By Mark Rolofson. Originally published in People’s Party of Oregon Newsletter, November 2021. Image by Jennifer Taft of Pandemic Duck News. Reprinted here by permission.
It has been ten months since Joe Biden took office as president of the United States and many liberals have gone back to brunch, finally able to get off Prozac and anti-anxiety drugs needed to cope with the stress caused by former President Donald Trump, a loudmouth buffoon, fascist dictator wannabe demagogue.
Liberal’s Rude Awakening
Liberals are now in for a rude awakening, as Biden’s nine month approval rating is lower than any president since World War II. His approval rating does not simply reflect angry Republicans, but also Democrats and Independents. Very unpopular is Biden’s vaccine mandate for companies with 100 or more employees. This mandate has been temporarily blocked by an appeals court as unconstitutional. The first taste of an angry voter backlash came in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election with the defeat of Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, who lost to Republican Glenn Youngkin. Biden, Harris and Obama all spoke at McAuliffe rallies in support, but the candidate failed to connect with working class voters. The same trend will probably continue in 2022 and 2024.
Growing Anger
Biden’s presidency has spawned a growing movement of angry people, many who still support Donald Trump. This has given rise to the saying “Lets Go Brandon”, because of the NBC sports interview of NASCAR winner Brandon Brown. The interviewer, Kelli Stavast, claimed that the crowd was chanting “Lets Go Brandon”, while clearly the chant is “Fuck Joe Biden”. Crowds at College Games can be seen chanting this as well. “Lets Go Brandon” has become the legal way of saying it on the airwaves and has led to several rap songs with the title. What is most disturbing, is not the anger toward Joe Biden, but that the rap song videos feature rappers, including Bryson Gray, wearing MAGA hats and Christian crosses, carrying Trump Flags and toy guns, while displaying BIble verses.
Rise of Christian Fascism
The Left should take note of this, as it points to the rise of Christian Fascism in reaction to the failure of Democrats to pass meaningful legislation to help the struggling working class during a pandemic and rising inflation. The continued attempt by Progressives and the DSA to prop up the Democratic Party as reformable is a fool’s errand. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. The Left has two choices when it comes to electoral politics, either get behind an existing third party or work to form a new one – the People’s Party.
A Failed State Under Biden and the Democrats
The US pandemic death toll is now above 770,000, having almost doubled since Biden entered the White House. The complete failure of the federal government to contain the virus means it will mutate and has become endemic. In March 2021, when the COVID-19 vaccines were first available, but long before the majority of Americans had been vaccinated, Biden called for the reopening of schools to get parents back to work. Since school started in late August 2021, Delta cases among children have risen dramatically. Now that the additional federal employment and eviction moratorium have ended, unemployed Americans are being forced back into the workforce often to face unsafe work conditions. Government policies put corporate profits above the lives of people. The failure to contain the pandemic can no longer be blamed entirely on Donald Trump.
Biden Abandons Campaign Promises
Biden has abandoned many of his campaign promises of a $15 minimum wage, $10,000 of student loan debt forgiveness, raising taxes on the rich and a public option to Obamacare. The Democrats have failed to pass any Progressive legislation that helps the struggling working class or the poor. The Policing In Justice Act (which offered very watered down police reforms) died in the Senate. The Democratic Party has thrown its Black Lives Matter supporters under the bus with no police reform measures, while increasing funding to the Capitol police. Police departments across America can use state money from the American Rescue Plan Act, for a budget increase.
Biden and Trump’s Identical Foreign Policy
The Biden Administration is following the footsteps of the Trump Administration, by continuing to push for the extradition of Wikileaks publisher, Julian Assange, to charge him with 17 counts of espionage. The International Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International were among numerous press freedom and human rights organizations that demanded the release of Assange, ahead of the US extradition appeal.
Biden claims to support press freedom, but the persecution of Assange exposes the blatant fraud and hypocrisy of that claim. The effort to silence Assange, for exposing US war crimes, State Department and DNC corruption and CIA spying programs, is bipartisan. His persecution demonstrates the tyrannical nature of the duopoly.
