On the edge of…
▲ In several entities you can pay in advance, such as in Michigan, where there was a long line at a school in Grand Rapids. Tomorrow are the general elections in the United States and it is expected that there will be no results on the same day.Photo Afp
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In this election the country It is on the verge of, well, no one is sure, but scenes of political violence in one of the most armed populations on the planet have not been ruled out, nor is it known when the results will be known at the conclusion of the vote this Tuesday, nor if everyone with the right to was allowed to vote, nor if their votes will be counted in presidential elections where there is no direct vote and, therefore, whoever wins the popular vote does not necessarily win the election.
All this is happening in a country where political-electoral corruption has no equal in the so-called advanced worldwhere the richest can invest unlimited amounts in the election – what former President Jimmy Carter describes as a system of legalized bribery that proceeds towards an oligarchy – and where all the so-called democratic institutions are disapproved by the people they claim to represent. Only 16 percent of Americans approve of the work of the United States Congress, according to the most recent Gallup poll, while 51 percent disapprove of the management of the Supreme Court. Joe Biden’s presidency now has 41 percent approval (although it is worth remembering that at the end of his term, Trump had only 34 percent approval). Only 22 percent of Americans trust the government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time, according to the Pew Research Center. And 63.1 percent believe that the country is in a wrong addressaccording to national surveys.
Apparently the demos does not believe that it is well represented by the political establishment, and that the government works more in favor of wealthy interests, according to previous surveys by Pew and others. That in a country where The Day has reported that about 20 states have a higher firearm mortality rate than Haiti and at least four more than Mexico. A country where 47 million live in homes with food insecurityincluding almost 14 million children, where more than half a million people live without shelter, where there is a new phenomenon called deaths from despair –due to drug overdoses, alcohol and suicides–, so extensive especially in whites, which has led to a reduction in life expectancy in the United States for the first time. All in the richest country in the world.
From all this, surprising answers emerge: on the one hand, a broad progressive movement that focused on economic justice, climate change, against armed violence and for the civil rights of minorities, including immigrants, and that expressed itself electorally in presidential campaigns of the democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and also hundreds of progressives winning state and municipal elections around the country. The other response is that of the populist right with Donald Trump. I repeat: as a correspondent in the United States, I never imagined until eight years ago that we would have to use two words to report on politics within the United States: fascism and socialism.
Faced with the right-wing populist movement led by Trump in the election that will culminate this Tuesday, but that will probably not be resolved that day, the resistance to the neo-fascist project is facing the most serious threat in decades to the social, economic and political achievements that the movements achieved. labor, civil rights, women, the gay community, environmentalism, the alter-globalist and for economic justice during recent decades. In this resistance, the weakness of the Democratic Party and its organized bases – unions, liberal churches, women’s organizations, Latinos, Afro-Americans – is notable in part, due to the fact that its leadership promoted neoliberal policies with its Republican counterpart during the past 40 years. But at this juncture, perhaps Kamala Harris’s most effective slogan, despite her centrist choreography, is: we are not going backthat is, against a project that revolves around nostalgia for a country magnificent of the past, that is, a white supremacist patriarchy with servants.
Will it be enough? It will soon be seen, with consequences for everyone here and around the world.
The Rolling Stones. Gimme Shelter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clGX_J19_9o