Interregnum

Irrespective of whether Biden does scrape through and wins, there is more to discern in the US presidential election than meets the eye.

Ideological shifts are hard fought especially when times are tough. Polarisation increases tribal loyalties and the distrust of the democratic liberal elite is well embedded. Bombastic invocation of patriotism and imperial power overpowers rational liberal democratic overtures when it doesn't matter. The hope invested in a Biden win by many, even outside the US is doomed to disappontment one way or another.

Its a false dichotomy. The system of the Democrats is one and the same with that of the Republicans and the people know it. The Democrat administration of Barack Obama did not alter social inequality. The economic recovery post GFC had greater impact. In a sense, social wefare policy is merely a policy of containment. It controls poverty and does not alleviate it whilst it cannot replace employment as a secure income source.

And so the contest is in a substantive sense only ideological. The grinding poverty of a minority persists under both. Biden had no "New Deal" on offer. It becomes merely a division of spoils between competing tribes.

Sociologically, class remains determining but somehow that discussion is absent from discourse and subsumed in distraction, an outcome of liberal atomisation, the divsion of the community to the individual.

The social relations of capitalism enforce an ideological hegemony determined by necessity and the requirement of conformity, there is tolerance of any difference but class consciousness or violent opposition.

And so in the next few weeks, we will be distracted by false hope, that it will make a difference.
But it won't.

Some will point to a difference in policies that affect the environment as a differential, but the division of class interest is most apparent when its ignored.
Transforming the economy to meet lower carbon emission objectives will be unattainable whilst employment is subject to market forces.

Engaging a class conscious majority that understands that is the challenge.