I never thought I would hope to see a Hilary Clinton presidency.
Yet as election day looms, I find myself hoping the American electorate rejects the divisive and racist rhetoric of the Trump candidacy, and instead chooses the establishment. An establishment that my instincts and political education have taught me to reject and resist.
The neoliberal corporatist economics Clinton is clearly embedded into, and her hawkish foreign policy saw many on the left dreading her candidacy, let alone a potential Presidency. Confronted with the harsh reality of another Clinton White House, progressives leapt into the arms of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Sanders rejuvenated much of the disillusioned left. Here was a candidate that spoke unapologetically for reform both in the electoral process and on capitol hill more widely. Yet enthusiasm and vigour were not enough to overturn the Clinton political machine.
What concerns me most is that there are a growing number of thinkers and activists on the left, many of whom were rooted in the Sanders campaign, who now see a Trump administration as the fast track to a socialist revolution. Their view being a Trump in the oval office will expose the deep institutional problems in the American structures, burning the whole system to the ground and allowing a socialist phoenix to rise from its ashes.
Christopher Ketcham championed this case in his piece "anarchists for Donald Trump," where while acknowledging Trump as a fascist, claims what is needed now is "confusion", "disorder" and "chaos".
The first problem is that its never Ketcham and the liberal left that burn with the system. Its always the same people that bear the greatest burden of chaos and disorder - immigrants, muslims and minorities.
The seeds of division were sewn early in this election; the campaign cycle has been fought on the most divisive grounds possible. A candidate of one of the two major parties has (amongst other things):
1. Claimed all latin American immigrants are rapists and criminals, threatening mass deportations of families that have resided in the US for decades.
2. A proposed blanket ban on an entire religion from entering the United States
3. The literal building of a wall across the Mexican border
A successful Trump campaign will see life thrust into fear and uncertainty for these communities. Communities that are already the most disadvantaged and under-represented in our political infrastructures. My question to the left wing arsonists is - must these communities shoulder the greatest burden while our illiberal democracy is burnt and rebuilt.
In many ways we have already lost. Trump has normalised a narrative that generations before us worked exceptionally hard to dispel from mainstream political discourse. The hard right politics and demonisation and marginalisation of those who look and sound different is nothing new. What Trump has been successful in is resurrecting this form of public conversation.
Finally there is next to no evidence that a Presidency as unpredictable and potentially dangerous as Donald Trumps would see the end of this inverted totalitarianism. There is evidently a deep misunderstand of the american political system. The political infrastructure of the three branches of government has withstood and is built to withstand far worse than Trump.
Look at the realities of the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam war and the Iran-Contra fallout. All institutional failures and crises that did not even shake the system, let alone burn it.
The dream of a the system in ashes is just that, a dream.
As it stands Trump is set to lose this election pretty convincingly. Of the 10 swing states that will carry the election, as this is being written, Trump is only projected to win two. Yet what we must take away from this election is how some on the left were willing to throw the most vulnerable under the bus for a socialist republic that was never to come.