Tom Thorne's ejournal

Moving towards the November US election despite Covid-19, while keeping tabs on the super power competition and ecological matters.

by Tom Thorne

The US-Canada border is still closed. There is no commitment to a reopening as the Covid-19 pandemic rolls on. The US numbers remain high. In Canada we are hovering on some careful reopening of the economy, parks and leisure activities. The Federal Government and each province are spending to save society from a total economic collapse. People largely remain at home as it sinks in that this will not end soon.

Yes, it is that bad. There seems to be no end in sight. Vaccines are in the works but with a long time line. That means we have to remain well by observing social distancing, wearing masks and curtailing our normal lives. The good thing is that the Federal Government and the provinces are all very civil to each other. Every politician wants to pull the country together which is a refreshing change from the acrimony before Covid-19.  It is practice time for ecological disasters that could be looming large in the near future. Maybe it’s a wake up call.

The US election for 2020 is six months out. Donald Trump is seeking a second term and the Democrats are running Joe Biden against him or so it would seem. Democrats need to firm up his candidacy and his running mate. In this situation anything on the edge of certainty is noticed as useful and gets attention. There is a sense of inevitable limbo where Donald Trump prevails without sufficient challenge.

After almost four years of Donald Trump it would seem reasonable that his daily excesses would kill his chances of a second term. As I write in May 2020, Trump’s botching of Covid-19 should ensure his November defeat. He has no real idea about what to do, and so he deflects this serious health crisis with vague notions of how the economy can be started up again by his wish fulfilment, rhetoric and by blaming others. 

Any Trump blame is going to the state governors, city mayors but never the White House. Congress votes $3 trillion for Covid-19 batting but are strangely silent on the issue itself. President Barack Obama in a recent convocation speech criticized Trump’s handling of Covid-19. However, not much from other politicians who need the federal government money in their fight tamping down Covid-19.

How could any President so incompetent be re-elected? Sadly he just may get back in as his peccadilloes go unnoticed by about a third of the US population. He has sown up far right people, freedom advocates who say owning a gun is how freedom is preserved, evangelical Christians, and Americans who believe in Make America Great Again. With his core support and the Electoral College system working hard for the status quo, Joe Biden has a steep climb to the White House. 

The mood underneath Trump’s support has not changed because of Covid-19 Trump’s base support like his views about getting back to work. Americans feel disenfranchised by both Republicans and Democrats. Clearing the political swamp still rings true for these people. Joe Biden does not seem to be the vital answer to pull Donald Trump off his pedestal. So it is all rather sad watching the US decline as the number one super power and primary defender of democracy subject to the whims of the Stable Genius.

What does it take to get the US electorate into a frame of mind where the excesses of Trump are realized as a march to something in the future that can tax the very core of US democracy? His supporters do not care. Frankly there is a kind of limbo all over the US that spells the inevitability of Donald Trump continuing as President.

The hung Congress is no help. Support also comes from the rich who get tax breaks when Trump is in power by running deficits and removing any hope of health care reform. It doesn’t matter in one recent case that a Covid-19 victim lost their employer’s health insurance with a layoff and now faces a huge bill for three weeks in hospital with no prospect of work. The freedom to go bankrupt for catching Covid-19.

Republicans slavishly watch the excesses of Donald Trump without any real comment and certainly not criticism. As a result he gathers more and more power by their inaction. This is especially true of Congressional Republicans. In addition, Democrats are frozen into some past that they are unable to define and articulate. That leaves Joe Biden with no fresh ideas and the ongoing prospect of no real change. The US is set on a self destructive course.  With either Trump or Biden as President the decline continues. Make America Great Again is hollow crowd pleasing rhetoric.

That self destructive course is much more amplified by Covid-19, but even without the virus this inevitable march to becoming second rate in the world would continue to happen. The attacks by Donald Trump on anything international, such as, imposing trade tariffs, climate change denial, suspending World Health Organization (WHO) funding, and speaking bad about NATO associations all continues. Add to this his constant roughing of Western allies is just simply confusing about what Trump’s objectives are other than playing to his base for November. Trump’s chummy interest in dictators like Putin, Xi and Kim Jong-un of North Korea is constant. Trump is setting the the world stage for US to lose its super power status. Covid-19 is simply hastening this process.  

Part 2: US Super Power Competition after Covid-19

Europe also lacks the political cohesion to make its $18 trillion combined GNP felt in these times. The Chinese GNP now stands at $15 Trillion US and somewhat curtailed by Covid-19. The US is at about $22 Trillion US. After Covid-19 drains treasuries dry the difference between China and the US’s GNP will be very close. China will now develop more as a super power with clout in the world as they promote totalitarian, anti democratic objectives and yet remain an expert at new technologies, trade and commerce, entrepreneurism and working with other countries by using economics and cross country global associations to gain and cement their influence. 

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) objectives are first, expand trade and commerce with a smile and tangentially  rid the world of democratic ideals. What nation or group of nations has the cohesion to thwart Chinese ambitions?  Trump’s hard nose trade tariff war with China just won’t do it.

Chinese skill in high technologies, trade and commerce will infiltrate western economies by divide and conquer routes.  In addition, rising Asian economies such was India will be integrated into the Chinese economy by installing Chinese controlled multinational companies in both countries with linked supply chains. Strategically their anti US and anti imperialism credentials will win the Chinese more access to Africa and Asia and the natural resources they possess. 

In all places their 5G and other technological communications  systems will become the standard and the AI aspects of these technologies will simply enable them to spy much better than before. The control of their own population is a key to understanding Chinese overseas global intelligence gathering objectives. The Chinese know that they are expanding in an information age and they are after knowledge while they plant propaganda to promote the objectives of the CCP.

The control  of the Covid-19 pandemic is the key to who comes out first in the super power stakes. Stopping Covid-19 is a major effort now of the all the world. The Chinese may hold the vaccine key to Covid-19 but it would be strategic for the West to have their own vaccines and treatments. Promising vaccine work is now underway between Chinese and Canadian organizations at this time are a double edged sword. Equally it would be useful if Western democracies and India realized the perilous pandemic situation we are now in has more to it than a major health issue. The outcome is a lot of geopolitical change and the expansion of CCP objectives through trade and humanitarian operations.

The geopolitical changes are superficially which country wins the super power stakes. However that may not matter as much while climate change and other pollution issues of neglecting our home planet surface more and more. Covid-19 in some ways is a result of unnatural selection. It is brought about in populous large urban areas, in this case China, that allows traditional live animal markets to exist in the core of large cities.

Four viruses have now emerged from China in recent times. This virus, like the others jumps species and is a result of changes to the natural environment. There is no immunity for humans just as there is no immunity from other ecological disasters. That makes what country becomes the up and coming super power a saviour as the crunch begins. Equally how important is Donald Trump in the big picture? If pandemics and uncontrolled ecological spiralling begins, and some think it already has, who has the focused geopolitical and economic power will be significant for our survival and economic status in the world now unfolding before us.  

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