Are the 2024 elections building a false sense of comfort?

words by Charles Brooks

President Biden struggles began within the first few months of winning the presidency, and continued right up to the June debate. News reporting and polling results consistently showed his struggle with Black voters and younger voters while questions about his age and cognitive capacity, escalated over time. The broken campaign promises on criminal justice and voting rights while personal economies took the hit from the rising costs of living.  For months, Gaza protests stretched from the streets to college campuses across the country, inviting deeper scrutiny and criticism on the Biden presidency.

Then the 90-minute debate debacle between Biden and former president Trump took place, as Biden’s poor performance triggered a public display of panic inside the Democratic Party.

The internal turmoil set in motion an incredible sequence of events culminating in the installation of the Vice President to the top of the ticket.

Since her installation, the last three months of this 2024 election cycle has been quite revealing and equally disturbing. Superficially, there’s been the incessant focus on racial, and identity politics due to the historical significance of her candidacy.  We see the buy-in of the extravagance and pageantry that surrounds the Harris-Walz campaign. But deeper, there’s the daily reminders of political regression and immaturity compelling the inability see the political contradictions that are blurred by illusions of inclusion.  

We’re reminded of the incessant pursuit of a political assimilation that neutralizes self-determining activities best seen in the acquiesce of Black voters. We’re reminded of the flatlined status of Black politics seen in the continued misleadership of Black elected officials, along with the political elite. The misleadership is seen in their collaboration with the spectacle, and defense of American empire, neoliberalism, imperialism, and the surveillance security state.

We’re reminded of the loyalty to the Democratic Party that routinely repels critical thinking, critical analysis, and the capacity to draw conclusions. A loyalty that is either willing to accept or ignore the class contradictions, the contradictions in faith & religion, in her record as a former prosecutor, in the pursuit of white moderate/conservative Republicans support, or in the commercialized political messages of “hope” and “joy”.  

In 2024, Black voters continue to be driven by a civil rights narrative singularly focused on honoring those who died for the right to vote, as well as the same racial/identity politics that drove Black voters to the polls in 2008 and 2012.  However, we’re witnessing a particular collaboration unseen in those elections amongst some high-profile members of the Black celebrity, Black media, Black faith leaders & the Divine Nine class’ in their support of Harris.  

But what’s different in 2024 though, is the heightened fear and escalating anxiety around the possibility of another Trump presidency.  There’s the repeated reminders from his first presidency, his role on January 6^th, and the 92 indictments in addition to what a second Trump presidency would look like, particularly when framed as a “fascist” or as an “existential threat”.  The fears are frequently amplified with the threats his presidency potentially poses to criminal justice, reproductive rights, immigration, and the national economy with campaign promises of tariffs. The fear of another Trump presidency has even grown to extend well beyond the typical loyalists to the Democratic party.

Nonetheless, the fact remains the president of the United States is the manager of the American empire and imperialism. There’s a massive surveillance state, along with the sprawling military apparatus that comes with serving as Commander in Chief with a nearly $900 billion budget, 3.4 service members and civilians in 4,800 sites around the country.

Defending Our Sovereignty: US Military Bases in Africa and the Future of African Unity, provides a clearer picture of the vast military apparatus, “No country has a greater military footprint around the world than the United States. According to the US National Defense Business Operations Plan (2018-2022), the US military manages a global portfolio that consists of more than 568,000 buildings and structures, that are located at nearly 4,800 sites worldwide." 

That includes 750 military bases located around the world, military command centers in Africa (AFRICOM), the Middle East (CENTCOM), and South America (SOUTHCOM). Additionally, the international reach of American multinational corporations reflected in their routine extraction of capital stands as the model of American imperialism.

The nearly $900 billion to maintain this military empire severely compromises the government’s capacity to respond to the material needs of the nations’ working class when over half of the federal budget’s discretionary spending is allocated for national defense.

The reality of one’s personal economy, and their material condition has compelled a return to the very same critique that began three years ago.

Despite the ambiguity that fills her circular responses to interview questions, the vice-president has been candidly clear in her unequivocal support for the continued financing and arming of Israel’s military and genocidal assault. The messages of joy rings hollow for the folks who are still living check to check, crippled with the increasingly higher costs of living. Medical debt. Student debt. Evicted or the looming fear of being evicted. Even today’s unhoused people face the punitive threat of being criminalized.  

The notion or the idea that the overwhelming fear of another Trump presidency can somehow be remedied or absolved with the simple cast of the vote has deepened a false sense of comfort in electoral politics and highlights a very troubled approach to electoral politics.