Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
The Day After
There's a great deal of hand-wringing in bed-wetting going on both in the Democratic Party and in the GOP. There's an election on Tuesday, and both sides are convinced that the world will end if the other side wins. As usual, they are exaggerating. When the world gets up on Wednesday morning, none of the problems will be any different. But hat will be different is the direction America is going to take based on that election as it confronts matters There are two very distinct directions.
The first direction, presuming Donald Trump wins, is a dramatic change from how America has existed since World War II. America's allies will be concerned about the amount of support they get. The US will continue to give them something, but it is almost certain to be much less than it is now. That’s particularly bad for friends of America like Ukraine, NATO and Taiwan. The world will be much less stable. It will be definitely multi-polar. And America’s power, owing to the disengagement from her allies, will not be as secure.
Domestically, one can expect a severe curtailment of civil liberties. The desire to round up and deport each and every non-American who is here without all of their papers in perfect order will result in serious ugliness. People will be arrested or very least detained, and a great many will be shipped outside of the United States. This is probably going to be done in a slapdash fashion because the Trump people are slapdash individuals. The first Trump administration did not have as its foundation competence. There is less reason to believe there will be competence in the second administration.
The economy will be a wreck but not immediately. If he goes through with his tariff threats, GDP will drop due to less foreign trade. If he goes forward with his tax plans, the American federal deficit will expand as well. The national debt, last time he was an office, grew by $8 trillion. He is likely to do at least that much damage this time around. And when expects petty post election violence.
The other direction is a more steady as she goes approach. Kamala Harris is not going to change direction greatly from what Mr. Biden has been doing. Given the shape of the economy and America’s standing in the world, that’s probably the best policy approach anyway. There are some problems that will need addressing, for instance: Gaza and Ukraine' the deficit and the debt' and immigration and abortion.
This will happen only to the degree the Democrats control Congress. If they control the House and the Senate and Mrs. Harris is the president, we can look forward to the same sort of thing we had at the beginning of the Biden administration, by that one means a competent administration focused on getting things done.
If the Republicans gain control of either house, President Harris is more or less sunk for two years. They are not going to do anything useful, nor will they quietly acquiesce to her policies. It will look a great deal like the last Congress, thoroughly ineffective.
Regardless of who wins, one expects significant violence between the election and inauguration on January 20. If the Trump people lose, it will be worse, but even in victory, they have a habit of doing violent and stupid things.
In the end, the American republic is on the ballot. Voting for Mr. Trump has the potential to kill it. Voting for Vice-President Harris is likely only to delay that a couple of decades at best. The Republic is snake-bit thanks to MAGA, and the deathwatch may be measured in months, years or decades. But deathwatch it is.
© Copyright 2024 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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