No posteamos
demasiado sobre las elecciones en el Imperio; vaya uno a saber por qué. No, no
es que nos parezcan ambos lo mismo; claramente representan intereses y visiones
distintas. Hasta cierto punto, claro. El poder, como se sabe, pasa por otra
parte. La nota que sigue es de Nile Bowie para CounterPunch y resume bastante bien las
diferencias entre, y las limitaciones de, los candidatos. Acá va:
Título: Election
2016: A Political System In Crisis
Texto: The
outcome of strangest and most consequential election cycle in recent American
history will soon be upon us. Regardless of who becomes the next president,
this election will forever be synonymous with the rogue candidacy of Donald
Trump and the demographic shifts that have emboldened the right.
Though it may be
a close election, it is widely presumed that public antipathy towards Trump –
the first major party candidate who is near-universally opposed by both major
parties – will tilt the odds in Hillary Clinton’s favour. Nonetheless, Trump’s
support base of primarily white, blue-collar Americans will be a major factor
for the political establishment to contend with in the years ahead.
These voters are
frustrated by their economic marginalisation wrought by neoliberal trade deals
and economic policies and are contemptuous of traditional political elite,
their internationalism and liberal identity politics. For these voters, fear of
immigration is entwined with the precarity of being working class, their
troubling prejudices notwithstanding.
Economic
disempowerment and political disenfranchisement have accelerated under
President Obama, to the detriment of the American middle class. White,
blue-collar Americans have witnessed the offshoring of their jobs and the
erosion of their status in society, and Trump has masterfully stroked their
resentment and discontent by playing on their fears of Muslims, immigrants and
minorities.
Trump’s views
often contain unusual contradictions and seem to be delivered impromptu. What
remains consistent are his authoritarian views on crime and justice, vows to
close the borders to refugees, Muslims and economic migrants, scepticism of
overseas ‘democracy promotion’ and America’s role in international alliances,
foreign policy views both isolationist and belligerent and of course, his distinctive
megalomaniacal hubris.
Trump’s real
problem with the Washington establishment is that he isn’t part of it. His
campaign represents an insurgent faction of the oligarchical class that aims to
displace and replace the standing political elites. Bipartisan opposition to
Trump is grounded in the belief that he would be an unreliable proxy and a
liability, someone too narrow and unpredictable to manage the common affairs of
the ruling class and the US deep state.
Moreover, the US
establishment is not interested in being led by such a contentious figure, who
would draw protest and public opposition in a way that more conventional
establishment candidates largely do not. For example, Trump’s rhetoric on
immigration seems to engender more public outrage than the immigration policy
under Obama, who has deported more people than any other president in history.
That being said,
Hillary Clinton is a more dangerous candidate in many ways. Trump understands
that the political system is rigged and the economy is oriented to serve
various elite interests, a message that resonates across the political
spectrum, even with anti-Trump segments of the electorate. As a hated political
outsider not tied directly into the power and the money structure of the
political system, there would be no shortage of gridlock and checks on the
authority wielded by Trump in the unlikely event that he becomes president.
By contrast,
Clinton wields enormous political influence inside the corridors of political
and corporate power through personal relationships and connections. Policy and
legislation shaped by donor money, lobbyist groups and special interests have
been a hallmark of the Clintons’ time in public office. The very fact that she
is standing for office while being investigated by the FBI, having committed
actions that would have ended the careers of other politicians and government
employees, speaks for itself.
It has been
reported by various sources that the FBI’s recent decision to reopen the
investigation into the Clinton email scandal less than two weeks before
election day has been motivated by an internal backlash within the agency’s
rank and file, forcing FBI director James Comey’s hand as a means of addressing
internal critics who believe he buried the Clinton probe for political reasons.
Clinton’s email
scandal is not the real issue. She has spent her political career ruthlessly
advancing the interests of high finance, the military industrial complex and
corporate America, with dramatic repercussions for minorities and the
marginalised inside the United States, and the civilian populations of
countries targeted for US military intervention and destabilization during the
her time as an influential first lady, senator and secretary of state.
