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Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Speaking of Which: Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Harris vs. Trump
Note: This piece is also cross-posted at
Notes on Everyday Life. I originally posted it there first, in
hopes of generating some preliminary discussion. If keeping them in
sync proves difficult, this one should probably be authoritative.
Two questions need to be addressed before we get down to detailed
arguments. The first is why vote at all? I'd say first, because it
is your right as a citizen, but must be secured by your exercise of
it. People in America may have a very limited say in how the country
is organized and run, but you do have the vote, and using it shows
your willingness to engage in the responsibility for setting the
nation's direction.
The second question is whether you should limit your vote choice
to the two major political parties, or consider voting for a third
party should you prefer that candidate's platform? History shows us
that America gravitated into a two-party system almost immediately
after the Constitution was ratified, and quickly returned to a two
party system on the two instances where one major party disbanded
(replacing the Federalists with the Whigs, and replacing the Whigs
with the Republicans). No subsequent third party has been able to
sustain significant followings, with third-party votes often
dropping to under 5% in recent elections.
So from a practical standpoint, third parties are ineffective
and unpromising.One might nonetheless consider voting for a third
party candidate if: neither major party nominated a candidate you
can stand, and there is no significant difference between the two
candidates that can direct your choice. I can understand if you
feel that both Trump and Harris should be shunned for their rote
support of Israeli genocide, although I suspect that even there
the nature of their positions differs enough to favor a vote for
Harris.
One other possible consideration is whether one party offers a
better chance for future improvement, based on the composition of
the party, how open-minded its members are, and how democratic its
processes are. The current two-party system is quite possibly the
most polarized ever, which has led most people to select one party
or the other. Moreover, both major parties have primaries that are
open to all members, and as such are amenable to reform. If, like
me, you are primarily concerned with "left" issues of peace and
equal rights, you may have noticed that most of the people most
likely to agree with you are currently Democrats. If your goal is
to build a majority around your ideals, you need to establish a
bond of solidarity with the Democrats, which often means voting
for a candidate you don't totally agree with. You are, after all,
hoping that other Democrats, even ones that disagree with you,
will vote for your candidate should that person win a primary.
The last third party candidate I voted for was Ralph Nader in
2000. I don't feel bad about that vote, especially as I'm convinced
that the Gore-Lieberman ticket would have been as gung-ho starting
the "war on terror" after 9/11 as Bush-Cheney was. But I did learn
one lesson from that election, which is that even in Kansas, where
the Gore campaign was practically non-existent, 90% of the anti-Bush
votes cast went to the Democrat. Since then, I vowed to work within
the Democratic Party, such as it as, as best I could. (I did lapse
once since, to vote against a particular Democrat I've hated what
seems like all of my life, but there I went with the Republican, as
I really wanted that Democrat to lose.)
Having narrowed the choice down to Harris vs. Trump, arguments
that one candidate is better and/or one candidate is worse are
equally valid. This being American politics, "one candidate is
worse" arguments predominate. Lest you imagine there might be any
suspense here, Harris is the better option, while Trump is much
the worse.
And while the future is impossible to predict, the margins
overwhelm any imaginable uncertainty. Trump is especially known,
as we've actually experienced him as President. This doesn't
mean a second term will be just like his first: it could easily
be worse, for reasons we'll get into. Harris is harder to read.
Although she has much relevant experience, presidency offers
powers and temptations that she's never faced before, as well
as situations she's never had to deal with. This raises doubts,
which I will deal with in a separate list, following the "top
ten."
So, here are my top ten reasons to vote for Harris vs. Trump:
Donald Trump is a truly odious human being.
That's a personal, not a political judgment: sure, virtually all
of his political views stink, but most of the people who share
his political views have personal traits one can relate to,
respect, even appreciate. As far as I can tell -- and while
I only know what's been reported, I've been exposed to a lot
of that -- he has none. He seems totally miserable. If he's
ever laughed, it's been at someone else's expense. He lacks
even the slightest pretense of caring for anyone, even for
his wives or children (the prenups should have been a clue).
He's not unique in this regard, but most similar people are
easily ignored. The only way to free ourselves from Trump's
ever-present unpleasantness is to vote him off (like in the
"reality TV" shows he's a creature of).
Harris, on the other hand, can listen, and respond appropriately.
