United States Presidential Election, 2016 - L’élection présidentielle américaine de 2016

After the conventions, Democrats attack Trump from the right

In the aftermath of the Republican and Democratic conventions, the US presidential election campaign has taken an extraordinary turn, bringing into the open a major crisis of the entire political system.

The Democratic Party, the Clinton campaign, the Obama White House and much of the media have launched a ferocious attack on the fascistic Republican candidate Donald Trump. The character of the anti-Trump campaign, however, is itself right-wing and militaristic.

The Republican convention in Cleveland marked the emergence at the very pinnacle of American bourgeois politics of a rabidly anti-immigrant, chauvinist and authoritarian tendency that seeks to exploit the grievances of social layers devastated by the breakdown of American and world capitalism and the reactionary policies of the entire political establishment.

Both big business parties are responsible for fostering a reactionary political culture. The Republicans, in particular, have long cultivated a neo-fascistic element, utilizing talk radio, Fox News and other sections of the media and building up formations such as the Tea Party to shift the political spectrum ever further to the right.

Now, however, there are serious concerns within the ruling elite over the implications of a Trump presidency. There are fears that a Trump administration would be so reckless and incite such a degree of popular opposition as to call into question the stability of the entire political system.

At the same time, Trump’s stated positions on foreign policy—particularly his reservations concerning Washington’s neo-colonial wars in the Middle East, his questioning of the US-dominated NATO alliance, and his friendly gestures toward Russian President Vladimir Putin—are deemed so out of line with the bipartisan foreign policy consensus as to be simply unacceptable.

Under these conditions, the Democratic Party sees an opportunity to reassert its historical role as the premier party of American imperialism and politically legitimize a highly militaristic—and deeply unpopular—foreign policy.

Last week’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia was dominated by the promotion of racial and gender politics as the political means for rallying the party’s upper-middle class base behind a program of militarism and war.

In the midst of a convention overwhelmingly featuring black, women and gay speakers, the Clinton campaign and sections of the media, led by the New York Times, launched a neo-McCarthyite campaign on the basis of entirely unsubstantiated charges that the Russian government hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s Internet server, stole emails revealing efforts by pro-Clinton officials to undermine the primary campaign of her rival Bernie Sanders, and fed them to WikiLeaks in order to tilt the November vote toward Moscow’s supposedly favored candidate, Trump.

The final night of the convention featured an appearance by Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a Muslim-American Army officer killed in Iraq in 2004, who denounced Trump for his racist attacks on Muslims. When Trump responded with an anti-Muslim slur against the couple, the Democrats and much of the media launched a ferocious barrage against the Republican candidate, branding him as unpatriotic, hostile to the US military, and “unfit” to be the commander-in-chief of American imperialism.

The crude quid-pro-quo on the basis of which the promoters of identity politics are lining up behind the Democrats’ war policy was summed up in the post-convention announcement that new Navy war vessels would be named after former civil rights activist and long-time congressman John Lewis and the gay San Francisco Board of Supervisors member who was assassinated in 1978, Harvey Milk.

Coming out of the convention, the Clinton campaign is touting its support from billionaires such as Michael Bloomberg, Mark Cuban and Warren Buffett, from disaffected Republican officials, and from the military-intelligence establishment. Hence the array of 25 retired generals and admirals on the Democratic convention stage the night Clinton accepted the party’s presidential nomination.

The most recent declaration came from Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary under George W. Bush and one of the leading plotters of the Iraq war, who denounced Trump and said he would probably vote for Clinton.

On Tuesday, Obama expanded on the theme of Trump’s lack of deference for the military in an unprecedented attack on the Republican candidate as “unfit” and “unqualified.” His statements were particularly remarkable for the occasion: a joint White House appearance with the visiting prime minister of Singapore, an official diplomatic function normally off-limits to US domestic politics.

