The Consequential 2024 Election

As we look forward to yet another presidential election this year, we should do so with a clear understanding of its importance for our republic and a sober look at the elements that will factor in its eventual outcome. 

As was the case in 2016 and 2020, the Democratic candidate will be faced with the formidable task of turning back the representative of a growing tide of ethnocentric, America First sentiment in the person of Donald Trump whom also pledges to replace our democracy with the installment of an authoritarian/totalitarian regime dedicated to one party rule, the suppression of free expression, retaliation against his political adversaries whom he regards as mortal enemies, the persecution of mainstream and independent journalists, the continued brutal assault on women’s reproductive rights, the appointment of governmental officials/cabinet members/court judges based more on blind allegiance to the seat of power than on individual qualification, the open embrace of radical white supremacist militias (the current version of Hitler’s Brown Shirts), the promise to declare martial law and bring the full force of the US military against otherwise organized and legal redress of grievances, the elimination of the judicial system as an impartial arbiter, continued relentless and vile mendacity, and the reshaping of society from a self governing entity into one characterized by an obedience not to the rule of law but rather to the will of one authoritarian figurehead. Even more alarming is that the above description of what is to be expected from another Trump administration is likely more understatement than hyperbole. 

Another concerning factor in the upcoming political contest is the question surrounding the viability of the opposition to the imminent threat posed by the Republican cadindate. As was the case in both the unsuccessful campaign of 2016 and the retaking of the presidency in 2020, the Democrats chose to nominate decidedly centrist candidates as the ‘safe’ alternative to Bernie Sanders and the evolving progressive wing of the Party. As observed here on several occasions, they did so at the risk of alienating an emerging electorate, most notably among the 18-32 demographic. This tactic met with mixed results as Hilary Clinton was increasingly viewed unfavorably by independent voters, particularly in the crucial swing states, and subsequently lost the election to Trump who emerged as an unlikely populist candidate representing a groundswell of nationalistic sentiment largely based upon the fear of losing an imagined identity as a singularly dominant, cultural voice in favor of the reality of a multicultural and multiracial presence widely expressing itself throughout society. 

In 2020, as the nation was reeling in the wake of Trump’s staggeringly

inept and corrupt ‘leadership’, the Democratic establishment locked arms around yet another centrist candidate in the form of Party loyalist Joe Biden and effectively terminated the Sanders campaign in dramatic fashion in the wake successive Sanders’ victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire primaries when South Carolina Representative James Clyburn famously threw his enormous political weight (together with ‘behind the scenes’ urging from former President Obama) in favor of Biden resulting in a cascade of lock step support (eg Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a host of Party regulars) to a heretofore faltering candidacy. This turn of events prompted long time Democratic operative James Carville to suggest that the primary process should effectively be suspended by declaring: ‘its now time to shut this puppy down and rally behind Joe Biden (see the Supreme Court’s 2000 decision to suspend the incomplete vote count in Florida via their ruling in the Bush vs Gore case) to the dismay and chagrin of millions of loyal Sanders supporters who were now cast aside by party regulars dedicated to capturing the slim yet significant portion of the electorate, namely those independent voters lost to Trump in 2016, at the expense of an emerging, popular and progressive voice within its ranks. The tactic was ultimately successful in recapturing the White House while also further risking the alienation of its progressive constituency. In deference to this group, the Democratic Party did insert progressive elements into its official platform (eg environmental and reproductive rights provisions) to assuage an otherwise abandoned segment of the Party and thereby formed a vital coalition of support necessary to defeat the authoritarian/fascistic spectra of another Trump term.

