Fighting on

by Irvine Welsh

If Bernie Sanders, as expected, endorses Hilary Clinton, it will be the hardest decision he has ever had to make. Clinton, after all, represents everything that he detests; entitled and elitist, with every single policy and idea she instinctively embraces straight from the neoliberal playbook, unless forced into a position of ‘principle’ by an external constituency.

As well as being a hopeless puppet of a financial establishment that’s literally destroying America, strong evidence exits that she is also not particularly competent, and is undoubtedly corrupt. Most importantly, she is the candidate that the Super-Pac compromised and negated ‘best democracy money can buy’ has thrown up, and stands diametrically opposed to Sanders, and his grass-roots campaign to seize back and extend democracy in the USA. Clinton will be Obama without the mitigating compassion; her hawkish foreign policy approach will ensure that America remains detested in the Middle East, and disdained by mainstream democratic opinion in Europe. Domestically, her concerns will be so far removed from the plight of the average working American family, she will need every bit of assistance from folksy Bill and Barrack to entice them out to the polling booth on her behalf.

For a man like Sanders to endorse somebody like her, it would mean that an even bigger disaster is on the horizon. It’s been said that America, with its emphasis on personal rights as enshrined in its constitution, could never have its fascist period, as such that blighted Europe in the 1930’s, and ended in pain unprecedented in modern history. I don’t think that Trump is a fascist of that sort. Strangely, he’s too shallow for that; an arrogant, vainglorious rich bully, pathetically thin-skinned and massively entitled. His own corruption, scamming and zero impulse control makes him totally unsuited for the role of President. But, in his gaming of the system, he has helped unleash a torrent of hatred and rage, amongst people who feel ‘left behind’: a maelstrom of anger and bigotry that will only rise exponentially if he is elected.

Thinking of parallels from my own country: I wasn’t pro-Brexit in the UK, but I couldn’t bring myself to support Remain. As somebody who believes in democracy, I found it impossible to get behind a Commission-led, autocratic European Union. Certainly, not everybody who voted Leave was a racist; some were motivated by that higher calling of democracy, others were simply venting their frustrations. But, crucially, all racists voted Leave, and the increased level of xenophobic attacks on foreigners after the Brexit vote, showed that such people were ennobled by the sense that they were the ‘no longer silent majority.’

If this all sounds familiar, it should do. The Trump candidacy has already given racists and bigots the sense of empowerment, amongst the bedwetter tendency of that angry white male vote, who sense that America is declining (all countries are, it’s called ‘late capitalism’) and also their personal status along with it.

If Trump isn’t a fascist, he’s laid the groundwork for somebody else who is to come along. Somebody less lazy, less selfish, more genuinely committed to picking up the baton that he will be unable to run with, soon to revert to the squealing, thumb-sucking, spoiled millionaire’s son, thinking of ways he can increase his scamming to screw even more American’s than he and his 1%er ilk already have. Because when he’s unable to do anything with that anger he’s stoked up, the real deal will suddenly emerge.

So yes, Sanders is certainly making a big call by throwing his lot in with Clinton, and what a hellish decision that must be. But, as I said with Brexit, whether we choose red or black in the crumbling casino of neoliberalism, it’s the house that will win. Our choices now are limited to what kind of house we want to live in. And that is death by a thousand neoliberal cuts, or some slide into a grim, fascist apocalypse, where all the crazy lunatic fringes of America that have always been there, slavering their nonsense in the background, now hold the keys to the castle. The only way out of the cul-de-sac of neoliberalism, which is a major root of this problem, it to extend the participatory democracy Bernie Sanders has made the cornerstone of his campaign. And that fight has to go on, whoever is in the White House.