A Common Thread Runs Through Trump Appointments: Look Out Iran!

by Ted Snider Posted onNovember 18, 2024

Former President and President-elect Donald Trump has been tarred, inconsistently with his actual record, with the charge of being soft on Russia. He has never been charged with being soft on Iran.

Trump unilaterally and illegally pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran. He imposed devastating sanctions on Iran. He ordered the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general and the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force. General Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the last Trump administration, says he feared that Trump would launch missile strikes on Iran that could trigger an all out war. “If you do this,” Milley told him, “you’re gonna have a fucking war.”

Trump’s transition team is already working on plans to “drastically increase sanctions on Iran and throttle its oil sales.” According to a former Trump official, “Tightening the economic noose around Iran is going to be a day one foreign policy priority to start cleaning up Biden’s Middle East mess.”

Trump has tapped Brian Hook to lead his State Department transition team. Hook was Special Representative for Iranian Affairs at the State Department in Trump’s first term. He was an architect of the sanction and maximum pressure policy on Iran. Hook recently told CNN that the Trump administration “would isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken them economically.” He stressed that to deter Iran, they have to believe that the U.S. has “a credible threat of military force.”

As Secretary of State, Trump has appointed Senator Mark Rubio. Rubio has been hawkish on almost everything. His appointment could be dangerous for Cuba and Venezuela. But it could also be very dangerous for Iran. Rubio favored illegally pulling out of the JCPOA. He advocated the authorization of force without limits against Iran, including sending U.S. forces. In 2015, Rubio said that the U.S. “should never, ever take off the table the notion that it may be necessary to conduct some sort of nucle – uh, military strike against their nuclear ambition.”

As his National Security Advisor, Trump has appointed Representative Mike Waltz. Waltz is a China hawk. He may simply be a war hawk, having supported wars in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

Waltz once demanded that President Biden “punch Iran in the nose.” He supports threatening to attack Iran. Waltz has suggested that Israel should have bombed Iran’s oil export sites and its Natanz nuclear facilities. He advocates for the U.S. showing Iran “that our military capabilities are such that we could indeed severely damage their [nuclear] program.” Days before the election, on November 2, Waltz promised that a Trump administration would “return to maximum pressure to bring Iran back to the table for a better deal!” On the same day, Waltz co-authored a piece for The Economist in which he argued that the Biden-Harris administration “should put a credible military option on the table to make clear to the Iranians that America would stop them building nuclear weapons.”

Both arguments made that day are strikingly uninformed and unnecessarily provocative. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has already stated that Iran is “ready to engage with JCPOA participants” and that “[i]f JCPOA commitments are implemented fully and in good faith, dialogue on other issues can follow.” He has even made the bold move of calling for bypassing intermediaries in favor of direct negotiations with the United States. As for stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons, as CIA Director William Burns said in October, “[W]e do not see evidence today that the supreme leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program. We don’t see evidence today that such a decision [to build a bomb] has been made. We watch it very carefully.” In 2022, the  U.S. Department of Defense’s Nuclear Posture Review concluded that “Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one.”

Trumps intelligence appointments include Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and John Ratcliffe as Director of the CIA. Gabbard was a Democratic congresswoman and a candidate, against Joe Biden, in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary before becoming a Republican. Like her political allegiance, her policy on Iran has been mixed. In 2013, she supported sanctioning Iran. A year later, she called Iran the “world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism.” Later, though, she supported the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran and criticized Trump for pulling out of it and for escalating tension. She would also come to call for ending sanctions.

Ratcliffe is a China hawk, but he has also called for a harder line against Iran. In June, Ratcliffe argued that the Biden administration had not been tough enough on Iran.

Trump’s policy decisions, though, are as unpredictable as his appointments. After speaking three times since Trump’s election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he and Trump “see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its components, and the danger posed by it.” At the same time, there has reportedly been some talk in the Russian media of hope that the Trump administration could reach out to Iran to reduce tension.

Though the roll call of appointments leaves no doubt that Trump has selected a foreign policy team that is hawkish on Iran, The New York Times reports that on November 11, Elon Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations. Musk is an important Trump advisor who joined Trump in some of his phone calls with world leaders since being elected, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and, perhaps, Turkish President Recep Erdogan. He is reportedly scheduled to meet Argentina’s President Javier Milei in the coming days when Milei comes to the U.S. to meet with Trump.

Iranian officials say the meeting between Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani focussed on ways to reduce tension between the U.S. and Iran. They said that the meeting was “good news” and that it was “positive.” Trita Parsi, and expert on Iran’s foreign policy and on American-Iranian relations, says that Trump ultimately may have wanted a deal with Iran in his first term but was misdirected by Iran hawks in his administration, including Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. He reports that Iranian officials recognize Trump’s desire for a deal, but calculate that his ability to pull it off will be determined by whom he appoints to influential positions.

And that’s the question. The appointments are certainly not laden with promise. But, perhaps, the early meeting with Iran is. If Trump’s chosen circle leans once again to hawkishness on Iran, the tragedy of his selections will be that Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was elected on a platform that included improving relations with the United States. There is a possible path to peace if Trump is not, once again, pushed by those he appointed down the path of animosity.

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.

ANTIWAR.COM

Eight Reasons Why Marco Rubio Would Be a Disastrous Secretary of State

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / November 18th, 2024

Rubio and Trump during a break in the 2016 presidential debate. AP photo.

Of all Trump’s choices for his foreign policy team, Marco Rubio is the least controversial to the neoconservative foreign policy establishment in Washington, and the most certain to provide continuity with all that is wrong with U.S. foreign policy, from Cuba to the Middle East to China.

The only area where there might be some hope for ending a war is Ukraine, where Rubio has come close to Donald Trump’s position, praising Ukraine for standing up to Russia, but recognizing that the U.S. is funding a deadly “stalemate war” that needs to be “brought to a conclusion.”

But in all the other hot spots around the world, Rubio is likely to make conflicts even hotter, or start new ones.

1. His obsession with regime change in Cuba will sink any chance of better relations with the island.

Like other Cuban-American politicians, Marco Rubio has built his career on vilifying the Cuban Revolution and trying to economically strangle and starve into submission the people of his parents’ homeland.

It is ironic, therefore, that his parents left Cuba before the Revolution, during the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, whose executioners, secret police and death squads killed an estimated 20,000 people, according to the CIA, leading to a wildly popular revolution in 1959.

When President Obama began to restore relations with Cuba in 2014, Rubio swore to do “everything possible” to obstruct and reverse that policy. In May 2024, Rubio reiterated his zero tolerance for any kind of social or economic contacts between the U.S. and Cuba, claiming that any easing of the U.S. blockade will only “strengthen the oppressive regime and undermine the opposition… Until there is freedom in Cuba, the United States must maintain a firm stance.”