Clinton has spent
her long career advocating hawkish US military supremacy and banking
deregulation, expanding the private prison industry to the detriment of
impoverished African-American communities, dismantling the social safety net
that marginalised families rely on, and enabling the consolidation of corporate
power through secretive trade agreements. On the campaign trail, she has
characterised her work as advancing the interests of women and families.
The Clinton
campaign has repeatedly evoked the historic struggle for civil rights and
aspirational rhetoric of ‘breaking glass ceilings’ in the interest of a
faux-feminism which prioritizes the equal opportunities of women to lead the
nation’s highest office, while at once tone-deaf to the consequences faced by
women and families on the receiving end of executive policies. The Democratic
Party has become a parody of moral posturing, self-relishing its candidates
with rhetoric that has no connection with policies in reality.
It is the party
of establishment insiders and corporate donors who openly engineer the
presidential nomination process to favour their preferred candidate by virtue
of the undemocratic super-delegate system. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign
inspired millions of Americans for good reason, has proven himself to be tepid
and cowardly in the face of practices that have proven beyond doubt that the
Democratic Party establishment conspired against him.
Bernie’s campaign
centred around a rather modest, comparatively tame centre-left progressive
platform that did not seriously question US militarism and the values of
American exceptionalism. For the Democratic Party at large, the Sanders
campaign represented a concession too far. The Clinton campaign even had the
impudence to directly hire disgraced Democratic chairwoman Debbie Wasserman
Schultz after leaked emails exposed her partisanship.
Rather than
addressing the political substance of revelations uncovered by WikiLeaks, the
Clinton campaign, backed by Obama administration officials, has reverted to neo-McCarthyism
by labelling opposition voices as surrogates of Russia, explicitly accusing
Moscow of meddling in the US election process. Accusations of Russian
interference without accompanying evidence are at best a short-sighted means of
deflecting responsibility for the corrupt actions of the Clinton campaign and
Democratic Party insiders.
The next American
president will have to confront the realities of strained relations with
Russia. Clinton is known for her public enmity toward Russian President Vladimir
Putin and would at best perpetuate the status quo of mutual distrust and
limited cooperation. At worst, her policies could risk a military confrontation
with Russia should she pursue the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syrian
airspace, which she publically advocated during the presidential debates.
Trump is the most
prominent American political figure to advocate détente with Russia, openly
breaking with his neoconservative running mate Mike Pence. Trump has criticised
Clinton for supporting anti-government insurgents in Syria and called for
jointly targeting ISIS with the Russian, and by extension, Syrian militaries.
Trump, being very critical of Iran, also signalled he was willing to fight
against ISIS on the same side as Tehran.
He has also
offered support for the establishment of a safe zone inside Syrian territory,
potentially in cooperation with the Syrian government and its allies. Both
candidates would pursue a different policy approach from the incumbent
administration in Syria, but Clinton’s no-fly zone holds greater potential to
deepen military hostilities between major powers. Clinton has generally been
critical of Obama’s foreign policy in Syria and elsewhere for not asserting US
power strongly enough.
Despite the
differences in style and demeanour, the range of policies offered by the
entrenched two-party system is limited to varying shades of centre- to
far-right. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the least trusted and most
unpopular presidential candidates in modern history. Despite the public
disillusionment with major party candidates, it remains to be seen whether
American voters will cast ballots for third parties such as the Libertarian
Party or Green Party, which are seeking to garner 5 percent of the popular vote
to become eligible to receive public campaign funding.
More likely than
not, American voters will cast their ballots ‘against’ Trump by voting for
Clinton and vice versa, fueling the cyclical politics of the lesser evil that
have been a feature of American presidential elections for decades. More than
any other US election in recent history, the candidates represent the rot of an
American political establishment marred by scandal, hypocrisy and the
relentless pursuit of hegemony. To advocate one over the other is ultimately
defeatist.
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