She has a generous and infectious laugh. And while I've never seen
her cry, she is at least cognizant of situations that call for a
show of concern and empathy. I don't particularly like the idea of
president as "handholder-in-chief," but it's better to have someone
who can feign that than someone who utterly cannot. Such personal failings drive most people to
despair, which at least could be pitied, but Trump's inherited
wealth has provided him with an armor of callousness, which has
long elicited the warm glow of supplicants and sycophants. From
this, he has constructed his own mental universe where he is
adored and exalted. This has produced extraordinary hubris --
another of his distasteful traits -- but more importantly, his
narcissism has left him singularly unprepared to deal with reality
when it so rudely intrudes on his fantasy life (as happens all too
often when you're President).
I should note here that the collective embarrassment we so often
felt when witnessing Trump's failed attempts at addressing events
has dulled somewhat since he left office (need I remind you of
Hurricane Maria? -- just one of dozens of examples, ranging from
his staring into the eclipse to the pandemic). The only things that
have affected him that way since have been his indictments, but even
there he's been sheltered like no one else ever. There is no reason
to think that Harris wouldn't respond to events at least as well as
a normal politician, which is to say, by showing palpable concern
and deliberation. Trump's disconnect from reality is unprecedented.
(Good place to mention his election denialism.) There is some debate as to whether Trump's wealth
is real, but even as it seems, that should be reason enough to disqualify
him. Only a few Presidents have come from the ranks of the rich, and
those who did -- like Washington, Kennedy, and the Roosevelts -- took
pains to distance themselves from their business interests. Back in
2016, Trump suggested he would give up his business ties, insisting
that his wealth made him more independent of corrupt influences, but
after he won, he backtracked completely, and ran an administration
that was outrageously corrupt -- especially at the top, where his
son-in-law's diplomacy netted him a billion-dollar private equity
fund, but his administration hired lobbyists to peddle influence
everywhere. One might argue that Trump's business was so large that
he couldn't possibly disentangle himself, but that's just part of
the reason why people like him shouldn't be allowed in politics.
Their inability to relate to ordinary Americans is another. Aside from his abuse of executive power to staff
government with corporate agents, pack with courts with right-wing
cronies, and pardon numerous criminals in his circle, his record
for delivering on his 2016 campaign promises is remarkably thin: he
lost interest in things that might have been popular (like building
infrastructure, or "draining the swamp"). He also lucked out, when
a couple Republican defections saved the ACA, and then when Democrats
took Congress back in 2018. The only positive bill he signed was the
pandemic relief act, which he wanted desperately to save a flagging
stock market, but had to accept a mostly Democratic bill that helped
pretty much everyone.
Also, the full impact of many policies can take years before it
is felt. The repeal of Taft-Hartley in 1947 took decades before it
started to do serious damage to unions and workers (although it had
the immediate impact of ending a campaign to unionize in the South,
which would have been a big advance for civil rights). Deregulation
of savings & loans in the 1980s and larger banks in the 1990s
took most of a decade before triggering recessions. Much of what
Trump did during his term didn't blow up until after the 2020
election, including his killing of the Iran nuclear deal, his
agreement to give Afghanistan to the Taliban, and his Supreme
Court's overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Harris's ability to deliver on campaign promises will, as Biden's
has, depend much on the balance of power in Congress, but at least
Democrats have a track record of trying to pass laws to help most
Americans, and not just those favored by Republicans with their tax
and benefit cuts. Harris will be further hampered by the Republican
packing of the courts, but that's one reason why it matters not just
that Democrats win elections, but win big. On the other hand, if Trump were more dedicated
in pursuit of the policy positions he espouses, or if he's just given
more power by a Republican Congress, he could (and probably would)
do much more harm in a second term, way beyond the still not fully
accounted for harm of his first. For starters, he has a much more
developed idea of what he wants to do -- not because he understands
policy any better, but because he has more specific goals in areas
that especially interest him -- and will hire more loyal operatives,
eager to carry out his wishes. This will be easier, because he's
already bent the party to his will, especially promoting its most
crazed cadres, while he himself has become further radicalized.
Moreover, he now has a long list of enemies to punish, while his
minions will be free to pursue their own grafts and obsessions.
