Get ready for more Donald Trump

Joe Biden was bad, Kamala Harris is worse. She will not appeal to much of anyone other than the same people who would have voted for Biden.

 

In the conceptual blog post on how US elections are rigged, the Democratic Party and it's joke primary elections is a prominent feature. The Democrats would rather lose with someone like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, et al than  run someone like Bernie Sanders.

And while Sanders calls himself a "socialist", he's pretty centre on the political spectrum. After all, he does represent a historically red state (and I don't mean that in the way the rest of the world does, which is socialist, communist, and beyond--except for Anarchists, who are black). So, the despite the Fox News attempt to make "socialism" a "bad" word, most people like it.

At least in its more moderate incarnations. On the other hand, maybe people in the US are total idiots.

I mentioned La France Insoumise, the ultra left party, which "won" in the last elections. I have to wonder what people in the US would think about things like:

• reinforcing the 35-hour work-week and moving towards 32 hours (and people in Europe start work with three weeks PAID holiday/vacation); 
• and reducing the retirement age to 60
• The protection of common goods such as air, water, food, living, health, energy, or currency by preventing their commodification in order to preserve the general interest and by developing corresponding public services.
• The separation of investment and retail banks aimed at separating speculative activities from lend and deposit activities in order to protect the latter and the creation of a public banking center, which would finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and carry out credit policy on social and ecological criteria.
• Raising the minimum wage (called "SMIC") from 1,149 to 1,326 euros per month net for 35-hour weeks and raising civil servant salaries frozen since 2010.
• Withdrawal from free trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
• The "democratic re-founding" of the European Union treaties including changes in monetary policy, common agricultural policy, and environmental policy. Failing this, the program envisages a "Plan B" of unilateral exit from European treaties, followed by proposing further cooperation between countries.
• The implementation of an energy transition plan towards a target of 100% renewable energy in 2050, following the studies of the Association négaWatt and the public and interdepartmental agency of the environment and the control of the energy (ADEME). This transition involves shutting down France's nuclear power plants, criticised by the movement for their dependence on uranium supply, their alleged lack of safety, their radioactive waste management and their financial cost.

Even if some of those ideas didn't gain too much traction, it would be fun to see them being debated in an intelligent and informed manner.