In the ensuing four years, the Biden Administration has presided over an greatly improved economy with the overall growth at 5.9% since 2021, the unemployment rate at a very low 3.7%, rate of inflation at 3.35%, significantly down from the previous year, the creation of 14 million new jobs, and real wage increase by 2% over the rate of inflation. On the legislation level, the American Rescue Plan has contributed greatly to the economic recovery in the post-pandemic; the Infrastructure/Investment/Jobs Act has further stimulated the economy with job growth and important changes to the nation’s roads, bridges, transit lines, airports, and waterways. The administration also turned its attention to environmental concerns with the enactment of the Build Back Better provision, which served to strengthen the electric grid matrix throughout the country. These accomplishments have oddly gone unnoticed by large segments of the population resulting in an historic low approval rating of a siting President. These findings might be the consequence of a public subjected to a barrage of misinformation from a myriad of media sources dedicated more to pandering to and influenced by an audience that has been convinced that the current government is part of some gran conspiracy whose intent is to end individual freedom and national identity. It is no wonder then that the positive factual elements of the current administration have been overshadowed by this miasma of imagined threat and impending doom. One of the mandates going forward will be to actively announce the very real accomplishments of the Biden Administration as a counter to the pernicious network of deliberate misinformation so ubiquitous throughout right wing media sources.

That said, the apparent unpopularity of another Biden candidacy might also be a result of his policy to support the Willow Project, which has given the green light to further oil drilling above the Arctic Circle in direct contradiction to his 2020 campaign pledge to never drill for oil on protected federal land. This has further eroded support among young environmentalists already skeptical of his past record of ‘playing both sides against the middle’ in an attempt to accommodate often distinct sides of a given issue. In addition, the Biden Administration has further alienated this vital constituency by its support of an Israeli government conducting a wildly disproportionate response (at least 15,000 civilians killed) to the brutality (1139 slain) perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th of last year. All recent surveys have confirmed that the current administration is viewed unfavorably by a young voter population already distrustful of a candidate with whom they cannot relate in terms of age discrepancy and a sense of commonality with respect to vision and lived experience. Add to this, a growing gap between young progressives and a status quo Democratic leadship that longer is regarded as representing their interests or, more importantly, has a real understanding of their experience as the inheritors of an uncertain future. As a consequence, the real danger here is that significant numbers of young voters will simply stay away from an election in which their interests are not perceived to be represented. If this scenario is allowed to unfold in 2024, the Democratic Party faces the very real risk of losing a vital part of the constituency it will require to defeat an incipient fascism on the verge of metastasizing throughout the body politic.

The task ahead for the Democratic Party in response to the existential threat to the democratic system as we have come to know it by Trump’s Republican Party is clear: it must rally all available resources to bring out a vote encompassing a broad spectrum of the American electorate. The positive accomplishments of this administration must be underscored by a nationwide effort to disseminate factual truths as an antidote to pervasive Trumpian prevarications. This will entail convincing dishearten traditional and young progressives who otherwise feel disconnected from a political process that is perceived to be less responsive to their immediate concerns (authentic and urgent attention to the global environmental crisis, courageous measures to finally provide universal health care, continued efforts to restore a woman’s right to choose, meaningful measures to recognize and protect the rights of the otherwise marginalized LBGTQ+ community, a long overdue reassessment of spending priorities aimed at a reallocation of resources; especially as it pertains to a DOD’s wasteful cost overruns and its role as the leading global supplier of armament, a rejection of a time-honored zero sum mentality that holds that one’s success must be achieved at the expense of another’s failure, promoting the collective value of the common good over the acquisition of excessive individual wealth, and full adoption of the vision of a society made stronger and more sustainable by virtue of its diversity and its embrace of our common humanity). To ignore this clarion call for a genuine paradigm shift not only risks the further alienation of our younger population but, more importantly, helps create the very real possibility of installing a dangerous authoritarian regime in the short run and an ongoing fascistic presence well into a future in dire need of careful, intelligent, and farsighted leadership.

In full light of the aforementioned considerations implicit in the 2024 presidential race, it becomes clear that what is at stake in this crucial year of decision is existential in nature and predictive of the very quality of life that Americans can expect to experience going forward. Our very survival as an free-functioning democracy depends on how we come to terms with the challenge before us and, in so doing, defines, to ourselves and to the world, our national identity. It must and likely will involve sober assessment, the unification of seemingly disparate elements, the possible enlistment of popular celebrities to rally otherwise reluctant voters, realistic appraisal of necessary compromise, and an honest reckoning with our essential values and the ways in which they can be made manifest at this pivotal moment in time.

