Strategic Review – Sept 20, 2024

All in all, the United States is its own worst enemy and the most dangerous threat to world peace. Only in an Orwellian nightmare could the U.S. be possibly called the “leader of the free world”.

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, has repeatedly warned that the United States “is becoming a Third World nation.” Too late, it seems. There are plenty of signs that the U.S. is already a failed state of dictatorship, poverty and violence – albeit one that sports the biggest number of billionaires and supposedly the largest military power in the world.

That dichotomy is not a weird aberration. It is central to why the United States of America is a failed state.

So far, in the oligarchic-controlled 2024 election cycle, there have been two assassination attempts on Trump. On July 13, he narrowly escaped death after being shot in the ear by a sniper while speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania. Last weekend, a second sniper was thwarted at a golf course in Florida by Secret Service agents.

With seven weeks counting down to election day on November 5, the atmosphere across the United States is fraught with violence and a palpable sense of extreme crisis. Both candidates, Trump and his Democrat rival Kamala Harris, have labeled each other as “threats to democracy.” The level of maligning rhetoric and vilification is unprecedented and cofounds a “normal” political process.

It is reasonable to cast the two parties’ campaigns as being guilty of inflaming the climate of hatred, violence, and intense polarization bordering on civil war. The corporate-controlled news media is discernibly in favor of Harris, creating a climate of enmity towards Trump, which is reciprocated by his base toward Democrats. The dysfunctional process is accentuated by many former senior Republican figures publicly endorsing the Democrat, and repudiating Trump as “unfit to serve”.

Kamala Harris and the Democrats may denounce the assassination attempts on Trump and assert that “there can be no violence in American politics”. But Harris’ election ads have painted Trump as a traitor and appeaser of foreign dictators. This seems to have been a motivating factor behind the latest assassination incident. The shooter is a fervent supporter of the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. The Harris campaign has targeted Trump as a domestic enemy over his election pledge to end the war in Ukraine through diplomacy.

While no one has fired a shot at Harris during her rallies – so far anyway – nevertheless, Trump and his supporters have recklessly whipped up violence against election officials and immigrants who are perceived as pro-Democrat. The former president has persisted in making baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through systematic fraud. Trump has already declared that he will win the 2024 contest, and if he loses then that will be due to another alleged giant fraud. He is warning that election officials in battleground states will be liable for jail. The hysteria and paranoia generated by Trump has led to a surge in attacks and threats against election officials.

The upshot is the corroding of any democratic legitimacy of the United States and the principle of peaceful transfer of political power.

This is the abysmal state of American politics. The viability of its democratic process is in tatters. A years-long trend saw a large portion of the population – nearly half of all eligible voters – not even bothering to participate in elections such was the disdain for the two-party duopoly. In addition, now an increasing number of those who vote do not trust the official result. Blaming this inherent decay on Kremlin disinformation and meddling is as contemptible as it is risible.

The bitter irony is that this spectacular degradation of democracy is in the nation that proclaims itself as the “leader of the free world”. The disconnect between pretense and reality makes the U.S. an even more absurd laughing stock in the eyes of the world.

How pathetic and sinister that while the U.S. is tearing itself apart, its political class is unaccountably promoting genocide in the Middle East with endless support for the Israeli regime and pushing reckless provocations against nuclear powers. The Washington establishment – both Democrat and Republican – is fixated on escalating the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia by canvassing for long-range missile strikes on Russia, a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin said would trigger an all-out world war. Meanwhile, this week again, Washington threatened a future war against China in the next three years.

On the most vital issue of world peace and law-abiding foreign policy, the interests of the American people are being ignored and they seem to have little say in the ultimate topic of importance. For all intent and purposes, the United States is being run by a warmongering dictatorship.

Kamala Harris calls herself a Democrat and perhaps some of her domestic social policies could be rated as relatively more responsive to people’s needs. But on the bigger picture of war and peace, Harris is promoting the criminal war agenda of the establishment in such an insane way that a nuclear conflagration is a real danger if she is elected.

Trump relies on demagoguery and a toxic campaign of sowing domestic violence toward immigrants and “communists”.

However, at least the Republican candidate seems to be aware of the insanity of pushing a futile proxy war against Russia and he says he wants to negotiate a settlement if he is elected in November. It is doubtful that Trump would be permitted by the U.S. deep state to follow through on achieving such an outcome.

All in all, the United States is its own worst enemy and the most dangerous threat to world peace. Only in an Orwellian nightmare could the U.S. be possibly called the “leader of the free world”.

Covering up for its deep internal flaws over many decades, including endemic poverty and racism, the ruling class has always relied on pursuing wars and demonization of other nations as a way to distract from systemic failure. But the U.S. systemic failure is now blatantly obvious as widespread hate and violence dominate its oligarchic-run 2024 presidential fiasco.

The old war tricks and foreign bogeymen stories (alleged Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interference) are wheeled out again. But like a discredited magician, no one is buying the threadbare illusions.

Hail to the United States of Anarchy, both at home and abroad.

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