In 2024 Rubio also introduced legislation to ensure that Cuba would remain on the U.S. “State Sponsor of Terrorism List,” imposing sanctions that cut Cuba off from the U.S.-dominated Western banking system.

These measures to destroy the Cuban economy have led to a massive wave of migration in the past two years. But when the U.S. Coast Guard tried to coordinate with their Cuban counterparts, Rubio introduced legislation to prohibit such interaction. While Trump has vowed to stem immigration, his Secretary of State wants to crush Cuba’s economy, forcing people to abandon the island and set sail for the United States.

2. Applying his anti-Cuba template to the rest of Latin America will make enemies of more of our neighbors.

Rubio’s disdain for his ancestral home in Cuba has served him so well as an American politician that he has extended it to the rest of Latin America. He has sided with extreme right-wing politicians like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Javier Milei in Argentina, and rails against progressive ones, from Brazil’s Ignacio Lula da Silva to Mexico’s popular former President Lopez Obrador, whom he called “an apologist for tyranny” for supporting other leftist governments.

In Venezuela, he has promoted brutal sanctions and regime change plots to topple the government of Nicolas Maduro. In 2019 he was one of the architects of Trump’s failed policy of recognizing opposition figure Juan Guaido as president. He has also advocated for sanctions and regime change in Nicaragua.

In March 2023, Rubio urged President Biden to impose sanctions on Bolivia for prosecuting  leaders of a 2019 U.S.-backed coup that led to massacres that killed at least 21 people.

Rubio also condemned the government of Honduras for withdrawing from an extradition treaty with the United States this past August, in response to decades of U.S. interference that had turned Honduras into a narco-state riven by poverty, gang violence and mass emigration, until the election of democratic socialist President Xiomara Castro in 2022.

Rubio’s major concern about Latin America now seems to be the influence of China, which has become the leading trade partner of most Latin American countries. Unlike the U.S., China focuses on economic benefits and not internal politics, while American politicians like Marco Rubio still see Latin America as the U.S. “backyard.”

While Rubio’s virulent anti-leftist stands have served him well in climbing to senior positions in the U.S. government, and now into Trump’s inner circle, his disdain for Latin American sovereignty bodes ill for U.S. relations with the region.

3. He believes the US and Israel can do no wrong, and that God has given Palestine to Israel.

Despite the massive death toll in Gaza and global condemnation of Israel’s genocide, Rubio still perpetuates the myth that “Israel takes extraordinary steps to avoid civilian losses” and that innocent people die in Gaza because Hamas has deliberated placed them in the way and used them as human shields. The problem, he says, is “an enemy that doesn’t value human life.”

When asked by CODEPINK in November 2024 if he would support a ceasefire, Rubio replied, “On the contrary. I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals.”

There are few times in this past year that the Biden administration has tried to restrain Israel, but when Biden begged Israel not to send troops into the southern city of Rafah, Rubio said that was like telling the Allied forces in World War II not to attack Berlin to get Hitler.

In a letter to Secretary of State Blinken in August 2024, Rubio criticized the Biden administration’s decision to sanction Israeli settlers linked to anti-Palestinian violence in the occupied West Bank.

“Israel has consistently sought peace with the Palestinians. It is unfortunate that the Palestinians, whether it be the Palestinian Authority or FTOs [Foreign Terrorist Organisations] such as Hamas, have rejected such overtures,” Rubio wrote. “Israelis rightfully living in their historic homeland are not the impediment to peace; the Palestinians are,” he added.

No country besides Israel subscribes to the idea that its borders should be based on 2,000-year-old religious scriptures, and that it has a God-given right to displace or exterminate people who have lived there since then to reconquer its ancient homeland. The United States will find itself  extraordinarily isolated from the rest of the world if Rubio tries to assert that as a matter of U.S. policy.

4. His deep-seated enmity toward Iran will fuel Israel’s war on its neighbors, and may lead to a U.S. war with Iran.

Rubio is obsessed with Iran. He claims that the central cause of violence and suffering in the Middle East is not Israeli policy but “Iran’s ambition to be a regional hegemonic power.” He says that Iran’s goal in the Middle East is to “seek to drive America out of the region and then destroy Israel.”

He has been a proponent of maximum pressure on Iran, including a call for more and more sanctions. He believes the U.S. should not re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, saying: “We must not trade away U.S. and Israeli security for vague commitments from a terrorist-sponsoring regime that has killed Americans and threatens to annihilate Israel.”

Rubio calls Lebanon’s Hezbollah a “full blown agent of Iran right on Israel’s border” and that wiping out Hezbollah’s leadership, along with entire neighborhoods full of civilians, is a “service to humanity.” He alleges that Iran has control over Iraq, Syria, the Houthis in Yemen and is a threat to Jordan. He claims that “Iran has put a noose around Israel,” and says that the goal of U.S. policy should be regime change in Iran, which would set the stage for war.

While there will hopefully be leaders in the Pentagon who will caution Donald Trump about the perils of a war with Iran, Rubio will not be a voice of reason.

5.  He is beholden to big money, from the weapons industry to the Israel lobby.

Open Secrets reports that Rubio has received over a million dollars in campaign contributions from pro-Israel groups during his career. The Pro-Israel America PAC was his single largest campaign contributor over the last 5 years. When he last ran for reelection in 2022, he was the third largest recipient of funding by pro-Israel groups in the Senate, taking in $367,000 from them for that campaign.

Rubio was also the fourth largest recipient of funding from the “defense” industry in the Senate for the 2022 cycle, receiving $196,000. Altogether, the weapons industry has invested $663,000 in his Congressional career.

Rubio is clearly beholden to the US arms industry, and even more so to the Israel lobby, which has been one of his largest sources of campaign funding. This has placed him in the vanguard of Congress’s blind, unconditional support for Israel and subservience to Israeli narratives and propaganda, making it unlikely that he will ever challenge the ongoing extermination of the Palestinian people or their expulsion from their homeland.

6. He’s so antagonistic towards China that China has sanctioned him–twice!

Speaking at the Heritage Foundation in 2022, Rubio said: “The gravest threat facing America today, the challenge that will define this century and every generation represented here, is not climate change, the pandemic, or the left’s version of social justice. The threat that will define this century is China.”

It will be hard for our nation’s “top diplomat” to ease tensions with a country he has so maligned. He antagonized China by co-sponsoring the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which allows the U.S. to bar  Chinese imports over alleged Uyghur rights abuses, abuses that China denies and independent researchers question. In fact, Rubio has gone so far as to accuse China of a “grotesque campaign of genocide” against the Uyghurs.

On Taiwan, he has not only introduced legislation to increase military aid to the island, but actually supports Taiwanese independence — a dangerous deviation from the US government’s long-standing One China approach.

The Chinese responded to Rubio by sanctioning him, not once but twice–once regarding the Uyghurs and once for his support of Hong Kong protests. Unless China lifts the sanctions, he would be the first U.S. secretary of state to be banned from even visiting China.

