Two Old Men Fight Over Who Will Rule A Divided Country

Waseem Shehzad

Ramadan 22, 1445 2024-04-01

Main Stories

by Waseem Shehzad (Main Stories, Crescent International Vol. 54, No. 2, Ramadan, 1445)

Old man Donald Trump (78) and an even older Joe Biden (81; getting close to 82) have both secured enough delegates to be their respective party’s candidate for president. Therein lies America’s dilemma. Not only are the two men way past their prime, they have no new ideas to bring to the table (or offer the American people).

If the campaign of 2020 is any guide, this year’s will be even uglier. Trump has already said that if he loses, there will be a “bloodbath”. We hope he lives up to his promise!

In his State of the Union speech on March 7, Biden tried to prove that he could outshout Trump. It was a dismal performance laced with vacuous statements. His Democratic Party supporters heaved a huge sigh of relief that genocidal Joe did not fall asleep or worse still, fall off the podium during his address!

Aware that his age is an issue—Trump never misses an opportunity to remind Americans that old Joe is “cognitively impaired”—Biden tried to put a positive spin on it. With his small eyes narrowing even more and trying to sound presidential, he said:

“My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old are our ideas…. [Y]ou can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done.”

“Ancient ideas” is precisely what old man Joe has offered in his four years as president. He had served as vice president under Barak Obama for eight years and has more than 50 years’ experience as a senator. Far from such experience in politics making him smart, it has merely reinforced his subservience to the pro-Israel lobby. “I am a zionist,” old Joe often proclaims in public.

If one were to list the horrors he has inflicted on the world through his ancient ideas, Biden’s unquestioning support for the genocidal policies of zionist Israel tops the list. Not far behind is his proxy war in Ukraine that had started in February 2014, courtesy Victoria Nuland (mercifully, this neo-Nazi is retiring from the State Department).

American forces are still illegally occupying parts of Syria and supporting the terrorist outfit Daesh (aka ISIS). His obsession with Russia and China is no less fraught with danger. Old man Joe could easily trigger a nuclear war with Russia.

The world has become multipolar but that is not what Biden acknowledged in his State of the Union address. Make no mistake, however, Trump will be more of the same; only much worse.

Let us look at what is wrong with America. To the traditional fault lines—race problem, extreme disparity in income, the rapacious lifestyle of the rich and abject poverty of the poor—one must add the deep political divide. This exists at multiple levels.

In the 2020 presidential elections, Trump garnered the support of 74 million people to Biden’s 78 million. It is almost an even split. Secessionist movements have gained strength in a number of states. Texas has always been the noisiest but there are others that have joined the clamour to separate. A new poll by YouGov shows that Alaska at 36% leads the pack of separatists followed by Texas (‘Texit’, as it is called) at 31%.

Others eyeing the exit door include California at 29%, New York and Oklahoma at 28%, Nebraska and Georgia at 25%, and Florida and Washington state at 24% each. Is it not time to rename the ‘United’ States as the Divided States of America?

And then there is the Trump factor. The manner in which he garnered the requisite delegates without even making an appearance in many of the states, indicates that his support is solid. He has probably gathered more support among the American people since 2020. This will make for a really interesting contest in November.

On Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Trump is even more extreme. He has called on Israel to “finish the problem,” meaning wipe out Hamas and the Palestinians!

His son-in-law, Jared Kushner provided additional information about the rationale behind the “finish the problem” statement. Reflecting Trump’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies, he is salivating at the prospect of ‘developing’ Gaza’s waterfront. The only hurdle in this criminal enterprise are the Palestinian people. They must be got rid of, as far as Kushner is concerned. After all, who cares about the lives of 2.3 million Palestinians. The zionists have made nasty racist statements about them, calling them ‘animals’ and worse.

Netanyahu has made no secret of his diabolical plot to ethnically-cleanse Gaza of its 2.3 million inhabitants. He has already murdered more than 31,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them women and children, and another 78,000 injured since October 7. The actual figures may be much higher. In any case, Netanyahu wants to push them into Egypt, or the Negev Desert.

In an interview on March 8 with Professor Tarek Masoud, Faculty Chair at Harvard’s Middle East Initiative, Kushner lamented: “It’s unfortunate that no one’s taking in the refugees.” So, he suggested Israel might as well “clean up” the Strip. This will facilitate his and close family friend Netanyahu’s dream for the waterfront development along Gaza coastline!

These outlandish ideas are floated in the US to support zionism’s criminal enterprise. The reason is that America is a slave of Israel. The pro-Israel lobby—America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an unregistered lobby group and hence illegal—exercises grotesque control over the entire US political system.

Such control translates into US lawmakers and presidents kowtowing to Israeli demands to the detriment of the interests of the American people. Currently, the US officially provides $3.8 billion annually to Israel. And then there are billions of dollars that American charities funnel to the zionist entity. The overall drain on the US economy is believed to be around $15 billion annually.

Given that the US national debt, now at $34.5 trillion, is 129 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), this is a huge drain on its economy. More than 50 million Americans languish in poverty but that is a small price to pay for financing America’s most-favored ally—the parasitical state of Israel.

America is able to finance its debt thanks to the dollar as global reserve currency. This, however, is changing, perhaps not fast enough but initial steps have been taken. Sanctions imposed on numerous countries have forced them to find alternative ways to deal with the US menace.

Barter trade, using local currencies and creating alternative mechanisms for transactions are all leading to an environment whereby the dollar can be bypassed. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Samarqand last year, member-states drew up a roadmap for trading in local currencies. Once the dollar falls below 50% of the global reserve currency threshold, the jig will be up.

The most interesting development of 2024, however, is the rematch between Biden and Trump. Not only will the campaign be laced with name-calling and other expletives, the near-insurrection of January 6, 2021 may look like an old spinsters’ tea party. The world cannot wait for the gladiatorial contest between two old men to begin!