Political polarisation in the US in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential Elections: Trump vs. Biden again?

Political polarisation in the US in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential Elections: Trump vs. Biden again?

In the highly polarising political climate in the US and ahead of the 2024 Presidential election, a decision by the Colorado State Supreme Court puts a fire under the Republican Party's official candidate in the election season and in the primaries. The Supreme Court of the State of Colorado, by a slim majority of four justices against three who had a contrary opinion, prohibited former President Trump's candidacy to be included in the relevant election in application of the 14th Amendment section 3 of the US Constitution, claiming application of the "insurrectionist ban". Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in a highly ambiguous and obscure way, states that it prohibits anyone previously sworn in (Senators, Representatives and other public officials such as judges) from holding public office if they have "engaged in sedition or rebellion" against the United States. President Trump has appealed this decision of the Colorado State Supreme Court to the Federal Supreme Court and this decision has been stayed until January 4, 2024 pending the decision of the Federal Supreme Court. The implications of this decision could be big as the nominations are locked in early January 2024. But it is not the only event that really poisons the political climate in the US ahead of next year's (2024) presidential election. The climate is being mined by the controversy over the issue of press freedom in the country. With the Trump side, a large part of the Republican party and certainly the "alternative right" (ALT Right), conservatives who declare/are themselves in favour of absolute, without exception, freedom of the press, accusing the Democrats and President Biden of trying to silence opposing voices by promoting their globalist agenda as globalists at the expense of American interests. In the latter category (free speech absolutism), the owner of the social media platform Elon Musk, who gave a platform to the fired FOX Channel's Tucker Carlson through his ownership of X/Tweeter, who publishes his shows with their huge impact on the platform, is prominent. Recently, last week, X/Tweeter reactivated the banned account of another highly controversial person: the red rag Alex Jones for supporters of the Democratic Party and President Biden. Shortly before, the also banned Tweeter account of former President Trump has been reactivated, an account that played a very important role in his election as the 45th President of the United States. Notably, his account has more than 87 million followers. But the involvement of the US judiciary in the 2024 presidential election is not limited to the Colorado Supreme Court's decision. It has been preceded by the "arrest" of former US President Trump for about half an hour in connection with the prosecution of him for the silent buyout agreement of a "porn star" who alleged an incident of paid love-making with him. This agreement, payment of a sum of money on condition of non-disclosure agreement of the 'fact' or in any case secrecy on the matter, is an agreement that is (also) common in the USA. But things are complicated by the electoral legislation on campaign spending: Can the President use campaign money for such an expenditure? Is it legal or does it violate election law? Is it an "offense" to prosecute the former President and the Republican Party's primary candidate for the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election (the one who admittedly a little more than a year out from the 2024 Presidential Election has the best chance of being the Republican Party's nominee)? The questions that are raised in one way or another in the public debate are many. Is it a fair prosecution in the context of equality of all before the law or is it a political prosecution? Is justice being used for political purposes 'as in third world countries' as has been denounced? Is it possible that the campaign financing of the local district attorney (it is alleged that funding from a foundation "of interest" of the famous George Sorros took place) is creating a biased environment? Regardless of the truths or lies surrounding the issue what is at stake for the US itself: is there an issue of Democracy or Equality before the Law as one side says or use of the judiciary to create political advantage destroying democracy and separation of powers? The questions are enough to ignite and inflame the political thermometer. Moreover, the persecution comes in a society where ideological, political, social, racial, gender and religious divisions are already intense. The political and business phenomenon "Trump" itself finds its cause and its causes in this reality. Since the 1980s, the two main ideological currents have been forming in the USA around concepts that take on a strong political significance, which this debate highlights. Central to the understanding of the political-social confrontation and its evolution from the 1980s to the present, and more recently (today) the polarization around the Trump prosecution or the Colorado Supreme Court decision, the concepts of Neoliberalism, Globalization, Progressive Liberalism, WOKE movement, Alt Right and the fight against any form of racism and discrimination against individuals in administration, justice, employment, etc. Neoliberalism and Globalisation