Analysts expect China to try to sidestep Rubio and engage directly with Trump and other senior officials. Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the U.K.’s School of Oriental and African Studies, told Reuters, “If that doesn’t work, then I think we’re going to get into a much more regular escalation of a bad relationship.”

7. Rubio knows sanctions are a trap, but he doesn’t know how to escape.

Rubio is a leading advocate of unilateral economic sanctions, which are illegal under international law, and which the UN and other countries refer to as “unilateral economic coercive measures.”

The United States has used these measures so widely and wildly that they now impact a third of the world’s population. U.S. officials, from Treasury Secretary Yellen to Rubio himself, have warned that using the U.S. financial system and the dollar’s reserve currency status as weapons against other countries is driving the rest of the world to conduct trade in other currencies and develop alternative financial systems.

In March 2023, Rubio complained on Fox News, “We won’t have to talk sanctions in five years, because there will be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar, that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”

And yet Rubio has continued to be a leading sponsor of sanctions bills in the Senate, including new sanctions on Iran in January 2024 and a bill in July to sanction foreign banks that participate in alternative financial systems.

So, while other countries develop new financial and trading systems to escape abusive, illegal U.S. sanctions, the nominee for Secretary of State remains caught in the same sanctions trap that he complained about on Fox.

8. He wants to crack down on U.S. free speech.

Rubio wants to curtail the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In May, he described campus protests against Israel as a “complete breakdown of law and order.”

Rubio claimed to be speaking up for other students at American universities. “[They] paid a lot of money to go to these schools, [but are being disrupted by] a few thousand antisemitic zombies who have been brainwashed by two decades of indoctrination in the belief that the world is divided between victimizers and victims, and that the victimizers in this particular case, the ones that are oppressing people, are Jews in Israel,” said Rubio.

The Florida senator has said he supports Trump’s plan to deport foreign students who engage in pro-Palestinian campus protests. In April, he called for punishing supporters of the Israel boycott movement as part of efforts to counter antisemitism, falsely equating any attempt to respond to Israel’s international crimes with antisemitism.

And what about those crimes, which the students are protesting? After visiting Israel in May, Rubio wrote an article for National Review, in which he never mentioned the thousands of civilians Israel has killed, and instead blamed Iran, Biden and “morally corrupt international institutions” for the crisis.

Marco Rubio expects Americans to believe that it is not genocide itself, but protests against genocide, that are a complete breakdown of law and order. He couldn’t be more wrong if he tried.

Students are not Rubio’s only target. In August 2023, he alleged that certain “far-left and antisemitic entities” may have violated the Foreign Assistance Registration Act by their ties to China. He called for a Justice Department investigation into 18 groups, starting with CODEPINK. These unfounded claims of China connections are only meant to intimidate legitimate groups that are exercising their free speech rights.

Conclusion

On each of these issues, Rubio has shown no sign of understanding the difference between domestic politics and diplomacy. Whether he’s talking about Cuba, Palestine, Iran or China, or even about CODEPINK, all his supposedly tough positions are based on cynically mischaracterizing the actions and motivations of his enemies and then attacking the “straw man” he has falsely set up.

Unscrupulous politicians often get away with that, and Rubio has made it his signature tactic because it works so well for him in American politics. But that will not work if and when he sits down to negotiate with other world leaders as U.S. secretary of state.

His underlying attitude to foreign relations is, like Trump’s, that the United States must get its way or else, and that other countries who won’t submit must be coerced, threatened, couped, bombed or invaded. This makes Rubio just as ill-equipped as Antony Blinken to conduct diplomacy, improve U.S. relations with other countries or resolve disputes and conflicts peacefully, as the UN Charter requires.Email

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books, November 2022.  Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for PEACE, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran:  The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on our Hands:  The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. Read other articles by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

Boris Kagarlitsky: ‘Do not include me in any prisoner exchange lists!’

By Boris Kagarlitsky

Published 17 November, 2024

Translation by Dmitry Pozhidaev for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

Recently, discussions about another exchange have intensified.

It is still unclear who Russian political prisoners are to be exchanged for, but there is already an active debate over who should be included in the prisoner exchange lists and who should not. I have stated several times, and I will repeat it once again, that I do not wish to participate in such exchanges and ask not to be included in these lists. I see no sense or benefit in emigrating. If I wanted to leave the country, I would have done so myself. But I have no intention of leaving my homeland, and if staying means being in prison, then I will stay in prison. After all, imprisonment is a normal professional risk for a left-wing politician or social scientist in Russia, one that must be accepted when choosing this path. It is like being a firefighter or a rescuer — just part of the job, which I have done and will continue to strive to do as conscientiously as possible.

Since ancient times, exiling dissident citizens has been a form of political repression. And if we are fighting for freedom, then such repression, even in this softer form, must be condemned. Political prisoners must be fully freed — all of them — and in their homeland.

It is said that some participants in the previous exchange were taken out of Russia without their consent. I do not know what truly happened, but I want to make it clear: if anything like that is attempted with me, I will consider it an act of kidnapping. I will file a lawsuit against any foreign government as accomplices to this crime if they attempt to accept me against my will.

I am grateful to my family for their support and understanding, as well as to the many people who have written to express their approval of my decision. But this is not just about me. There are broader issues that need to be addressed.

There is a danger in replacing the fight for the complete release of all political prisoners (which would not only be a humane act but also a step toward transforming the moral climate in the country) with the compilation of exchange lists aimed at freeing a few dozen relatively well-known individuals, while hundreds or even thousands of other prisoners of conscience remain behind bars. Moreover, those compiling the lists take it upon themselves to decide who will walk free and who will stay in prison. This is unjust and undemocratic, contradicting the very principles for which we make sacrifices. The only correct demand is the release of all participants in non-violent political protests and all those arrested for exercising their constitutional right to criticise the authorities' decisions.

There is another important factor that must not be forgotten. Political prisoners are not only a reality in Russia. Everything happening to us carries global significance. If dictators worldwide realise that political prisoners are a valuable resource that can be successfully exchanged or sold, they will work to increase their “exchange fund”. They will imprison even more people. Meanwhile, the goal must be to make it unprofitable for states to have political prisoners, ensuring that repression becomes too costly for ruling circles. This was the case in the late 20th century, when democratisation processes unfolded not only in the former Soviet bloc countries but also in other regions of the world. We know that this democratisation was extremely superficial and did not challenge the dominant position of the elites. Nevertheless, it was a step forward. Now, we are witnessing a reversal of these processes everywhere. This is precisely why it is crucial to fight not for the release of individual high-profile political prisoners but for an end to political repression as such.

