Why Voting for Trump or Harris Is Voting to Destroy America

Eric Zuesse

Trump and Harris are the inevitable and logical "choices" that an utterly corrupt system presents to Americans every four years. Their pathetic qualities mirror the advanced decay of the US empire.

The problem with the U.S. Government is its corruptness. Both Trump and Harris represent that corruptness because they are beholden to it in order to fund their political campaigns. Politicians, in America and many other countries, don’t honor their public promises to their voters but they do honor their private promises to their megadonors, who, consequently, control America’s Government. It’s called the “Deep State,” the super-rich few who basically hire and fire America’s successful politicians. (For a megadonor to fire — cease donating to — an unsatisfactory owned Government official, is to close the revolving door when that person leaves Government, and thereby close off the otherwise tens of millions of dollars per year in income that the person would otherwise be receiving each year as a board member of their corporations, or etc., because the big payoff to a political career comes in the person’s ‘retirement’.)

Presented immediately below here is Gretchen Morgenson, an authentically great investigative journalist about finance at the New York Times, being interviewed by Chris Hedges, who had quit the New York Times because its management wouldn’t allow him to report honestly about U.S. invasions and military occupations. Whereas the billionaires will allow entirely truthful reporting about finance, they entirely prohibit completely truthful reporting about the American empire (which topic Hedges specialized in). So, this is two great reporters discussing finance, which is something that America’s billionaires do allow to be honestly reported, and the topic here is specifically Morgenson’s (co-authored with Joshua Rosner) 2023 book, These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs ― and Wrecks ― America:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shv9g-4xXww&t=34s
“How private equity conquered America | The Chris Hedges Report”

Voting for Trump or Harris is voting for what Morgenson described there. It is to ignore America’s deep-seated problem, the problem that is destroying this country: institutionalized corruption. It is for a voter to be distracted away from the actual reason why things are getting worse in America — runaway corruptness.

America’s version of capitalism is this, corrupt capitalism; and another name for it is fascism. But America’s version of it is the worst type of that: it is imperialistic fascism. And this is the reason why honest political discussion of America’s imperialism, and even merely referring to “the U.S. empire,” is prohibited throughout all of the billionaires’ ‘news’-media. So, here, from a news-medium that is not controlled by any billionaire, is a knowledgeable expert discussion of that:

https://theduran.com/point-of-no-return-in-middle-east-ukraine-john-mearsheimer-alexander-mercouris-glenn-diesen/
“Point of No Return in Middle East & Ukraine – John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen”

The three discussants there are reporting on the counterproductiveness of these two U.S. wars, but hide the blame for it, which is the corruptness of the leaders of the U.S. Government and of its colonies (‘allies’), and the U.S. Government coup against Ukraine that grabbed control over Ukraine in 2014, and turned it against its neighbor Russia, and to which coup Russia finally responded — entirely as a defensive necessity — on 24 February 2022. The reason that none of this is mentioned by the discussants might be their desires to not be entirely blackballed by the institutions that the billionaires control and upon which each of these discussants might some day need to rely, in order to have a satisfactory financial future.

To close here, I shall present the only evidences that I see which contradict the title of this article. These evidences are two videos, which will be linked-to here. There is no realistic possibility for Kamala Harris to be anything other than a disastrously neoliberal neoconservative (pro-MIC, Military-Industrial-Complex) President, but there might be a possibility that Trump has been deeply affected in a positive way by the assassination-attempt against him and by the soon-after abandonment of Trump for Harris on the part of many billionaires after Biden became replaced on July 21st by Harris as the Democratic Party’s appointed nominee. I had initially thought that RFK Jr.’s endorsement of Trump on August 23rd was just a ploy by him to get a Cabinet position, and thought that it didn’t really indicate anything about Trump; but, when I saw the 48-minute speech by Kennedy explaining there in depth the reasons why he had come to this decision, it changed my mind.

His speech, which was delivered flawlessly without notes, and with no teleprompter, and no prepared text, was, nonetheless, in my opinion, perhaps the greatest political speech in recent decades, and it stated that Kennedy had achieved from Trump and that Trump would as President adopt, Kennedy’s international-policy positions and would fervently condemn imperialism and end the choke-hold that the billionaires have till now had over American foreign policies — the U.S. Government’s neoconservatism. (If you are more concerned about domestic policies, then just consider that the $1.5 trillion the U.S. Government spends in total each year on its military is half of the entire planet’s total on that, and that over a trillion of it is waste that could instead be spent productively to improve this country.)

Even more heartening about how real this profound and entirely new agreement between them is, was the 13-minute video in which Trump introduced Kennedy to the crowd, and they went wild cheering Kennedy; and, afterwards, Trump spoke committing himself to carry out, if he becomes President, Kennedy’s anti-imperialist and progressive policies, including to end the revolving door between the regulatory agencies and the corporations that they are supposed to regulate.

The kicker to all this is the 28,245 viewer comments to that 13-minute video. Instead of their focusing upon Trump — which is what I had expected since this was a REPUBLICAN crowd — they focused upon the points that Kennedy had made, and were like “A Republican and a Democrat coming together to team up to save our country... Absolutely Amazing!!!!” and, “I almost shed tears; it was amazing to see RFK for the 1st time become celebrated & honored as he is due for his contribution to America; it was wonderful to watch. Thanks President Trump for giving him our platform & joining hands with him to fight the corrupt system.” So, If, by the time of election day, I will have become persuaded that this change on Trump’s part is real, then I shall vote for him, instead of write in the name of Colonel Douglas Macgregor (as I have been intending). Time will tell; but, otherwise than this, I see no room for hope. So, what I am hoping for right now is that the title of this article will turn out to have been wrong.