It is an incontrovertible fact that we are witnessing the decline of democracy in the United States, a dangerous phenomenon for the consequences it can have for foreign policy.
Kamala Harris lost for a clear reason. When you chase the bear into its den, the bear eats you. In other words, if you take a political position that is in some way similar to or a moderate version of the opponent's position, the electorate in its majority does not vote for you. Because they prefer to vote for the authentic product.
To understand the democratic debacle, we must start from the fact that Joe Biden resisted as a candidate to the bitter end, despite his cognitive decline being evident to everyone. He reminded me of the General Secretary of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev, when he was sitting at a table surrounded by people who were actually the ones who decided. President Joe Biden listens to speeches during a weekly meeting on February 4, 2021.
The people who decided for Biden wanted to continue to manage power in that situation of a fallen monarchy persuaded him not to resign. When that situation became unsustainable, they looked for a solution that would guarantee continuity with the previous context. And they chose Kamala Harris, who as vice president had always had a profile and also a political role that was absolutely secondary. As a result, Kamala Harris was not able to guarantee what she had been chosen for, that is, continuity with the previous administration.
But what could have constituted a real challenge to Donald Trump? An opening towards that segment of the electorate that was not willing to go to vote. While Trump filled up among the non-voters located to the right of the Republican Party, Kamala Harris chased the moderate Republicans, rather than mobilizing the non-voters, that is, the mass of people - mostly young - who had mobilized in various ways on the Middle Eastern question.
It is also true, however, that, given her clearly pro-Israel positions, Kamala was not the ideal candidate to be able to mobilize the segment of the electorate sensitive to the suffering of the Palestinians. Another candidate would have been needed. Not Bernie Sanders for reasons of age (by now the anagraphic issue had become central for the Democratic Party), but someone with an absolutely critical position towards the Biden administration.
As for the comparison with Brezhnev, there is a whole discussion going on, started in 2020 by historian Harold James with the article Late Soviet America and also written about by historian Niall Ferguson, on the fact that the United States is becoming like the USSR of the Seventies. It is an incontrovertible fact that we are witnessing the decline of democracy in the United States, a dangerous phenomenon for the consequences it can have for foreign policy
I will give a very clear example.
The New York Times has written entire pages about alleged Russian influences in the manipulation of the American electoral process. But it has not said a word (just as our mainstream press has not said a word) about the fact that AIPAC, an organization that obeys the orders of a foreign state, namely Israel, controls through its funding a third of the United States Congress. Another sign of the crisis of American democracy that is not emphasized enough is the stratospheric cost of electoral campaigns, which means that the 1% of the population that holds half the wealth of the country becomes absolutely decisive during the presidential elections.
I will tell you an episode. In 2000 I received a delegation of American senators, as is customary on those occasions. Senator Barbara Boxer of California asked me what legislation we were discussing at that moment in the Italian Senate. I mentioned the law on equal opportunities. She told me not to talk about that issue, because in order to pay for her campaign to be re-elected senator from California (not to run for president!) she had to get someone to give her $52,000 a day. Every day of the year… Since I respected Boxer, I asked her how she managed not to become a slave to those who gave her $52,000 a day. Her response was: “Don’t ask me what my colleagues or presidential candidates do. What I do is, if the Jewish establishment in Hollywood gives me money, I go to the Arab exponents to get the same amount of money.” After 24 years, the issue is now clear for all to see.
As the cost of politics increases, those who have large amounts of capital take over. Which are either foreign countries, as in the case of Israel, or large economic-financial interests. In other words, the military-industrial complex.
I make constant trips to New York because of an elderly sister I go to visit. Well, the TV commercials are either from pharmaceutical companies or from financial conglomerates that directly or indirectly manufacture weapons. And here is another point to underline. If the United States is in decline from a financial point of view (see BRICS), it is still the strongest from a military point of view. This is why there is a constant tendency to militarize crises. Because in this way international conflicts and disagreements are brought to a more favorable terrain for the United States.
It is a problem that has very distant roots. Already in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had warned against the excessive power of the military-industrial complex, which he considered a threat to American democracy itself. Sixty-three years later, the warning is more relevant than ever.
Returning to Biden, those who were sitting around him are Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland and, if she were still alive, Madeleine Albright. Characters who, if we look at who they are, all come from Central-Eastern Europe and have very strong ties with Israel. Obviously, however, they were not the ones who decided the future of the country. Those who decide are the military-industrial complex, made up of big finance, such as BlackRock, and the industry that produces weapons. In essence, the famous 1% of the US population, of which the weapons industry is a fundamental component, followed by the medicine industry, i.e. Big Pharma.
But, like all crises, this moment offers great opportunities. I wish what remains of the American left a honeymoon period. Now there will be Trump's honeymoon. I hope there is a similar one for the left in the United States, where there are interesting personalities. There were third, fourth, fifth candidates who had things to say: the Green candidate Jill Stein first and foremost. But the defeat of the US Democrats also offers an opportunity to the European left. It is time to question a leadership group that is European but not pro-European. Kamala Harris’s defeat also facilitates the opening of a debate in Italy, because her political line is very similar to that of the left (or so-called left) in our country. But not only that.
The democratic failure may also contain surprises more generally for Europe. A Trump administration could make clear the difference in Europe’s interests compared to those of the United States. And therefore accentuate the objectives of a battle to create a more independent Europe, which takes its place in a global framework that is multipolar and no longer unipolar. As an old friend of mine from the 1950s, the British economist Barbara Ward-Jackson, used to say, “we need relevant utopias”. We need relevant utopias. Because utopias give a sense of direction.
(An Italian version of this aticlle has been published by KRISIS)