Where We Find Ourselves: Thoughts on the 2024 Election

On the eve of voting, it's time to look this thing square in the face

I’ve appreciated the feedback and support stemming from my new Audio From A Collapsing State podcast project. The first episode premiered last week and detailed the worldwide authoritarian crisis and the need to reject an alliance with foreign dictators and antidemocratic oligarchs. I’ll be releasing the second episode this weekend and will be discussing the 2024 Election and thoughts on how to prepare ourselves for what may come and how to continue the fight I discuss in this article.

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I sat through every minute of the 6 hour Donald Trump Madison Square Garden Hatefest. This is one of the unfortunate responsibilities of my job. Watching and listening as one hatemonger after another took the stage, talked total nonsense, and communicated a vision of the United States of America in which unvarnished racism, sexism, and xenophobia were not only “acceptable” but the defining ethos of the nation.

You’ve already seen the highlights. The controversy over Tony Hinchcliffe’s putrid “comedy” set that demeaned people of color and Puerto Rico. A man calling Kamala Harris “the antichrist” and waving a crucifix as he droned on about the need to destroy the evil in the country. Trump rambling and rambling and rambling while he recited Stephen Miller’s favorite Nazi and Fascist tropes.

Chances are, if you read Dispatches From A Collapsing State, you don’t need me to expound on the fascistic energies displayed or the connections to homegrown American authoritarianism that link this vile display to the 1939 Nazi rally that took place in Madison Square Garden as tens of thousands of people cheered on the same kind of poison and the country teetered on the brink of capitulation with Adolf Hitler. You know this. You have seen it. You have heard it. You know.

It was, fittingly, a perfect distillation and example of what Trump, MAGA, and the growing authoritarian movement represents: a rolling hatefest dedicated to capitalizing on every prejudice and authoritarian structure in order to push an agenda of division that makes it possible for the wealth class to subsume the structure of government and establish an active apartheid state.

At the same time, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party have ran an abysmal campaign. When Harris gained the nomination this summer, I tried to communicate my hopes and concerns. Through the convention and communications, we were told this was a passing of the torch to a new generation of Democrats. That Joe Biden stepping aside represented a sea change with the party. What erupted was a euphoric tide of hope predicated on relief from a struggling Biden taking his cue and a new candidate emerging who might better prosecute Trump and the GOP and communicate a difference vision for the future.

In the months that followed, Harris was able to project this feeling. The rallies had energy. The attacks on Trump were effective and mixed with rousing rhetoric looking toward progress. One of my concerns was that, considering Harris’s quick turnaround and the truncated nature of the race, she might maintain the campaign operations that had been built up around Biden, and rather quickly this proved to be the case. The pomp and circumstance of the presentation continued, but strategically the tide turned. Harris began ceding the communication space to Trump and his ghouls, trying desperately to establish herself as the “tough on crime and immigration” candidate while leaving Trump and JD Vance to peddle fearmongering, nativist, racist lies about immigrants and gay and trans Americans. As this happened, Harris took her cue to move to the Center Right and laud support of her candidacy by financial monsters like Goldman Sachs, Republicans and criminals who should be in the Hague like Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzalez, and continually toed the Biden Administration’s disastrous line on Gaza and Israel’s actions in the Middle East.

These mistakes have brought us to this point. We now face a nailbiter of an election in which a fascist in league with a new generation of tech fascists and doing the bidding of oligarchs obsessed with destroying democracy is poised to potentially win another term.

As the election has grown nearer and near, I receive a lot of emails and messages from readers asking me how I’m approaching my choice. And I want to be honest about how I see this contest and the path moving forward.

First and foremost, I am voting for Kamala Harris. When she became the nominee I was incredibly relieved that I might be able to do this with a full heart and a clear conscience. Sadly, that has not been the case. But I will cast that ballot on Tuesday and I have no doubt, morally and ethically and strategically, it is the right thing to do.

My view of voting might be different than yours or the average American. Since I began my journey nine years ago covering Trump, MAGA, and the growing international authoritarian movement, the scales have fallen from my eyes. I can no longer watch a rally or political ad or speech and simply lose myself. When you begin to see the true nature of how politics are largely metaphorical representations and distractions from the actual conditions affecting the world, celebrity endorsements and pageantry lose their luster. You can view them as attempts at communication, certainly, but cults of personality begin to take on their true form as warm-feeling pastimes distracting from larger and more important issues.

I do not, following this campaign, feel confident that Harris is a transformational candidate. As I have critiqued the strategy of her campaign I have been inundated with people explaining to me that these are “smart maneuvers” that obscure her true intentions as a fire-breathing progressive. I have seen no evidence of this and, if she wins the office and proves me wrong, I’ll be happy to admit my mistake. But I am not entering the voting booth Tuesday voting for something I have not been presented with or for a fantasy that I hope to be true. Politics can certainly carry components of faith, but the real nature of power demands that we approach all of this with a sense of realistic determination. This is necessary should we actually realize the change we desire.

