The trouble with that is there isn’t a “not a fascist” candidate on the ballot. Biden literally did rallies with the Klan and from the wars started during Obama’s presidency alone his hands are stained with the blood of millions.
The USA was the OG fascist empire. Its been fascist since before there was a word for it. US style “Neoliberalism” is at best a redefinition of the in and out groups and at worst just rhetorical cover for more white fascism.
I think harm reduction advocacy and voting in US presidential elections is less effective than agitating and voting for socialist candidates as a recruitment/publicity/radicalisation exercise. According to their 1850 Address to the Communist League this was also Marx and Engels view.
If you do want to do harm reduction voting in US presidential asking “Which candidate aligns most closely with my values?” doesn’t really get you anywhere because no one who isn’t a horrible fascist is ever allowed anywhere near the US levers of power (possible exceptions being Debs & FDR for varying values of “allowed near” & “not a horrible fascist”).
If you instead ask “who’s going to hurt the least people?” Then I think the answer to who’s the harm reduction candidate pretty clearly becomes Trump. Trump’s rhetoric is vile but (much to ideological fascists chagrin) he’s very clearly a massive lazy grifter and he only follows up half heartedly on like 2% of it. His extreme sloth, arrogance and selfishness have put him in conflict with the US imperial war machine. Despite the MIC chomping at the bit to start a war with the DPRK, Venezuela, Iran, and now Venezuela again, Trump hasn’t started any new wars and has even intentionally and otherwise, deescelated existing conflicts and reduced the US imperial presence & infrastructure around the globe. Clinton has made it very clear she would have pulled the trigger on at least two of those three and Biden is publically criticising Trump for not already having done so.
If we take the past two decades as our rules, a new US imperialist war generally means 1-4 million people either murdered directly by US munitions or one step removed by disease/starvation/exposure from direct destruction of infrastructure, that number again horribly maimed, and 10-40 million people “displaced” into a world that has never been crueler towards refugees.
From a harm reduction perspective Trump hasn’t done anything that remotely compares to that.
The USA was the OG fascist empire. Its been fascist since before there was a word for it.
This has always been a fascinating point for me because what is fascism but the class collaborationist rule by the petty bourgeoisie at the behest of the bourgeoisie? And what was the United States but a country of petty bourgeoisie? People who could set up plantations and play merchant in the Americas, but could not compete in Europe. Our founders even had the same infatuation with the Roman empire and the Yeoman that the fascists of Europe did. Our only gripe with Hitler and Mussolini was that they declared war on us. We did lebensraum and enslaved a whole race. We are a fascist country, we just didn't do it as rapidly as Nazi Germany.
The trouble with that is there isn’t a “not a fascist” candidate on the ballot. Biden literally did rallies with the Klan and from the wars started during Obama’s presidency alone his hands are stained with the blood of millions.
The USA was the OG fascist empire. Its been fascist since before there was a word for it. US style “Neoliberalism” is at best a redefinition of the in and out groups and at worst just rhetorical cover for more white fascism.
I think harm reduction advocacy and voting in US presidential elections is less effective than agitating and voting for socialist candidates as a recruitment/publicity/radicalisation exercise. According to their 1850 Address to the Communist League this was also Marx and Engels view.
If you do want to do harm reduction voting in US presidential asking “Which candidate aligns most closely with my values?” doesn’t really get you anywhere because no one who isn’t a horrible fascist is ever allowed anywhere near the US levers of power (possible exceptions being Debs & FDR for varying values of “allowed near” & “not a horrible fascist”).
If you instead ask “who’s going to hurt the least people?” Then I think the answer to who’s the harm reduction candidate pretty clearly becomes Trump. Trump’s rhetoric is vile but (much to ideological fascists chagrin) he’s very clearly a massive lazy grifter and he only follows up half heartedly on like 2% of it. His extreme sloth, arrogance and selfishness have put him in conflict with the US imperial war machine. Despite the MIC chomping at the bit to start a war with the DPRK, Venezuela, Iran, and now Venezuela again, Trump hasn’t started any new wars and has even intentionally and otherwise, deescelated existing conflicts and reduced the US imperial presence & infrastructure around the globe. Clinton has made it very clear she would have pulled the trigger on at least two of those three and Biden is publically criticising Trump for not already having done so.
If we take the past two decades as our rules, a new US imperialist war generally means 1-4 million people either murdered directly by US munitions or one step removed by disease/starvation/exposure from direct destruction of infrastructure, that number again horribly maimed, and 10-40 million people “displaced” into a world that has never been crueler towards refugees.
From a harm reduction perspective Trump hasn’t done anything that remotely compares to that.
This has always been a fascinating point for me because what is fascism but the class collaborationist rule by the petty bourgeoisie at the behest of the bourgeoisie? And what was the United States but a country of petty bourgeoisie? People who could set up plantations and play merchant in the Americas, but could not compete in Europe. Our founders even had the same infatuation with the Roman empire and the Yeoman that the fascists of Europe did. Our only gripe with Hitler and Mussolini was that they declared war on us. We did lebensraum and enslaved a whole race. We are a fascist country, we just didn't do it as rapidly as Nazi Germany.
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I’m not sure I understand this bit
Would you mind elaborating?
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