US Elections 2024

The US national election is a week away. It is likely that there are near-zero undecided folks left now, but the race is close, so no one will know for sure until the (inefficient) American electoral system counts the votes. And of course, given his past shenanigans, it is very likely that Trump at least will not easily accept a defeat and this time, the establishment may resist as well. But hopefully there is enough juice left in the system to eventually decide a winner and for that winner to eventually take power on January 20th.

So who should one vote for? and who is likely to win? 

Both questions seem to be hard to answer right now. Kamala is clearly the establishment candidate and the deep state is pulling out all the stops to get her elected. But it is still a democracy, so votes do get cast and do get counted, so it is not just up to them. Still, if you approve of how the USA establishment is doing, then you have to vote for Kamala. But what if you have been blackpilled by one of several potential blackpill possibilities in the current environment? for example, my personal pros and cons list would look like this:

Pro-establishment:

1. This is the system that has delivered economic abundance,  functional democracy and freedom of speech and association to its people. That the elites game the system and get away with tax fraud, Epsteinism and other corruptions is a given, but compared to peer competitors, this remains a rich country and a democracy; and the competitors are neither.
2. Even where they are total and utter failures (eg in fighting corrupt wars in the “Muslim world”), the establishment is the system. If you throw the baby out with the bathwater you will not have a more competent establishment, you may have chaos.
3. The Gender nonsense and the elite’s relentless promotion of racism (presented as “anti-racism”) as a tool of politics is a long term danger to the health of society, but some of these things are niche concerns and some can be countered with “but the other side is even worse”.  Or it can be argued that these are some side effects of increasing freedom from past cultural rules (that felt oppressive to a lot of people too) and are not some sort of plan to destroy society; their overuse was something the elite tried but is now backing away from. Shit happens, but self-correction also happens.

Anti-establishment:

1. These SOBs stole a couple of trillion dollars and killed tens of thousands of people and STILL lost 2 wars and have not solved a single problem since then either. Their specialty is kicking the can down the road. People like General Milley are not dumb in some IQ sense, but clearly they operate in a system that rewards bullshit and suppresses common sense. An outsider like Trump is needed to shit on these people and flush them out with his giant turds.
2. The foreign policy area that most interests me (India, Pakistan etc) will almost certainly do better under Trump (mostly because he is not wedded to the Indian regime change hopes of left-liberal westerners). Even the middle-east may be better off under him because he asks common sense questions and is so full of himself that he can easily tell these elite bullshitters to go take a hike. That may work better than whatever Blinken  and company are up to.

But its Trump. And he is frequently an undisciplined clown who either has no idea what it is good to say in a functional democracy and what is beyond the pale, or just does not care. Either way, not a good thing. The system will likely survive him, but it will be endless drama and blatant attempts to use the power of the state against his opponents in ways that would never be admitted by a more disciplined candidate.

Pick your poison.