Looks like they had a US presidential debate and no-one cared what either candidate said. After a few exchanges it became clear that this wasn’t a debate, it was an audition. Then it became a physical fitness examination. By the conclusion, it verged on being a coronial inquiry. Not of Smilin’ Joe himself, but of a Democratic presidential campaign that has delivered this battered and aged man as the only alternative to Donald Trump to run the world’s largest economy and annihilation-capable nuclear arsenal.
For about 36 hours, actual panic ensued. It was interesting to see that phenomenon, usually witnessed IRL, happen across the global media sphere in real time, in a series of tumbling op-eds, tweets and vox pops urging the guy to get out of the race, urging his wife to persuade him to get out of the race, and who knows, maybe there’s people muttering about a secret service agent making the ultimate sacrifice for his country, with one well-placed….
But by Sunday this was over and the Democratic leadership was rallying. If there had been any discussion in the inner circle about Joe going, it had been quickly knocked on the head, the determination to press on signalled by Barack Obama’s tweet:
Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.
Which shows the ol’ Barack magic hasn’t ebbed, the light touch and self-deprecation then rallying you to redoubled effort. It’s incredible. He does it in a tweet! By the end of it you’re going “Yes! Yes! I will prop up our candidate, this sagging meat puppet! I will march with him, in whatever direction he wanders off in! This is Bernie’s third election, though this time it’s the guy from Weekend At…“
Many commentators are taking this to be the end of the republic, etc etc, the choice between the “genuine moron” and convicted felon that Mencken foretold the American people would one day elect, now rendered sinister and vengeful by becoming a loooooooooser, and a man suddenly revealed to be a bad 81. The presidency ages everyone, visibly. With someone in their late 70s, with the fitness of their 60s, as Biden was, it probably takes you on a rocket to your mid-80s, 20 years in the space of four.
My money would be on the US to survive this, and the second Trump presidency that now looks like even to strong odds. There’s no real sense in which Trump is more dangerous as a potential war president than is Biden. Both have their hawks, Trump’s being Steve Bannon (if he’s allowed back in), who believes an epochal war with China is in the offing due to the deep clash of civilisations and the ethno-national drive for supremacy.
But Biden’s crew, operating from a mix of liberal internationalism and realpolitik, are as likely to provoke conflict from an overextension of US power in a “sole superpower” doctrine, so take your pick. Unless he too is captured by the neo-neocons, Trump is more likely to disconnect Ukraine’s struggle from Western interests, and to let China have Taiwan, the two essential acts necessary to world peace at the moment. On the other hand, he could launch nuclear strikes on a whim, or permit Israel to do so, and then the whole thing might go off.
What about internally? Should Biden somehow be dragged over the line, shot up with strychnine and egg whites like the winner of the 1904 Olympics marathon, it will be because of the residual “composite progressive vote” — enough white college grads, left Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, LGBTQIA+ people, migrants, and the remaining progressive union-connected working class to cobble together a win.
Trump’s vote will reside among non-college whites, conservatives, evangelicals, and conservative Latinos. Many of them will have never met a Democrat voter, so a Biden victory will genuinely appear to many to be rigged. The refusal of legitimacy will be 2020 on ‘roids. Many of their core cadres and organisers will have made their way through the past four years by thinking of themselves as insurgents, waiting on the return of The Donald. Should that myth be dispelled, they will, to an unknown degree, withdraw their consent to the republic permanently. One would expect that to be a sustained insurgency, with a violent side-movement of unknown magnitude.
What if Trump wins? My first thought on this possibility was that he would win as he did last time, by losing the majority vote, and winning the college. He may well still, and by a larger margin than last time. Should that occur, and Republicans gain control of both Houses of Congress, with the Supreme Court already theirs, then one suspects that the refusal of legitimacy will come from the left. And reasonably enough. Trump has made no secret of his intention to use the presidency to pursue and persecute his enemies, to stretch the very limits of executive power, and exceed precedent.
With all that based on a win on the malapportioned electoral college — which disadvantages states with large cities, which are Democrat states — then I do not see how that can be accepted by at least a section of the left. At some point you revolt actively, not with any prospect of victory, but simply so it’s known you weren’t fooled by them, weren’t taken for a mug, and some sort of major political event of that sort would be possible, should this disjunctive result occur.
But what if, as now seems possible, Trump gets the double, the electoral college and a majority? Well then it all depends on who controls Congress. If the Republicans have it, then something is over. The United States will then be controlled by a concentration of capital and religious conservatism in all three branches of government. Of especial note is the current Supreme Court’s willingness to enact precedent — such as the recent upholding of a town law making it illegal to sleep in the open, even if all shelters are full — that, under the mask of “originalism”, is really a doctrinaire propertarian libertarianism. Tuesday’s announced decision, giving presidents immunity for whatever they do officially, is mind-blowing, giving the highest office absolute monarchical powers. The court has shown itself willing to be the medium by which the republic is substantially remade.
How did it come to this, is the question on everyone’s lips? The answer, ostensibly paradoxical for the US republic, is this. Because the structural system — the constitution, separation of powers etc — appeared to do the job of restraining power of itself, no great attention had to be given to what every other republic must consider: how the losers and the excluded are to get a stake, a share, and maintain a degree of commitment and reward in the social whole.
That has been most visible in the operation of a deregulated capitalist economy, but it is also visible in the operation of the parties. The Trumpians took over the Republican Party as part of their insurgency for total culture war victory. But in the Democrats, an alliance of its inherited core with the leadership of progressive, largely Latino and other non-white groups, has ensured that not only has a challenger like Bernie Sanders and the Our Revolution movement been excluded, but so too was any more mainstream candidate who might have challenged Biden, to the end of the primary season, on age and fitness.
What was made clear to candidates at the centre of the party, after Biden survived the first four primaries, was that if they challenged him and he won, they were screwed and finished. Same bludgeon Hillary used in ‘16. The result? What you can see. There is really no natural alternative to Biden, and no, Kamala Harris doesn’t count. She might do well, she might win, but she’s not an obvious alternative.
It’s worth spending less time thinking about corruption of character and greatness etc, and more about how systems can generate their own conditions of extinction, in which we may all be swept up.
Are the Democrats right to rally behind Biden, or should someone else step up to challenge Trump? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
