An Update on the U.S. Presidential Election and Its Global Impact

Here’s the official narrative:

It is a total surprise that President Biden dropped out of the race. The world was blindsided. This had nothing to do with his cognitive abilities. Kamala Harris, the VP, is the successor. Democrats pretend that the assassination attempt on President Trump is not important and cling to the idea that no one in their right mind would support him anyway. Trumpers believe that the assassination attempt was a sign from God that Trump is divinely blessed and/or the victim of a Democrat-inspired conspiracy and cling to the idea that no one in their right mind wants a Democrat anyway.

Both parties believe they “own” outcomes because they spend so much money on polls and pollsters and on buying loyalty.  Plus, each has massive corporations, media platforms, and Silicon Valley tech bro’s behind them, so they are invincible. Nobody mentions Robert Kennedy.

Here is something closer to the actual story:

The lights are on, but nobody is home in the White House. The President is indeed cognitively impaired. So, while he may not be running for office again, he still has to conduct the affairs of office. Yet, everyone understands that The President has not been running things for quite some time. So, who is in charge if it’s not the President? That’s an open question. The simple answer might be “the staff.” That fits with the Republican concerns that the US Government is being run by the so-called “deep state.”

But, the real story might be that competing factions within the technocracy are vying against each other now, making it much harder to explain why things did or didn’t happen. A key driver now is the overwhelming threat that the other side will get into power and start investigating the previous tenants of the White House and the broader government. It’s the threat of accountability and the fear of it that is now driving a lot of decision-making.

For example, The White House had to provide President Trump with a security detail. But, it’s becoming increasingly evident that, like Trump or hate him, he was given the worst security detail the White House could find. Most, it seems, were not Secret Service but from a group called Homeland Security Investigations, which has entirely different staff and training than the Secret Service. The people on his detail were clearly not well practiced and physically unsuited to the task. You’ve got to be at least the target’s height, not shorter than the President, which most of them were not. Security experts are deeply analyzing why some of those details were physically unable to draw or holster their guns.

In a country where that national sport is constantly practiced at shooting ranges (or in the streets), how could The former President end up with both a shooter and a security detail that don’t know how to shoot? In a country where conspiracy theories are also a national sport, questions abound as to whether the White House nominally supplied a detail, refused to expand that detail despite the President’s requests, and actually left him effectively unguarded. Meanwhile, given all this, the joke is that Robert Kennedy, who has been begging for the official security he is entitled to as a Presidential candidate, may be safer with his private detail.

Meanwhile, thanks to the ubiquitous presence of smartphones at the shooting, an excellent record of the ballistic acoustics is now being dissected by an army of concerned citizens. The results make JFK’s Grassy Knoll moment seem simple in comparison. We still don’t know how many bullets, or how many bullet casings, or how many shooters were involved. The acoustics records seem to indicate that there are serious questions as to whether the young eye-glass-wearing, ladder-climbing, drone-operating, bicycle-riding, rifle-carrying-bad-shot-shooter was working alone. He happened to be in a Blackrock commercial but was not a cool kid at school in spite of his two-minutes of TV fame?

The Oversight Group, which is part of the Heritage Foundation, which is part of Project 2025 and a huge Trump supporter, revealed on X that they believe the cell tower and cell phone AD-ID records indicate that the young man often visited nearby FBI offices, or was visited by cell phone carrying people from the FBI, in the weeks before the assassination attempt. The Head of the FBI just implied Trump might not have been hit by a bullet but by shrapnel. Trump is livid. If Trump wins the Presidency, one can imagine he’ll want to SWAT the whole Secret Service, FBI, and other enforcement agencies. The legitimacy of the US Government and trust in it now hangs on something as simple as a bullet casing.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris has been suffering more backstabbing wounds than Julius Caesar. In the moments after President Biden’s announcement that he was withdrawing from the race (posted on X but without the Presidential Seal on the letterhead because he was only resigning from the campaign not the office), Harris was immediately endorsed by The Biden’s and the Clinton’s. Notably, she was notendorsed by The Obama’s. Barak and Michelle posted a carefully crafted letter (now almost impossible to find on the net), also within minutes, which drew a collective sound of shock from all clued-up observers because it definitely did not endorse her. Word is that they did not think she could beat Trump. It took days to fix. The fix came in the form of a highly-staged theatrical video of Obama speaking to Harris via cell phone. George Clooney jumped in too. He had written a letter to the NYTs (which the conspiracists believe President Obama actually approved of, if not drafted) calling on Old Joe to leave office after he faltered at a live fundraiser, but did not endorse Harris until the Obama’s did.

Speaking of staged events, The President went on TV to announce his departure from the campaign and his intention to stay in office until after the election of the new President. This, too, attracted a lot of conspiracist commentary from “there are no such trees blocking the Oval Office window” to “he looks very tan and healthy for a guy who is down with COVID” to “if he’s that cogent, why is he leaving?” Trump is focusing on the cash, of course, not the cogency.

He has brought a case to the Federal Election Commission arguing that $91.5m cannot be transferred from one candidate to another under the FEC rules, calling it “a brazen money grab that would constitute the single largest excessive contribution and biggest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended.” Observers of American politics are hanging on to her every word now because she has so few clear policy positions on foreign affairs or many of the critical issues in the election.