Misplaced Condemnation

 The criticism of a country’s racist policies is not tantamount to issuing a blanket indictment of its entire population, past or present. The condemnation and widespread mischaracterization of Representative Jayapal recent remarks is yet another example of an effort to marginalize Progressive voices within the Democratic Party. Instead of vilification, perhaps she should be applauded for having the courage to call out America’s leading client state.

A Call To Action and The Arrival of a New Voice

 A dark and shameful day in Tennessee as two black lawmakers were summarily expelled from the state house for their protest against gun violence in the wake of the massacre of six human beings (three of whom were young children) at a Nashville day school last week. As Dylan declared in song: ‘for you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears, take the rag away from your face for now is the time for your tears’.

The desperate (and unconstitutional) attempt to stifle the free speech rights of these two young Afro-American legislators only serves to illustrate that Jim Crow politics are still alive and well and that Critical Race Theory is a very real and necessary antidote to the prevailing ignorance so ubiquitous and loudly announced throughout the land. The immediate and vociferous reaction to this event (largely from our youthful brothers and sisters) is indeed encouraging. It might not seem like it in this moment but implicit in these turbulent times is the echo of MLK’s words regarding the arc of the moral universe bending ever so slowly and painfully toward justice. Bobby Dylan was right by observing that ‘the times they are (indeed) a changing’ while Sam Cooke emphatically reminds us of the truth that ‘a change is goin to come’! My money is on Martin, Bobby, and Sam to prevail over the dinosaurs currently occupying the state house in Tennessee and elsewhere in our rapidly evolving country.

Let the actions of these young, brave patriots signal a clarion call to the American political establishment that a new wave of progressive activism is well under way and that its voice will no longer be silenced marginalized, minimized, or otherwise ignored my the mainstream. As some of us have been saying for years, this progressive movement will assert itself in the immediate future to meet the challenge of global climate change, the institution of clean energy sources, racial reconciliation, serious gun violence reduction measures , women’s bodily autonomy, LBGTQ rights, the elimination of violent means to solve international and domestic disputes, universal health care as human right, and the recognition that we are all bound together by a common humanity under the light of the same sun. The movement has arrived and the time is now to finally answer humankind’s need to first envision a better way forward and then to get busy to do the work necessary to manifest in the world that which heretofore has only been an unrealized dream.

The Need For A National Reckoning

 It should come as no surprise that the United States remained essentially silent when the International Criminal Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in the wake of Russia’s invasion  of Ukraine. For the two decades since the ICC’s inception, the US has avoided involvement in the Court’s mission regarding the effort to seek justice for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity throughout the world. Facing probable indictment by the ICC for a variety of misdeeds in Iraq including but not limited to the illegal nature of the US invasion itself, the lies upon which the invasion was based, the torture of detainees in Abu Ghraib, the mass murder of hundreds of civilians (many of whom were women and children) in Fallujah, the revenge inspired massacre of civilians in Haditha, the program of Extraordinary Rendition (resulting in the subsequent torture of civilians suspected of terrorism in ‘black site’ locations around the world), and the construction of the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay wherein suspected bad actors (from Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere) have been detained for decades without recourse to due process.

In light of these transgressions, it is no wonder that the Bush/Chaney/Rumsfeld regime rigorously fought against efforts by the ICC to include the US as a probable target for further scrutiny. What is less understandable is the reluctance of the Obama Administration (aside from agreeing to join the ICC in the limited capacity as an observer) to seek substantive accountability of the previous administration for their actions in the mid-east and beyond. The main justification for this inaction was the declaration that ‘it is now time to look ahead; not behind as we proceed into the future’………words that rang hollow and possibly presaged the subsequent tolerance of staggering levels of mendacity that has followed in recent years. During the Trump years, antipathy for the ICC increased dramatically as typified by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo instituting sanctions against the Court including the banning of passports for its governing members. This marked both the nadir in our relationship vis a vis the ICC as well as a sadly predictable consequence from years of neglect in terms of seeking/achieving accountability and resolution arising from past foreign policy decisions and their accompanying actions.