On the one hand we have neoliberalism and its twin sister: globalization. Neoliberalism, an economic - political theory that aims at the autonomy and complete liberalisation of economic activity, especially of large business groups and the really big capitalists, from any state or political control and from any social impact of their activity. It demands: deregulation of markets, abolition of any laws and rules that have been established by the State for the proper and socially beneficial functioning of markets (deregulation) and at best their self-regulation, permanent abstention of the State in the future (as a postulate) from such legislation, abolition of taxes on capital, inheritance, wealth in general. The prevalence of neoliberalism across the political spectrum (both Republican and Democratic) rests on its attempted connection with the concept of 'freedom' central to the American tradition - since the time of the first Protestant immigrants (or refugees from areas in Europe who were persecuted by the 'states' there). Freedom is understood as freedom from the interference - oppression of the state. Th It is on the exploitation of the noble worship of the average American's concept of freedom that the tycoons and their vastly financed by their enormous super-profits institutions have based their attack on their taxation by the "oppressive" state and their success in placing their economic activity, to a very large extent by targeting in advance any attempt to intervene or any person with such political intent, outside social and political control. Their ideological dominance was/is almost absolute: the inheritance tax was presented as a tax on (even) death (!), creating disgust. The tax and legal restrictions on capital, its concentration and circulation are an abolition of the freedom of the tycoon and "therefore" of any citizen (!). The neoliberal agenda is promoted through foundations they establish and well-paid "executives" who compete to see who will take the most extreme and inventive position to support them - and thus be the most useful and receive the highest pay that will ensure an ultra-luxurious life. With the control of the media, these ideologies of the neoliberal agenda dominate the entire public discourse so that any questioning of them seems extreme and graphic, directed against the American way of life.at is where they find the social Achilles' heel and that is where they methodically tread. Neoliberalism and its agents in the US demand and promote globalisation: the global prevalence of neoliberalism without - it goes without saying - political restrictions, the global movement of capital and especially financial capital without any political or border barriers, the "axiom" that there is no point in protecting the "local" (national) market and the local (national) currency which are at the mercy of the "international" movement of technically inflated (bubble) and autonomous financial capital from the real economy. In this context the financial sector is decoupled from the real industry, the industry of tangible goods. It creates its own financial products which are not subject to any pricing constraints: their value is what the market and its "ingenuity" gives them. These products create other products (derivatives, various forms of guarantees, futures, specialised 'collective' investment products, investment companies, stock exchange products, banking products) and these in turn create other products, creating huge surpluses (or bubbles?). This growth of the financial sector with its huge, unprecedented returns and capitalisation seemed to have no real rival, especially after the collapse of the 'communist bloc' (USSR and its Eastern European satellite countries of the COMECON) and the emergence of unipolarism which, however, became a 'unipolar moment'. The profits and salaries and bonuses of their top executives were astronomical compared to the best cases of industrial commodities. Why bother with ... producing traditional commodities when there is the "magic" financial product? And profits that do not depend on traditional consumption in the Keynesian model nor on the labor factor that demands ... wages. This production can move to the third world with its low labour costs and to countries without the odious labour laws. The citizen-consumer-worker loses the utility he had in the economy and production under the Keynesian model where growth was based on mass consumption. He becomes, at best, useless, and at worst an obstacle to profitability. This process creates armies of 'disillusioned' and 'betrayed' citizens, who cling to - and recall - 'traditional values' or their memory as their memory may recall them. But the business class is also divided into traditional industries (heavy manufacturing, construction - former President Trump's business - tourism, energy, consumer products) and the financial sector with its incredible dynamism and capital gigantism, with the cutting-edge technology giants and their crazy stock market returns in between, and industries and products with privileged relationships (or their executives) with financial capital. Progressive liberalism, anti-racism and the WOKE movement On the other hand, the intense social, economic, political and ideological contradictions are not allowed to be solved in the USA through the traditional in Europe in the 80s and 90s capital-labour conflict (before the transfer of the American model to Europe). The dominant ideology targets social change, leftist thinking and political agenda as a traitorous ideology that works for the benefit of the enemies of the USA. It was a time when minimal differentiation could be labeled as national treason or even collaboration with the enemy (McCarthyism - cold war). This institutional political - social exclusion leads the disadvantaged (racially, ideologically, politically, socially, based on sexual orientation, etc.) groups to turn and activate with great intensity their process of "social differentiation" towards other "more permissible" (initially non-political) directions. The aim (conscious or unconscious) of this process was - and still is - to propose new criteria and values for the evaluation and moral comparison of individuals, which will at best replace the old ones and give the required moral - political - ideological advantage denied by the dominant ideology to individuals from the minority oppressed groups. In the "worst" case, values will be created - highlighted so that the comparison will be made with different criteria from the dominant ones, making the individuals bearers of the new or dominant ideology embedded in two moral - social - political - ideological systems NON-COMPARATIVE (in permissible polarization!). Academics and researchers who had ideological concerns, doubts and challenges of the "dominant ideology" turned to what was "allowed": research related to racial (and gradually other) discrimination or stereotypical representations and behaviours created and reproduced by the dominant ideology. The harsh reality of intense social contrasts is investigated in a context closer to the individual and inter-individual relations and ... away from the forbidden zone of social - class inequalities. Reflection initially (30s) turned towards representations and interpretations of 'stereotypes' associated with racial differences. They were studied in the first stage under the prism of "aggression" and in direct coordination with the dominant ideology and the aim of its effective suppression, attributing inferiority to personal individual moral disadvantage (aggression). But things in American universities have changed dramatically since the 1970s and the shock of the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement. Many researchers are now turning, and in principle, to the study of so-called sabtle racism. They study the so-called "zeitgeist" and the underlying racist tendency that embodies and stems from the country's much harsher and more visible, racist past. In other words, we are talking about covert racism. The effort is now turning ALL THE MORE to intervention and intervention policies for its elimination. The choice of the politically correct. Examples of such covert racist behavior are the, despite legal equality, discriminatory treatment of "colored" students in schools or of colored lawbreakers by the courts (judges, police, juries, etc.) compared to the treatment of whites. This is where the high proportion of people of color in prison can be attributed to a significant degree. Investigations are being extended to people in the LGBTQ community and discrimination against women. The research and public discourse is rapidly highlighting manifestations of "subtle" subtle racism and creating the foundation for the creation of the movement of people who believe they are suspicious of these manifestations and have "woken up" i.e. the WOKE movement as opposed to the ideology and values of the WASP (White Aglo Saxon Protestants). How do you explain and what background potentially motivates the prosecution (or "persecution") of Trump? The political - social confrontation in the US, to the extent that it can really be explained by the above analysis and within the limitations of the schematic descriptions that precede it, is currently moving around two blocks : on the one hand financial capital and progressive liberals (anti-racism, LGBT rights, equality, political correctness, WOKE culture, liberal democracy - liberal democracy; liberal international order - liberal international order; gun control, yes to abortion, US obligation to dominate the liberal democratic model globally, globalization) and on the other hand traditional industrialists and the bearers of traditional WASP values (gun control, fetal rights, abortion ban, anti-LGBT rhetoric and policy, America first, isolationism, anti-globalization, bringing back production to America and the industrial plants that left, priority to deter China, we need to get along with Russia, fence on the Mexican border, no public health care, traditional values in education, lowering -and more- taxes, Alt Right, etc.).