We've already seen how he's turned the presidency into a cult of
personality. Give him more power -- not just in Congress but the
Supreme Court is ready to enshrine the "unitary executive theory" --
and he will only grow more monstrous. Donald Trump is a shit stain on the face of America.
They say that wealth is power, and that power corrupts, absolute
power absolutely. America emerged from WWII with half of the world's
wealth, with troops spread to Europe and East Asia, and corporations
everywhere. America has been "breaking bad" ever since, starting in
the 1940s rigging elections in Italy, fighting communists in Greece
and Korea, overthrowing democratic governments in Guatemala and Iran,
replacing them with corporate-friendly autocrats. Still, even Reagan
expected good guys in white hats to win out, so he pretended to be
one, while the Bushes hid their conservatism behind fake compassion.
Trump is the first US president to give up all pretense. His fans
may mistake his contempt for candor, but the result is a much more
brutal world. He demands tribute from allies, lest they fall into
the ranks of enemies, who are expected to cower when faced with
overwhelming American might, and face escalating threats when they
refuse to fall in line. His is a recipe for neverending war, as
we've already seen with Russia and Iran, with Korea and China
waiting for the next break.
Nor are we only talking about foreign policy. The conservative
solution to domestic matters is also to rely on force, starting
with mass incarceration, eroding/stripping rights, smashing unions,
purging the civil service, quelling demonstrations, stifling free
speech, book bans, censoring the press, turning education into
indoctrination, rigging elections, even going so far as to incite
mobs and promise them immunity. While these impulses have long
been endemic to Republicans, Trump is unique in he wants you to
see and smell the feces, and that seems to be the basis for his
popularity among his hardcore constituency. This, with its embrace
of sheer power and rampant criminality, is what's so reminiscent
of the fascist movements of the 1930s. Still, as bad as Trump is personally, the real
danger is that his election will bring a tidal wave of Republicans
into power all throughout the federal and local governments they
have pledged to debilitate and reduce, as Grover Norquist put it,
"to the size where I can drown it in the bathtub." (The less often
discussed ancillary idea is to hack off functions done by government
and give them away to the private sector. This almost never works.
When attempted, it almost always makes the functions more expensive
and/or less useful.) This is just one of
many deranged and dysfunctional ideas prevalent in the Republican
Party. Like most of their ideas, it's appealing as rhetoric, but
unworkable in practice. Republicans have repeatedly tried to reduce
government spending by cutting taxes on their donor class, but have
found little to actually cut -- even when they had the power to
write budgets -- so all they've produced is greater deficits, and
an inflated oligarchy.
They've had more luck at poisoning benefits, trying to make
government appear to be worthless. The idea is to convince voters
that voting is hopeless, because government will only take from
them, and never give back. The idea that the purpose of government
is to "provide for the general welfare" (that's in the Preamble to
the US Constitution) is inimical to them. The idea of "government
of, by, and for the people" (that's in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address)
is alien to those who hate most American people. Republicans created
a death spiral of democracy, which they hope will leave them in
permanent power, not to serve the public, but to prevent people
from using government for their own improvement.
Trump has added his own authoritarian quirks to the Republican
agenda, but the big risk to democracy has always come from money,
which Republicans have made sure selects candidates and drives
elections. Trump is less a cause of oligarchy than evidence of
how far it has progressed. Two important concepts in economics are externality
(public costs that are not factored into product costs, such as
pollution) and opportunity costs (other things that we could spend
money on if we weren't preoccupied with given expenses). Republicans,
driven exclusively by their desire to help the rich get richer in the
here and now, and blind to the future, have no interest in these
concepts. Democrats are subject to the same donor pressures, but at
least recognize that such side effects are real and important. This
is because they try to recognize and balance everyone's welfare, and
not just that of their donors and voters.
Climate change is a good example of both: it is largely caused by
the waste products of fossil fuels, and can only be remedied by major
investment sooner rather than later. But people only see what gasoline
costs when they fill up, while the climate change they're contributing
to only manifests later, and mostly to other people. This gives them
little reason to spend now to avert future costs, so they don't.
Even as climate change has become a very tangible problem, Trump and
the Republicans have wrapped themselves ever deeper into a cocoon of
denial and ignorance, which ensures that as long as they're in power
we will never invest what we need to in sustainable infrastructure.
