Noam Chomsky
The American presidential election of 2020 is over. Joe Biden has won. I share some sentiments with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
Asked what her “macro takeaway” was from the election, she said: “Well, I think the central one is that we aren’t in a freefall to hell anymore.” Asked whether there was anything about the election that surprised her, she said: “The share of white support for Trump. I thought the polling was off, but just seeing it, there was that feeling of realising what work we have to do.” @guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-ends-truce-by-warning-incompetent-democratic-party?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
On November 7, 2020, this interview between C.J. Polychroniou and Noam Chomsky was published.
I think it's very important to point out a few things from the interview, along with my ideas on Biden and Harris. There are few things that differ them from, for example, the Clintons; they have a track record of sponsoring neoliberalists.
Forty-four billionaires and their spouses have donated to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, according to a review of the latest federal filings, making the former vice president one of the biggest billionaire beneficiaries of the 2020 field.
The list includes famous names like former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt and arts patron Eli Broad. There are also lesser-known tycoons like casino and real estate scion Neil Bluhm and Marcus & Millichap founder George Marcus, who have hosted $1,000-a-head fundraisers for the former vice president, according to pool reports. Marcus described Biden as “probably the most sterling individual that we could imagine would occupy the office of the White House.” Altogether, Forbes found 26 billionaires and 18 billionaire spouses who have contributed to the campaign.
Eighteen got rich in finance and investments—six in hedge funds, five in private equity. Seven owe their fortunes to real estate and five to the tech sector. Nearly all the billionaires are self-made businesspeople rather than lucky heirs.
Michela Tindera https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2019/12/07/here-are-the-billionaires-backing-joe-bidens-presidential-campaign/
Do not for a second think those billionaires think they're not sponsoring Biden/Harris without their eyes on the payback they expect for their monies.
Back to the interview with Noam Chomsky:
Some of Trump’s victories are very revealing. A report on NPR discussed his victory in a solid Democratic county on the Texas-Mexico border with many poor Latinos that hadn’t voted Republican for a century, since Harding. The NPR analyst attributes Biden’s loss to his famous “gaffe” in the last debate, in which he said that we have to act to save human society from destruction in the not very distant future. Not his words, of course, but that’s the meaning of his statement: that we have to make moves to transition away from fossil fuels, which are central to the regional economy. Whether that’s the reason for the radical shift, or whether it’s attributable to another of the colossal Democratic organizing failures, the fact that the outcome is attributed to the gaffe is itself indicative of the rot in the dominant culture. In the U.S., it is [considered] a serious “gaffe” to dare to hint that we have to act to avoid a cataclysm. C.J. Polychroniou https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-voting-is-not-the-end-of-our-work-its-only-the-beginning/
Trump has shown political genius in tapping the poisonous currents that run right below the surface of American society. He has skillfully nourished and amplified the currents of white supremacy, racism and xenophobia that have deep roots in American history and culture, now exacerbated by fear that “they” will take over “our” country with its shrinking white majority. And the concerns are deep. A careful study by political scientist Larry Bartels reveals that Republicans feel that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it,” and more than 40 percent agree that “a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.” C.J. Polychroniou https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-voting-is-not-the-end-of-our-work-its-only-the-beginning/
Since Reagan, the top 0.1 percent has doubled their share of the country’s wealth to an astonishing 20 percent. C.J. Polychroniou https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-voting-is-not-the-end-of-our-work-its-only-the-beginning/
Apart from almost daily steps to chip away at the environment that sustains life and to pack the judiciary top-to-bottom with far right young lawyers, the main achievement of the Trump-McConnell administration has been the tax scam of 2017: “a delayed tax increase dressed up as a tax cut,” economist Joseph Stiglitz explains. “The Trump administration has a dirty little secret: It’s not just planning to increase taxes on most Americans. The increase has already been signed, sealed and delivered, buried in the pages of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.”
The law was carefully designed to lower taxes initially so as to “hoodwink” Americans to think their taxes were being reduced, but with mechanisms to ensure that tax increases “would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy. All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2021 than in 2019.” It’s the same device that the George W. Bush Republicans used to sell their 2001 “tax cut” — for the rich.
C.J. Polychroniou https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-voting-is-not-the-end-of-our-work-its-only-the-beginning/
And at the very end of the interview:
C.J. Polychroniou: What are the next steps for the left?
Noam Chomsky: For the left, elections are a brief interlude in a life of real politics, a moment to ask whether it’s worth taking off time to vote — typically against. In 2020, the choice was transparent, for reasons not worth reviewing. Then back to work. Once Trump is fully removed, the work will be to move forward to construct the better world that is within reach.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://niklasblog.com/?p=25517