Fair play to MSNBC’s  Chris Hayes who devoted an entire segment of his All In program for implicitly stating that the devolution of the American political milieu and discourse as well as the fracturing of a sense of national unity may very well have arisen from our inability/unwillingness to honestly come to terms with the reality of our actions in the decades since the tragic events of 9/11. Authentic healing is a result of genuine and open confrontation with the truth; not from an avoidance or denial of its existence and essential meaning.

Misunderstanding The Woke and Politically Correct

The recent obsession with the term ‘woke’ and its companion ‘wokeness’ is properly seen in the way it is applied and intended in the current cultural/political environment. The best and most literal meaning of the term implies being aware/conscious of and responsive to the need for social, environmental, and personal justice. At worst, wokeness can result in an over sensitivity to micro aggressions as they might occur in the normal course of human interaction (please see Tracy Ullman’s quite brilliant satire on woke mentality run amok). What wokeness clearly does not represent (as a certain segment of the populous would have us believe) is an organized attempt to impose a set of values/ideas in lieu of an organic process of collective agreement. Instead, it merely indicates a state of mind wherein a conscious commitment to positive societal change may yield a more just and equitable human community. 

Like it’s predecessor, ‘political correctness’, ‘wokeness’ is being used to further divide us by labeling and alienating fellow Americans in an attempt to give voice to the narrow interests of a fearful group of citizens, politicians and their corporate enablers seemingly bent upon the goal of preventing the realization of an otherwise cooperative, compassionate, caring, and diverse nation. Political correctness was never more than a buzz word/phrase to elicit a reaction against an effort to make real in our world an awareness of and sensitivity to our fellow travelers. Sadly, wokeness is also being used as a trigger for a resistance to a similar attempt at making whole a world/society at once varied, sometimes confused, and forever seeking unification.

Institutional Violence Must Stop

In the immediate aftermath of the brutally fatal beating of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five Memphis police officers, let us revisit the persecution and vilification of all those who, in good faith, have long stood against police brutality. Colin Kaepernick, for example, has consistently attempted to shed light on the practice of police misconduct by outlaw members of police forces throughout this country. Let it finally be made clear that Colin’s taking of a knee during the national anthem was never about disrespecting the country or its flag, but rather an expression of his constitutional right and patriotic duty to protest against the injustice of targeted and criminal violence against ordinary citizens. His efforts now can be seen for what they always have been: a clarion call to America to end police violence against those whom, instead, should be properly served and protected by those wearing the badge. George Floyd, Tavon Martin, Tyre Nichols, and thousands of other innocent victims in decades past deserved better as do all the honorable police professionals who currently remain dedicated to the task of tirelessly providing fair law enforcement and protection in communities across the nation.

Goose/Gander And Classified Documents

This should be obvious and go without saying but the investigative reporting and official inquiry into the misplaced classified documents by Biden should be treated with same degree of seriousness as the pursuit of Trump’s role in the retention and subsequent reluctance to release the classified materials he rather stupidly claimed to be his own property. Although Biden’s initial cooperation regarding the return of these sensitive documents differs dramatically from Trump’s response, it is nevertheless a matter of vital public interest that information regarding the policies of the Obama/Biden Administration be preserved in the appropriate archival space. Their retention by Biden raises questions about why they were not processed according to longstanding protocols. Materials relating to the drone warfare program, for example, which was expanded during this administration and over which Biden at least partially presided, begs questions as to why he might have wanted to retain them apart from the normal chain of custody procedures. In spite of the obvious differences in each case, both breeches of security need to be addressed fully and with an equal level of gravity.