Saving the US, then the World

Where the fault lies

There seems to be no end to the US inevitable drift towards another bitterly divisive 2024 Presidential Election. This writer’s opinion is unashamedly pro-democrat, with a small ‘d’, and, unsurprisingly, the Democrats best represent the spirit of democracy and constitutionalism. You don’t have to agree with everything they do or stand for, but they are the best bulwark against authoritarianism that’s present in the USA. The country has both changed and not changed so much since the Obama presidency. ‘Red’ America has been to ready to accept Trump or Trumpism, not willing enough to reflect on the monster they’ve unleashed, ignoring the consequences of their electoral choice. Many will say they’re voting against ‘woke’ or ‘cancel culture’; give this writer the excesses of those two cultural trends over the quasi-fascism of the last president any day. The myth of an all-powerful ‘anti-fa’ is precisely that; the threat of US domestic white-supremacist terrorism is all-to-real.

You’d have to be wearing either the strongest of blinkers or be a true believer after the January riots to believe anything other than that Trump is an enormous ‘red flag’ danger to American democracy. Yet, the House of Representatives investigation will be stymied and ignored by GOP politicians and voters who are too scared or opportunistic to acknowledge the character of the man they support. The phrase that there’s no surprise with him as he always tells you who he is comes to mind. There’s no disguise there. He is a proto-authoritarian, and, with his support for Marine Le Pen and other extreme right-wingers, showed himself to be a neo-fascist. But still his supporters stick to the man like glue. There have been straws in the wind to suggest his influence may be waning, however there’s no sign that should he choose to run in 2024, he wouldn’t walk the Republican nomination. There’s no guarantee that with the help of the Russians and organized gerrymandering from newly elected Trumpian state officials, he wouldn’t win. The 2016 GOP nomination process can happen all over again for him, but this time, he’d reach the end-line even quicker.

America is still being forged. It has the chance to veer towards European social democracy should more educated and younger voters take it that way. Yet, there’s still the unresolved tensions of the Civil War, a metaphorical ‘South’ that never really accepted the Union’s victory. To paraphrase James Joyce, history is a nightmare from which the US is trying to awake.  It’s still there, 160 years later, there in the racism that’s been given license during 45’s presidential term, and there in the anti-constitutional strain of American politics that’s happy to head to authoritarianism. Biden is far from perfect, but he is the best stay on fascism that America’s got at the moment. His innate decency stands as a contrast to his predecessor. The line needs to hold, as God help the United States of America should there be another Trump presidency. Hyperbole in politics is par for the course, a win for a Trumpist in 2024 would be an utter catastrophe though.

Earth on the brink?

Politics will ultimately mean nothing if life on Earth itself becomes so unmanageable that we’re on the road to destruction. The upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) offers us, that is humanity, another last chance of trying to stay global warming to a level that allows a lot of what we take for granted. If we fail at this stage, and the temperature rises above the 3 degree level, then we will have fallen further behind, and we are getting less-and-less time to address what should be the issue that unites us all. This shouldn’t be a left or right issue; it’s about collective self-interest in trying to come to a win-win solution that benefits all of us. Sadly, the history of diplomacy is only good enough till things break down, and the co-operation of great powers is rarely forthcoming when it appears one side will lose competitive advantage.  Capitalism, State Croneyism, and Communist make unlikely bedfellows; such is the combination of countries that could stymie and meaningful resolution.

Yet there are reasons for hope. The fact that there’s a meeting at all and that every government recognizes that this is a real issue, not fake news, means that there are grounds for optimism. If Covid 19 has taught us anything, it’s that we are a small world, inter-connected at every level, and that human life is far more precarious than most of us thought it was. We can fix this, but it will mean real changes to how we live our lives. New technology will come, but we can’t wait for it. We are on the brink, yet we can pull back from it. We can save this Pale Blue Dot for humanity if we really try.