USA Elections: A Revolutionary View

Ron Ridenour
Author, Activist, Journalist

Perhaps the biggest perceived political dilemma for the world right now is what will happen in the United States, and thereby to the world, depending on which of the two becomes president. Because of this unprecedented hate-filled election campaign, many pundits consider this election to be the most important in USA history.

I have long postponed making a prediction about what could occur with either Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton as president. I also vacillated about making a prognosis regarding Barack Obama when he first campaigned for the presidency. The main reason for both hesitations have to do with the two main moral principles in my life’s political struggles for over half a century: always fight against racism-racial/ethnic/gender inequality, and against war and for peace.

What happened, though, with many of the extremely brave civil rights leaders and activists, as well as many peace activists? In the effort to gain “political influence” many went into the Democratic Party and deemed it “necessary” to support imperialist wars and the capitalist economy. This has been the case with several SNCC leaders such as John Lewis, and the Black Congressional Caucus in general, and with the independent “socialist” Sanders.

When it came to Obama’s first election campaign, it could seem that I would be abandoning solidarity with black people if I severely criticized him and opted to support no presidential candidate or a decent one with no chance of winning. And now eight years later, if I come out against Clinton, it could seem that I support an avid racist-foreign hater-sexist reality show buffoon.

Returning to 2008, I finally decided to write something about Obama just after he won the election.

“What do I feel? Justice won, justice denied; on-going pain of war, mass murder, torture, unnecessary starvation, unnecessary sickness and early death. Disappointment at not being able to cry with unrestrained gladness that , at long last, my people in kinship have achieved a political and a personal victory of such gigantic proportions. The knowledge that the joyful feeling exists for many makes me feel good in its self. The knowledge of why I can’t cry out of pure joy is most disheartening, though. The permanent war age will continue.”
~ Ridenour, Nov. 2008

And it did! Obama continued and extended the wars. In 2013, I wrote that Obama had become the worst president in US history, because of these war policies; because of his economic policies that increased corporate profits by 171% after taxes, more than under any other presidency since World War II and most assuredly the worst, because his color convinced so many blacks and progressive whites “to give the man a chance”. (Ridenour, Feb. 2013).

And now, it is a female capitalist-imperialist who will most likely take over the reins instead of the buffoon, unless…! She promises to support women gender rights won through long struggles, which the male chauvinist promises to repeal. She promises to support non-white and non-Christian minorities while her opponent castigates them. Maybe she will be better on these important issues.

What is telling, though, is that during her husband’s administration with its criminalization legislation, through their joint law firm that does the white ruling class’s bidding, and their “charity” foundation consisting of millions of dollars from wealthy Americans and foreigners seeking political favors, black people are as poor as ever and more blacks are imprisoned than ever.

What is also telling and negligibly treated by the Establishment media is that Trump states that he will curtail making regional wars and a potential world war. Because of this, Clinton actually accuses him of being a Vladimir Putin “puppet”. She seems to be saying, if you are a patriot you should stand for warring against Russia, which could escalate into a nuclear world war.

What is not presented to the public is a basic economic law that when seeking causes to policies, one must trace the money. Trump is not as dangerous as Clinton because he makes his money from domestic endeavors. He has no invested interest in imperialist-capitalist endeavors that facilitate or necessitate warring on foreign nations as does Clinton’s rich clients and supporters—Monsanto, oil and mineral industries, Haliburton, Goldman Sachs and, of course, the weapons industry.

Down to the wire, we learn even more about Clinton’s arrogant neglect of the nation’s own holy National Security by sending hundreds of thousands of emails over her private mobile telephone when she was Secretary of State, hardly an example of a trustworthy person for the presidency.

“The worse the better”

Almost no major US medium endorses Trump. The entire Wall Street capitalist class is against him. The Political Establishment of the two-branch one political-party system is against him. Most of the military and secret service elites are against him. Nearly all US’s European ally politicians and media are against him. So, from OUR standpoint there must be something good about him. “OUR” can be understood as revolutionary, radical left, or just those who do not want wars to escalate.