Pointing to “repeated denunciations” of Trump’s statements by top Republicans, particularly for his attack on the Khan family, Obama said, “The question, I think, they have to ask themselves is, if they are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him? What does this say about your party that this is your standard bearer?”

The New York Times published an editorial Tuesday, no doubt coordinated with the White House, demanding that “spineless Republicans” withdraw their endorsements of Trump after his attack on the Khan family and remarks on Ukraine and Crimea that “reinforced suspicions that he is sympathetic toward Vladimir Putin, Russia’s authoritarian, anti-Western president.”

The Obama administration and the Democrats are not waiting for the November election to escalate military action in the Middle East and ratchet up the confrontation with Russia. The decision to open up a new front in the US war nominally being waged against ISIS had already been made when Obama spoke at the convention, but he said nothing to the American people. On Monday, however, the US launched air strikes on the Libyan city of Sirte, in what the Pentagon called an extensive and open-ended campaign.

And on Tuesday, the State Department said it was investigating charges that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons against US-proxy forces in Aleppo, a possible pretext for escalating Washington’s war for regime-change against the Russian-backed government in Damascus.

The subject of war has been deliberately covered up in the 2016 election campaign. This was the particular responsibility of Clinton’s main challenger, the self-styled “socialist” Bernie Sanders, who confined himself to occasionally criticizing Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War 14 years ago while supporting the ongoing and equally criminal war policies of the Obama administration in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya, and its preparations for war against Russia and China.

The Socialist Equality Party is the only party that is fighting to mobilize the working class in the United States and internationally against imperialist war and the growing threat of a new world war. Our campaign in the 2016 elections, running Jerry White for president and Niles Niemuth for vice president, is based on the perspective that the international working class will play the leading role in the struggle against war—a struggle that must be based on the fight to put an end to capitalism, the root cause of war, and establish workers’ governments and socialism. We urge all readers of the World Socialist Web Site to join and build this campaign.

Patrick Martin

Clinton steps up right-wing appeal to Republicans and billionaires

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has taken a further turn to the right, with open appeals to Republican Party loyalists to break with their nominee Donald Trump on the grounds that he is disrespectful of the military and opposed to confronting Russia and other countries targeted by Washington for attack.

Three incumbent Republican congressmen, other prominent Republican officials and ex-officials, and numerous Republican fundraisers have announced their support for Clinton, or at least their opposition to Trump.

Tuesday’s endorsement of Clinton by Representative Richard Hanna, an upstate New York Republican, was followed by statements Wednesday from Representative Adam Kinzinger, whose district is in the Chicago suburbs; Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania; and former Montana Governor Marc Racicot, an ex-chairman of the Republican National Committee. These three declared they could not support Trump, while stopping short of saying they would vote for Clinton.

A bipartisan group of 37 foreign policy and national security officials, including several former military officers, issued an open letter Thursday condemning Trump’s comments downgrading the significance of the NATO alliance. The letter declared:

“Trump’s ill-considered statements have already sown doubt in the minds of our European partners as to whether they can count on American resolve, commitment, and strength in the future. Those statements also threaten to weaken our collective deterrence against Vladimir Putin from further territorial aggression in Europe after his invasions of Ukraine and Georgia. If Trump’s policy was implemented, it would undermine the essential credibility of the United States in Europe and around the world.”

Among those signing were Thomas Pickering, UN ambassador under the first President Bush; Steven Pifer, a top-level State Department official in the second Bush administration, with responsibility for Russia and Ukraine; John Bellinger III, chief counsel for the National Security Council and later the State Department in the second Bush administration; and neo-conservatives Kori Schake and Randy Scheunemann, officials in the second Bush White House and advisers to the McCain-Palin Republican presidential campaign in 2008.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that 45 prominent Republicans have so far come out publicly for Clinton, in an effort coordinated by campaign Chairman John Podesta and Leslie Dach, a former Wal-Mart executive and longtime Clinton crony. Clinton herself has participated in the wooing of top Republicans, phoning Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor of California in 2010, last month. Whitman declared her support for Clinton Tuesday and pledged a six-figure donation to the campaign.