While a second Trump term could do a lot of immediate damage, its
long-term cost will largely be opportunity costs, as we belatedly
realize we didn't invest what we should have when it would have been
more effective. It's impossible to overstate how completely Donald
Trump has taken over and perverted our culture, what philosophers
call our noosphere -- the mental universe, our ability to reason.
This may seem paradoxical given that few people on Earth are as
disengaged from and contemptuous of reason as Donald Trump, but
that may well be the source of his power. He has effectively given
his followers permission to disengage from other people, to eschew
reason and argument and indulge their own prejudices and fantasies,
because that's what he does, and he's so fabulously successful.
Moreover, it has the added benefit of driving crazy all those who
still worry about real problems (both their own and those of other
people), which they expect to deal with through science and reason.
(Such people often project their own mania back onto the Trumpers,
and reckon them to be saddled with problems, when they actually
seem to be quite blissfully serene in their obliviousness and/or
ignorance.)
Political scientists have a concept known as the Overton window,
which describes "the range of policies politically acceptable to
the mainstream population at a given time." Ideas outside the window
are dismissed as radical or even unthinkable, making it very hard to
get any sort of coverage, as the media limits itself to more widely
acceptable ideas. Events may push some ideas into the mainstream,
while discarding others. For instance, there was a time when eugenics
was all the rage, but no more. Climate change has become increasingly
mainstream, although there are still political interests out to kill
any such discussion. A big part of politics is fighting over what we
can and cannot talk about. What Trump has done has been to expand
the Overton window to the far right, legitimizing clusters of issues
that were previously regarded as baseless (like QAnon, antivax claims,
election denial). Perhaps the most disturbing of all has been Trump's
own criminal enterprises. These subjects, which at best distract from
real problems and often create more, would only grow under a second
Trump term.
I have no doubt that the bad policies advanced by Trump will blow
up and wind up discredited, but at a great waste of effort to stop
them, and a huge opportunity cost as we ignore constructive ideas
from the left. Even where Harris does not have good programs, which
certainly includes her continued fealty to Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden
(and Cheney?) foreign policy, her election would provide a much
healthier window for debate than what we'd be stuck with under
Trump. It's time to turn the page on Trump and the era of
Fox Republicanism. Cloture on Trump is easy to imagine, as he's way
past his prime, increasingly doddering at 78, unlikely to ever run
again. Vote him out, and that's one problem America will never have
to deal with again. Not only would it give us a chance to heal, to
move on, to deal with our self-protracted problems, but it could be
the kindest result for Trump and even for his Party. Trump could cut
his plea deals and escape most of the legal jeopardy he's landed in.
The Party could finally recalculate, trying to find a way to compete
in the real world instead of trying to scam the rhetorical madness
that Fox created to profit from fear and rage. Moreover, by cutting
their losses, they'd escape much of the blame for the disasters their
preferred policies would inevitably lead to. Progress is inexorable,
so those who would resist it only have two choices: bend or break.
The Republicans' forty-year (1980-2020) era has done much damage to
the social and economic fabric of the nation. Some things have broken,
and many more are creaking. We might survive four more years of Trump,
but time is running out. And when things do break under Trump, beware
that no one will be more ill-prepared and incompetent at dealing with
them.
On the other hand, Harris, like most Democrats (even the nominally
left-wing of the party), doesn't represent visionary change, but she
is perceptive, analytical, and pragmatic, which suggests that she will
adapt to changing circumstances, and endeavor to make the best out of
them. She will be sorely tested by the influence of wealthy lobbyists,
by the superficial and sensationalist press, by the still powerful
remains of Republican power -- which while incapable of governing
competently let alone responsibly, is still a formidable machine for
amplifying grievances -- and by new challenges we haven't even been
able to think of yet (so mired are we in the ruins of bad Republican
politics, from Nixon and Reagan through the Bushes to their ultimate
self-parody in Trump, tempered ever so slightly by interim Democrats
who never got beyond patchwork repairs).
Of course, one can think of many more reasons, especially if you
tried to work from policies outward. I may do a separate document
where I read through Trump's "Agenda 47" and comment line-by-line.
