Like Peas in a Pod
In all the ways that matter, Trump and Harris are much more alike than they are different.
Neither of them cares one whit about true democracy, the will of the people, giving the electorate real power over policy.
Both speak in platitudes and sound bites on issues that are nuanced and complex.
Neither has any depth of understanding of the seminal events of our times.
Both are utterly out-of-touch with the issues facing working Americans in their daily lives: the widening gap between middle-class incomes and middle-class expenses.
Neither is offering us an honest account of their past lives, or their paths to power, or what they will do if elected.
Both are aligned with the steady, ongoing transfer of wealth from the middle class to a tiny sliver of billionaires at the top.
Both are more concerned with corporate profits than with working wages.
Neither has any understanding of the medical or digital technologies that are rapidly expanding into every corner of our lives — let alone the DARPA technologies and reverse-engineering that is far ahead of what we can imagine in our future.
Both are nasty and mean-spirited in speaking about anyone who disagrees with them.
Neither has any connection to nature, to spirit, to the depth of human relationship, to love.
Meanwhile, we are in a world that is moving on from the imperial domination of its lone remaining superpower, and both Harris and Trump are committed to deranged efforts to keep the US empire alive at all costs via military force — efforts which have already taken millions of lives, and which are doomed by the tides of history to ultimate failure.
Meanwhile, the US banking system of 1913 and the global financial system of 1944 are both stretched to the point where collapse is inevitable, and neither Trump nor Harris has a clue how to shepherd the world into successor systems.
Meanwhile, humanity is under assault via weather warfare, psychological warfare, and bioweapon pandemics, while neither candidate will acknowledge this, let alone confront the perps.
The media, of course,
are complicit in distracting us from all that matters, ignoring the epochal events of our times, and misinterpreting the events that they do report.
This nation and this world are in desperate need of a kind of leadership different from anything being offered to us.
Sharon writes to me, asking "So what do you recommend?" Here is my answer:
A fair question, though I'd feature a black box warning against accepting political advice from someone who is as idiosyncratic and detached from reality as I am.
* Start with the premise that the change we so desperately need is not going to come from the White House.
* Become active in local politics, and in community groups where you can prepare your neighbors for the next Helene or the next Patriot Act or the next pandemic.
* Become a citizen journalist, working around the shadow bans to tell people who trust you what you have learned that they can't read in the NYTimes.
* Organize groups to visit your Congressperson and Senator. Make them aware that there are issues outside the Overton window that concern you.
* March in the streets at every opportunity.
Unusually downer of a post from you, Josh. Speaking for myself, there’s huge daylight between the two candidates. I cured myself of a bad case of chronic TDS when I escaped from a lifelong progressive party affiliation in 2020. I still see Trump as a flawed man, but then, I am a flawed man. Plus, I’ve never met him and I’ve come to take what I always read about him with skepticism (like what I was told about health and climate and so on with the standard narratives). That Trump has fostered some dialogue with RFKjr and Musk gives me some hope.