According to the Journal, “The effort, which largely targets national-security experts and business leaders, began several months ago but has ramped up in the wake of Mr. Trump’s recent troubles, including his spat with the parents of a Muslim US Army captain who died in Iraq, people familiar with the effort said. It is expected to culminate in a Republicans for Hillary group, whose members will endorse her candidacy.”

One Republican former Reagan and Bush administration official, Frank Lavin, told the Journal he had been reassured by the Democratic National Convention and Clinton’s selection of Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate. “I have an increasing comfort level with Hillary Clinton,” he told the newspaper. “She’s not going to be bossed around by the Bernie Sanders wing of the party.”

The Washington Post carried a similar report Thursday night on Clinton’s “outreach to potential Republican converts, including donors, elected officials, and business and foreign policy leaders. The message is simple: Even if you have never before considered voting for a Democrat, and even if you don’t like Clinton, choosing her this year is a moral and patriotic imperative.” The informal slogan of the outreach effort, according to the newspaper, was “duty, honor, country,” an indication of the extremely right-wing posture being taken by the Clinton campaign.

Clinton aides told the newspaper that the patriotic campaign was aided by Trump’s comments on foreign policy, particularly his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and by his public attacks on the father and mother of a Muslim US Army soldier, Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.

Clinton herself has begun to appeal publicly to Republicans to support her campaign as a “patriotic duty,” as the Associated Press put it Thursday. She told a union hall audience in Las Vegas, “I want to be the president for all Americans—Democrats, Republicans, independents. We’re going to pull America together again.’’

The shift to the right was unveiled at the Democratic National Convention, where an array of former generals paid tribute to Clinton as the best choice for “commander-in-chief,” and billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former Republican mayor of New York City, was given a featured position as a Clinton endorser.

The choice of Bloomberg (net worth $48 billion) was a signal of the real social constituency to which Clinton is appealing. It was followed July 30 with the endorsement of Clinton at a Pittsburgh rally by media billionaire Mark Cuban (net worth $3 billion), a right-wing libertarian and devotee of Ayn Rand.

August 1 found Clinton being introduced to an Omaha, Nebraska campaign event by investor Warren Buffett, whose personal net worth of $63.3 billion, derived entirely from financial speculation, makes him one of the richest men on Earth. On August 3 came the endorsement by Meg Whitman (net worth $2.1 billion), and on August 3, backing from hedge fund mogul Seth Klarman (net worth $1.35 billion), who has generally donated to Republican candidates in the past.

Several groups have been formed to harness the support of wealthy Republicans behind the Democratic nominee. These include Republicans for Her 2016, led by Republican lobbyist Craig Snyder; R4C16, led by officials from President George W. Bush’s administration; and the Republican Women for Hillary, which is led by US Chamber of Commerce official Jennifer Pierotti Lim.

Other prominent billionaires (Democrats and Republicans) supporting Clinton include Walmart heiress Ann Walton (net worth $5 billion); LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman ($3.8 billion); Univision television network owner Haim Saban ($3.6 billion); Hyatt Hotel chain heir J.B. Pritzker ($3.4 billion); Slim-Fast founder Daniel Abraham ($2 billion); Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com ($4 billion); Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg ($1.4 billion); medical industry heirs Jon and Pat Stryker ($2.3 billion); television personality Oprah Winfrey ($3.1 billion); and Hollywood producers Steven Spielberg ($3.6 billion) and Jeffrey Katzenberg ($1 billion).

Especially noteworthy is the large number of Wall Street financiers backing Clinton. These include speculator George Soros ($24.9 billion), hedge fund managers James Simons ($14 billion), David E. Shaw ($4.7 billion) and Tom Steyer ($1.6 billion); venture capitalist John Doerr ($4.7 billion); and banker Herbert Sandler ($1.2 billion).

