Biden and Trump: The mad and bad of a decaying American empire
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned…
In 1984, the Cold War between the US and the USSR had reached a new nadir. A brutal proxy war raged in Afghanistan, and the last of the Stalin-era Soviet leaders, Konstantin Chernenko, took his place on the podium of the Kremlin.
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No one reflecting on the grim state of the world at that time could have predicted that within a few months, a new Soviet leader would emerge to initiate a thaw in international relations and gradually wind down a 40-year Cold War between the two superpowers.
Within five years, the Soviet bloc collapsed, the Berlin Wall fell and the West celebrated the triumph of freedom and democracy.
Half a century earlier, Antonio Gramsci, imprisoned by Benito Mussolini’s regime, wrote of his own time: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
The sickly empire is now the United States, losing influence worldwide as rapidly as the Soviet Union did 40 years ago
We are in such a moment today.
Yeats's poem The Second Coming, written in the aftermath of the First World War, could just as easily speak to our current era of apocalyptic horrors.
In the West, the ghost of fascism has returned across Europe and America - this time as a slick, televisual spectacle, like a ghoulish reality TV show. Meanwhile, the ageing president of the United States refuses to give way to a new generation, while waging a genocidal war in the Middle East and getting mired in a quagmire in Ukraine.
It is not fanciful to suggest that the tables have turned: the sickly empire is now the United States, losing influence worldwide as rapidly as the Soviet Union did 40 years ago due to the ugly model of capitalism it upholds and the endless wars it wages around the world.
Biden is the Leonid Brezhnev of a declining American empire, clinging to office despite his evident incapacity. Until the failed assassination attempt on his rival, Donald Trump, this weekend, more and more senior Democrats were calling for him to step down due to his visible mental decline.
Each time Biden opens his mouth, his unfitness for office is proven again - referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as "President Putin" at the Nato summit or his vice president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President Trump”.
The game is up. The emperor has no clothes.
West is no longer the best
The mantra that "the West is the best" was commonplace in 1984, but the American dream has long since lost its sheen. Take just one example: China’s installed solar and wind power capacity now totals 339 GW, more than the rest of the world combined (America’s is just 40 GW). The US remains unequalled only in military spending, at $916bn in 2023, compared to China's estimated $296bn, according to Sipri research.
If the West opened its arms in 1984 to those fleeing the Soviet bloc (and still fetishises the Berlin Wall as a symbol of its superiority), it has now closed the door to all those fleeing war and repression - except white Ukrainians.
In 2024 so far, more than 4,800 people have drowned on the deadly Atlantic route to the Canary Islands due to Europe’s refusal to offer any safe means of passage for people fleeing Africa and the Middle East. Another 1,500 have died in the Mediterranean. Border guards and coastguards are responsible for many of these deaths.
Similarly, hundreds die trying to enter the US from Mexico. But these ongoing tragedies, whether at sea or in the desert, do not make the headlines. Callousness and bigotry towards those fleeing war are common themes in the western media and political class.
A long cold war
While the Cold War between Washington and Moscow ended in 1989, the one between the West and Iran has lasted longer than the original. Iran has a new reformist leader, while the US is likely to see Donald Trump, who smashed the Iran nuclear deal during his term in office, back in the White House in January. The prospects for any detente are currently remote.
In 1984, millions faced starvation amid the conflict in Ethiopia, with images of emaciated children beamed into western living rooms and a massive fundraising concert organised to feed the hungry. In 2024, millions face starvation due to the conflict in Sudan. But the disaster barely makes the news, and fundraising is scant and wholly inadequate.
In 1984, a conventional war between Iran and Iraq, fought with ground troops, trenches and mustard gas, was in its fourth year. In 2024, high-tech warfare, dominated by drones and precision-guided missiles, defines the battlefield. Yet, carpet bombing remains the leading cause of civilian deaths, particularly in the death zone of Gaza.
In 1984, the war in Afghanistan caused terrible civilian casualties and gradually bled the Soviet army and treasury. The Muslim world united in support of the Afghans and against the Russian invaders, and the US supplied the weapons enabling the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets.
Today, millions around the world sympathise with the Palestinians suffering genocide. Still, no Arab countries are coming to their aid, apart from non-state actors with limited military means compared to the superpower-backed Israeli army.
The prospect of a pivot away from war, genocide and confrontation appears slim. But it felt likewise back in 1984.
Inflection point
What remains unknown is whether changes in leadership in the Middle East or the West could lead to an end to the Gaza slaughter or wind down other conflicts.
The assassination attempt on Trump shows how quickly the electoral calculus can change. Trump survived, waving a defiant fist. But whichever two-party candidate wins in November, one thing is certain: they will fully conform to the pro-genocide ideology that controls Washington.
Whether in America, France, Iran or elsewhere, a change in leadership - through elections, unrest or a leader’s demise - could be the only hope for a new chance at peace
Israel’s support among western leaders is showing signs of strain, with cracks appearing among Nato members Spain and France. But as long as the US, Germany and the UK - under Keir Starmer's cravenly pro-Israel government - continue to back Israel’s Gaza onslaught militarily and diplomatically, it will not end.
And yet, we seem to be at a historical inflection point reminiscent of 1984. Whether in America, France, Iran or elsewhere, a change in leadership - through elections, unrest or a leader’s demise - could be the only hope for a new chance at peace.
These changes can be sudden, such as the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash earlier this year that led to the recent Iranian presidential election, or the recent surprise left-wing victory in the elections in France.
If Biden is forced to quit the presidential race, could his replacement be someone capable of new thinking? Unlikely.
In a contest of the mad and the bad, with independent Robert F Kennedy Jr even more of a pro-genocide Zionist than the favourites, the only voice of sanity, largely ignored, is the Green Party's Jill Stein.
Given the vast overstretch of the US military-corporate empire and the corrupted nature of its political system, the emergence of a true reformer feels as probable as Yeats's second coming.
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