U.S Politics

There was a wave of support for Tikhanovskaya in Belarus as well

But Mr. Definitely Not A Dictator! "won"

The US also has a Definitely Not A Dictator! president and a Definitely Not A Fascist Party! who will Definitely Not Fix The Election!

The Republicans' targeting of Harris will be "interesting"

She's already being called both "a cop" and a "radical leftist"

If anybody remembers the first primary debate last year when Harris did well, the online far right conspiracy theory afterwards was that "she is not black"

America is a white supremacist ethnostate so she will have to overcome that and all that goes with it

None of this is in any way insightful

Trump supports racist concentration camps in China

Well obviously, he is a fascist

The issue is the fascism

Discussion of the US "election" should be framed in a similar way to how discussion of "elections" in Belarus or Zimbabwe are framed, because the exact same issues are at play

Mate your understanding of any of this is shallower than Love Island

There seem to be troubling aspects to Harris' career as a prosecutor in terms of lack of not enforcing accountability for police and the prosecution of men from poor black communities

Peter Beinart makes a good case that Harris's stance as a prosecutor was down to the realities of politics - that a black woman simply could not have advanced career wise without appearing to be "tough on crime" - I fooking hate that phrase and that idea - "law and order" has always been a racist dog whistle in US politics

This is why Black Lives Matter is such a vital movement - it has changed the terms of the debate

Saoirse McHugh was right when she said that the way to force change was not through electoral politics

What she meant is that civil society that forces the terms of the debate - electoral politics follows that - and that's what Black Lives Matter and other progressive grass roots organisations have done

Beinart believes that this Democratic platform will be the most progressive in history - and while that's not near as progressive as I'd like, it's a million miles better than the alternative

I've seen posts already when run to several tweets etc, which are from Democratic types, which are takedowns of the Biden-Harris ticket, and tucked away is something about the "lesser of two evils", and a grudging intent to vote. To me, that plays into Trump's hands, as it makes the "intellectual case" against Biden-Harris. Its the same as the Brexit opponents who spent more time acting as an Independent Commission on the EU, as opposed to supporting remaining in the EU. And that's not the worst of it. There are others, who are just criticising Biden-Harris with no qualification about the intention to vote for them in spite of reservations. And at another level are people who vigorously oppose Trump-Pence who are now saying they won't vote or will find a 3rd Party candidate. The last group are extremely ideological and bitter about their ideology not controlling the Democratic Party, and are the same group who stepped back from Clinton, and have ended up with the worst excesses of the Trump administration, and with the so-called "moderates" back in the Presidential race. Anybody who does so now, is effectively supporting the status quo, and can take their share of the blame if Trump was to win. As above, its a binary choice, given how dreadful and destructive the current administration has been, and making vigorous case against the Dems ticket runs a major risk, especially as the criticisms that will come from the Republican Party will be entirely difficult, and invariably nonsense. And this is why people who want Trump-Pence gone, should be aware of how they voice their criticisms.

In relation to the power of protest, change can come through protest, but there are far more issues which are esoteric enough that protest won't make any difference, or the public don't have the interest of getting behind, and that its up to political action in the legislature to change. The last decade in Ireland saw several changes which were the product of change due to protest and social appetite, but those are very specific issues. I think it might have been John Oliver who did a segment on the NRA. My take was their influence is a product of their involvement in electoral politics, and their guaranteed attendance at all forms of public meetings, election to all sorts of organisations, and their interest in national affairs. Notwithstanding the mass protests, and the testimony of victims and  the horrendous effects of lax gun laws, there has been little or no restrictions made, and all that appears is the usual rhetoric, which totally ignores the need for crucial regulations. Getting elected in sufficient numbers would change that. 