The combined wealth of the aforementioned billionaires openly backing Clinton is roughly $200 billion—divided among 21 individuals. This is roughly the same amount that the Obama administration proposes for education, housing, transportation and science in its 2016 budget.

This line-up demonstrates the worthlessness of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s claims, as he ended his campaign and endorsed Clinton, that the Democratic Party had been fundamentally changed by his “political revolution.” Sanders denounced “the billionaire class” throughout his campaign, rallying the support of millions, including large numbers of young people and students. But he delivered his supporters to the tender mercies of a candidate who is a trusted servant of that billionaire class.

At his speech to the Democratic convention, Sanders claimed that Clinton’s campaign had “the most progressive platform” in history. Within days, America’s financial aristocracy has reminded everyone just who owns Clinton and the entire Democratic Party.

Sanders did not create the mass opposition of working class and youth that found brief expression in his campaign. His aim, as he repeatedly stated, was to absorb that opposition within the Democratic Party, which, he argued, could be made a vehicle of social reform.

In conceding to Clinton, Sanders fulfilled his campaign’s mission. Her subsequent sharp turn to the right—which includes not just fulsome support from billionaires, but from the military-intelligence apparatus based largely on warmongering against Russia—has very rapidly exposed the reactionary character of Sanders’ politics, and the bankruptcy of any perspective that claims that working people and youth can achieve progressive change through the Democratic Party.

By Tom Eley and Patrick Martin

Democrats seize on Khan-Trump conflict to woo right-wing support

The recent anti-Muslim remarks made by Donald Trump against Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Pakistani-American parents of an officer killed during the US occupation of Iraq, have been seized on by the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration to attack the Republican presidential nominee from the right and present the Democratic candidate as the advocate of patriotism and militarism.

The barrage against Trump has quickly taken on the character of a full-scale campaign, with extensive coverage in major daily newspapers and round-the-clock attention from network and cable news, including multiple interviews with the Khans.

Particularly significant has been the condemnation of Trump by veterans groups usually aligned with the Republican Party as well as many Republican senators, candidates and other office-holders.

Eleven families in the Gold Star Mothers of America, a congressionally chartered patriotic support group for the parents of soldiers killed in action, issued an open letter to Trump demanding an apology on Monday. “Your recent comments regarding the Khan family were repugnant and personally offensive to us,” they wrote. “We feel we must speak out and demand you apologize to the Khans, to all Gold Star families, and to all Americans for your offensive, and frankly anti-American comments.”

On Monday, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, one of the two largest veterans organizations, with 1.7 million members, blasted Trump for his comments about the family of Captain Humayun Khan, killed by a suicide bomber in 2004. Brian Duffy, the group’s president, issued a statement declaring, “Election or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression… There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed.”

At the convention of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) in Atlanta, President Obama condemned Trump’s comments without mentioning the Republican candidate by name. “No one—no one has given more for our freedom and our security than our Gold Star families,” he said. “Our Gold Star families have made a sacrifice that most of us cannot even begin to imagine. They represent the very best of our country.”

Obama presented himself as an advocate for the military. “As commander in chief, I’m pretty tired of some folks trash-talking America’s military and troops,” he told the DAV. “Our military is somewhat smaller after two major ground wars [have] come to a close. That’s natural. And we’re gonna keep doing everything we need to do improve readiness and modernize our forces.”

Obama went on to celebrate the military power of American imperialism and his own willingness to use it, declaring that, despite claims by critics like Trump, the United States possessed “the most capable fighting force in history and we’re going to keep it that way.” He reiterated his support for NATO, saying, “In the face of Russian aggression, we’re not going to turn our back to our allies in Europe.”

It is clear by now that in bringing Khizr Khan onto the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia to deliver a brief critique of Trump—as part of a line-up of speakers proclaiming that Hillary Clinton would be a far superior commander-in-chief than Trump—the Clinton campaign prepared a trap for the Republican candidate.