The Biden administration has yet to re-enter the Iran Nuclear Deal, crafted by the Obama Administration, and is demanding the same concessions for Iran to give up its ballistic missiles program, as did Donald Trump. During ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran, US fighter jets have been flying over the Persian Gulf and brutal US sanctions against Iran remain in place.
He has also continued to place harsh sanctions on Cuba, as Trump did, rather than returning to President Obama’s steps to normalize US-Cuba relations by lifting the travel ban. Biden has spent millions of dollars promoting a color revolution in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government. US sanctions are depriving Cuban hospitals of medical equipment and has created a syringe shortage.
The US military is also busy in the South China Sea conducting war games with its allies. The new alliance of AUKUS (US, UK and Australia) to confront China militarily has ratcheted up regional tensions. Biden continues what Trump started by not recognizing the One China policy that has been in place for over 40 years. Biden has stated that the US would defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. However, under international law Taiwan is part of China, as recognized by the United Nations since 1971. Secretary of State Antony Blinken thinks Taiwan should have its own UN seat.
The threat of war breaking out is also present on the Russian borders with an increased NATO presence and US Navy ships in the Black Sea near Russia’s territorial waters. US Defense Secretary, Loyd Austin, wants to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which Russia has stated crosses a red line. Austin is also demanding that Russia give Crimea back to Ukraine, despite the people of Crimea having voted to secede in 2014. The differences between Trump and Biden on foreign policy are few. If anything, the rainbow coalition of warmonger imperialists in the Biden Administration are far more dangerous, and risk igniting a world war against nuclear armed powers.
The Russiagate Fraud and Its Unseen Consequences to the Democrats
Wikileaks exposed the corruption of the DNC colluding with mainstream corporate media to cheat Sanders and elect Clinton, with the release of the DNC & Podesta emails. In response to the email release, the DNC and Clinton campaign blamed Russia. In fact, the DNC was aware that the server had been breached in Spring 2016 before the release of the emails by Wikileaks. The forensic analysis of the DNC server was done by Crowdstrike (a private company) but never by a law enforcement agency. The FBI did not subpoena the server; FBI director James Comey did not follow normal protocol but fully trusted the forensic analysis of Crowdstrike, even though the FBI never saw their report that was soon redacted. Russia was accused of the hack, but transcripts from a 2017 Congressional Intelligence hearing, under Adam Schiff, reveal that president of Crowdstrike, Shawn Henry, admitted to having no direct evidence that Russia hacked the DNC server or that any emails were actually taken. He claimed they only saw patterns that looked like it was the Russians.
Russiagate is perhaps the biggest lie ever told to the American people, both by the Democratic Party and US intelligence agencies and then broadcast by an echo chamber of liberal media outlets. Starting in Summer 2016, liberal media pundits like Racheal Maddow were quick to blame Russia for hacking the DNC, election interference with a Russian troll farm and Russian bots on Twitter.
The declassified intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 US Election was merely allegations void of any evidence. The report stated that both the CIA and FBI have “high confidence” that Russia was the source of the DNC emails, while the NSA said it had “moderate confidence.” NSA moderate confidence exposed a major glitch to the claim of a Russian source to the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). The VIPS wrote a series of three articles in Consortium News. In the first article “US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims” the VIPS stated it was “a leak not a hack.” The article exposes the fact that if it was a hack the NSA would have direct evidence since every piece of metadata passes through the NSA database. Mainstream media ignored the VIPS, who contradicted their major narrative that was echoed from MSNBC to NPR.
The Trump victory was a huge blow to the DNC and Clinton. The response to Trump’s victory was amplified by media accusations of Russian interference and collusion with the Trump campaign.
Just before Trump was inaugurated in 2017, the Steele Dossier made headlines with allegations that Russia had “Kompromat” on Trump with claims of the infamous Pee Tape. The two year long Mueller investigation that followed, was continually hyped for having bombshell revelations. The liberal media claimed that the walls were closing on Donald Trump and that he would soon resign. Nothing could have been further from the truth, especially after the Mueller Investigation found “No collusion.”
