This was originally posted on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-2020-us-presidential-election.html.
After the "debate" today, it is clear that the USA is led by a lying white supremacist fascist who has just signalled his supporters for violence.
It wasn't, in truth, a debate - it was a Presidential candidate and a moderator being harangued by a bully.
Voters in the USA have choices to make. In my opinion, those are clearcut:
- Vote;
- Vote for Biden as the best choice for getting rid of white supremacist fascistic despot lyin' 45.
But I'm not a voter in the USA (thankfully!)
However, others also have to make choices.
Those others include the rest of the world, which has to decide how to respond to an autogolpe, a coup d'etat (if he loses the election but seeks to stay in power through violence), and large scale destabilising or crippling violence after the election - if any of those occur.
I suspect there will be violence - overwhelmingly right wing, but I don't think it will lead to a civil war - close, maybe, close enough to cripple the USA's functioning, which has already been crippled internally by the non-response to COVID-19 and crippled on the world stage by having a white supremacist fascistic despot as leader.
But there are decisions to be made by others, and I am particularly thinking of those in all levels of government in the USA (including police - and no-one believes the claims of violence being "all" or even significantly, let alone predominantly, Antifa).
I am currently reading Daniel Ellsberg's "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers", and I am struck by:
- the number of people who said one thing in public but thought another in private - including Johnson, McNamara, Ellsberg and others on nuclear weapons and recommended actions in Viêt Nám - particularly around escalation; and
- the number of people who regretted it thirty years or so later in memoirs.
If you don't want to be writing of regrets in a memoir thirty years from now, consider carefully what you do or don't do, say or don't say.
I am aware some people cannot leave their positions either because they deliver essential services or their family/dependents need them to keep working, but consider what complaints, objections, calmly delivered rebuttals/dissents/disagreements, or grumbling around the (digital) water cooler you may be able to do.
Think: what do you want to tell your grandchildren or the world in thirty years' time - do you want to be trying to explain that no, despite the lack of visible evidence you didn't really agree with white supremacy, racism, lies in government, fascism, despotism or the destruction of democracy, or do you want to be able to say "I did this".
The same caution goes to those who are enabling the Morrison-Murdoch regime in Australia, Lukashenko in Belarus, and despots elsewhere.
Think - but think long term, and of what side of history you want to be on: time is nearly up on white supremacy, racism, lies in government, fascism, despotism and the destruction of democracy . . .
Have a look at this post of mine.