Khizr Khan, an immigration lawyer in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, spoke about the death of his son, one of the first Muslim-American soldiers killed in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. He denounced Trump for his racist call to ban Muslim immigration, but did so largely in patriotic terms, claiming that such bigotry would undermine the US military in “the fight against terrorism”—the pretext employed by successive US administrations to destroy much of the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa.

Trump responded with a crude attack on the Khan family, suggesting that Ghazala Khan, the soldier’s mother, had been compelled, either by her husband or her religion, to remain silent at his side during his six-minute speech. She has since denounced Trump as unfeeling and hypocritical.

The Clinton campaign is using the issue, not to indict Trump as an anti-Muslim racist and demagogue, but to accuse him of being unpatriotic and anti-military because of his slurs against the family of a soldier who “gave his life for his country.” Speaking at a church in Cleveland, Ohio on Monday, Clinton said that Khizr Khan “paid the ultimate sacrifice in his family, didn’t he?” She continued, “And what has he heard from Donald Trump? Nothing but insults, degrading comments about Muslims, a total misunderstanding of what made our country great.”

She went on to link her professed devotion to the US military to her religious faith, adding, “Tim Kaine [her running mate] and I are people of faith.”

Embracing religion along with the military is in keeping with the overall strategy of the Democrats in the post-convention period, which is to outflank the Trump campaign on the right and seek to win sections of the Republican Party either to support Clinton openly or at least to distance themselves from Trump.

The first dividends from this effort were cashed in on Monday, as Senator John McCain, a war hawk and Republican presidential candidate in 2008, became the most prominent Republican and Trump supporter to denounce his attack on the Khan family.

McCain released a lengthy written statement that did not disavow his grudging endorsement of the Republican nominee, but criticized Trump’s slurs against the Khan family in blistering terms.

“In recent days, Donald Trump disparaged a fallen soldier’s parents,” McCain wrote. “He has suggested that the likes of their son should not be allowed in the United States—to say nothing of entering its service. I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trump’s statement. I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates.” He added, “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”

Similar statements were issued by a bevy of Senate Republicans, including those in closely contested re-election bids in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Missouri, as well as by former presidential contenders Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and Jeb Bush, who have all refused to support Trump.

Bush’s top political adviser, Sally Bradshaw, announced her resignation from the Republican Party and said she would vote for Hillary Clinton in Florida if the race appeared to be close.

In all of the media furor, there has been no criticism whatsoever of the war that led to Humayun Khan’s death—the illegal and unprovoked war of aggression that led to the death and maiming of tens of thousands of US soldiers and the killing or maiming of more than a million people in Iraq, and the conversion of millions into homeless refugees. Clinton, Trump and the entire US political establishment of both big business parties supported this war and support its continuation today in Iraq and Syria.

By Tom Eley

Hillary Clinton’s dishonest, empty acceptance speech

Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic Party nomination for president Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a nearly hour-long speech that was profoundly dishonest, empty and unconvincing.

Everything about the final portion of the Democratic National Convention rang false. With Bill Clinton mugging and stage-acting in the audience, daughter Chelsea Clinton introduced her mother, as though this sordid dynasty represented something significant in American political history. The Clintons are primarily notorious for their corruption and venality. The couple accumulated $230 million from 2001 to 2014 through their relations, above all, with Wall Street financial firms and giant corporations.

There was an obvious effort under way Thursday evening to humanize and “soften” Hillary Clinton. Her miserable poll numbers—a 38.4 percent favorable rating and 55.6 percent unfavorable—are only slightly higher than Donald Trump’s. These are two widely disliked and distrusted candidates, perceived by millions of people to be representatives of a wealthy elite.

