Reagan and Thatcher on the ropes… Throughout the West, the Center cannot hold
The president came into the debate with a low bar to clear, and he stumbled. He was flat. He was rambling. He was unclear.
About midway through the debate, the Biden campaign said that the president was battling a cold - an attempt to explain his raspy voice. That may be so, but it also sounded like an excuse.
- Analysis: Biden's incoherent debate performance heightens fears over his age, BBC
By Gregg Wall (7-6-2024)
The summer is getting warmed up here in Alberta, the Stampede is on, the skies are the deepest blue, and I’m wondering why I am inside writing this piece today. Probably because this is about as close as I will ever come to gloating. Neoliberalism, the center, the corporatist, the establishment are being rejected in Western democracy, after Western democracy… and its obituary is long overdue. Odd, how nearly 4.5 decades since 1980, Reagan and Thatcher’s heyday… the public is calling out the biggest scam ever perpetrated, collectively, on the West: trickle-down; supply-side economics; neoliberalism; globalization; the death cult surrounding the Western economies (aka necroeconomy); and Western political duopolies acting as a front for oligarchy. More specifically in America and parts of Europe, the hyper-financialization of cannibalized economies that have seen businesses turned into the walking dead, innovation and jobs crushed in an orgy of corporate consolidation, and the economy & opportunity absolutely wrecked for the overwhelming majority of citizens (economies now dependent upon endless rivers of government debt and war spending). All of it is being rejected. Not all voters may fully grasp the mechanics of it all, but they do know the establishment has failed them, as wealth and wage inequality have soared.
No wonder the public is enraged, as they should be. U.S. politicians and some European capitals have stripped public services, crammed austerity down everyone’s throat, and allowed families and labor to be preyed upon by banks, cartels, monopolies, and utilities. Meanwhile, as Washington holds up the middle digit to the American public on reform… it sends billions and billions to a country too corrupt to join NATO, and another country engaged in genocide (and yet, Israel is so rich from US taxpayer largesse that it enjoys socialized medicine, free college, and socialized or subsidized housing).
And what an interesting two weeks, it has been:
Biden is imploding before our very eyes. Seems that insiders, the Biden administration, EU allies, high profile donors have known Biden had a problem for the last four years… but Biden means cushy jobs for the democratic party, free defense and military for Europe, and donors have spent millions and millions to keep their boy propped up. It would be a shame to see that investment head south. And yet, it appears that some donors are finally willing to cut their losses and donations. Nobody likes to see elder abuse. Abuse where we pile on a job & responsibilities -- that would crush the strongest of younger individuals -- onto an octogenarian, who is struggling to utter a complete sentence. All because it’s not PC to acknowledge the obvious, Biden clearly has no business being in the White House. But before we leave this topic, there is something more. There is something completely contemptuous about a two-party system, in an alleged democracy, that continuously ignores the demands of the American people, whether it be for: Medicare for All, a ceasefire in Gaza, a pause in endless wars and the resulting austerity, taxing the rich, or Biden fulfilling his 2020 campaign promises (which Biden has largely failed to deliver). Not to mention, the simple request from the American people for Biden to simply, go away. So, someone less corrupt and with a real opportunity to defeat Trump can run. Biden has been a catastrophe for the United States, and most importantly, the long-suffering American people for nearly four miserable years.
After all, Biden and his generation are the ultimate testament to American fascism: America has built up the presidency and this garbage two-party system, as infallible, exceptional, unimpeachable, with delusions of grandeur, a nation hypnotized, sedated with endless propaganda & lies. Americans, thankfully, are waking up to the fraud that is duopoly.
Across the pond, fourteen long, miserable years of Tory rule came crashing down… but fear not, the Labour party has purged all progressives and lefties, the financial press/establishment gave Labour the seal of approval, and it looks like Prime Minster Starmer will deliver more of the same: endless supply-side welfare for the rich, privatization fraud, maintain the trickle-down tax code, and continue failed neoliberalism. Meanwhile, the voting public can take temporary satisfaction from the fact they kicked out the Tories, but as important, this election was marked by record low voter turnout. So enough of the public showed up to reject repugnant Tories, while a huge swath of the British voters didn’t bother to show at all, essentially rejecting the establishment, the duopoly, and the oligarchy the duopoly reports into. Essentially, a double win for the British people. Low voter turnout is outstanding: it demonstrates that the public is increasingly onto the charade that is the two-party system. Starmer already looks like a one term wonder, a deer in the headlight, a caretaker administration that will care little for the public, continue to take for rich, and give to the rich. And Starmer’s ready-made excuse for not properly funding public services that have been gutted, like the NHS? Sir Starmer will, of course, lean on that old standby, the national debt run up to provide welfare for the rich. Sorry folks, we can’t afford it.