Then there is the ongoing mystery of the third Presidential candidate. Robert Kennedy is, so far, the only one who beats Trump in the polls. He has become “He Who Must Not Be Named but Who Must Be Called.” On July 13^th, Kennedy announced his intention to create a “Unity Government” by appointing a “Unity Cabinet.” He told a libertarian audience, “I pledge to appoint a cabinet comprising members of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Libertarian Party, and people from the Green Party and other parties and parties outside the political process.”

Trump called him (again), no doubt offering him something in his own cabinet. Kennedy has said he will talk to everyone, including Trump. The two met at the RNC Convention. This is portrayed in the press as Kennedy being a shameful traitor and struggling to remain relevant, especially in the face of growing unification on the left

and the right. In reality, the Kennedy campaign would love to talk to the Democrats, but there hasn’t been anyone to call so far. Harris might well become the nominee, but she may not be on several vital ballots. She may miss the deadline to qualify for the Ohio ballot. There had been a question about whether Biden’s name could be changed for Harris. But, now 48 states now say that there is no issue, especially since Biden’s name had not yet been placed on many of the ballots. But, given that both Harris and Trump are polarizing figures, much depends on the choice of running mates.

Trump’s choice of JD Vance clearly signals that he wants to appeal to the Hillbilly Elegy community (it is a brilliant book that JD Vance wrote and a must-read). But, it also signals that Trump will not be sharing decision-making or power with anybody. Vance seems to talk about being “in power” rather than being “in office.” Trump can get away with this because he remains in power even when he is not in office. But, one suspects Vance will be attending state funerals around the world with a lot of his time. He is also touching the most sensitive issues in American politics. He suggests that women who cross state lines to seek an abortion should be tracked and subjected to a “Federal solution.”

His wife, Usha Vance, is a brilliant Yale-educated intellectual property lawyer and corporate litigation specialist who once clerked for the US Supreme Court. According to Vanity Fair, “She clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as well as a pre-Supreme Court Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh” which means she must be a very capable intellectual. It has to be hard being from an immigrant Indian family sitting at the RNC convention amidst signs calling for mass deportation and having more extremist Republicans notice that the VPs wife is “not white.”

Here’s some of the commentary on his appointment to the ticket. Or, now that everybody realizes they can change the ticket, Trump may argue that Vance made sense when Biden was the opponent but might make less sense now that Harris is the likely opponent. All eyes are on Nikki Haley. Could she and Trump kiss and make up?

Is Kennedy talking to Haley? Everybody is talking to Kennedy. In a sense, he is a kingmaker now because he brings such a huge group of voters with him, especially the under-45-year-olds, who are nearly all in his camp. Yet, Politico writes, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. struggles to gain traction amid unification on both sides: Far from trying to capitalize on the moment of upheaval, the independent candidate is canceling events.”

The reality is that if Harris doesn’t win, the whole Democratic Party will be reconfigured with new leadership, and Kennedy’s popularity will influence the direction in which the party will go. He is also like Trump, “in power” but “out of office”. Kingmakers go quiet during negotiations. Listen carefully. Try not to forget that he has the things that matter most in this election – a deep understanding of the data, the youth, and of the establishment. His VP pick has the network and the chops to understand the youth, the data and engage in effective guerilla strategies in a way that no other candidate has…

Let’s (now) focus on the others who are also observing the holes, cracks and fissures in American politics. Americans may not be very interested in foreign policy, but foreign policy is very interested in America. The Russians and Chinese chose this “who’s in charge” moment to launch their very first joint bomber patrol, which challenged Alaskan airspace and forced NATO fighter jets to scramble yesterday. Notice that they did not choose a third-party American ally. They went straight for US airspace. They know that the question remains: who is in charge at The White House?

So, the US military is not likely to respond with anything more than the by-the-book, escort you off the premises response…

What matters is that the international foreign policy landscape is now becoming extremely complex as China moves into far regions like the Middle East and Russia moves into the Pacific. China is playing the part of a peacemaker and power broker in the Middle East, which has just led to the formation of a future combined Palestinian government. China was able to end the war between Hamas and Fateh after decades of strife. Putin met Modi in India and restored the traditional dialogue that existed between the two countries.

Washington is having to adjust to a multipolar world where the weight of America’s voice isn’t what it used to be at a time when nobody is sure which way the US is going. Governments around the world are thinking through contingency plans in case events happen, and it becomes evident that nobody is in charge in the US. This includes the possibility of a contested or a contingent election outcome or both. It also includes the possibility that the election isn’t held on time or at all.

How might that happen? Well, “Events, my dear. Events” as Prime Minister MacMillan once said when asked how a government might be blown off course. Events are unfolding every day. We should watch for the words used to describe events. Notice the coordinated sabotage of rail lines around France clearly aimed to interrupt the Olympics. But, these were not the acts of terrorists but of arsonists. That’s much better. The President did not pull out of the race because he is cognitively impaired or ill with COVID-19 but because “it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down.”

Don’t miss @Ramierztoons for a bit of humor on all this. These things remind us that key thing is not the events but the management of them. Notice that the Crowdstrike-induced global data disaster affected almost everything from airlines to hospitals to home PCs, streetlights, credit card payments systems, 911, but also the Dominion voting machines which had been said to be totally immune from electronic interference (and thus could have influenced the outcome of the 2020 Presidential race).

Turns out they are vulnerable to the internet like everything else. Could a Crowdstrike-like update delay the election? Maybe. Given this fragile moment in American politics, and given whats at stake, the world is perhaps more vulnerable to events than usual. We must all have our eyes and ears open to coming events.

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Featured photo:  hoto 312123383 | Biden © Tennesseewitney | Dreamstime.com