One would like to think that this next presidential election would be about the general direction of the nation within the traditional structure of our political past with a peaceful transition of power at the end. But this election seems to be about so much more than that, and the political dynamics at play are complex and anything but traditional.
It is not exactly about which political party will end up with the power of the presidency. It is not exactly about what the Constitution has laid out for us. It is not exactly about foreign policy. It is not exactly about domestic policy. It is not exactly about what the courts have ruled or are about to rule. It is not exactly about possible Supreme Court rulings. It is not exactly about age or fragility.
It is clearly not about reducing income inequality. It is not about the plight of the immigrants at our borders. It is not about questioning free-market capitalism. It is not about our proxy wars in Ukraine, in the Middle East and potentially in Taiwan. It is not even about climate change, except the political climate.
It is a muddled mess. It will determine how democracy in this nation will be defined. It will probably show us the dangers and limits of allowing the courts to decide about our political future.
The entire legal process of trying to hold Donald Trump accountable is being shown to be very tenuous, only proving that good lawyers can find ways to extent court actions, perhaps forever. It might show that the entire legal process becomes a moot point if Donald Trump is elected president.
And where is democracy in this entire mess? Mostly, lost in action, or inaction. We have a Congress that is stuck in dysfunction, unless they are giving more to the billionaire class. We have an entire government unable to function to solve immediate problems. We continue with our forever wars, pouring money into foreign adventures while ignoring festering problems at home. We, in effect, have a world-wide network of military bases that might rival the British Empire or even the Roman Empire at their peaks. We have growing income inequality. We mostly give lip-service to environmental issues.
Our foreign policy seems to be coming from our military and economic centers. We have an administration that is not only complicit, but also blatantly supportive of what appears to be a genocide by Israel within Gaza. Gaza which had been for years more like an Israeli prison camp than anything resembling a nation. This administration goes so far as to prevent international intervention through the UN. It even is busy defunding UNRWA, one of the last organizations capable of providing humanitarian relief in Gaza. The Biden administration is also very busy quelling any dissent in this nation and in the Middle East. And all of this is being done without any debate of the issues or of our national direction.
Although it is hard to see this nation as something resembling a dictatorship, it is also hard to see our democracy being defined by a disregard for humanitarian concerns.
Biden, perhaps, finds himself in a quandary, if he does not support Israeli policy in Gaza, he risks losing the support of AIPAC and its incredible political clout in US politics, especially electoral politics; if he does continue his support of Israeli policy in Gaza, he may well lose the support of enough voters to jeopardize his chances of reelection. The other element of this calculus is the incredible price the US is paying in its standing in world opinion. I might also add that AIPAC is more concerned about support of Israel than in saving US democracy. Its financial support will be there for whichever candidate wins and is willing to support Israeli policies.
No good choices. No clear choices. The two parties, Republican and Democrat, have recently morphed into nearly unrecognizable forms: the Republican Party now being the Party of Donald Trump and the Democratic Party serving a nearly unrecognizable form of democracy. Both parties seem to have lost their way, serving very selective bases in their search for dominance and power, and resulting in a nation split over dominance and power.
After the 2016 election of Trump, I wrote an editorial titled, “The Party’s Over”, about the irrelevance of the two political parties as they defined themselves in the modern world. Both of those parties continue to double-down on their quest for power and dominance, perhaps at any cost, and the result being a stalemate with a dysfunctional government, and the people of the nation left to wander in the wilderness without any real leadership from the top.
Will we find a solution to this quagmire in time to save the 2024 election or will we simply let it all play out, accepting whatever results occur?
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One thing is for sure, the 2024 election is not about preserving the prestige and "indispensability" of the USA as a model for constitutional democracies everywhere. That was lost with the election of Trump in 2016 ... and with the debacle that followed. Having the world's largest military is no substitute for having a well-educated, well-informed, engaged citizenry!