From Nov. 3, 2024, unpublished till finding in drafts folder.
Well, here we are, two days before the 2024 election. We had a calm-before-the-storm party at the apartment yesterday with the Boston Biotech Bikers and their wives (except Jeremy’s) and the consensus view was one of optimism, with Phil saying that America wouldn’t vote a guy like Trump into office. Andrea has the same view (relying on the ‘women who secretly vote for Trump behind their husbands’ backs’ block) and just before writing this, a new (‘gold standard’) Selzer poll has Harris up by 3 in Iowa.
I am not so optimistic. There’s a fine line in the US between the fiction of rugged white individualism and the reality of fascist social and political movements. It does not matter that at a rally in Milwaukee yesterday that Trump imitated giving a blow job to his microphone stand, has long distained people who served in the military, has a history of sexual assaults (and brags about it), has four grand jury indictments on 88 criminal counts, is threatening Americans and using Russian-supplied disinformation in his campaign. It doesn’t even matter that right now, America’s economy is the envy of the world, reducing inflation while avoiding a recession. The problem is that about a third of all people are already predisposed to authoritarianism and that in America, the preconditions for facism are in place.
Chris Bell's Journalismo 