Of course, there are different situations, and in some cases, exchange is the only available means to save a person. The conditions under which political prisoners are held vary widely. I am well aware that my situation is far from the worst in comparison. For this reason, I do not presume to decide for others or present my personal opinion as a universal principle. However, I would recommend, first, that those political prisoners who have the physical and moral strength to continue the struggle refuse to participate in exchanges. Second, I ask the organisers of exchanges and those compiling lists to include only those prisoners who have explicitly agreed to accept freedom at the cost of being exiled from the country.

In conclusion, I will say: whatever choice we make, we must never forget that our goal is freedom and rights for everyone — not only for those behind bars but for those subjected to other forms of oppression in Russia and around the world.

The Trump effect

By Boris Kagarlitsky

Published 17 November, 2024

First published in Russian at Rabkor. Translation by Dmitry Pozhidaev for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

Alas, I must begin this article with inevitable self-criticism. When the Democrats in the United States replaced the ageing [President Joseph] Biden with the youthful and elegant Kamala Harris, I, like many others, concluded that the return of Donald Trump to the White House could be prevented. Of course, I can now justify myself by pointing out that, being in prison, I did not have sufficient access to current information and could not follow all the twists and turns of the electoral race.

However, the problem is much deeper. I underestimated the scale of bureaucratic inertia among the “reasonable” camp (Democrats, liberals, leftists and all those who know for sure that the Earth is round and that humans evolved from ancient primates), as well as the degree of demoralisation and demobilisation among the masses, tired of two decades of empty politically correct chatter. I thought that the looming real threat would force the political apparatus to mobilise beyond the usual electoral measures and that the masses, dissatisfied with the current state of affairs but unwilling to return to the past, would awaken from apathy. The election results show that the mere threat of a reactionary turn was not enough. Liberals and liberal leftists are now doomed to reap the fruits of their catastrophic policies, the dire consequences of which many have already written about — from Thomas Frank to the author of these lines. But importantly, this will affect not only the United States but the entire world.

What has changed since 2016?

But is the danger really that great? After all, Trump was already in power from 2016 to 2020, and nothing terrible happened. Strictly speaking, nothing happened at all. Even the promised wall along the Mexican border was not built. But the fact is that over the past 4-5 years, the political situation has changed not only in the United States but worldwide, including in Russia.

In 2016, it was possible to gloat over Trump’s victory: “These are the worthy fruits of their wickedness.”1 The Democratic Party apparatus, through manipulation and falsification, suppressed the activists’ rebellion, eliminated the threat of a “left turn”, and derailed Bernie Sanders’ candidacy, ultimately resulting in Trump in the White House. Moreover, many disgruntled Sanders voters supported Trump back then. A millionaire from New York played the role of a protest candidate for the people, partly in spite of his own views and plans.

If you think the same thing happened in 2024, you are deeply mistaken.

Over the years, a revanchist coalition has formed around Trump, uniting all varieties and sorts of reactionary forces that seemed to have been rejected by the history of the 19th and 20th centuries. From opponents of revolutionary theory to provincial isolationists who believe that the US entry into the war against [Adolf] Hitler was a fatal mistake. The inertia of the protest that arose in 2016 has been successfully exploited by Trumpists, but the social program the winners are preparing to implement will primarily harm those who voted for the jovial Donald. It must be admitted that the US’s incomplete and chaotically constructed social policies are inadequate, but dismantling them will make the situation even worse. The hardworking “rednecks” who believe they can achieve anything through their labour, will soon feel the consequences of their choice.

What does this mean for us?

If Russian officials and propagandists who praised Trump hope he will solve their problems (primarily concerning Ukraine), they are, of course, mistaken. Trump’s isolationism (and that of his business colleagues), combined with his manic drive to start a major trade war with China, promises Russia nothing good. Since Russia cannot be a US ally in this trade war, it will inevitably become an adversary.2 This means seeking partners not only in China but also in Western Europe, with which Moscow (unlike Beijing) has burned its bridges. However, regardless of how international events unfold, the Russian bureaucracy is tempted to freeze decision-making until spring 2025, when the new administration in Washington will finally take office. It is clear that during this time, domestic affairs will become even more entangled, and contradictions will deepen.

What could counteract this situation?

First, the worsening of economic problems and rising inflation, which the Central Bank is trying to curb by raising the key interest rate to an exorbitant 23–25%, stifling demand in non-military sectors.3

Second, pressure from “brotherly China” that, on the eve of a potential trade war with the US and the loss of part of the US market, is particularly interested in resuming railway transit of its goods to Europe via Russia and Ukraine. This means inevitable “coercion to peace” by Chinese 
“brothers”.

Finally, third, the sharpness of contradictions within the Russian elite itself. These contradictions are accumulating and intensifying, without resolution. Moreover, they concern far more than just foreign policy.

What does this mean for the future?

In 2016, both the liberal establishment and liberal left received a very serious lesson. But they did not learn from it. Worse, they doubled down on implementing principles of political correctness against the backdrop of dismantling the welfare state and pursuing market reforms. The result has been an objective intensification of class contradictions, with no political representation for the interests of the lower classes. This gap made it possible for the growth of right-wing populism, exploiting mass discontent but directing it not against dominant economic interests, but against ethnic minorities, liberal intellectuals, external enemies, and so on. Of course, there is nothing new here. This is exactly how fascists in Italy and Nazis in Germany ran their campaigns in the 1920s — and successfully so. But there are two significant differences.

The first is that in the 1920s, there was a strong leftist movement represented by Communists and social democrats. Yes, they quarrelled and obstructed each other. But they were strong and popular. Today, no such movement exists.

The second difference is that in the 1930s, the far right managed to implement a program of regulating capitalism. Now, however, their program boils down to economic protectionism combined with creating a “free market for their own”. At best, they might remove cheap migrant labour from the workforce and close markets to cheap Asian goods. Such a program will not work.

The paradox is that Trumpist economic policy is likely to destabilise global and US capitalism. Theoretically, this (along with the demoralisation of the left and classic liberals) potentially creates space for new class-based left forces. But potential and realisation are two different things. And let us not forget the prophecy of the Strugatsky brothers: “After the grey ones come the black ones.”4 If the political vacuum representing the working majority is not filled by an adequate leftist force, the consequences will be tragic.

And if anyone thinks “the worse, the better,” they are also mistaken. Recall the slogan of the German Communists in 1932: “Lass Hitler kommen, nach kommen wir” (“Let Hitler come, we will come after”). Unfortunately, the price of such illusions can be unbearably high.

• 1

  “These are the worthy fruits of their wickedness” (original: «Вот злонравия достойные плоды») is a quote from the 18th-century comedy The Minor (Недоросль) by Russian playwright Denis Fonvizin. It is spoken by one of the characters to describe the brutish selfishness and crudeness of the poorly educated minor from the country gentry, who mistreats his parents — a consequence of their own wickedness in raising him.

