Opinion by Mathew Carr

October 24, 2024

Donald Trump wins … he does this by :

He decides to change his tune on climate, nature; he admits the climate crisis is serious; he agrees not to pull out of the Paris climate agreement; he agrees to put a high price on all US fossil-fuel/heat trapping emissions; he promises to force corporations to “make good” on any nature destruction in the past 23 years and in the future.

Trump admits he didn’t strike the right balance on inequality; he apologises for making rich people even more wealthy in his first term and sets out how he plans to tax wealth in his second term…and help emerging countries.

He calls out previous administrations on how the military industrial complex has deliberately stoked global security problems and warmongered; he explains the UFOs being spotted by US Air Force pilots/whistleblowers.

He softens his stance on migrants, pointing out they are actually very useful.

He says the US will become more collaborative globally and that he will adjust his “America first” motto to become “humans first, corporations second”.

He apologizes for abusing women and eroding their abortion rights.

He admits his plans for huge tariffs is silly because it will cause massive inflation….and he comes up with a better plan. Eg trade collaboration.

Kamal Harris wins … she does this by :

She admits democrats have gone too slow in the past on climate and nature protection, describes how she will tackle the problems with much more urgency.

Harris focuses on how inequality surged under Trump, hurting nearly everyone.

She pivots to global collaboration instead of demonising China etc.

She promises world peace, sustainable development and to stand up to Israel and the banks and the central banks.

She gets an endorsement from Julian Assange after promising to pardon him and investigate US war crimes.

She promises to regulate the food and pharmaceutical industries properly.

She says the Democrats and Republicans will stop working with each other … against the interests of the American people (and the rest of us) … while pretending to be rivals.

Proper democracy would mean both sides of American politics will do all these things above in the next 12 days — a proper competition with real democratic competitive tension.

And no, Financial Times’s Janan Ganesh (Roula Khalaf) — see opinion piece below — it’s not “one of the mysteries of the century” why the US, (and Canada, Australia and the UK [even much of the EU]) are often close to 50:50 in the electorate.

It’s because the corrupt corporate press cuts down any political party or politician that becomes dominant and wants to regulate things properly for the people … and because the same press treat seriously candidates who are not fit for office … (but are great for corporate interests).

The press does not scrutinize them well enough because many journalists/leaders in the media treat their relationships with leaders/public-relations people as more important than their relationships with viewers/readers/subscribers. They appear to treat their relationships with advertisers very seriously indeed.

Corporations and the corporate press have the most leverage over politicians when the electoral race is tight.

So democracy in the west is very sick.

Market rules need to be changed in the interests of the 99.9% of people and they need to be set to tame the super rich.

Every multi-billionaire is the result of a market failure, (someone smarter than me said first).

Capitalism is not the problem. It’s just not regulated right and the competitive tension has gone out of it.

Many of the people who influence and set capitalism’s rules are now effectively corrupt because those folks are not working for the 99.9% of people.

That’s the real tragedy.

FT: Oct. 24, 2024

(The FT is usually one of the best for reporting politics properly, not the worst, btw.)

The author has been fighting corruption at Bloomberg LP for more than six years.

[Added tariffs]