Presumably there's a comparable Harris document somewhere, which
could also be scrutinized. From them, I might be able to come up
with a scorecard, but there's no chance of a different result. As
it is, I've concentrated less on issues and more on personalities
and political dynamics: Trump is at best muddled on issues, but
his shortcomings as noted are extremely clear.
Harris, as I noted, is harder to read, especially because for
tactical campaign purposes she has adopted a set of views that aim
to win over not just undecided/centrist voters but any Republicans
that Trump hasn't totally stripped of their decency yet. She's had
some success at that, although it remains to be seen how many actual
votes follow her celebrity endorsements. At this point, I don't see
any point in second-guessing her campaign strategy. Presumably she
has researched the electorate and knows much better than I do just
how to pitch them. If she loses, we'll have a field day dissecting
her mistakes -- which, for all the reasons mentioned above and many
more, may be the only fun we can have in the next four years.
But for now, let's assume she wins, and she runs her administration
along lines it is reasonable to expect. In that case, the left will
still have work to do and things to protest. So here are my:
Top 5 Reasons Electing Harris Won't Solve Our Problems
I ran across this synopsis recently: "There are converging
political, economic, and ecological crises, and yet our politics
is dominated by either business as usual or nostalgia for a
mythical past." Harris represents the party of "business as
usual," where "change" is acknowledged as inevitable, but is
guarded so as not to upset the status quo -- which may include
reforms to make it more tolerable, as not doing so would risk
more disruptive change.
While it didn't occur to me in listing the "top ten reasons"
above, one more strong reason is that Trump's "nostalgia for a
mythical past" -- the once-great America he aims to restore and
protect -- is not just incoherent but impossible, so much so that
his efforts to force the world back into his ideal alignment are
more likely to break it than to fix anything. Reducing America
to his chosen few would breed chaos and resentment, and collapse
the economy, destroying the wealth he meant to protect. Moreover,
his instinct to use force would only compound the damage.
It is ironic that while most of us on the left have grown wary
of revolution, many on the right, perhaps due to their embrace of
violence, have been seduced by the notion that might makes right.
If conservatism means wishing to keep things as they are, it is
the Democrats who are the true conservatives, while Republicans
have turned into flaming radicals, with Trump emerging as their
leader given his flamboyance and utter disregard for conventional
political thinking. As with the fascist movements of the 1930s,
many people are enthralled by this radicalism. Why such movements
have always failed, sometimes spectacularly, has yet to sink in --
although the connection does at long last seem to be entering the
mainstream media.
Democrats are still uncomfortable being the party of the status
quo. Many are nostalgic for the days when Republicans filled that
role, providing foils against which they could propose their modest
reforms -- which they've long needed to attract struggling voters.
The problem that Harris faces in 2024 is that the Trumpian romance
of reactionary revolution has become so attractive -- the backdrop
is the unprecedented extension of inequality over the last fifty
years, which has left most people feeling left behind -- and so
terrifying that she's fallen into the trap of defending the status
quo, making her seem insensitive to the real problems that we look
to candidates to help solve. Trump at least has answers to all the
problems -- wrong ones, but many people don't understand the details,
they're just attraction to his show of conviction, while they note
that Harris seems wary of pushing even the weak reforms popular in
her party.
She's banking on the status quo to save America from Trump and
the Republicans. If she wins her bet, she will win the election.
But then she'll have to face the more difficult task of governing,
where her limits could be her undoing. These five questions loom
large on the post-election agenda:
Perhaps most immediately, US foreign policy needs
a total rethink. US foreign policy took a radical turn shortly after
WWII, renouncing the "isolationist" past and assuming a militarily
as well as an economically interventionist stance. This was partly
a matter of filling the vacuum left by the war's global destruction,
and partly ambition. Beyond the battlefields, Europe's colonial
empires had become untenable, opening the door for businesses as
the hidden powers behind local rulers. As the alternatives were
communist-leaning national liberation movement, this soon turned
into the Cold War -- which was great news for the arms industry,
which along with oil and finance became a pillar of American
foreign policy. When the cold war receded, neocons came up with
more rationales for more conflicts, to keep their graft going.
