Having been mostly silent about American imperialism and the havoc that it wreaks, mainstream Western commentators were suddenly very vocal about the American election. They all voiced their opinions and made their predictions. Geopolitical knowledge, on the other hand, was absent from the minds of citizens, even though it was in a way the elephant in the room.
Some believe that the relationship of the American state with the rest of the world boils down to the adoption of its ‘foreign policy.’ It could then be argued that if it is certainly an important source of debates, it is only one among many other issues opposing the two candidates. They consider that US ‘foreign policy’ is nothing more than the set of ideological and diplomatic positions adopted by the American administration with regard to this or that government or with regard to this or that movement. These policies can then apparently be justified especially if the government that one opposes is governed by what one believes to be a “tyrant”, whether Iranian, Chinese or Russian.
These people will also be willing to admit that the Americans are responsible for some past blunders. They might refer to the Vietnam War or to the invasion of Iraq, but that these were mistakes of the past. They do not see the American responsibility for the disaster in Libya. They do not worry about the actual American presence in Iraq and the occupation of a third of Syria. They do not question the American presence in the China Sea. They do not see its Machiavellian responsibility for the escalation in Ukraine, and they consider Netanyahu, Hamas and the Israeli lobby responsible for the war in Gaza.
Yet many questions arise. Why is the United States always at war? Why since at least 2014 has it been so involved in what was happening in Ukraine? Why is it so important to fund and arm the Israeli state to such an extent? Why did the US intervene 250 times around the world since 1991? Why does it have 750 military bases in 80 countries? Why does it spend $900 billion a year on its military-industrial complex? Why does it impose sanctions on a third of the world’s population? Why does it claim to be the only country that can rule the world?
These questions are left hanging or ignored. Those who seek to answer them are considered conspiracy theorists. What matters is the event that fills the news for a few hours. The rest is irrelevant. The net result is that we do not see the monster with a thousand tentacles that imposes its economic power by force, that fights its competitors perceived as enemies, whether it is Iran, China or Russia.
A Necessary Diagnosis
From a geopolitical perspective, one should have been wary about Kamala Harris because she endorsed, supported and funded the genocide in Gaza. She had blood on her hands and was directly responsible for the deaths of at least 15,000 children. The logical conclusion should have been to vote for Jill Stein and the Greens. She was a progressive candidate who did not receive money from American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Unfortunately, the ” uncommitted ” did not want to commit to a third party candidate like Stein. Her running mate was, moreover, a complete unknown. Even Bernie Sanders and the Squad had capitulated. The eternal debate, typical within the Anglosphere, between Red and Blue political parties, came back with renewed vigor and occupied, once again, the bulk of the debates within the media.
At the root of the bane that forced Americans to choose is the bipartisanship in which partisans of both camps are trapped, but there is also the chronic inability to integrate the two essential dimensions of American political life: what they are at the domestic level and what they are on the international stage. If all progressives had integrated the international dimension into their analysis, they would have migrated to a third party instead of remaining stuck with a smiling genocidal candidacy.
Without the manipulation of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and of Joe Biden in 2020, Bernie Sanders could have made a breakthrough. A third party would have been born within the old shell of the Democratic Party. Americans have a progressive tradition that goes back to the 19th century and was present at least in part under Frank D Roosevelt. Sanders was on a roll in 2020, carried by millions of supporters from the working class.
In the 2024 election, a majority of Americans supported Medicare for All, but also a ceasefire and a halt to military shipments to Israel and Ukraine. Sanders and the Squad failed, but other Sanders and other Squads may eventually follow suit without capitulating.
The Inevitable Explanation: American Imperialism
How did “Agent Orange” still win the election? Americans voted for a toxic, criminal, and completely narcissistic candidate. They were dealing with an erratic, impulsive, right-wing populist leader who stirs up xenophobic passions, for lack of solutions to anything, and who, among other things, was in favor of those who want to constrain or prohibit abortion practices. Even worse, the Republicans have the majority both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
How can this be explained? Can we do more than blame American citizens? First, let us note that the American youth has been revolted by the genocidal support of the Democrats for the genocidal state of Israel, which has contributed to raise more general questions about the United States as instigator and war monger. Could Democrat strategists have ignored those citizens that were upset concerning the ongoing genocide in Gaza? More generally the problem could have been the imperialist policy of the United States in Ukraine and in China and not only in the Middle East. This would be the ultimate cause of the failure of the Democratic Party.
This analysis may seem surprising, because Donald Trump is no less belligerent. Certainly, several citizens may have wanted to sanction American policy in Ukraine and believed that Trump could put an end to it in 48 hours. Against all evidence, some may have also believed that Trump could more than Biden impose his will in the Middle East, even though he proclaimed himself a strong supporter of Israel and of the carnage taking place in Gaza. In any case, one thing is certain. The Democrats lost the votes of many young people, the votes of many citizens of Arab origin and more generally the votes of Muslims. But did these voters have a decisive impact on the course of events? Is not Trump is even more bellicose than Biden in the Middle East and is not the difference between them lies just nuances in their respective rhetoric?
