It’s a distraction. He’s not a Marxist, he’s not meaningfully anti-imperialist in rhetoric (equivocates on Ukraine for instance I believe, not pro-China, might even call it a dictatorship or oppressive, can’t remember; being pro-Cuba doesn’t count, Obama lowered some sanctions on them after all and although it upsets some gusanos in Florida it’s not a key piece of US hegemony like Russia/China are) and he won’t get a platform to spread anything positive on. If he won (he won’t) he’d be blackmailed, threatened or killed. The only point of participating in bourgeois elections is with a vanguard party so you can raise awareness of its platform, our rhetoric, our points, our program.

As he is not a Marxist, as he is a IMO an OP or at least knows the limits of what he can say without getting killed and adheres to them and as he is ideologically a liberal I don’t see him as that useful.

I have to be honest in that I see Trump is being the most destabilizing force in the upcoming election. Is he anti-imperialist and principled? No. Is he Marxist? Obviously not. Is he a beastly ghastly piece of shit guilty of all the usual crimes and more? Obviously. But he does stand a chance of winning and actually taking power and his winning will upset an awful lot of imperialists in the Democratic party halls of power and kick them out (I would love to see Victoria Nuland and Jake Sullivan kicked out as they’re either competent when it comes to prolonging the empire’s life or dangerously deranged enough to get us into a nuclear war). Will they be replaced by neo-cons? Doubtless in many cases but shifting leaders in the middle of things is like replacing a director after shooting has begun, it can’t help but be at least a little disruptive. Will it entirely change the program? No. Certain things are advanced by organs of the state that aren’t elected and are beyond accountability since killing Kennedy. The China show-down will continue apace, he won’t make peace there. But what he will do is anger allies, hurt the US image badly, chaotic and violent shifts in policy like perhaps pulling out of things with Russia or withholding enough support to tip the balance leaving the Europeans feeling upset and whiplashed and the Ukrainians feeling stabbed in the back as well as giving China another example to whisper to the separatists on Taiwan about why they shouldn’t trust the US.

I’m not saying campaign for Trump (don’t, organize) but well I wouldn’t be upset if he won. We’ve already lost abortion rights, the march of the reactionary post-cold-war claw-back against the people continues under Biden unabated, doubtless he’ll push that more but it would happen anyways and Biden is seen as stable whereas Trump getting back into power would traumatize a lot of liberals, do a lot of damage to the US image, further reinforce the idea it is a declining unserious power and set liberals and reactionaries in the US at each others throats ever more which is where I want them, not together united to impose imperialism and doom on the world and extend the reign of the US. I’d rather have that than more Biden and civility liberalism nonsense while we lose our rights, our futures, and while he re-organizing the US to try and preserve its life longer in an effective way. Trump is a monkey with a wrench. I want to see what he does. He won’t bring the whole thing done but he’ll mess things up and at key moments when the world is struggling for multi-polarity, we need someone who messes things up, who makes foolish moves because his gut tells him to. We need someone who hesitates and needs it explained to him 3 times because he isn’t that smart.

So no I don’t support Trump but he might be the least bad option (in a field of abominations and terrible choices) out there in terms of practical effects (ideologically obviously we couldn’t disagree more, though his isolationism is useful for helping ease the empire into its grave more peacefully). One more thing, liberals stopped organizing to help minorities and fight back against moves of government as soon as Biden got into office, they all decided he’d take care of things. With Trump back some of them might get a little more militant. You want abortion rights back? You want student debt relief? You’re not going to get it with liberals sleepily saying Biden will get to it or at least he’s not Trump.