The US is in Trouble and we with it.

24 November 2022

The re-election of Biden and the much-hyped failure of the ‘Red Wave’ at the US mid-term elections has given rise to the perception that although the US is deeply divided, it will be OK.

Sadly, this is probably not the case. In the Anglo world, people do not really win elections, they lose them and the alternative gets in. The quality of the alternative is often not considered.  Trump was generally seen as a narcissistic psychopath, who did nothing but criticise and create fantasies. He lost the election, but continued the fantasy that he was robbed, despite the fact that the US electoral system  is quite corrupt with the politicians setting their own electoral boundaries and changing the voter registration  rules to rort the system and actually hugely favours the Republicans.

President Biden got in, but inflation has hugely increased, leaving the US, with its very poor welfare system in real trouble.  Traditionally the ‘mid-term’ elections decimates the party in power.  So the Democrats were supposed to be decimated by a ‘Red wave’, (red being the colour of the Republicans remarkably enough).  Because of the memory of Trump’s incompetence and the poor quality of the Republican candidates, the Democrats retained control of the Senate, but narrowly lost control of the House of Representatives.

So things may appear to be stable. But the US is a deeply divided country, quietly sinking as a world power, and though the Republican majority is slim, they will be able to frustrate any action that Biden and the Democrats try to take to improve the situation. And if nothing improves, the government i.e. the Democrats will be blamed next election.

So who are the Rebublicans who are likely to choose?  Front-runner for Republican Presidential candidates is Florida governor, Rick  DeSantis.  Sadly, he is almost Trumpian in his simplicity and wants to lump all progressive policies together as ‘woke’ (a word that is really extending and working overtime).  So the tried and true formula of not being ‘for’ something, but being against ‘woke’ or ‘marxism’ (hey, what’s the difference) will be used to turn against any progressive ideas and look after the big end of town.  This could be called fascism, but perhaps we should avoid name-calling at this stage.

How any of this will fix the huge problems in the US is beyond my ken, but when the US becomes dysfunctional the ramifications for the world, including us are likely to be significant, particularly if we continue to follow their policies like lapdogs.