Are there no other causes for the defeat? What about the inflation that citizens are enduring? Inflation is largely the result of a rise in the price of imported products. Now this rise is partly the result of the “sanctions” that were imposed upon Russia, which led to the end of cheap Russian oil and gas sold to Europe and to the destruction of the Nordstream gas pipeline. European companies have all suffered significant increases in their operating expenses, and this has resulted in a rise in the price of products exported to the United States. This time, the explanation leads to the belligerence of the American state towards Russia. Even if Trump offers no more of a solution than Biden-Harris to the serious problem of inflation, Americans have expressed their exasperation with the deterioration of their standard of living.
What about immigration? The question arises as to why so many Latin American citizens are trying to come to the United States. However, it is difficult to exclude the numerous American interventions that took place in Latin America. The “sanctions” that they impose, their support for corrupt states and their repeated military interventions have contributed to creating chronic instability and opened the way for drug traffickers, which has encouraged many Latin Americans to migrate to the United States.
In short, whether the reason for the Democratic defeat is explained by war, inflation or immigration, they all point to one and the same ultimate cause: American imperialism and the disorders that it causes around the world.
Normalizing Genocide
What happened to neutralize a growing awareness to take place concerning the belligerent, thuggish, and genocidal nature of the American state? What has prevented massive self-criticism? How is it that student resistance on campuses has not given rise to massive support from the population?
University administrations have gradually felt the need to silence dissenting voices on campus. There are, of course, street demonstrations by citizens that are tolerated because it is politically delicate to prohibit them. They are all the more easily tolerated since after several months, there were only a few thousand left marching in the streets.
Then, whether through opportunism, indifference, calculated caution or disinterest in what is not immediately in its own interest, the intellectual community as a whole, including those who work in research centers whose “expertise” is international politics, has tended to confine itself to its own interests and think in terms of their “careers”. It must also be said that those who have spoken out have often been suspended, sometimes even fired, or their contracts were not renewed. The website Scholars at Risk has reported on this repression targeting university staff. The mainstream media also adopted editorial policies that sought to avoid publishing comments deemed too critical. This had the effect of sanitizing the content of the Op Eds pages, limiting them to apolitical, or even downright trivial, subjects.
We must also not forget the role played by the oligarchs who own the major media and the support of sponsors. A mainstream media worthy of its name plays it safe in what it publishes. It “rightly” demands that texts conveying “disinformation” (that is to say, the facts rather than the official story) be expurgated. They reserve the same fate for those who convey “hateful ” or ” abetting violence” remarks (even though war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are being carried out on a large scale). They then target those who, wanting to come to the defense of the Palestinian people, have the audacity to support Hamas, which is seen as a “terrorist group “. It does not matter if, from the point of view of international law, a people subject to illegal occupation has the right to defend itself by arms and it does not matter if, outside the West, the rest of the international community also recognizes this right.
Thus, dissenting voices on the left and right within the English-language media have increasingly been repressed. Britain dealt harshly with Julian Assange, Sarah Wilkerson, Tony Greenstein, Richard Medhurst, Craig Murray and Asa Winstanley (the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada). In the United States, Mark Lamont Hill was fired from CNN. Mehdi Hasan was fired from MSNBC. Candace Owens was fired from The Daily Wire. Katie Halper and Briahna Joy Gray were fired from The Hill. Scott Ritter had his home searched by the FBI. Chris Hedges was asked to leave The Real News Network.
Those who watch in their cave the images scrolling on their small screen may well wonder where we find all these names and all these facts. It is often a world that they ignore because it is composed, hold on tight, of people who dare to transmit truthful information.
It is in this context that we must place ourselves to then assess the behavior of the political parties in the House of Representatives or in the Senate. Even if some dared to raise their voices, a vote on a resolution denouncing the genocide currently underway in Gaza was out of the question. And yet, for the first time in world history, we are witnessing a genocide live!
Most citizens who see this horror and who feel rage in their hearts find themselves helpless. They tell themselves that there is probably nothing that can be done to reverse the trend, to stop the infernal march towards a very big war and to change the order of things. Even if in the United States the vast majority want a ceasefire and the interruption of military aid, American political authorities know that they can still go ahead. They only have to make people believe that they are working day and night for a ceasefire. The population will not notice anything.
So it is easy to understand why progressive citizens are frustrated and bitter, with sadness stuck in their throats. Whether on campuses or in the streets, in newspapers or on social media, and right up to Congress, they are not represented. They had the right to vote, but they had no voice.
This is how the genocide was finally normalized. And this is also how self-critical reflection on American imperialism was interrupted, although it had barely begun.
Conclusion
Sanders and the Squad have capitulated to the belligerence of the Biden-Harris duo and the neocon trio of Anthony Blinken, Victoria Nuland and Jake Sullivan. That’s where the problem lies.
What is “democratic” about a system where candidates have no chance if they cannot raise billions from the super-rich ($16 billion in 2024)?
In the end, Americans are hostages of a one-party system donning blue or red masks, put at the service of an imperialist state and controlled by the same oligarchy. The rest is just a show meant to bamboozle the general public.