• 2

  Kagarlitsky analyses Russia’s limited political options, given the irreconcilable positions of the US and China, in his previous interview on LINKS Boris Kagarlitsky on the US elections, Trump, peace talks and prospects for world war. There he argues that any rapprochement with the US would require one very important condition: that Russia become a key US ally in the fight against China. But for the Russian economy, which has grown increasingly dependent on China, a pivot to the West would be catastrophic, economically and geopolitically.

• 3

  Kagarlitsky refers to the decision of Russia’s central bank in October to raise the key rate to 21% to rein in higher-than-forecast inflation. The economic community agrees that the rate is likely to be raised again in the near future.

• 4

  The quote is from the Strugatsky brothers’ novel Hard to Be a God (Трудно быть богом): «Там, где торжествует серость, к власти всегда приходят черные», which translates to: “Where mediocrity triumphs, the blacks always come to power.” In the novel, “greyness” symbolises mediocrity and complacency, while “the blacks” refers to a fictional clerical reactionary order that established a brutal dictatorship characterised by mass murders and pillaging.

Bracing for Trump 2.0

Maleeha Lodhi 

November 11, 2024 

THE world was already bracing for Donald Trump’s return to power. And it is a stunning comeback. His clean sweep in the election, winning the White House, Senate and most likely the House of Representatives, will make him a more powerful president than he was in his first term, with a stronger mandate.

What his foreign policy will look like is being feverishly assessed across the world. Will it mimic his first term’s America First approach which translated into an America Alone policy? Will it prove as disruptive and destabilising as in the past?

Influencing assessments is the widespread view among the international community that Washington’s engagement with the world in recent years has neither been sustained nor consistent, which raises questions about US reliability. This at a time when the US is no longer the sole dominant power in an increasingly multipolar world, which places limits on its ability to shape global geopolitics and determine outcomes.

Trump’s unpredictable and impulsive personality will intensify uncertainty about the course of American policy especially given his penchant for suddenly changing course. His ‘America First’ unilateralist worldview created much discontinuity and volatility in foreign policy in his first term and dented America’s international standing. His isolationist approach also made the US retrench from its global role.

One certainty, with far-reaching implications for global stability and economy, is that Trump 2.0 will continue the well-established US policy of containment of China. A bipartisan consensus now sees China as a strategic adversary and challenge. Trump might escalate the confrontation over trade and technology issues. During the campaign he threatened to impose 60 per cent tariffs across the board on Chinese imports and end China’s most favoured-nation status. Whether he raises tariffs to this extent is doubtful as he will have to calculate its impact on American consumers; costlier imports would push up prices and that too when inflation is a challenge. It would also pose a risk to European economies as China is Europe’s biggest trading partner.

During the campaign, Trump also said he would seek a good relationship with Beijing. In a Fox News interview, he said while there was no greater critic of China than him, he respected China and President Xi Jinping. Though Trump will take a tough position on trade issues, his business instincts will urge him to be transactional and open to striking deals with China on trade and perhaps other contentious issues, including Taiwan. While intensifying the rivalry with China, Trump would want to avoid a collision course or military conflict over Taiwan. He has, in fact, been critical of Taiwan, saying it should pay the US for defending it.

Disruptions in US policy are likely at a time when the world is already in a state of chaos.

Trump has proposed a 10 to 20pc tariff on all imported goods, which will strain relations with America’s European allies, who Trump treated with derision in his first term, casting them as free-loaders. Aimed at all countries that have a trade surplus with the US, this would nonetheless be hard to implement. It would be a blow to developing economies and dampen global economic growth.

While Trump is an avowed protectionist, the question is how far he will go to press this agenda. According to economic experts, his plan to raise tariffs and order mass deportations of immigrants will further fuel inflation that Trump has promised to tackle.

Where a radical change in US policy is likely is on the Ukraine war. Often claiming he can end the war “in a day”, Trump is expected to push for talks to end a conflict he says “should never have happened”. This is cause for concern for Europe. Trump has said he will press Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to enter negotiations for a peace deal. He may not be averse to an outcome that favours Moscow in which Ukraine has to cede territory. He is unlikely to respond to reservations of European nations in this regard.

Trump has frequently chastised Nato allies for not sharing the defence burden. He has also said in his second term, America will fundamentally rethink “Nato’s purpose and mission” and ask European nations to reimburse the US billions of dollars for military supplies it sent to Ukraine. This may be bluster but there is little doubt that Trump and the Republican Party do not want to continue military funding to Ukraine.

European allies, therefore, have much to worry about. They have to deal with a president who has shown little commitment to European security, and who declared during the campaign that “in many cases, our allies are worse than our so-called enemies”. Trump sees European countries not contributing enough to their own security and taking advantage of the US, a situation he wants to end. He has no patience with alliances. Or with multilateralism.

The crisis in the Middle East presents a clear and present challenge that Trump might seek to address by forcing a ceasefire in Gaza. While avoiding specifics, he repeatedly said during the campaign he wants to see peace in the region and Israel should end the war quickly — by winning it and “finishing the job”. He is even more pro-Israel than President Joe Biden and has no empathy for the plight of the Palestinians (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once called Trump the best friend Israel ever had in the White House).

Nor has Trump shown any commitment to a two-state solution even though that remains the US position. Any deal he might push for will be on Israel’s terms and will also aim to goad other Arab countries to accede to the Abraham Accords — his signature Middle East initiative in his first term. This will principally involve encouraging Saudi Arabia to normalise ties with Israel, although Riyadh has made it clear this will only be possible once a Palestinian state is established.

Unpredictability is likely to be the hallmark of Trump’s foreign policy. But because he has a transactional view of international relations that would also open his policies to pragmatic possibilities. The world can expect disruptions in US policy at a pivotal time when wars and crises hang in the balance in what UN Secretary General António Guterres calls an “age of chaos”.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024

Trumped again

Mahir Ali 

Published November 13, 2024

DAWN

DONKEYS are reputed to be stubborn beasts. That possible misinterpretation of their instinct for self-preservation characterises a party that has utilised Equus asinusas a symbol since Andrew Jackson embraced a hostile description of himself as a jackass back in 1828.

The Democrats’ election symbol might be an insult to a species whose intelligence has been underrated since donkeys were domesticated 6,000 years ago, but its traditional implications accurately reflect the party hierarchy’s mindset after last week’s devastating defeat.

The post-mortems began pouring in as soon as it became obvious that Kamala Harris had been trounced by Donald Trump. Yesterday, the president-elect was due to be hosted in the Oval Office by a man who had described him as a dire threat to democracy.

Joe Biden’s claim wasn’t exactly inaccurate, but it ignored his own party’s contribution to the promotion of plutocracy. It may not have been initiated by the Democrats, but they ran with the neoliberal trend exe­mplified by the Reagan administration.