Chelsea Clinton described her mother in glowing terms, as “wonderful, thoughtful, hilarious.” One wondered who she could be talking about. The degree of exaggeration only made the comments absurd. The banalization of American politics has reached a new level. Even some of the crowd at the convention looked embarrassed.

A fawning video presentation, inevitably narrated by actor Morgan Freeman and purporting to tell the story of Hillary Clinton’s life, continued the fraud. It mentioned the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the assassination of Osama bin Laden, but omitted any reference to the millions of deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria for which Hillary Clinton bears a large share of responsibility.

Clinton managed to deliver a 56-minute speech without a single memorable phrase or sentence. Her assignment, of course, was one that would have confounded a far more clever and capable individual than she: to convince the American public, or that section of it watching on television, that this blood-soaked, big business party had the concerns of the people in mind.

She made various ritualistic references to putting “economic and social justice issues front and center, where they belong.” Clinton assured Bernie Sanders, who obediently and appreciatively responded from his seat in the hall, that “Your cause is our cause. Our country needs your ideas, energy, and passion. That’s the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America.”

At one point, she declared dully, “There’s too much inequality. Too little social mobility.” And later, she said she was in favor of “a country where the economy works for everyone, not just those at the top. Where you can get a good job and send your kids to a good school, no matter what zip code you live in. A country where all our children can dream, and those dreams are within reach.” Did anyone in the viewing audience, or even in the hall in Philadelphia, believe a word of this?

“None of us can be satisfied with the status quo.” But Clinton represents nothing on this earth so much as the status quo. She is the candidate of big finance, the military (“our national treasure,” she called it) and security forces, and the most complacent upper middle class layers.

“And here’s what I believe. I believe America thrives when the middle class thrives. I believe that our economy isn’t working the way it should because our democracy isn’t working the way it should.” But every word, every gesture cried out that she didn’t believe in any of it. It was all synthetic, contrived, patronizing. No thoughtful, socially vigilant viewer could be taken in by this transparent fakery.

Clinton promised that Wall Street would “never, ever be allowed to wreck Main Street again” and that she was going to fund various programs by making “Wall Street, corporations, and the super-rich” pay “their fair share of taxes.” But this mouthpiece of the financial oligarchy would not lift a finger against the rich.

The speech was tedious and degrading, entirely unrelated to reality, including, of course, the record of the Obama administration that has presided over an acceleration in levels of social inequality. One could only feel lessened by listening to the speech.

Clinton made the predictable appeals to patriotism, chauvinism and economic nationalism. She pledged to “stand up to China” and “stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, including from Russia,” although the real scare of the advanced preparations for war against American imperialism’s rivals and enemies was concealed. She made numerous references to our “brave” police.

Nor could Clinton avoid, also predictably, declaring her own candidacy to be a historic event: “Tonight, we’ve reached a milestone in our nation’s march toward a more perfect union: the first time that a major party has nominated a woman for president.” She went on to claim that “when any barrier falls in America, for anyone, it clears the way for everyone. When there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit.”

This is a lie. There is nothing in the slightest socially progressive about Clinton’s nomination. It does not represent any advance for the population—or women—as a whole. The growth in social inequality among women has risen more rapidly than inequality among men—the percentage of total female earnings accruing to the top female one percent has doubled since the 1980s. Clinton is a representative of this wealthy elite, whose conditions of life have nothing in common with those of the tens of millions of women who work, often for desperately low wages, in health care facilities, restaurants, offices, schools and stores. Her political ascension will have absolutely no effect on their lives.

Whatever their gender or color, bourgeois politicians represent the interests of the ruling class. Clinton aspires to join the ranks of such notables as Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Isabel Peron, Corazon Aquino, Angela Merkel, Julia Gillard and Dilma Rousseff, enemies of the working class, all.

The Democratic Party convention, like the Republican, was a spectacle of reaction. It married the politics of race and gender with militarism and nationalism. Neither party has anything to offer the mass of the population but inequality, authoritarianism and war.

By David Walsh