France has a big election this weekend, and Macron has performed so poorly in the first round of voting that his establishment, corporate party will only appear on the ballots of half the voting districts, per France 24. The populist-right & LePen are all set to make significant gains and could end up calling the shots in parliament. The populist-right is closely followed by the populist-left, with Macron and his coalition trailing a very distant third. There is some talk of a coalition between the left and Macron’s far-right coalition to keep the populist-right, Ms. LePen’s party and coalition, out of power. No matter how it plays out… as with America, Canada, Germany, and the UK… French citizens clearly have had it with endless austerity coupled with the endless transfers of wealth to corporations, the uber-wealthy, and politicians. France is another country where voter turnout is exceptionally low. A sure sign, that for many French citizens, democracy, neoliberalism, and privatization are abject failures.
In an update, French voters broke with recent trends and showed up to the polls Sunday: rejected the far-right establishment, Macron (2nd place), rejected the populist far-right, Le Pen (3rd place), and elected the populist- left, Melenchon (first place).
Before wrapping this up, I think SCOTUS (or America’s Supreme Court) deserves a paragraph. This court has gone absolutely crazy, engaged in activities like pulling rulings out of thin air with no basis whatsoever in the Constitution, to writing legislation from the bench, to engaging in highly aggressive judicial activism & power grabs. These are the very same activities that conservative jurists, like Robert Bork, use to decry and rant about when more liberal courts were in power. Except now, this rabidly right-wing court is busy turning the presidency into dictatorship… many have argued, correctly, that the president is already a de facto dictator… and destroying what little remains of a captured regulatory state. SCOTUS even legalized corruption at the state and local levels of government. If anybody is looking for rhyme or reason for the court’s rulings, follow the money. If it benefits capital, if it benefits corporate America’s or the oligarchy’s bottom line, the odds are exceptionally high, the Roberts court will side with the court’s ultra-wealthy benefactors.
And the sliver of light in SCOTUS’ recent rulings? If, when, should a future liberal court return to power… this fascist court has, with its own special blend of judicial activism, clearly demonstrated that the U.S. Constitution is a living, breathing document. Moreover, strict constructionism and threading the judicial needle with America’s ancient colonial history to justify constitutionality is no longer necessary but in fact, all but dead.
And it’s all beginning to unravel… as I recently argued, we are at or near the tipping point. Forty-four years of greed, laissez-faire, looting corporate and nation state credit lines, endless for-profit wars, and an evil necroeconomy are beginning to blowback on the establishment. The public is waking up: they know Western democracy is a sham, they know political duopoly is a cul-de-sac, and they know the reason they can’t feed their children and keep a roof over their head is due to systemic class warfare waged by economic royalist, a complicit political class, bankers and monopolies. For the moment, the public’s biggest problem is options. It’s highly satisfying to throw one corporate political party to the curb and highly discouraging to be forced to elect a corporate clone party, or controlled opposition, in protest. At the moment, the public seems keenly interested in the populist-right political parties that play up division, hatred, xenophobia (as mass migration gets underway)… but it won’t be long before the public comes to realize these populist-right political parties are only delivering more of the same: more necroviolence visited upon the public and their children for the enrichment of the same cadre of mafia at the tippy top. The public increasingly knows the endless ping-pong game within the two-party system is a dead end. And support for third parties and third-party formation will be critical and crucial for real change, if change is to happen via democracy. Many appear to have given up on democracy altogether. Hence, low voter turnout in the UK.
Ultimately and to hammer the point, this leaves the public with one, or a mix, of several solutions: create & support third parties that truly are responsive to the public’s needs, the power of organized labor - to exact reforms and change, dictatorship, and revolution. The overthrow of crony democracy itself.
This, as political violence is heating up. There are some that believe revolution is unthinkable, but clearly… judging from the taxpayer money flooding into cop cities, mass incarceration, and defense… the establishment is equally worried. Moreover, the establishment demonstrates no desire to cleanup and reform. One thing is clear, in the words of Fredrick Douglas, power concedes nothing without a demand.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024
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