The Democrats have enabled him once more.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama lent their imagined heft to the Harris campaign, and both ignored the issues whereby their presidencies led, respectively, to George W. Bush and Trump. The Clinton presidency did not deviate all that much from the Reagan era, and Obama effectively pursued both the neoconservatism and neoliberalism of his Republican predecessor.

No one can claim with any certainty that the 2024 result would have been different had Biden butted out after the 2022 midterm elections, in which the Democrats did not fare quite as badly as the polls and the mainstream media projected, but they might have made amends that bolstered their support two years later. No such luck. Biden did propose some healthy measures on the economic and renewable energy fronts, but they made no immediate difference to most of those who were suffering from the consequences of the Covid pandemic and its inflationary aftermath.

The Democrats offered no alternative to the status quo beyond gradual improvement over the years, bolstered by pundits who proclaimed that the economy was going gangbusters, with rising employment and declining inflation. Too many voters did not feel the joy that Harris sought to project, recalling that their grocery bills were lower before Biden took over. Among the many promises Trump is unlikely to fulfil, he vowed to bring down grocery bills, cut taxes and end all wars.

Back in 2016, he emerged as a potential disruptor of a status quo that wasn’t working for most Americans. He could not reclaim the perch in 2020, after four years in power. That he was able to achieve a far more convincing victory than eight years ago is a testament to the decrepitude of the Democrats.

That does not only mean that Biden ought to have ruled himself out a couple of years ago on the basis of his senescence, but also that his successor should have diverged from a self-defeating formula by offering viable alternatives to both an economy whose supposedly thriving aspects are not trickling down to most voters, and to a foreign policy that involves prolonging a nasty war in Europe and promoting a genocide in the Middle East.

Harris focused, instead, on slamming Trump and saying that she wasn’t Biden — the latter of which was obvious given her gender and ethnicity, but less so when it came to her ideology. Much of the Democratic elite that has ridiculed Bernie Sanders for accurately claiming that the working class was only returning the favour when it deserted the De­­mocrats have also claimed that Har­ris ran a wonderful campaign but was der­ailed by unavoidable obstacles. That’s nonsense. It’s true she had only 100 days to stake her claim, thanks to her geriatric chieftain’s obduracy and his party’s inexplicable obeisance, but her rallying cries consisted of little more than hollow platitudes, and her oratorical skills don’t match those of Barack Obama.

Sanders consistently reminds the electorate that real wages haven’t increased since the 1970s, the minimum wage is far too low, and it’s a travesty that so many citizens of the world’s richest nation live in poverty despite full-time jobs, and struggle to pay their medical bills and education debts. While the Republicans’ ridiculous response is to privatise everything, the Democrats are petrified by the prospect of proposing anything more than a bit of tinkering on the edges of neoliberalism.

It’s easy to empathise with the likeliest victims of Trump’s non-consecutive second term, an achievement previously pulled off only by Grover Cleveland in the 19th century. And he was a Democrat back when the Republican Party was relatively progressive.

Trump’s unpredictability means we can only wait and see how far he will go in carrying out his threatened atrocities at home and his promised peacemaking abroad.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2024

An apocalypse Trump won’t see

Jawed Naqvi 

November 12, 2024 

DAWN

ON one of Donald Trump’s last days as lame-duck president in 2020, senior Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi rushed to US military generals to caution them against heeding any command from him that could start a nuclear war.

Whatever be the truth about the Democrats’ worry, the world was on edge. Then, the shoe was on the other foot. Biden followed a needle-and-thread policy — threading cavalier alliances and needling Russia and China into a rage. Much of the worried world responded by gravitating to BRICS. Biden and his secretary for state woke up every day to arm and finance the most gruesome slaughter of women and children since Hitler in Gaza. The Democrats thus helped Trump seem less menacing to the voters.

The Doomsday Clock is still at 90 minutes to midnight with Trump’s second win, continuing to remind humanity that the threat from manmade apocalypse hasn’t receded. The president-elect did sound unusually benign and even faux inclusive in his victory speech. On the flip side, he pres­sed the accelerator on the unfolding environmental catastrophe. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like that,” he exulted to cheering supporters, listing the cultural and ethnic mix that voted him to office. The thought alone should worry Democrats, who regard multiculturalism as their exclusive turf, in contrast to Trump’s white supremacist calling.

“They came from all corners. Union, non-union; African, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, Muslim; we had everybody, and it was beautiful,” he croaked. It’s always disturbing to hear gilded words from autocrats. Has a compulsively sectarian Trump bucked the trend to project himself as a leader of all Americans equally? In which case, the rivals are in deeper trouble than one thought.

The Doomsday Clock has kept a watch on signs of manmade calamity that Albert Einstein had feared. Global warming is somehow only now, and grudgingly, being seen as an existential threat to mankind, though Noam Chomsky had presciently called it as lethal as the bomb. Trump walked out of two momentous agreements in his first term, making the world insecure on both counts.

He ditched the Paris Agreement on climate change, and even today, remains unconvinced that the destruction Hurricane Helene wreaked on North Carolina during the election campaign could be a sign of nature paying back in kind. He also tore up the Iran pact, making it a factor today in war-gaming an Iran-Israel nuclear exchange as a possibility. Iranian officials say that a fatwa against the bomb could be lifted if the war with Israel so demands.

Trump’s cavalier comments in his victory speech on the primacy of fossil fuel ‘to make America great again’ could send shivers down the spine of climate activists gathered in Baku this week for the fortnight of deliberations at COP29. In one fell swoop, Trump destroyed any hopes environment activists may have had from Robert Kennedy Jr in the new team. He all but declared that the environment lawyer, who doubles as an anti-vaccine campaigner, could be assigned the health portfolio. Calling Kennedy to the stage, Trump anointed him. “He is going to make America healthy again.”

As for Kennedy’s concern for climate change, Trump pre-empted trouble. “Bobby, leave the oil to me. We have more liquid gold — oil and gas — We have more liquid gold than any country in the world; more than Saudi Arabia. We have more than Russia. Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. Other than that, go have a good time, Bobby.”

Trump’s second win reminds humanity that the threat from manmade apocalypse hasn’t receded.

Trump’s astounding return, completely, albeit unsurprisingly, missed by pollsters, has brought unforeseen responses. An American-Canadian friend says she is surrendering her US citizenship because she finds Trump insufferable. Google searches for ‘move to Canada’ surged 1,270 per cent in the 24 hours after the US East Coast polls closed on Tuesday. Similar searches about moving to New Zealand climbed nearly 2,000pc, while those for Australia jumped 820pc.

It’s not dissimilar to a whole host of people who have left or are leaving India with the advent of Narendra Modi, heading not to Pakistan, where his rabid cheerleaders would have wanted dissenters to go, but to trickier climes. The recent repatriation by the Biden administration of dozens of illegal migrants from India is a good example.