Trump wants NATO to be less aggressive, less expensive. He wants to curtail US’s funding 70% of its lavish budget, and no war against Russia or China. He opposes the corporate proposals for more international trade deals: TTIP, TPP, CETA …

OK, we can’t count on what he says. He lies just as does Clinton. And if he did win, he might well surround himself with a cabinet and advisors who would be pro-war, just like those Obama embraced from Bush and Clinton’s time. Nevertheless, if he does win, the European Establishment and many misguided European citizens could well become disenchanted with the United States because of this scary buffoon, and because behind him are tens of millions of scary voters many of whom support more guns and violence, more racism, sexism and plain old hatred.

With Trump in the big saddle, Europeans might begin to look for the reasons behind all this bigotry—the fact that contemporary racism is ingrained in an America founded on genocide, slavery and military interventions and wars. Europeans might also seek their own solutions to their issues rather than being captive and dependent upon a United States policeman-of-the word regime.

Today though, more Europeans than ever hope to see a particular presidential candidate win the US elections, namely Clinton. In Denmark, where I live, an August poll found that 88 % of Danes wanted Clinton. Trump received 2.3 %, an historic low for a US presidential candidate.

Some European political parties are encouraging Americans living in their land to vote for Clinton. The former anti-war Socialist People’s Party (SF) in Denmark, for example, paid for a huge ad on buses depicting Trump in a ridiculous manner and appealing for Americans to vote against him.

BBC wrote in October that most Brits look on with a “mixture of fascination and horror” as the campaign “descends into the gutter.” Chris Morris, Oct. 16, 2016:

“In Eastern Europe, in particular, Mr Trump’s flirtation with Moscow, his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his disparaging remarks about the Nato alliance have caused serious concern…A recurring theme of his campaign has been…the US should and would be prepared to walk away from existing alliances.

“Mr Trump has also taken aim at the European Union, predicting that it will ‘break up’, and supporting the Brexit campaign in the UK.”

“Hillary Clinton by contrast…is steeped in the tradition that allies in Europe form an important part of the American view of the world…[including support for] her adversarial hawkish relationship with Russian leaders.”

That is precisely why I hope for a victory for those less bellicose viewpoints, not that I could actually vote for the narcissist. My view of the US election fiasco is associated with the way I judged the UN COP 15 climate summit held in Copenhagen, December 2009, which most viewed as a “fiasco”. I worked there as one of two PR advisors for Bolivian President Evo Morales. I wrote that the summit was a “smashing success” namely because it forced many people to understand that the Establishment would not cure the climate ills it had created. (Ridenour, Dec. 2009)

“I have heard many debates in the UN where presidents condemn climate change but they never say—cowardly enough—what causes it. We say clearly that it is caused by capitalism,” President Evo Morales said in closing.

And so I hope that if Trump does win, many more people throughout the world as well as in the US will be able to understand that it is not the Man or Woman, white/black/brown/red, or Establishment political parties that can or will make a better world for us. It can only be us on the streets struggling from the grass roots that at least have the potential to stop their wars, their ingrained inequality and racism, their greed and their hatred.

If Clinton wins, it will be more difficult for that consciousness to develop. As with Obama’s first reign, it will take a long period before a protest movement will flourish, and it will take much more than protest to accomplish our common mission. I hope that progressives, traditional liberals and social democrats will see that their hopes for building a better world by supporting the Kennedys, Clintons and Obama has not succeeded, and that they will understand the need to act militantly to eliminate capitalism and its wars—that is a revolutionary view.

November 1, 2016

Ron Ridenour

is the author of six books on Cuba including: “Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn”, Cuba Beyond the Crossroads with Theodore MacDonald, and Cuba at Sea, plus other books such as "Yankee Sandinistas", “Sounds of Venezuela”, and “Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka”. He has lived and worked in Latin America including in Cuba 1988-96 (Cuba's Editorial José Martí and Prensa Latina), Denmark, Iceland, Japan, India. www.ronridenour.com; email: ronrorama@gmail.com. 

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