I

Like anyone in the Late Capitalist world, particularly that part of it stuck in the English language, this epistolarian has some ability to opine on the Present State of the United States. That he prefers not to do so is a proper reaction to that common situation whereby Irish people speak about the USA more fluently—not to say more willingly—than they might hold forth on the Present State of Ireland. Not to mention the fact that there are many sources for the interested reader to consult on American Matters, even if few combine the tightrope-walking sentences, native irreverence and natural irritability of your correspondent. 

We might note in passing that there are many points nicely made in Macdara’s letters that could be taken up and applied to US context by anyone inclined to do so; reflecting on the settler colonial nature of the country, for example, might lead to some intriguing conclusions, the US having been founded upon two unimaginably huge acts of genocide, accomplished slowly and deliberately over multiple generations, against firstly the nations present on the continent, and secondly those people seized from the nations of Africa. We might also note that many of those who practised settler colonialism in Ireland went on to perfect it on the larger canvas of North America. Roanoke itself was founded by the energetic Walter Raleigh, who used his stolen land in Ireland as a base from which to launch his predatory expeditions (he did not visit North America himself); he had proved himself through the massacres of the Second Desmond Rebellion, alongside colonist and occasional poet Edmund Spenser.

Macdara’s point is that his Letters to Roanoke must be limited. Let it be taken as a given that he supports gun control, reproductive rights and politics conducted on the territory of the Rational, and opposes the Republican-Democratic party, the CNN-Fox studio etc. He has seen for himself how CNN hosts will get an evening’s entertainment (for themselves, if no one else) from Fox’s sniping at CNN, the two locked in a mock-battle which we must assume happens in close to real time, so that the CNN and Fox staff are each watching the other’s show in order to have their presenters respond then and there to the other’s response to their own response to them, the originary stimulus being lost somewhere far back in the schedule; being moreover little more than a word, such as gun or abortion, since it is not only possible but compulsory that the culture wars be fought at the level of individual words, like two gross armies dropped on a tiny plot of land. So exquisitely choreographed is this battle that both of these parties managed to fire their star anchors on the very same day last year, as if in compliance with some rule that they must each be mirror image to the other: two dancers paired, a single dance. Both ex-anchors then hired the same lawyer; the loss of their jobs was not enough to disrupt their obedience to the logic to which they had worked for so many years.

II

But what to make of the elevation of Joseph Biden to the presidency, in this year when he appears to be standing, or at least leaning, again? Following the long national nightmare of the Trump presidency, a man whose orange skin and verb of a name occludes his identification with any specific white ethnicity, the Democratic Party found itself at the last election with two even older white men to decide between. Trump was disgusting—a Kleinian Bad Father—a being of pure consumption and arbitrariness, who would be replaced with the body of a reputable, authoritative white man, a gentle grandfather; his aggressive unplaceable name replaced with a personage representing a safe and established white ethnicity: the Jewish Sanders or the Irish Biden. 

Despite the past interest of US citizens, including politicians, in socialism, populism, anti-cartel capitalism; despite the evident history of capitalist exploitation being regarded as un-American, we are expected to follow McCarthy in believing the exact opposite. Let us not detain ourselves for too long upon the wonderful Sanders, an embodiment of the American Spirit of social democracy. The Democratic party could never let him win, nor would they let him govern if the people had managed to overcome the obstructions of the party machine to elect him, as they well might have, given the chance; Sanders might have a greater legacy as he is than as a president without Power. Let us look to Biden instead. Who did the people imagine they were electing at the end of their nightmare? They turned—or were turned by the actions of the Democratic Party in standing down every other candidate—to a family of the emaciated American Dream and found…a Cuckoo Kennedy! Not as old as JFK or RFK would be, had they lived, of course; but about as old as a candidate for office can plausibly be (and therefore, years later, older now than a candidate can plausibly be); here was a man whose name conjured a different, more reassuring verb. 

An undead Kennedy: unthreateningly white (some comforting specificity in the ease with which he grins I’m Irish); the sweet weight of personal and ethnic martyrdom upon him, and how we see him struggle beneath it, sitting down sadly with an alcohol-free beer! Safe, recognisable, uneventful. One could forget for days on end that anyone is in the White House, that Politics is happening at all. Just as one forgets about grandparents, their dull routine, in the excitement of being a young and able-bodied person. This is his value. Macdara would not wish the presidency upon him, if he is honest; is it possible Biden is being operated upon, given an injection along with his script before he is sent out to speak? One part sedative, two parts adrenaline and three painkiller? Oh but what about us, Americans ask: we deserve him! Like the child in Le Guin’s fable, the Republic will survive through the torture of one man, one family member, the one—we assume—most able to bear it, the father’s father: protect us from the Bad Man, we know you know how!

III

But it does the Republic no good, your correspondent feels, to match Trump with someone even older. With nearly one third of a billion people in the country, it is just not possible that Biden is the best choice for President. And in fact the Democratic party has done one better: it has chosen, in Harris, a Vice President about whom it is possible to say that she is of Jamaican and Indian parentage, and nothing else. Some small vignettes stick in the mind, admittedly, none to her credit: we did it, Joe! And—to desperate migrants—do not come. Do not come. 

It was very evident in the most recent midterm elections that the Democratic wing of the US Establishment intended to use a fear of Fascism as the means to convince citizens to turn up to the polling booths, and it seemed to work. The problem is that this claim is clearly intended to be the all-purpose campaign for the rest of time: the Democrats will plead with voters to turn out to vote or else. The Nation, the Republic, Democracy—Civilisation itself—depends upon your vote for us. The politest way to describe this approach to democracy is that it is one of limited returns. Macdara would go somewhat further and say that this represents a peculiar kind of managed democracy, whereby the Liberal Right attempts to hold onto power through maintaining the strength of the Far Right, since this is its best bet for mobilising a range of voters who might otherwise look for an alternative somewhere leftwards of the Establishment. Forget Inequality, Misery, Genocide: turn up and vote when we tell you, or you things will get even worse…

This is the atrophied state of affairs in which President Biden is looking for another four-year sentence. Surely he is a talisman for the Democrats, as the only candidate who has beaten Trump, and this is why they find they must keep him, a fact that demonstrates the centrality of Trump to the whole US system. The Democrats do not seek to be a positive force in themselves, but merely the negation of Trumpism. The way this party, once arch-schemers and connivers, have lined up idiotically to support the candidacy of a dying man, has been astonishing. All these most respectable people telling the US public that the best candidates available are Biden and Harris, willing to run the risk that Biden will die or become more obviously incapacitated between now and the election, leaving in effect a single candidate to win. What would Tammany do? It is hard to imagine such incompetence from a party with an actual machine, some means of connecting the political leadership with ordinary people, even if the connection was one of grift.

What is the function of this state of affairs? It can only be surrender. To avoid all ideas for change, transformation; to squat instead in the Oval Office until they are obliged to hand it over to the demented Republicans, people who have an agenda for change that is a parody of that represented by the Left. The leadership of the Democratic Party is more keen on surrendering to Fascism than it is on giving way to any movement that might disrupt property relations. 

This party prepared the way for Trump. It surely will again.