Trump’s denial of climate change is envied by many of his fans who do not have the means to be as brazen. On the global stage, Narendra Modi, an ardent Trump fan, presents himself as a keen environment buff. “India is committed to clean energy and environment,” he said at the recent G20 summit in Delhi. Yet it is no secret that India will use coal for decades to come, even as it explores renewables to move towards net zero in 2070.

Three days before COP27 in Egypt, India’s finance minister showcased the doublespeak. “India needs greater investment in coal production,” said Nirmala Sitharaman at the Delhi launch of the country’s biggest-ever coal mine auction, where 141 new sites for coal mines were on offer. The move was rehearsed at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. That’s when India, backed by China, made a last-minute intervention to water down the language of the final agreement, changing the commitment to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal power.

The fallout is palpable in the neighbourhood and beyond. The Maldives archipelago faces a watery doom, and vast swathes of Bangladesh would become uninhabitable as the sea encroaches. Pakistan, too, is reeling from the effects of climate change, not least since the 2022 flood fury.

The prime minister’s point person for environment, Romina Khurshid Alam, was preparing Pakistan’s talking points for Baku when Trump was drooling over the oil resources of America he had inherited in his victory. Ms Alam’s terror at the speed with which the mighty glaciers of the Hindu Kush are melting contrasts apocalyptically with the sight of Trump drooling over the oil wealth he plans to plunder to make America great again.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2024

The real issues

Bisma Tirmizi 

Published November 9, 2024

DAWN

THERE is nothing complicated about Donald Trump’s win as much of the mainstream media would like the world to believe. If you live in America you know the truth, and if you watch TikTok anywhere in the world, you know the truth and more.

While the liberals have a tantrum and try to complicate the reasons behind why the Americans chose to paint their country Red this time, and in essence decided to cosy up to the Draconian Blond, the reality is easy to decipher for first-time voters, seasoned baby boomers and all generations in between.

It was as simple and down to earth as ‘roti, kapra aur makan’.

Election 2024 is a clear indication that after all is said and done, after all the soap opera, the theatrical and manufactured issues, dramatic hyperbole, staged debates, and woke issues that need no oxygen or air time, politics is still about only the real issues.

One may choose to hate Trump for his crassness or his politics, but he ran on what matters to an average American — no foreign wars, no inflation, no crime, no illegal immigration and the impact on a household. In contrast, Kamala Harris ran on feelings, vague abstract vibes, oxygenating fears, a high horse with a Hollywood saddle, constant virtue signalling, appearances on SNL, and a zero-sum issue-driven campaign. Being uncharismatic didn’t help. She lacked authenticity and charisma and the Democrats’ overall message was focused on vilifying Trump and the Republican voter. That backfired.

This time it was all about making sure that Harris lost.

She clearly chose not to separate from her boss on most agendas. Plus the constantly invoked moral high ground — ‘We are better than the Republicans’ — did not work when tens of thousands of unarmed people were being obliterated in a genocide on her watch. And endorsements from the likes of warmonger Dick Cheney, which should have caused revulsion, were worn like a badge of honour. Bizarre!

Flashback 2020: Biden picked a losing vice-president in order to ensure he would do eight years. Her campaign had zero momentum from the get-go and a late arrival left no runway time for the campaign to take flight. She is no Barack Obama. And while Obama’s politics may not be ideal, his persona was absolutely dynamic.

It seemed Harris only ran on the abortion issue, and despite her calls from the pulpit, the country figured out that Trump is not really pro-life, as the Democratic rhetoric would like them to believe. Trump ran an intelligent campaign and perceptively pulled ahead of the Democratic rhetoric by clearly rejecting a countrywide abortion ban.

What was Harris left with?

She beat the drum on ‘cry wolf’, when the wolf wasn’t really there. The wolf wasn’t interested in eating the sheep.

Another sensitive issue that Harris championed was the gender choice for minors — an issue that did not sit too well at the ballot box regardless of what the pundits or the extreme left wing might have had the campaign believe. The Red sweep clearly told the Democrats that if a child can’t get a tattoo before the age of 18 without parental presence, then something as consequential, life-altering and monumental as gender change has to be off the table.

And here we are today and America has made its choice. It chose to let a felon into the White House, and as a friend (who hails from occupied Kashmir, and has faced persecution) said, “America decided it did not want undocumented immigrants no matter how persecuted they feel in their country of birth. Misogyny does not bother the majority, hate speech and da­­ngerous rhetoric isn’t that bad, reproductive rights for wo­­m­en aren’t that big of a deal after all, and the list goes on.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to normalising a yearlong genocide. Liberals worked overtime to make a fascist sound normal to the people who do not agree with what has been going on this past year. They thought we could focus on safe abortions instead.

He might turn out to be just like his predecessors and continue America’s Middle East policy, but he won’t feed the world lies about it. Those who did not vote for Kamala or simply abstained as an act of defiance or for the lack of a better choice, you have my respect.’’

Cue the Muslims in the US who chose to make their voice heard.

While in 2016 there was a feeling of deep depression at Trump winning, this time it was all about making sure that Harris lost. America voted, and it voted for a better life by tuning out the noise.

And while the mainstream media looks for more rhetoric as to why Trump won, the answer is simple; real issues always trump vague feelings. Period.

The writer has published two books and is a freelance journalist.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2024

The Donald supremacy

An empire unravels as the "short-fingered vulgarian" reclaims the throne.

Asad Rahim Khan

Published November 8, 2024
DAWN

It wasn’t even close. But also, it was never going to be.

As the 2024 polls conclude, the global hegemon may be entering its own late Soviet Union phase: ancient leaders, vomiting soldiers, and the collapse of a rules-based order that, even in its prime, never quite applied to those writing it.

And yet such obituaries are a risky business: while the West’s neoliberals make up the dying regime today, they’re not going the way of the communist bloc just yet.

After all, America remains the greatest economy, the mightiest military, and the uncrowned keeper of the world’s reserve currency. It is empire, and empire is everywhere.
America picks Trump, again

But one would be hard-pressed to think, after yet another toxic election, that the American experiment isn’t flailing hard. Described over three decades ago as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in Vanity Fair, Donald Trump is displaying a different sort of hand gesture to elite magazines these days.

Fresh from a hero’s journey grosser than the reality TV he headlines, Trump is cruising past two assassination attempts, two impeachments, even a criminal conviction, to become the 47th president of the United States. “We love winners,” he said during his last term. “We love winners. Winners are winners.”

And losers are losers. Surely, asked The Guardian, didn’t the world see “Kamala Harris’s competence and expertise, her decency and grace, her potential to be the first female president?”

If the world saw it, the voter didn’t, handing the God & Oil Party its first popular victory in two decades. And the emotional meltdown on the other side is silly, self-indulgent, and self-delusional.