By the same token, I am not voting for Harris with the belief that she will somehow solve the atrocities in the Middle East. What is happening with Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and elsewhere, is part of a larger trajectory that Biden and American leadership have shown an inability to meet or change. As American Empire declines, states like Israel and Saudi Arabia are going to look to exploit our influence and unconditional support to position themselves and their agendas. This is also the main driving influence for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the emerging axis of nations that includes Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other authoritarian states that are looking to shift the balance of power in the world. Believing that Harris taking the oath of office will put all of this to rest is foolhardy and unrealistic. Despite what we have been taught, presidents are most often captives or willing participants in the tides of material conditions that sway and move and develop under the system of capitalism.

Here in the United States, I believe a Harris presidency would likely look a lot like Biden’s. There will be a handful of programs designed to help people at the margins. There will be some empathetic and considerate rhetoric used while addressing cruelties committed against vulnerable peoples. And then, there will be other actions, whether it’s in Gaza or at the border, that are shameful and destructive. The Supreme Court will continue to eat away at the progress of the 20th century and the GOP will continue to grow more and more radical. What happens or what doesn’t happen will largely follow the flow of capitalism as it requires more exploitation, more profit, more transferring of power away from the American center, and a savage diminishing of democracy and established protections.

This is obviously not what I want to vote for. I want to take my ballot in hand believing that the vote I am about to cast constitutes my role in protecting democracy, ending the threat of authoritarianism once and for all, and represents the next step toward a better, brighter future. In a way, these things are true, but they are not complete or totally accurate. These are the actions needed to get to those things, but they are not the sum total of what must be done.

If Trump wins this election the political environment we face is dire. Trump is a puppet of authoritarian oligarchs and is ideologically aligned with the dictators looking to eradicate liberal democracy and usher in a new era of totalitarian power. He will continue to poison our culture, press our institutions and culture further and further Right, all while rubber-stamping the speed-running of authoritarian rot. Elon Musk will be given the keys to our budget, allowing him to decimate what little remains of the social safety net and pull the trigger on the final killing of education, regulation, and scientific progress in the pursuit of egalitarian good. More tax cuts of the wealthy will further the redistribution that has seen tens of trillions filtered from the working and middle-class to the financial elite while outright corruption is legalized. Women’s rights will continue to dwindle. Voting protections will fall. Gay and trans people will continue to be targeted and endangered. Immigrants will be fashioned into a more aggressive apartheid state in which they are able to be exploited more effectively.

I would much rather work to change the world for the better under a Harris presidency than a second Trump Administration. What I am voting for is the environment in which I will continue my work organizing and creating an alternative to this ugly and destructive status quo. I would rather fight to create change in these conditions than in an all-out smash-and-grab by the oligarchical class and a burgeoning global alignment between authoritarian nations that comes to include the United States of America. A Harris victory increases the odds of a better future by not aggressively and actively working to exacerbate conditions while a Trump victory is a stomp on the gas pedal toward the endpoint we are approaching. It does not mean that the fight is over if Harris prevails. It means the fight continues.

If Trump does win, it is also not a moment to give up and accept the fresh hell that is coming. I don’t have that luxury and neither do you. Even if you are nestled in the bluest “Blue State” in the country, there are millions upon millions of people who cannot be abandoned. A collapse into nihilism is unacceptable. Your children, your family, your neighbors, your coworkers, and a whole slew of people you don’t even know, require that the struggle goes forward. For years now you have been inundated with charlatans and grifters telling you the problem was on the way to being solved, that “good guys” and “good institutions” were taking care of things for you. They have amassed fortunes and significant platforms telling you comfortable, reassuring things. They have played upon your hopes in the same way Trump stands at the podium and tells his cultists what they want to hear.

It’s time we disavow this. So much of our politics are childish. Everything from the bright lights and entertainment to the coddling notions we are fed. But we are adults and this is an era in which being an adult means looking at the facts and facing reality. I am not lying when I say there is a future possibility of getting beyond this authoritarian crisis and creating a better, more human reality. That can and should happen. But I will also not pander to you and tell you that on Tuesday everything will be put right and the struggle will conclude. You’re smarter than that.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. In 2016 I was still naive and assured that the country would reject Trump. Those notions died in the early hours of Wednesday, November 9th. From that death emerged a more honest and true understanding of the United States, politics, and the nature of power. Donald Trump can win this election. I know that isn’t pleasing or comforting. I could, like so many of these misleading influencers and “analysts,” show you pictures of packed Harris rallies and tell you this thing is in the bag. But that is simply a lie and as destructive and inhumane as nearly anything I can imagine.

What I do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that, in the weeks and months and years that follow the election, the struggle will continue. If we are to win that future, the future we deserve, the future everyone deserves, it will take a sober understanding that this fight will ask from us more than we ever imagined. We are capable though. We can do this. And, what’s more, we must do this.