal times, but at a moment when our country is participating in the most visible genocide in eighty years and we're spending precious resources on the promoting, inciting and escalating of war all over the globe, speaking of the politics of joy appears tone deaf. Hillary Clinton was tone deaf about all the "deplorables" and she lost an election regarded as one she couldn't possibly lose.

We've seen some bizarre reversals of positions in recent years, especially this year.  Whereas the Democratic Party has traditionally been seen as the party of the rights of minorities and of civil rights in general, and the GOP as the party of business interests and of the wealthy, that been reversed to some degree.  The GOP has always tended to have an authoritarian element, and abortion enthusiasts will correctly point to its promotion of restrictions on abortion as evidence of that, but recently, the authoritarian push to limit free speech, promote censorship and illegal surveillance has come from what used to be thought of as the Left, but in reality is the ever more right-wing Democratic Party.  The oligarchs can claim to be Democrats or Republicans but they are much the same in promoting their own interests by investing in both. 

Other radical reversals of associations have been popping up all over.  Robert Kennedy Jr., who has deep family ties to the Democratic Party, after being kept off the ballot in Democratic primaries, and then being kept off state ballots when trying to run as an independent candidate, all by lawfare brought by the Democratic Party, has now joined the Trump campaign where he hopes to have a say in Trump Administration policy.  Similarly, Tulsi Gabbard who was a Democratic Representative from Hawaii, as well as being a member of the Democratic National Committee until she resigned from that ruling body in 2016 in protest of its corrupt and undemocratic procedures, has joined  the Trump campaign, just a year or two after resigning from the Democratic Party. She has been, and remains, among the most vocal critics of Kamala Harris.

Not to be outdone, the Democratic Party has been seeking Republican turncoats who oppose Trump, and there are plenty of them.  That they have abandoned Trump is reasonable but it would be more honorable if they just stayed out of sight and prayed forgiveness for backing him the the first place.  That some popular person who seeks public service in a red state might go along with the local party is understandable, and the same could be said in Democratic states.  However, the recent headliners are Liz Cheney and her father Dick, the Acting President for much of the Little George Bush Administration. While I may obsess about when he and Bush will be brought up on War Crimes charges in an international tribunal, he doesn't usually occupy much of my thoughts. 

However, in recent weeks Liz Cheney has been out campaigning with Kamala Harris and Dick Cheney has announced his support.   Politics can make strange bedfellows and unlikely coalitions are not a new thing but is there anyone whose support Kamala Harris would reject?  I, for one, would not vote for anyone who accepted the support of Dick Cheney.   

Usually I am free with my voting suggestions, which too often involve picking the least awful candidate.  This time is different.  Both major party candidates are totally totally unacceptable.  Most people will vote with the party they identify with.  I usually do that myself.  However, I will not vote for a pro-genocide candidate for president or senator or representative.  After one or two anti-war and peace candidates have been eliminated through bureaucratic maneuvering, there is only one presidential candidate on my ballot who opposes genocide.  Thus, Jill Stein will get my vote again.  Her chances of winning are about the same as my chance of winning a big lottery.  She is running ahead of Kamala Harris in recent polls in a few places in the country where our involvement in genocide is regarded as an issue.  The results of this election will change little or nothing but we can just send a tiny message that the status quo is unacceptable.

Things sometimes change quickly but in June of  2021 I posted a cartoon that commented on the US Empire and its relationship with Israel.  You can see it here.