DONALD TRUMP: FIRST AS TRAGEDY, SECOND AS FARCE

The Step Aside Joe campaign says that Joe Biden's 'prospects for winning re-election appear to be bleak, even in the face of GOP extremism. With so much at stake, anointing him as the Democratic Party’s 2024 standard-bearer would be a tragic mistake.' But it looks like the Democratic Party is about to make that mistake.

SHORTLY AFTER Joe Biden won the US Presidency in November 2020, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spelt out the dangers that the United States faced if Biden did not get it right:

'If people's lives don't feel different under President Biden, we're done. You know how many Trumps there are in waiting? I'm tired of incremental change - bullshit little ten percent tax cuts. I think, honestly, a lot of my dissent within the Democratic Party comes from my lived experience. It’s not just that we can be better, it’s that we have to be better. We’re not good enough right now.'

Although AOC is one of the sharpest political minds around, it's likely that even she did not anticipate that the same old Donald Trump would be the Republican's Presidential candidate in 2024.

With Florida Governor Ron DeSantis having announced the end of his campaign and then proceeded to endorse Trump, only former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley stands in the way of Trump getting another tilt at the Presidency. But it's extremely unlikely that she will be able to stop the Trump juggernaut. In Iowa's Republican primary a fortnight ago, Trump collected more than 50% of the vote, double the vote for both DeSantis and Haley combined.

Despite the fact that Trump sought to undermine and discredit the 2020 election result, and which led to the storming of Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, and despite the fact that he faces 71 charges in four criminal cases, he will almost certainly be the Republican Party's presidential candidate to take on Joe Biden in a 'rematch'.

And, unless forces outside the election arena block Trump's bid, he is likely to become US President again. Biden has never been weaker. As AOC predicted four years ago, working people have a negative opinion of a Democratic president who has delivered more of the same. Poll after poll confirm that people are unimpressed with Biden's handling of the economy. While there have been some isolated bright spots, like a falling unemployment rate, after long years of widening economic inequality and insecurity, folk are not prepared to support Biden simply because a few economic indicators have ticked upward for a brief time.

When sweeping economic change is required, Biden has tinkered instead. AOC's own organisation, the Democratic Socialists of America, has observed that Biden has not championed '... the kinds of decommodifying and worker-empowering reforms that socialists actually think people are entitled to: single-payer health care, free college for all, a real green jobs program to fight climate change while promoting full employment, a massive expansion of social housing, a shorter work week, etc. These are all things that would materially improve people’s lives and make the economy suck much less for most people. We also hope they would empower workers to organize and demand more at their jobs, and help us build the political forces that can eventually win greater democracy in the workplace and over the economy as a whole.'

The American working class is still awaiting the US president who will act on their behalf of their interests rather than those of Wall Street. But, despite his unpopularity, the Democratic Party establishment are sticking by their man. They seem prepared to simply ignore that the majority of activists who worked hard to get him elected in 2020 now have little enthusiasm for Biden due to his policies on such crucial issues as climate change.

And his support for Israel's genocidal military campaign in Gaza has seen Biden's support among the Muslim community and among millennials sink through the floor. As one American Muslim has written:

 'I am done voting for the lesser of two evils. I will not vote for Joe Biden in 2024.

'The man who offered his “rock solid and unwavering” support to Israel’s genocide of two million Palestinians in Gaza will not get my vote.

'The man whose administration circulated memos prohibiting staffers around the world from calling for de-escalation or restraint in the face of ethnic cleansing cannot remain president.

'The man who is spending billions of our taxpayer dollars to fund an Israeli war machine that considers Palestinians “human animals” and denies drinking water and food to a million Palestinian children belongs at The Hague, not the White House.

'The man who lied about having seen photographic evidence of atrocities that never took place, and strengthened the rhetoric that is spurring anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian attacks in the United States, is not my candidate.'

But such is the political myopia of the Democratic Party establishment, it will not even contemplate choosing a candidate who could champion a progressive agenda and be a considerably stronger candidate than the uninspiring 81-year-old Biden. Like they did in 2016, when they chose corporate Democrat Hilary Clinton over the immensely popular Bernie Sanders, the decision of the Democratic Party establishment to stick with Biden means they have effectively consigned America to another four years of Trump. As Karl Marx observed, 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.'