It's down to the wire to decide what kind of country you want this to be

 

There are some things that are more important than a football game to talk about, and that is Tuesday’s presidential election. While Donald Trump is making ever more insane claims like the “Great Depression” will start in three days if Kamala Harris is elected, this is just “typical” of the hysterical lies and misinformation that we are being informed by the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times is being spread on X in the past few day about “election fraud” in Pennsylvania. I wouldn’t doubt that Trump supporters themselves are busy planting fake “evidence.”

Right-wing media is playing-up the Brazil-based Atlas Intel polls that claim that Trump is leading every swing state; critics have noted problems with their “methodology,” which shows that 40 percent of the black vote in Michigan is for Trump. If that is true, then we can only surmise that those voters have fallen headfirst for his lies and are themselves searching for scapegoats other than recognizing the destructive consequences if Trump actually does follow through on his deportation, tariff (de facto sales taxes) and tax plans whose negative impacts we've discussed before. And his continuing to load federal courts with far-right "culture war" judges will see a steady erosion in what they like to think of as a basic "right."

Or maybe they like his bullying antics or feel a “commonality” with his complaints about his criminal history (he still hasn’t been sentenced in the New York hush money case). But the reality is that many Trump supporters seem to believe only the “other guy” will suffer the consequences of his simple-minded “plans”; no, it will be themselves as well: an exploding bomb doesn’t care if you are Democrat or Republican, let alone your color, race or creed.

Here 1 Vox tells us that Trump supporters are already gearing up for a violent reaction if Trump loses, and there are reports that ballot drop boxes are being set afire in districts with close races in Democratic-leaning areas.  Let’s get real here: the Trump campaign is desperate enough to do any corrupt and unethical thing to get him elected. Trump has no interest in what the people want or need—only the egomaniacal fantasies of an increasingly demented mind.

Trump has no dignity, no human decency, and has no idea what he is doing. He throws ideas of a “plan” which are not well-thought out, but simple-minded declarations that sound “cool” to him and his supporters. Economists say his deportation, tariff and tax plans pose greater threats to the economy, inflation, Social Security, Medicare and the federal deficit than what anything Kamala Harris has proposed. Vox here 1 also warns us about the danger posed by a Trump administration with a vaccine-denier like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in “charge” of health care policy.

Why trust Trump with foreign policy just because he claims to be “friendly” with murderous dictators? Putin in Russia and the Taliban in Afghanistan saw Trump as an incompetent who could be played like a fool, and he set the table for what would happen next. Putin thought that Joe Biden would “blink” like he expected his “friend” Trump would have, as he did when in ignoring Russian troop incursions into eastern Ukraine. And then Trump’s exchange of “love letters” with Kim Jong Un led to nothing positive, with Kim now behaving like a spurned “lover.”

While the Trump campaign focuses on fueling fear and paranoia, the Harris campaign says she will cut taxes for the middle class, make housing more affordable, help small businesses, bring down healthcare costs, etc., etc. But you can only try, especially if there is a Congress that is not cooperative, and with the limitations of executive action. But at least it is in keeping with Democratic principles of taking the interests of working people first.

Trump and his allies in Congress don’t even pretend to do any of those things, because they only answer to the corporate and billionaire class, who pay billions into the propaganda coffers. Was the country made “great” during Trump’s during his first (and hopefully, only) term in office? Certainly not in the eyes of our allies, but maybe in the eyes of his own economic and social “class.” Yes everything was “great” for him and his friends, and he somehow managed to convince people that what was “great” for him was “great” for them too. 

But was it? Really? I saw my tax refunds drop by half after his tax cut plan. The rich got the rest of it. What’s so “great” about that? I dare you to name one single thing Trump did for "you" that had nothing to do with fueling hate against other people.

This weekend I watched the new Icarus Films restored Blu-ray edition of Patricio Guzman’s 1975 film The Battle For Chile, considered one the greatest documentaries ever made, which has a “you are there” feel without “talking heads” interpreting what they remembered. The documentary told the story of the “surprise” election of Salvador Allende in 1970 despite the millions of dollars spent by the CIA to spread misinformation and propaganda to prevent it 3 and subsequently aiding the opposition in fueling chaos 4 . Even months before the 1973 coup, the New York Times seemed to believe that Allende would remain the democratically-elected president until his one term would be over in 1976. But apparently, the Nixon administration was not going to wait that long.

Allende’s programs were called “socialist,” but only to hypocritical Americans. In Chile, impoverished indigenous children were excluded from the public educational system because their families couldn’t afford to send them to school; Allende instituted scholarships to allow them to attend schools. He also instituted a free milk program in schools and impoverished communities. Working people needed places to live to raise their children, so he started a program to build 120,000 affordable residential buildings. When they reached working age, he instituted minimum wage laws and tax breaks, continued the previous administration’s land redistribution program, and ordered that the construction of the Santiago subway system prioritize working class neighborhoods. For when they grew old, he increased social security payments.

All parties in the country—contrary to popular belief in the U.S. at the time—backed the continuing process of nationalizing U.S.-controlled copper mines. But the majority opposition legislature opposed any action that gave more power to the working class. It declared a “boycott” of any executive initiative to that effect. The law to punish economic crimes was rejected. The law to create a ministry for the family was rejected. The law on readjustments and salaries for workers was “deferred,” and then “forgotten.” The law on workers’ participation in factories was rejected. The law to set-up self-managing firms was rejected. 

Those and dozens of other progressive measures meant to aid working people lost their financing by opposition legislative action. The opposition also cynically promoted food shortages and strikes in an attempt to try to turn working people against Allende, although most saw through these gambits.

Allende’s victory convinced political opponents at home and in the Nixon administration that if democratic means “failed” to prevent this, then a coup d’état was “necessary,” which occurred in September 1973, with the aid of CIA-funded propaganda in the right-wing press, and unapologetically fascist groups like Homeland and Freedom who made it their “mission" to promote violence and social chaos:

 

The opposition parties in Chile claimed they wanted to “save” democracy from a democratically-elected president who had the support of most of the working class. What happened instead was the 17-year of dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, during which thousands of people deemed political “liabilities” were murdered—including by “death flights” in which victims were thrown out of airplanes or helicopters—and many more “disappeared.” Assassinations were conducted outside the country by the Chilean secret police agency DINA, which included the car bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington DC.

Although democracy was reinstituted in 1990, and the  economy in Chile has improved insofar as GDP is concerned, the outcomes are little different than what they were pre-1970: income inequality has gotten worse, with the top one percent controlling half the country’s wealth, while bottom 50 percent have negative wealth, meaning their debts are more than their assets. Disposable income for working people has also decreased since “neoliberal”—meaning unfettered “free” market—economic policies were first instituted by Pinochet.

We can take as an example what happened in Chile (and Germans acceptance of Hitler's’ nationalist and racist dictatorship in 1933) when people who claim they are “for” democracy when in fact their actions (and votes) only lead to its destruction—“temporary” or not. We like to think we can “control” the worst in us, but Trump has shown that the opposite is true. We will know if at least some of those favoring Trump understand the consequences of making the wrong choice for the country in two days.