Efforts at building international institutions (like the UN)
increasingly gave way to unilateral dictates: America First,
before Trump, who basically thinks of foreign policy as some
kind of protection racket, latched onto the term. There hadn't
been significant partisan differences in foreign policy since
the advent of the Cold War: all the Democrats who followed
Republican hawks (Reagan, the Bushes, even Trump in his own
peculiar way) did was to normalize their aggressiveness. Thus
Biden reaffirmed his support for Ukraine and Israel, as well as
his opposition to Russia, China, and the usual suspects in the
Middle East, which has (so far) blown up into two catastrophic
wars, while at the same time the US has made sure that world
organizations (like the UN) are powerless to intervene.
Harris seems to be fully on board with this: not only does
she support the current wars, she has gone out of her way to
ostracize so-called autocrats -- not the ones counted as allies
because they buy American arms but the others, the ones who make
their own (or buy from each other). This conventional thinking,
based on the notion that force projection (and sanctions) can
and will dictate terms for resolving conflicts, has a very poor
track record: it polarizes and militarizes conflicts, stokes
resentments, stimulates asymmetric responses (like terrorism),
while driving its targets into each others' clutches. Meanwhile,
the reputation the US once had for fairness is in tatters.
A new foreign policy needs first of all to prioritize peace,
cooperation, and equitable economic development. It should also,
where possible, favor social justice (albeit not through force,
which is more likely to make matters worse). Restricting immigration is the one issue where
neo-fascist politicians seem to be gaining significant popular
support, in Europe as well as the US. Harris has chosen to lean
into the issue rather than oppose the Republicans, as had Biden
and Obama before her, not that any of their harsh enforcement
efforts have gotten any cooperation or compromise from Republicans,
who would rather milk this as a grievance issue than treat it as
a practical issue. Part of the problem here is that while many
voters will support Republicans just to vent rage, other voters
expect results from Democrats, and no matter what results they
hoped for, few are satisfied. The issue is complex and messy,
and Congress is unable or unwilling to pass any legislation to
help clear the mess. Which makes this an issue that will haunt
Harris indefinitely, no matter what she tries to do.
Personally, this is an issue I care little about either way.
What concerns me more is that the system be seen as fair and
just, that it is neither exploitative of immigrants nor that
it hurts the domestic labor market. I could see arguments for
limiting or for expanding immigration numbers. I do think that
the current backlog of non-documented immigrants needs to be
cleared up, which could involve clearing the path toward
naturalization and/or paying them to leave, but it needs to be
done in an orderly and humane manner, with clear rules and due
process. I've generally opposed "guest worker" programs (like
the one Bush tried to push through), but could see issuing green
cards as a stopgap measure. Harris will find it difficult to
navigate through this maze, but what would help is having some
clear principles about how citizenship should work -- as opposed
to just responding to Republican demagoguery.
I should also note that the biggest determinant of immigration
is foreign policy. Most people emigrate because they are dislodged
by war or ecological and/or economic distress, and those are things
that American foreign policy as presently practiced exacerbates.
Policies that resolve (or better still, prevent) conflicts, that
limit climate change, and/or that extend economic opportunities
would significantly reduce the pressures driving emigration. Democrats under Biden made the first serious
legislative effort at addressing climate change ever, but the
structure of American politics makes it much easier to promote
the development of new technologies and products than it is to
do things like changing habits of fossil fuel use. Democrats
are so wedded to the idea of economic growth as the panacea
for all problems that they can't conceive of better lives lived
differently. How one can ever get to zero emissions isn't on
any agenda. Meanwhile, Republicans keep digging themselves ever
deeper into their tunnel of ignorance, so they have nothing to
offer but obstruction.
While prevention seems to be too much to ask of any Democratic
politician, they do still have a big advantage on disaster care.
Reagan's joke -- "The nine most terrifying words in the English
language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" --
is easily disproven every hurricane season, yet remains as sacred
dogma. Given that climate change has already happened, and is
playing out in cycles of increasingly uninsurable "natural"
disasters, it becomes imperative to elect a government that
cares about such problems, and regards it as its duty to help
people out. Harris will be tested on this, repeatedly.
Meanwhile, if you want to try out nine really terrifying
words, try these: "I'm a Republican, and Donald Trump is my
President." There is one political issue that close to 90%
of all Americans could agree on, but it has no leadership and
little support in either major party, and that is the thoroughly
corrupt influence of money on politics. The situation has always
been bad, but got much worse in 2010 when the Supreme Court ruled
in favor of unlimited corporate spending in Citizens United v. FEC.