The political phenomenon of Trump and the kinetic character that his support takes on are justified in the context of the above scheme: on the one hand, neoliberalism increases the political power of money magnates like Trump , since it leaves them a large margin of capital concentration and autonomy, even though they oppose the hegemony of finance capital and its global political project of globalization. On the other hand, it concentrates the discontent of citizens who are marginalised in the context of neoliberalism and globalisation. It also explains the resilience of the Trump political phenomenon and why the Republican party (most of it), despite any opposition, is rather locked into supporting him: he is presented as representing not only the interests of traditional industrialists but also those of citizens marginalised by extreme liberalism and globalisation that moves economic activity across borders. The two poles are entrenched in their polemical positions, with no 'common ground', with the tendency for the confrontation to take on the character of domination and absolute hegemony of one over the other, even though their polemics correspond to the realities of a rapidly changing era, and these changes are not only coming from within the United States ... For example, the 'globalisation' that was advocated in the 1980s and 1990s when the hegemony of the USA was unquestioned and created a comparative advantage for the American giants by opening up markets in which they had no real rivals may no longer be as useful to these elites. The dynamism of economic growth in Asia is changing the real beneficiary of the globalization process. It also changes the subject (elite or state subject) that claims to further promote globalization (since it benefits more comparatively). At the same time, opposite processes of decoupling of the economies of the West from those of "authoritarian" Asia are released, creating different political demands and a different environment and different needs and strategies.

A possible new banking crisis could also halt the rally of the financial El Dorado in the US and the West in general. Social cohesion in such a potential environment may require new approaches (both ideological-political and economic, such as an emphasis on public infrastructure). In this case, the Western advantage of control and dominance in the financial sector will suffer a major blow and will bring to the surface disadvantages in mainly strategic infrastructure and de-industrialisation that neoliberal doctrine and globalisation has brought about in favour of the (no longer) third world. The rapid geopolitical questioning of monopoly and the global dominant role of Western financial capital creates an ideological vacuum on how the American political system, and American society, should adapt to the new economic reality shaped by an intensely revisionist and "impertinent" to the previous "international order" emerging multi-polar project.

The Trump prosecution and the Trump phenomenon may therefore be the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps there are others who can express the current that seems to support him. How the American political system handles it will also depend on what its choices are for the future of the US (in a changing world) and beyond. We will be waiting on our ... screens for developments that will be decisive for the whole planet, West and East, anyway. Dionysis Pantis, lawyer, geopolitical analyst

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)