Because Kamala Harris was never going to win. Let’s face it: how many times has it happened in America that an unpopular incumbent won amid economic anxiety? Kamala hadn’t to distinguish herself from Trump so much as from Sleepy Joe. She decided not to. She couldn’t attack Trump’s corruption. Biden was corrupt. His harassment of women; Biden did that too. His age: Biden is ancient. His mental acuity: Biden is demented.

So Kamala was left with Kamala, and a politburo of Pelosis and Obamas lurking in the hall — a dizzy ex-prosecutor that had never won a single primary, couldn’t carry her own state in 2020, had no recognisable ideas as vice-president, had no core beliefs in general, and sold out each of her positions from the wall to Palestine. Should she have run?

Because the core theme of this election, same as the one before it, was simple: if Bill Clinton’s boys had come up with “It’s the economy, stupid”, the same dinosaurs were now too high up the managerial class to let Kamala know it was the economy again, and that those amid it were suffering.

Instead, the donors, operators, and hopey-changey Ivy Leaguers that form the Dems’ shadow party — the ones that knifed Biden when his brain froze on the debate stage — went on and on about Joe’s economic miracle: more growth, more jobs, more recovery all around.

And if median income was taking a beating, and food insecurity was at a high, and health insurance was on the wane, who cared? As Charles Schumer shrugged in 2016, for every blue-collar Democrat that dropped off, the party would snatch up two suburban Republicans. It was a poor trade to make, and it wasn’t going to work anyway, given the massive workers’ exodus from the left across the board.

“It should come as no great surprise,” said Bernie Sanders, forever the thwarted king across the sea, “that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

And how: nearly 80 per cent of voters that thought the economy was their top issue voted for Trump.
Racist orange billionaire beats deep state genocide enabler

In the other corner was Harris as a sad parody of Hillary — courting vapid celebrities over unions, and vile chicken-hawks like Liz Cheney over decent human beings. Say what you want about the state of Biden’s brain, he’d been in politics long enough to do a populist feint when needed, from laying track to splurging on jobs (all watered down once in office).

Not Kamala — she was content with just saying she’d be better than the brownshirts coming back. And why not; standing against something is still a stand. It’s just that the last time America defeated fascism, it required a titanic reorientation of the entire economy, near-full employment, and a war that killed 4pc of the world’s population.

What Kamala had were bumper stickers. “Never again,” she enjoyed telling crowds. “Never again. Never again.”

Interestingly, it may well have been never again: as of this writing, Trump is bagging the same number of votes as his losing bid in 2020, if not less. In essence, the Dems lost more than Trump won.

Yes, a fair few wealthy suburbanites feared, correctly, that Trump would take a gold-plated wrecking ball to their democracy. For everyone else, however, there were more immediate crises at hand. (“Did America really elect a dictator because Frosted Flakes hit $7.99 at the grocery store?” asked the Jacobin.)

But inflation’s a desperately dull subject, one almost as dull as social stratification — the kind that breeds status anxiety; the realisation that a certain standard of life can now only be the province of rich idiots that live in gated communities, go to the same schools, inter-golf, and inter-marry. Why not vote for Trump?


Instead, the rest of the world gets to listen to how America’s rotten id let the Donald win again — a triumph of racism, sexism, fascism, this-ism, and that-ism; that the barbarians have disarmed lady Liberty, and the Capitol will be toppled next. If it was Jan 6 then, it’ll be blood in the streets now.

The hysteria is so loud, it’s almost as if this hasn’t happened before: that a void so carefully nourished over generations — a culture that sanctifies capital, and a politics bereft of class — wouldn’t be filled by right-wing populists.

Because it’s hard to imagine it was Nazis that re-elected the Squad: Rashida Tlaib, who refused to endorse Kamala, was returned to Congress by the same Michigan voter that had so humiliated Harris, in a stunning 20,000-vote swing away from Biden’s haul in 2020.

“Genocide is bad politics,” said an activist in Dearborn. Unless, of course, we believe the Democrats: that the minorities have turned into white supremacists overnight. Could it be, instead, that they sensed the liberal order’s self-immolation in Gaza; that the bodies of shredded children on hooks was no longer international law as usual?

It was hard to come to any other conclusion, especially with Bill Clinton being trotted out to tell potential voters their family members deserved ethnic cleansing at the hands of Eretz Zion. Incidentally, the man thought best-suited to soothing Muslim horror over an ongoing genocide was the same president that had let Serbs slaughter their way to the last Bosnian enclave before stirring himself awake (and was still celebrated by the Muslim street for it).

In fact, the Republican Party, despite boasting the world’s most diverse range of war criminals — from Kissinger to Rumsfeld to Bolton — sounded more moderate on killing kids overseas than the Democrats this round. And if the Kamala voter was being expected to ignore a genocide, why should the Trumpist be made to blush over race riots?

As for policies at home, the blues seem to have decided that victory, via a happy left-wing, would still be worse than defeat by grandpas in red hats. If there was a coalition the Democrats wanted to win over last week, it was, well, the Republican coalition. And the Republican coalition couldn’t even recognise itself: the neocons were dead, the blazers-and-slacks bunch was cowed, and the MAGA Trumpers were legion.

Because politics in America is no longer about bettering social conditions; it hasn’t been since Reagan. Politics in America is about target selection — a perverse culture war that helps people forget what’s attributed to Tanzania’s Julius Nyrere: that the US is a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.

So it is that a racist orange billionaire beats a deep state genocide enabler, in what the press calls our “most crucial election” — even as both are united on backing Israel, fighting China, protecting guns from their victims, deporting illegals en masse, drilling record amounts of hydrocarbon, and building up defence-tech. The big stuff is settled.

If there are differences, it’s on the second-string issues — tax cuts for the rich, anti-trust enforcement, crackdowns on even-legal immigrants, and whether or not Elon Musk is a white replacement weirdo.

And yet, if Trump remains the anti-war provincial he pledges to be, that will be more than enough for millions of innocents so removed from his universe — the kind of indifference that drove Bush-era torturers like Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales into the Democrats’ loving arms.

As for Pakistan — and depending on the politics of the Pakistani saying so —he’s a breath of fresh air for the country’s largest party, the PTI, and bodes well for the imprisoned Imran Khan; alternatively, say those partial to the current regime’s jailers, Pakistan’s not important enough to care about anyway. The first assumption is still premature; the second is already wrong.

What’s beyond argument is that the Donald returns older, angrier, and more extreme. He’s mopped the floor with America’s traditional dynasties, the Bushes and the Clintons, and carries a party remade entirely in his image. Meanwhile, the Senate has flipped red; the House is on knife-edge; and a third of the Supreme Court sits as his appointees. A broader realignment, towards the populist roar, is ensuring his surname becomes an era.

“This will truly be the golden age of America,” he says. Ever since its supervillains took the controls in 2000, it hasn’t been.



The author is an advocate at the Lahore High Court. He is a partner at Ashtar Ali LLP, where he focuses on constitutional law and commercial litigation. He is also a columnist at Dawn.