The astute reader will quickly note that this article by Mark LeVine was written in Al Jazeera back in August, which makes it outdated, especially since it was about the US presidential election and was penned prior to said election. But then again, everything the above writer does is outdated as soon as it is written.
I am referring, of course to Mark LeVine, UC Irvine Professor, part-time rocker, and multi-holder of Campus Watch's "Howler of the Month" award.
In this Twilight of the Gods piece, LeVine bemoans the fact that he and his fellow progressives have nobody good to vote for in the still-to-be-held election.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/8/29/voting-for-your-enemy-in-the-us-elections/
In his "introduction", LeVine refers to one of the true Illuminati of American society-Ice Cube- to tell us what Mr. Cube thinks of all this.
"American rapper Ice Cube has never shied from offering blistering critiques of American racism and the political and economic system that it has fostered. From seminal hits like Straight Outta Compton (1988) and F*** Tha Police (1988) with hip-hop group NWA, to his solo efforts such as Black Korea (1991) and I Wanna Kill Sam (1991), where he literally predicted the LA Riots of 1992 in the song’s lyrics, while calling for the “ultimate drive-by” against a United States government that has rarely let up on its unremitting war against African Americans."
And what does "NWA" stand for, you ask? You don't wanna know.
LeVine continues by quoting the melodious prose of Mr Cube:
“What I didn’t hear [at the DNC] is, what’s in it for us? What’s in it for the Black community besides the same old thing we been getting from these parties? […] They just pulled $3 trillion out of they ass and gave it to their friends […] Where’s our f******* bailout?” […] Democrats don’t seem like they got a plan. Republicans don’t seem like they got a plan for us. So how the hell you gonna vote for them?”
Then LeVine gets to the point. To his way of thinking, there's not much difference between the Trump-Pence ticket and the Biden-Harris ticket.
"For progressive Democrats – particularly supporters of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders – and those on the front lines of social and racial justice struggles, the Biden-Harris ticket cannot but be a great disappointment. On so many of the most important issues, from judicial and penal reform and
The Green New Deal is one of the most important issues? Outside of the fairy tale world of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mark LeVine, very few people take that seriously. Ditto for Medicare for All. As for judicial and penal reform, given the recent activities of groups like Antifa, I would suggest some behavioral reform is in order.
LeVine then follows up on his quotation of Ice Cube by shining the spotlight on noted "thinkers" like Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, and (perhaps, most powerfully), Michelle Obama.
"To forestall this possibility, Bernie Sanders used his DNC speech to warn his young followers that “the future of democracy is at stake […] The future of our planet is at stake. We must come together [to] defeat Donald Trump.”
Even further to the left, Noam Chomsky warned of the existential threat posed by four more years of Trump, urging people to vote for Biden-Harris and then “haunt his dreams”.
Angela Davis urged progressives to vote for Biden and Harris, arguing that they were the candidates who “could be most effectively pressured into allowing more space for the evolving anti-racist movement”. Perhaps most powerfully, former First Lady Michelle Obama warned Americans to “vote like your lives depend on it”.
But there is more.
"All these figures have painted Trump, rightly so, as a mortal threat to democracy and even the future of humankind. And most, if not, all believe, as Chomsky points out, that whatever their faults, the candidates and the Democratic platform, in fact, signal a progressive step forward beyond any tandem or policies that came before. But given how the last two Democratic administrations reinforced rather than transformed the very forces that have enabled the disasters of the Bush and now Trump presidencies, it is hard not to join Ice Cube’s sarcastic refrain and ask “What’s in it for the rest of us?” if the Democrats win, except a brief respite from more Republican Sturm und Drang?"
Donald Trump is many things, but he is not a mortal threat to democracy. You may not like his executive orders, but then again, I didn't like Obama's. You may not like his challenges to the election and refusal to concede, but at the end of the day, either his legal challenges will run out or massive electoral fraud will be proven. If it is the former, he will leave office. If it is the latter, that will be the real threat to our democracy. Trump's tenure has, like all other administrations, been limited by the balance of power and the Constitution/courts. At this moment the real threat to American democracy is the very real possibility that we have had a stolen election, centered in Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. That is what should concern us even more than who won or lost the election.
Nor is Trump a mortal threat to the future of humankind. He didn't invade Iraq, Libya or Syria. He didn't involve us in any new wars. What he did was beef up our military force to drive ISIS from its "caliphate" in large swaths of Syria and Iraq. That was a positive. ISIS, to be sure, is a threat, but more so now as a terrorist group as opposed to an army. Trump has also pushed Arab nations like the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan to normalize relations with Israel. That is also a positive, but you won't hear any praise from the LeVines of the world. To answer Mr. Cube's "sarcastic refrain", more peace and security, that's what's in it for us-not more Sturm und Drang.
And like in a Wagnerian opera, the storm clouds gather over LeVine's pen and paper.
"On the one side, we have a ruthless narcissistic authoritarian with no checks on his executive power and a Supreme Court almost entirely his who is permanently enshrining a feudal oligarchy that disenfranchises and disinherits the majority of Americans, and blowing past any survivable CO2 limit, thereby threatening the survival of humanity and a million more species within a few decades. Trump 2.0 will unleash the full
Gee golly, willickers, Lois. Not even Superman can save us now."
Imagine having a president with dementia with Kamala Harris waiting in the wings. That's what I call the End of Days.
And a salute to "The Squad".
"And this enemy has already been infiltrated by upwards of 100 agents of change through the Congressional Progressive Caucus, at least half a dozen of whom are among the most well-known and powerful young politicians in America. While it will take at least a decade for the “Squad” and other young progressives to achieve institutional power, if their numbers grow by even a dozen members, the Democratic Party will have been conquered from within by progressives in the same way Republicans were conquered by the Tea Party."
And as the Fat Lady waddles out onto the stage, Mark builds up to his crescendo of a conclusion.
"Just as clear is what will happen if this opportunity is not taken. As a Facebook friend from a Midwestern battleground state described his Trump-loving neighbours after Jacob Blake’s shooting: “You can feel it building, they hate you and they are going to vote.”
If those votes are not matched by a similarly motivated Democratic electorate, the End of Days might arrive a lot sooner than we think."
LeVine has been writing this jibberish for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera for years. You wonder why the Arab world has such a confused take on America. But then again, Al Jazeera is a propaganda arm of the anti-Israel, anti-West world view. They are always happy to give a platform to American bellyachers like LeVine.
Of course, I remind the reader that all this was written before the election on November 3. One can only wonder what LeVine thinks about the shenanigans in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. I am hoping that in the end, we will learn that the result was actually honest even though I didn't vote for Biden. We have survived mediocre and bad presidents before. If it turns out, however, that our elections are no longer honest, that is the real Sturm und Drang because our democracy cannot survive that.
It is also unfortunate that this is the kind of drivel that our kids are being exposed to in our universities. No, it's not all LeVine's doing. After all, he is just another dime a dozen fish in the vast sea of academia. There is nothing exceptionable about LeVine. You can stumble drunk into most any classroom on any university campus in America and hear this gloom and doom about our country.
Which, while far from perfect, just happens to be the freest, richest, and greatest country on the planet-notwithstanding the sarcastic refrains of Mr Cube.
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