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OPINION:
John Pilger: Silencing the United States as It Prepares for War
Last year, a month before Donald Trump announced the start of his presidential campaign, I wrote an op-ed arguing against strategic voting in U.S. presidential elections. I addressed the argument that “small differences between the major candidates matter greatly to the outcomes for the most vulnerable people at home and abroad”. With the important exception of Ronald Reagan, it’s not obvious (looking at data for various measures of outcomes) that Republican presidential victories since 1980 were actually worse for the most vulnerable people at home and abroad. Republicans have worse rhetoric and intentions than Democrats, but Democrats have been very good at lulling progressives to sleep during the initial years after replacing Republicans in the White House. Republicans, on the other hand, encounter stiff resistance from progressives from the moment they take office. The net result has been that (again, Reagan aside) the “small differences” have not produced outcomes that – I argued – justified pulling any electoral punches against Democrats.
Donald Trump’s success changes everything.
Trump is a lot worse than the Democrat he will face in November – quite an achievement considering Hilary Clinton’s proven devotion to waging war and stuffing the pockets of the rich.
Some leftists have pointed to some prominent neoconservative support for Clinton as evidence that Trump’s foreign policy may not be worse than Clinton’s. But people who care about expanding Empire are wise to see Clinton as a safer bet. The head of an empire should not be an overtly racist and misogynist buffoon like Trump. Hundreds of years ago, Machiavelli observed in his empirical study of power that rulers should not carelessly flaunt their vices. That long understood insight explains neoconservatives who reject Trump.
Trump pledges to deport 11 million undocumented Mexican immigrants whom he has demonized as rapists and drug dealers. A President Trump would be radioactive to the USA’s natural allies in Latin America – the resurgent right that has just begun to recover from a string of electoral defeats over that past two decades. No rational supporter of Empire would want that.
ANALYSIS:
What's Next After Sanders? Seeds of Political Movement Building
Similar remarks apply to the Middle East, a more important part of the world to U.S. imperialists. Trump has not only been openly bigoted towards Muslims abroad by calling for a ban on Muslim immigration, he has also slandered the entire Muslim community in the United States on numerous occasions. Trump poses as rich guy who is dangerously independent (even if it is uncertain if he is a billionaire at all) but he mostly stands out by being willing to spew contradictions and bigotry much more than other politicians. He prostrated before AIPAC despite pledging to be even handed on Palestine. He blasted Clinton for her closeness to Saudi Arabia but then made an insane pledge to militarily defend the Saudis against Iran (for the right price). He has been as willing to insult Vladimir Putin as to praise him, much as the later outrages an establishment eagerly promoting a new cold war.
If Trump is such an embarrassment to Empire, and to the ruling class generally, that he scares some of the worst among them, shouldn’t progressives be indifferent to his success, or even hopeful that he wins? The question hints at the “worst is better” argument that is sometimes made, but it’s a foolish one. Progressives in the Unites States could discredit themselves for a very long time in the eyes of Trump’s victims at if they buy into such faulty logic. That would make it even easier for Democrats to take votes of the most vulnerable at home, to the extent they bother to vote at all, for granted.
That said, progressives should also fear being discredited in the eyes of President Clinton’s future (and present) victims at home if advocacy of strategic voting appears to descend into apologetics for her. Thomas Frank wrote a very informative essay on the appeal of Trump to white working class voters. He wrote that “Many of Trump’s followers are bigots, no doubt, but many more are probably excited by the prospect of a president who seems to mean it when he denounces our trade agreements and promises to bring the hammer down on the CEO that fired you and wrecked your town, unlike Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.” Frank then quoted a union leader whose words highlight the danger of being soft on Clinton: “We’ve had all the political establishment standing behind every trade deal, and we endorsed some of these people, and then we’ve had to fight them to get them to represent us.” [My emphasis]
OPINION:
Not-So-Strange Bedfellows: Hillary and the Corporate Elite
Progressives in the United States tend to waste years realizing that the “lesser evil” really is evil. When they finally do realize it, good things start to happen - like the Occupy movement or the movement against corporate driven “globalization” that emerged in the late 1990s. Eight years into Obama’s wretched administration, the United States has the Black Lives Matter movement and Bernie Sanders’ shockingly strong campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Fortunately, eight years after the “hope change” honeymoon, Clinton is unlikely to get anything like the free ride Obama initially received, but progressives must make sure she never gets one at any time even though strategic voting is justified to defeat Trump.
Kshama Sawant offers a sensible approach aimed at defeating Trump but also at weakening the forces that sustain Trump and that will get stronger if progressives allow themselves to be “trapped behind Clinton, the crowning symbol of establishment, dynastic, Wall Street politics.”
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