I don't want to hear any shit about me shilling for Biden, because I'm not. Fuck Biden. Need to get this off my chest though.
I want fascists around the world to feel what we felt the night Corbyn lost, when we found out Bernie had a heart attack, when he conceded defeat like a coward.
Because they haven't felt anything but power and hate for the past 5 years.
The wave of fascist parties taking hold in Europe and parts of South America were buoyed by what happened on our stolen land. We showed them what was possible and we need to do that again, except in an explicit rejection of rightwing fascism.
I want Trump to be buried alive (electorally) so we can take (online) pilgrimages to piss on his (campaign's) grave.
I want Biden to be on full display 24/7 so that the entire world realizes what a joke neoliberalism is and we can finally destroy it.
I want to build real power and bully libs and tell them that we don't have to take their shit because "The dang cheeto" is no longer in the White House and we're not fucking around, and all of the harm that is happening to people around the world is because their guy is a failure.
I feel at this point leftist orgs need to own up to their anti-fascist claims and do the bare minimum of calling for Trumps removal, even if they also denounce Biden in the process.
Anyways. Have a nice night, comrades. Stay safe and stay hydrated.
QUICK EDIT: I also wanna see the left organize an anti-war movement rivaling the leadup to Iraq under a Democratic president the minute Sleepy Joe tries to pull some shit. That would fucking slap.
Misinterpreted and I'm dead tired but this was just an example, not "wishing genocide" or some other weird shit.
ANOTHER EDIT: People seem to be implying that I am saying "vote for Biden".. I'm not, I am expressing my own views and feelings on the current state of hell, though it should NOT be controversial to want to remove a literal fascist from office on a leftist internet community.
Brains are material, and that aside, the superstructure is influenced by and influences the material.
The material conditions can promote fascism, but having them surge elsewhere also feeds into it. It allows fascism examples of what tactics and messaging works. American cultural hegemony means any shift in American culture also affects overseas.
If you’re familiar with the war of position, having Trump in the bully pulpit is a big win for fascism in that war. It also so happens that it harms liberals, which we like. It’s a Mexican stand off.
The extent to which Trump influences global fascism is infinitesimal compared with the extent to which it was affected by our last great financial crisis and the actions of US empire in the middle east. Both of these things would continue with minimal variation under a Biden presidency because both Biden (his party) and Trump (his party) share identical goals regarding either. Even if you could argue there is a difference, who knows which way that difference goes. What are the democratic imperial ambitions? What are their approaches to global finance?
All the war and finance will the same, yes.
The difference is mostly internal, being that the Trump variety likes to actively encourage it on twitter.
Dialectical materialism doesn’t mean individual actions don’t matter, even if the course of history proceeds according to material conditions. People still need to be agents.
In this case, one small way of reducing fascism’s rapid surge would be deplatforming Trump.
Definitely agree with agency still existing, but in this case the question is about the electoral system and predicting what these particular agents will do, and I think both of them have been constructed/selected by these same material conditions being discussed to have a negligibly different impact, maybe slightly worse on Biden's side because of how he'll wield the empire. The only sense in which Trump is worse is, like you say, his domestic cultural impact. The problem is I just don't see his impact there being terribly great when compared to the utter devastation someone like Biden with the entire apparatus behind him could do to the global south and elsewhere.
This is all true, but the bully pulpit factor is a real thing.
It becomes:
Let capitalism run its course and continue to organize without the daily bombardment of fascist propaganda coming from the WH, which in my opinion is preferable for building a movement.
or
Let capitalism run its course while a dang cheeto is spewing fascist propaganda from the WH.
Also to your point at the extent one figure can influence global fascism... there are some pretty clear examples of this happening in 20th century, and just 5 years ago. I think KiaKia and me are talking more about institutionalized (electoral form) fascism.. not necessarily social, or systemic fascism.
Those two choices are possibly too narrow though, because we don't know if Biden would wield the state more effectively than Trump.
