John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV
“First US presidential debate for 2020 race in Cleveland, Ohio”
A good summary of some key points in the ugly, childish food-fight being called a Presidential political debate.
America just becomes stranger every day. While it has been a brutal country for all of my lifetime – both abroad in its wars and at home on its streets – it had kept that fact somewhat disguised with a softening veil of civility and seeming respect for law on the part of government. And much of the world saw America, quite unrealistically, in terms of sympathetic Jimmy Stewart movies.
But that veil has been torn down by Trump, completely, and there is no pretense of civility. There is just the most open contempt for others, again both abroad and at home. Unfortunately, there is a large population of Americans – approaching half of adults – who believe he is right and feel empowered by his extreme behavior, so the acrimony he has generated is not going to disappear even if he loses the election decisively. It is his legacy, a legacy of hate.
In the “debate,” Trump was unpleasant or frightening on virtually every topic, but I do think the most frightening are his words about the ballots and accepting the outcome of the election.
He works constantly to undermine the legitimacy of an election result that does not make him the winner. He thinks like Mussolini, and that isn’t the slightest exaggeration.
He is preparing the ground for two very unwelcome outcomes.
One, in a time of strife and division across the country, he is telling his supporters to be ready not to accept the election outcome, hyping already hyped-up people, a good many of them armed, to conflict.
That can only translate into rage on the streets.
Two, and most important, Trump is setting the stage for his own refusal to accept the election result. The rage on the streets will serve to support his demands, reminiscent of the way 1920s fascist leaders in Europe used organized groups of streetfighters – Germany’s Brownshirts and Italy’s Blackshirts.
He will want to throw the violently-contested election result to the Supreme Court for a decision.
That Court’s current Justices would likely divide, four-to-four, for and against him.
But the Justice he has just appointed – if she is approved by the Senate, which seems likely – will have the tie-breaking vote, and she will be immeasurably beholden to him for the judicial appointment of a lifetime. Indeed, it is, literally, an appointment for a lifetime, one of great prestige and privilege.
While she is very intelligent, it is obvious from her past words and associations, that she is extremely conservative, Right-wing is a more fitting term. And there is an unwelcome touch of the dark and mystical in what is known of her religious beliefs. History tells us, over and over, that pure intelligence does not overcome extreme emotional attitudes and biases in judgments. Many highly intelligent people have done terribly destructive things.
The chances of her supporting anyone but Trump have to be close to zero. And that will be a disaster for all of humanity.
NOTE ON BIDEN
Of course, all of Trump’s plotting cannot come to anything if Biden were to win a resounding election victory, in which case there would be no basis for an appeal to the Supreme Court, but how likely is that?
Despite Biden’s effort to appeal to the television audience in the debate, as by looking directly into the camera sometimes to create an impression of openness and concern for others, and his effort to appear as a calm and reassuring, rather avuncular figure in contrast with the sputtering rage of Trump, he only just barely got by.
He is not especially impressive in any way, either in his words or his range of views. And he does look old and somewhat washed-out. His Irish temper, something he has always been known for in politics, got the best of him several times, and he made insulting remarks. A couple of them were actually funny, but they had no place in a debate, no matter how maddening your opponent was. Of course, they just don’t come more maddening than Trump.
He had one or two good moments, but they were brief and only related to Trump’s insulting words touching his sons, which of course had no place in a political debate.
Biden does not even attempt to make a case for any great issues, and that is in keeping with his entire fifty-year political career. He is a man who inspires little enthusiasm, as opposed to the ferocious enthusiasm Trump arouses in his mob. The Democratic Party really has taken a chance with the country’s future by running him. Absolutely no one comes out of this election smelling good, although I think it safe to say Trump’s smell is about as rank as it gets.
Biden’s only real merit is that he is not Trump, and what an indictment of America’s political institutions it is to have to say that. America is politically and morally and socially bankrupt, and it is about to become financially bankrupt as well.
Its global relative economic decline, the result of natural evolutionary processes, is being met at home by nothing but stupidities and viciousness that will only increase the speed and extent of that decline. “Whom the gods would destroy…”
The very notion that America’s decline results from unfair competition and evil plotting is laughable, resembling something from a 1940 Hollywood movie serial like Flash Gordon. But that dangerous notion is entrenching itself in a people and in their political establishment who are stunned by the realization that someone else can be as good or better than America at doing many things. No matter who wins, I’m afraid America will pursue that barren path. A one-way trip to nowhere.
A real leader would deal with that immense challenge, which has implications across every part of American society, but I don’t see any real leaders in America. Its corrupt, money-driven politics has produced exactly the sad sight we see
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