American election
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Extract from our Socialism As A Practical Alternative pamphlet;
”The power of the state, which operates from the concentration of centralized power in the hands of governments, will be replaced by a fully democratic system through which decisions will flow from the broadest possible social base to represent the views of the whole community. A democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community which could elect is delegates to a local council which could be given the responsibility for local administration.“
I’m possibly incurring the wrath of LBird and his democracy views but can we be certain that all decision-making will be by local communities voting.
Surely the most suited to determine the expertise of a medical practitioner will be a body such as the BMA, their fellow peers. Who is better qualified? His or her patients? The hospital management? And education. Is an elected school board as the US still have and the UK once had reflective of a teachers skills? (we also had local health boards, too, didn’t we?) Isn’t delegation something to be desired in many cases?
If we say all local administrators will be elected (despite caveats of recallability) will we be victims of the oratory skills of applicants rather than genuine ability? This is the issue i have with the American system of local government. Too many positions are elected and therefore subject to public opinion rather than fellow colleague’s approval. I recall John Oliver’s episode on how a coroner in many US jurisdictions require no training whatsoever despite extensive powers.
In America there are half a million elected officials, commissioners and administrators.
Lobster has a range of reviews on books by Never Trump republicans:
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster80/lob80-never-trumpers.pdf
The interesting thing is the bipartisan foreign policy, that Truimp has upset:
“The Republican foreign policy
establishment was by and large bipartisan in sympathy, looking as far as
possible to achieve consensus with their Democrat opposite numbers. As
Saldin and Teles point out, they sometimes overlapped. Mike Green, for
example, had been offered jobs by both George W Bush and Al Gore
before the 2000 Presidential election, while Eliot Cohen, ‘Condoleezza
Rice’s top aide at the State Department’, had voted for the Democrat,
John Kerry, in 2004. (pp. 31-32) Now once Trump won the nomination,
they became ‘the purest strain of Never Trumpism’”It was precisely because they were monolithic and bipartisan that trump was able to upset the Applecart…
“can we be certain that all decision-making will be by local communities voting.”
No, but nobody has said they should be. Taking decisions that affect a locality locally doesn’t mean that every inhabitant has to vote on every decision to be taken. Direct democracy is not a sensible option except for matters of principle requiring a simple yes or no answer. Most decisions are not that simple as there a whole range of options. This is why they are best taken by a committee, whether at local level elected by universal suffrage or a citizens assembly chosen by lot or some other means.
We don’t need to draw up recipes for the cookshops of the future, amusing as this might be. That’s undemocratic as well as pretty pointless. In any event, socialism’s decision-making structures won’t have to built up from scratch. It’s more a question of taking over and democratising those that will be inherited from capitalism. So, in parts of the English- speaking part of North America the local dog catcher may well still be elected. At a higher level I imagine the House of Representatives will be retained with the Presidency and Senate bring abolished. Who knows? The people around at the time might prefer a different recipe.
YMS, this article suggests that there is also broad bipartisan agreement on the causes of racism
“Both Trump and Biden have remained within the same neoliberal capitalist framework where concerns over racial, class-based inequalities are outdone by superfluous debates over removing Confederate flags and monuments of racist historical figures. Less debated are issues dealing with demilitarizing police departments and properly funding public schools.
Professor Toure Reed of Illinois State University recently wrote: “For the past several decades now, liberals and conservatives alike have been disposed to view racial inequality through one of two racialist frames: the ingrained, if not inborn cultural deficiencies of black and brown poor people; or the ingrained, if not inborn racism of whites. The political-economic underpinnings of inequality, however, have been of little interest to either Democrats or Republicans….Why? Because that would force both Democrats and Republicans—who are often beholden to Wall Street firms, K-Street lobbyists, and the broader investor class—to reveal positions, strategies, and policies that produce the forms and types of racial and wealth inequalities that they ought to be addressing for the betterment of all Americans. But to do so means potentially putting themselves and their supporters out of business… It is easier to frame things with slogans like “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” and “Keep America Great” …”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/10/31/working-class-america-needs-real-change-not-slogans
Claire Wardle, the executive director of First Draft, a group that researches and combats disinformation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/02/trump-us-election-disinformation-russia
“‘Don’t trust the electoral system, don’t trust the CDC, don’t trust your neighbor because they’re probably antifa, don’t trust the left,’” Wardle said of Trump’s re-election message. “It’s not about persuading people one way or the other, it’s about making them scared and causing confusion and chaos,”
More talk from Biden supporters in the labour unions of a general strike if Trump refuses to accept a Biden electoral victory;
If political democracy was really under a threat of being replaced by a dictatorship, this would be one appropriate response. But I don’t think that Trump wants to try rule unconstitutionally as a dictator or in fact would be able to. That’s just scare tactics on the part of the supporters of his rival in a bid to get more votes.
The most he will try to do if he is losing will be to use an army of lawyers to try to invalidate votes for Biden in swing states that have gone against him.
In the end he will have to accept what the courts decide (unless he wants to spend the rest of his life in prison). He will also be aware that if there is an impasse in the Electoral College, when it meets on 14 December, and neither candidates gets a majority of votes there, it is the House of Representatives that will chose the President — which wouldn’t be him.
D-Day has finally come.
Our SOYMB blog has daily posted a series of articles with the theme of lesser evil voting since the 11th August – a total of 87 blog posts as our unique contribution to the president election debate. We might be ignored by our American fellow-workers but we can’t be accused of neglecting their interests.
Forgot to add that he would not be required to leave the White House and hand over power until 20 January. Whatever the result of the poll today to elect the states’ members of the Electoral College and whatever the college decides on 14 December, he remains the President constitutionally until 20 January even if as a “lame duck”.
The real trouble with the presidential transition is that the stop-gap pandemic stimulus has not been agreed and there will not be any incentive for Trump to reach an agreement with the Democrats on one.
In fact, he may relish passing on a the emotional misery, the material suffering and economic chaos to the next president. This means two months of real pain for our American fellow-workers.
The consequences can only be imagined when they say we are only three (or whatever) meals away from anarchy.
“Vote like your freedoms depend on it… because they do! This election is Freedom vs Marxism. Choose wisely and vote Trump.” Donald Trump JNR.
If only…
So far no militia poll-checkers intimidating voters. Biding (Biden) their time?
This is an interesting essay on Trump and the question of fascism
The US Republic, Trump and the Authoritarian Fear Mongering Club
In reference to the open letter Chomsky and other intellectuals wrote warning of the impending end of democracy, the author writes
“…It does not make much time for the signers of the letter to get to the president. “Whether Donald J. Trump is a fascist, post-fascist populist, an autocrat, or just a bumbling opportunist, the danger to democracy did not arrive with his presidency and goes well beyond November 3rf, 2020.” It is admirable for the signatories to take the long view, though such language can come across as silly. For one, the scholars, having been so caught up with seeing authoritarianism everywhere, have probably neglected to identify the content of democracy with any precision. There is also surely a vast difference between terms such as “fascist” and a “bumbling opportunist”…”
Now the bookies tip Trump
Betfair are giving Trump a 60% chance of winning a second term in the White House, up from 39% when polls opened on Tuesday morning.
Biden’s odds of a win among bets on the Betfair Exchange have fallen to 40% from 61% earlier.
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