Personally I think the dial on many or most major issues can be moved by protest and civil society agitation and campaigning

It's not just the gay rights or repeal the 8th stuff or Black Lives Matter in the US

Housing is definitely an example

The environment is certainly another

The water charge issue is another one we've seen

The poll tax is a famous example in Britain

Farmers have protested for decades and thus have a very powerful lobby

In broad terms, civil society agitation, campaigning and protest are absolutely essential for the broad left and progressivism

The broad right owns and controls most of the media, it has an ocean of appalling think tanks, lobby groups, bad faith, self promoting pseudo-academics, talking heads and online bots and trolls pushing out propaganda constantly

They do not have real grass roots protest - nobody genuinely protests for the stuff the broad right wants - even the Tea Party was an astro-turf group - that's why the right has its industrial bullsh*t machine, and that's why they have to create a crazy culture war - to get white people to vote on race - that's why they have to constantly divide people - so that effective opposition cannot be mounted

Weaponising race and so called "culture" has always been the broad right's modus operandi 

In a two-way race, as is always the case in Britain and the US, yes, you always have to put ideological differences aside and get behind the Labour or Demcratic leader or candidate because the alternative is a hell of a lot worse - in both Britain and the US now the alternative is complete corporate oligarchy and/or fascism - this is undeniable

So of course people need to completely get behind Biden and the Democratic party ticket in general, it's imperative Democratic candidates win every race possible from president right down to dog catcher

What irks a lot of people, me included, is how when the boot was on the other foot, and Corbyn was Labour leader, the "unite to beat the Tories" mantra was completely rejected by the centrists in Labour - they did their damnedest to destroy their own party

If there is a so called dirtbag left in the media and public debating space -  and there is - and I have real suspicions about some of them and their bad faith narratives (which coincidentally always seem to centre around a very soft or favourable view towards Russia and consistent downplaying of anything to do with Russian interference and Russian influence over Trump), there is also a dirtbag centrism which seeks to destroy progressivism or anything which threatens neo-liberalism, ie. anything that threatens privatised public services and the mantra of union bashing, and which proposes increased public spending, better public services and higher marginal taxes, ie. anything which gennuinely threatens corporate oligopoly

And unfortunately it has to be said that a consistently successful way of destroying progressives and progressivism is over the issue of Palestine - Labour centrists happily participated in the smear campaign to portray the Labour left, and only the Labour left, as being unique in British politics in terms of having an anti-Semitism problem

The Republicans have also tried the same bad faith tactics in the US as regards Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar

Meanwhile the Tories and the Republicans are infested with virulent anti-Semitism, but the Labour centrists were silent about in any way defending their own party or highlighting anti-Semitism either among their own faction or among the Tories

As I said previously, the term "law and order" has always been a racist dog whistle in US politics

And Democrats have certainly participated in it being so

Biden and both Clintons did - they used the language of "superpredators" etc. which are dog whistles and the Democrats brought in the draconian 1994 crime bill and actively participated in perpetuating the outright racist war on drugs (which was started by Nixon and then massively ramped up by Reagan)

They did this to win elections - because the Republicans had moved the ground on the issue of policing and crime so far to the right, that the so called "centre", ie. the small amount of voters who you need to win over to win elections, had been dragged far to the right on that issue - and the Democrats could not win elections without participating in these sort of dog whistles to win these voters

Democrats themselves knew that these sorts of policies were crazy and would have terrible impacts on black and working class communities, but the Republican bullsh*t machine had distorted the playing field to such an extent that they had no choice if they ever wanted to win power

Dukakis had been utterly destroyed on that issue in 1988 by the bad faith Willie Horton propaganda campaign against him

For the Democrats to win power, it seems they have to campaign sufficiently to the centre 

The key is in moving the centre leftwards, and only civil society can do that

In this election we have a revitalised civil society sector dragging the centre leftwards, coupled with a regime which has demonstrated in full the absolute cultish, fascist insanity of the Republican party at every level, something clued in observers have seen for many decades

There are pragmatists on the left of the Democratic party - AOC is very much a pragmatist and Bernie has been pragmatic too this time - that's what needed - apply severe pressure within to make the platform as progressive as possible, and hopefully apply that pressure in power as well - but get on board fully with the campaigning and being united

The Democratic party is the only hope for electoral politics in the US and Biden has to win big, really big to make sure he gets power

Make no mistake, the Republicans want minority rule - they have no interest in democracy, and will use every anti-democracy trick they can think of to keep Trump in power - this is a war as far as they are concerned

Unless the Democrats understand this, and I still don't think the DNC and others who are tasked with ensuring a fair election do, they will not take power - I hope I'm wrong