JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MEANING AND CONSQUENCES OF AMERICA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION – WHY IT IS MEANINGLESS ON MANY LEVELS – WHAT DEFINES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PARTIES – BOTH ARE WAR PARTIES - THE LACK OF EMPATHY IN AMERICA ABOUT OTHERS – AMERICA’S HISTORICAL SUCCESS IN CONQUEST COMPARED TO NAPOLEON’S FRANCE OR HITLER’S GERMANY EXPLAINED – DOMESTIC POLICY IN AMERICA – AN EMPTY KIND OF POLITICS AND A THREADBARE DEMOCRACY – INTENSITY AND ENTHUSIASM AND BIG EXPENCES OVER NOT MUCH – TRUMP’S LANGUAGE OF THE ALT-RIGHT, THE LANGUAGE OF THE GUTTER – ME, MINE, AND FUCK YOU – LITTLE DIFFERENCE IN CHARACTER BETWEEN BIDEN AND TRUMP – SOME GAIN ON THE PERSONALITY LEVEL WITH BIDEN OVER TRUMP – AMERICANS GET TO CHOOSE A FULL BOWL OF SHIT (TRUMP) OR A HALF BOWL OF SHIT (BIDEN)

John Chuckman

COMMENT – SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS ABOUT THE AMERICAN ELECTION, ITS MEANING AND CONSEQUENCES


On many levels, no matter what partisans may earnestly insist, the American election is close to meaningless.

On the level of American foreign policy, something which perhaps would be better called American global belligerence, virtually nothing will change – both parties, Republicans and Democrats, being dedicated war parties. Virtually all of the money required to run the two large political organizations comes from the same kind of sources, the sources which gain through empire and the brutal institutions required to keep it going.

There is nothing new about that fact. There is only many Americans’ scattered understanding of it. Democratic Presidents – Truman, Johnson, Clinton, Obama – are fully responsible for more than half the horrific slaughter America has inflicted upon the world since WWII. Note that the big exception was Kennedy, who actually tried to do something quite forceful against entrenched interests, and we all know how he ended up. See:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/

Biden might change a few details of Trump’s policies, but, judging by his own words, no one should expect much. God, the man actually accused Trump of being too soft on destroying the elected government of Venezuela. Of course, Biden has a long record of embracing coups and wars and incursions, and he even participated in some of the activity, as in Ukraine – in other words, a long record of hurting other people and working towards destroying their homes and institutions just for the pleasure and benefit of America’s ruling establishment. It is nothing of which to be proud and offers little promise for the future.

Of course, I tend to emphasize foreign policy, both because it affects more than seven billion people in the world and because I do not live in the United States. People who do live in the United States put great emphasis on domestic policy. Indeed, they tend to ignore foreign policy with an attitude that it doesn’t affect them.

There is, and always has been, a definite lack of empathy in the United States for other people. Many Americans just cannot help themselves believing that the United States is the only part of the world worth being concerned with. They are of course baptized from birth with the viewpoint in the press and from their politicians, both creatures of the ruling establishment. The rather selfish and hedonistic nature of a great deal of American culture contributes to the result too. And of course, the entire history of the United States is just one long march for dominance.

The United States has been far more successful than states like Napoleon’s France or Hitler’s Germany only because for much of its epoch, it faced weak and easily-defeated opponents – as, Indigenous people, Mexico, Hawaiians, and a decrepit Spanish empire. Today, as it works on a global level, that has changed with it making opponents of China and Russia and effectively serving as a catalyst for new Eurasian alliances and arrangements.

It is domestic policy that distinguishes the two parties. Democrats speak kindly about some social measures that will never be enacted because the empire cannot truly afford them, while Republicans speak kindly of keeping government out of citizens’ affairs, except where national security is concerned. That is the real difference between the two parties, two wings of one imperial war party.

Since the country cannot afford social policies people in other advanced states enjoy owing to its immense spending on military and security and imperial matters plus a carefully-nurtured political culture of selfishness, the differences today between the parties often com down to either destroying or not destroying long-existing policies, policies which date from the Roosevelt era to the Johnson era. Things like Social Security and Medicare for the elderly.

It is a pretty empty kind of politics. When combined with the politics of death and destruction in foreign affairs, American elections are actually grim events, if you are paying attention. But most Americans are not paying attention. They are intensely taken up by differences in rhetoric and style. And elections as events are heavily tarted-up by glitzy advertising, huge flags, celebrities, brassy music, ghost-written speeches loaded with dramatic (but empty) phrases, and heavily-choreographed campaign rallies.

It all amounts to intensity and enthusiasm over not very much. That pretty much sums up American politics because it is a politics structured to change not very much while captivating and entertaining people. Those who own America do not like change. Just so those who administer the empire, the Pentagon and security intelligence services and the State Department. Huge, rigid, wealthy bureaucracies with change representing only a threat.

On the level of personality, there is a gain to be made with Biden not having Trump’s abrasive, foul-mouthed, insulting habits. That is one gain to which I would look forward. It has been depressing to read the language at America’s highest level. Almost as though everything you were taught by fine teachers and in church and by your mother had become worthless. The language of the angry, belly-over-the-belt, Alt-right mob streaming from the Oval Office. The language of the gutter.

It may prove to be a bit more than just aesthetic too. There can be little doubt that, at times, in international affairs words do make a difference. Trump has experienced that in his own ghoulish entourage, as with North Korea and the destructive words of John Bolton.

On the character level, there is little difference between the two men except in the particular focus of abuse and corruption they each favor. Biden has a dark record of dealings in corruption, nepotism, faithfulness to money and power, and some genuinely unpleasant dealings with women. See:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/john-chuckman-comment-objections-to-joe-biden-a-consolidation-of-points-from-several-earlier-comments-the-feeble-state-of-american-democracy/

Trump never has done anything other than for himself, and he leaves a long trail of betrayed and disillusioned people behind him. The record number of early tell-all books by family and close associates, with more scheduled soon to come, says that eloquently. But isn’t that exactly the nature of America’s Alt-right, me and mine and fuck you?

I do take the view of one clever wag who said the election sums up to a choice between a full bowl of shit (Trump) and a half bowl of shit (Biden). It is one of the clearest examples ever of the threadbare nature of the term American democracy.


https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/08/18/john-chuckman-comment-the-nature-of-republics-versus-democracies-the-instructive-example-of-the-united-states-a-country-yhat-has-gone-from-a-very-undemocratic-early-republic-at-it/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/01/14/john-chuckman-comment-on-the-nature-of-trumps-leadership-and-of-his-followers-some-perhaps-not-widely-understood-aspects-of-american-society/