▲ Former US President Donald Trump at a rally over the weekend in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. The Republican candidate has insisted at recent events that will be a dictatorif he wins another term in the White House in November.Afp Photo
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about 100 days of the national elections (perhaps the last, according to one of the contenders) everything and nothing has changed. Joe Biden’s final acceptance that he had to withdraw from the race generated enormous relief, and the apparent coronation of Kamala Harris in his place is changing the electoral landscape in the face of the growing threat of a return of Donald Trump to power.
But the same threat remains. The former president again revealed more evidence of his anti-democratic intent by telling a rally of a far-right Christian group on Friday that if these supporters vote to return him to the White House this November, “you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians… In four years, you won’t have to vote again. We’ll have it all sorted out so well, you won’t have to vote anymore,” he declared. Critics recalled that a few months ago he had declared that if he returns to the White House it would be a dictator from day one.
For all those, including too many progressives in Latin America, who argue that in the end there is not much difference between the American political options, that They are equal and even some who discount the danger of one of the contenders because it is known devilThey are simply feeding exactly what the right is cultivating: anything goes, including a fascist option.
A victory for the far right will have devastating consequences for our fellow Americans here, along with progressive Americans who are potential and current allies of those who promote the fight against the right in the world and who dare to insist that another world is possible. A defeat here will be a defeat for all of us, because it is the superpower.
It’s not that Harris is a messiah on the other hand, nor is she a leftist politician (although the Trump campaign is now painting her as one). Marxist (radical). But she is the first woman of color as a presidential candidate, the daughter of progressive immigrants (Jamaican father, Indian mother), who was a San Francisco prosecutor and California attorney general, who knows how to attack Trump. In one of her first statements as a presumptive presidential candidate, she said that because of her time as a prosecutor, I know guys like Donald Trump well.
Moreover, in what was a contest between the American political gerontocracy, Biden’s withdrawal suddenly leaves a single old man on the stage facing a relatively young opponent (almost 20 years his junior), who is improving the atmosphere only by improving the electoral sound route by using, for example, the song Freedomby Beyonce, in her first acts.
Harris is a loyal member of the country’s political elite, and does not necessarily represent a fundamental change within the party. But like Biden, Harris responds to the various sectors of the Democratic Party. It is worth noting that Biden was the first president in 40 years who explicitly declared the end of the neoliberal bipartisan consensus (destruction of unions, free trade agreements, privatization of public sectors including education, austerity and dismantling of the welfare state) and promoted large public investments in infrastructure, denounced economic inequality and sought to promote new environmental policies, among other things. He did not do so because he is a progressive man – he has never been one in his political career of almost half a century – but because the progressive sectors inside and outside his party forced him to in exchange for their votes and support. A Harris victory will be for the same reason, especially the vote of young people, women, African Americans and Latinos and other progressive bases of the party.
This coalition of progressive forces may not be able to transform the country at this juncture, but it can stop the greatest far-right threat that the United States has faced in its history. For this reason – it bears repeating – international solidarity is urgently needed under the slogan of not pass.
Flogging Molly. The Times They Are a Changing. https://open.spotify.com/track/1Lf0mkYc72aYtYc2UWvGdi?si=150f2b67964d4f9a