Obama spoke out against the ruling, but did nothing to overturn it.
Rather, he easily outraised his opponents in 2008 and 2012, winning
twice. Biden and Harris have also raised much more money than Trump,
so while Republicans are the most steadfast supporters of campaign
graft, top Democrats also benefit from the system -- especially
against their real competition, which is other Democrats, who
might be tempted to campaign on issues that appeal to voters, as
opposed to having to spend all their time catering to the whims
of rich donors. The 2024 presidential election is by far the most
ridiculously expensive in history, which also makes it the most
tainted by special interests and their peculiar obsessions (like
Israel, which has kept both candidates from expressing any concern
about ongoing genocide). Breaking this mold is a golden opportunity
for some aspiring politician. Harris can't do it while she's still
campaigning, but it's not only wasteful, it diminishes trust in
everyone involved, and as such discredits the whole system. The worst offenders, of course, are the billionaires,
many of whom -- starting with Elon Musk, the kind of immigrant that
even Trump can love -- has been especially conspicuous this year.
They are the beneficiaries of a wide range of laws and breaks that
allow a tiny number of individuals to accumulate obscene amounts
of wealth. And they use that wealth to steer government away from
any notion of public interest, to do their own bidding, and to
indulge their own fantasies. This extraordinary inequality -- far
beyond the historic highs of the Gilded Age and the Roaring '20s
(both, you may recall, ill-fated bubbles) -- is the single biggest
problem facing the world today. It may seem hypothetical, but it
lies beneath so many other problems, starting with the dysfunction
of government and politics, which is largely influenced by the
distortions of wealth. It extends worldwide, with inequality of
nations mirroring the inequality of individuals.
The problem with inequality isn't that some people have a bit
more than others. It's that such wide variations corrupt and
pervert justice. It's often hard to say just what justice is,
but it's much easier to identify injustice when you see it. In
highly stratified societies, such as ours, you see injustice
everywhere. It eats at our ability to trust institutions and
people. It diminishes our expectation of fair treatment and
opportunity. It raises questions about cooperation and even
generosity. It makes us paranoid. And once lost, trust and
security is all that much harder to restore.
There is no simple answer here. It needs to be dealt with
piecemeal, one step at a time, each and every day. It helps
to reduce gross inequality (which can be done by taxation).
It helps to reduce sources of inequality (which can be done
by regulation of business, by limiting rents, by promoting
countervailing powers, like unions). It also helps to reduce
the impact of inequality (which can be done by raising basic
support levels, by removing prices from services, by ending
means testing, by providing universal insurance, and when no
better solution is possible, by rationing). I don't expect
any politician, especially one who has proven successful in
the current system of extraordinary inequality, to go far
along these lines, but most people are at least aware of the
problem, and many proposals for small improvements are in
common discourse. Even if Harris doesn't rise to the occasion,
we should work to make sure her successors do.
While I think that Harris comes up short on all five of these
really important points, they in no way argue for Donald Trump,
even as a "lesser evil." He personifies modern inequality, Back
in 2016, he tried arguing that his wealth would allow him to run
a truly independent campaign, but that was just another lie. No
one in recent memory has been more obvious about selling favors
for financing. He is a climate change denier, and has shown
nothing but contempt for the victims of natural disasters. His
signature issue is his hatred of immigrants (excepting, presumably,
two wives and his sugar daddy, Elon Musk), where he puts even more
emphasis on performative cruelty than on effectiveness.
His take on foreign policy is slightly more . . . well, "nuanced"
isn't exactly right, more like "befuddled." It's hard to make a
credible case that he's anti-war when he puts such emphasis on what
a tough guy he is, on how no opponent would dare challenge him.
He has shown remarkably poor judgment in defense staffing, which
is only likely to get worse now that two of his former generals
have called him a fascist. He has no dealmaking skills, nor would
he hire someone who could negotiate (any such person would be
dismissed as a wuss). His "America First" schemes are designed
to strain alliances, and are more likely to break than not. He
delayed his deal to get out of Afghanistan so Biden would get
the blame. His handling of Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Iran-Saudi
Arabia directly contributed to the outbreak of war and genocide.
As I said, foreign policy needs a complete rethink. He's already
failed on several counts, starting with the need to think.
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