Fast forward to recent weeks and the credibility of former British Christopher Steele and his dossier are being exposed as a fraud, with the third indictment of the Durham Investigation. On November 4th, Igor Danchenko, a Russian citizen, foreign policy analyst and Steele’s primary source was indicted for lying to the FBI about his dealings with Charles Dolan and a fellow Soviet-born expatriate, that he claimed was one of his sources. Some of the information in the Steele Dossier is alleged to come from Charles Dolan, public relations executive with Russian affairs expertise and a long political relationship with the Clinton family. Igor Danchenko has pleaded not guilty.
In September 2021, the second indictment of Durham’s investigation was Michael Sussman, a lawyer for the Clinton campaign Sussman is accused of lying to the FBI at a September 2016 meeting where he claimed there was “secret communications” between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. Sussmann told the FBI that he was coming forward as a concerned citizen and was not working “for any client.” The 27 page indictment alleges that Sussman had political motivations. Sussman also hired Crowdstrike to do the forensic analysis on the DNC server in 2016.
While it is uncertain who Durham’s investigation will convict, it has the potential to take down some big players. Over the past 5 years, independent media sources such as Consortium News, Aaron Mate of the Grayzone, and Glenn Greenwald have debunked the fraud of Russiagate. The impact of a fraud exposed will have detrimental consequences on the entire Democratic Party and the liberal media that has promoted it. Trump supporters must feel a total sense of outrage over the constant allegations of a Trump-Russia conspiracy for over two years during the failed Mueller investigation. Yet, the liberal media and the Democratic Party are still refusing to admit just how wrong they got it.
Criminalizing Dissent: Protester or Insurrectionist on January 6th
The failed Mueller investigation and two failed impeachment trials have served to empower Donald Trump. Furthermore, the harsh prosecution of nonviolent January 6th protesters, like Jacob Chansley (the QAnon Shaman) who is sentenced to 41 months in prison, threatens to criminalize dissent. There are January 6th protesters that deserve a harsh sentence for violence, breaking and entering or theft; but harsh examples are being made out of January 6th protesters for simply entering the capitol or the legislative chambers. In response to the riot, Congress has even discussed new terrorism laws. The Democratic Party’s biggest fear is not of a Fascist Republican Party, but growing public anger towards Congress, inequality and rising inflation that could lead to mass uprisings.
No Indictments So Far
By contrast, there has thus far been no indictment of any officials that planned the failed insurrection. Trump publicly plotted a coup since Summer 2020 with constant allegations of election fraud using mail-in ballots, his appeal to right wing militias, and the pledge to never surrender.
62 Failed Election Result Lawsuits
After 62 failed lawsuits in response to state elections results, Trump still refused to concede. An inspector general report exposes the role of a Capitol police stand down. There was foreknowledge by DHS of what Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were saying and planning across the nation. The three-and-a-half hour delay of the National Guard points to a Pentagon stand down. Under normal procedures, the angry mob would have never reached the Capitol. The Garland DOJ seems intent on making examples out of the pawns, rather than attempt to checkmate Trump and high ranking coup plotters.
It comes as no surprise that Trump was able to convince so many people of election fraud by the Democrats, after two rigged Democratic primaries to defeat Bernie Sanders. 2016 saw voter purges in New York and California. In Arizona, Democratic voters found their party affiliation mysteriously switched to Republican, the day of the 2016 Democratic Primary. Exit polls were off by as much as 17% benefitting Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. This further exposes Democratic Party fraud.
Fascism Threatens Democracy, But Not Big Business
Had the insurrection actually succeeded it would have been the final nail in the coffin of American Democracy, which was already terminally ill. Obama’s failure to help struggling workers led to Trump. Biden has more in common with Neo-conservatives like Bush than Progressives. The many failures of the Biden Administration to help the struggling working class during the pandemic and rising inflation, combined with the vaccine mandate and the assault of the civil liberties of peaceful January 6th protesters, will give rise to a stronger, more empowered fascism that is wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Much like in Nazi Germany, the American ruling capitalist class fears socialism far more than it does fascism. The threat of fascism in America is very real, but it won’t hurt big business. The challenge is up to a mass movement and new political party, not owned by the billionaires, that will unite working class Americans of all races, to defeat the duopoly that serves Wall Street and the War Machine. This is our mission at the People’s Party.