It's conceivable that your choices listed can be modified to:
Let capitalism run its course and continue to organize without the daily bombardment of fascist propaganda coming from the WH, while we effectively and discreetly bring ruin and empire to the global south and elsewhere moreso than we had been with the current admin.
or
Let capitalism run its course while a dang cheeto is spewing fascist propaganda from the WH, with more or less the same if not slightly increased impact on the global south that Obama had.
Which parts of the global south?
I've researched people on Bidens FP team and they mostly seem "ok"... not good by any means, but they're pro-China, pro-Diplomacy, mostly neutral on Israel-Palestine, and one of them even got in an argument with Clinton over intervention in Venezuala.. A couple of them worked on the team that opened up relations with Cuba as well.
A decent amount of the top people in his team are CNAS ghouls, the same people who proposed starving the Syrians to death to pressure Assad. They're funded by the US arms industry iirc, and anything they personally say on their twitter accounts or whatever is probably less relevant than their individual histories jumping on board the Clinton ship initially and then jumping to Obama when she lost. You've also got guys at the very top like Blinken who of course needs no introduction given his History in the Obama admin. In fact, I think it was both Blinken and Sullivan (who are now there at the very top with Biden) who had with Clinton and under Obama an "iron hearted" or whatever the term they used was commitment to Israel. Whenever they mention their support for Palestine it's of course totally toothless and irrelevant. Their real intentions are laid bare by their continued (even to this day!) insistence that "military aid" to Israel be utterly non-negotiable, which effectively means you're starting your position announcing you have no leverage with Israel, which you'd only do if you in fact wanted to communicate to Israel do whatever you want.
As for specific places this would fuck up, it's hard to say because these people all say things on the campaign trail that are at odds with their histories in office (mostly under Obama or advising Clinton who then went into office under Obama). Judging by that history though, China's a real target here. The Dem apparatus made that clear with Clinton's "Pacific Century" unveiling under Obama. You can bet all of those same people that workshopped that are still around. You can also expect a lot of these people have their eyes on Russia, not the global south but nonetheless an imperial target. And you can bet these people have similar feelings that they did under Obama to Haiti, most of Africa, the entire middle east, and a lot of South America. I mean for god sakes Blinken was the guy who went with Nouri El-Maliki up till Isis (could be remembering that wrong too but I'm pretty sure that's true!!!). The only good play i can think of that's firmly in the Biden camp advising is the guy who spearheaded the Iran draft. Don't remember his name,
Good points, there certainly is a lot to be wary of RE: Syria, and that's a huge quagmire right there.. On that subject it's worth noting that Trump is largely maintaining the status quo laid out by Obama on that front, new rounds of sanctions and various escalations up to and including this year.
On China, I think the relationship would be better purely out of the interest of international capital, so potentially a soft win compared to right now? Who knows at this point.
Here are a couple of "pro-Biden" points I wanted to post with regards to foreign policy and the reasons I am pretty confident he wouldn't be worse (subjective) than Trump on various things, I dropped them elsewhere in the thread. Mostly just past positions, like you said, Campaign rhetoric etc. etc... it goes both ways though, some of the hawkish stuff doesn't match his record necessarily (specifically regarding South America).
When he entered the Senate he was against the Vietnam War.
Biden was actually way better on Foreign Policy than Obama during their time in office, which is fairly easy. He opposed the intervention in Libya, he opposed the surge in Afghanistan, he opposes the US being a proxy for Saudi Arabia, he backs a two-state solution (same as Obama).
He promised in July of last year to end the US forever wars
He was against the 1991 invasion of Iraq
He argued against the covert raid in Pakistan that killed Bin Laden
He specifically and repeatedly has railed against US Post-WWII foreign policy for a long time, and on the campaign trail.
He led an effort during the immediate aftermath of the Afghanistan War to build schools and rebuild parts of Afghanistan that were destroyed by the war.