By: Dr. Jose Garcia

Polls show Harris and Trump tied with two weeks to go.  Anything is possible, including familiar mischief—disinformation, voter suppression, interruption of official vote counting, and possibly a more organized version of events that led to January 6.  With media bombarding us with breathless trivia, perhaps we should pause for a moment of reflection and assess the stakes to our well-being as a nation and state.

The architecture of global power is on the verge of collapse, the result of America squandering its overwhelming lead with bipartisan wars that inflated our hubris and sense of entitlement but accomplished little.  Unlike the Soviet Union in 1945, China after the Cold War did not arm itself to the teeth, gobbling up the little fish nearby.  It prospered instead.  US-financed, state-controlled capitalism has worked spectacularly, and China’s GDP is catching up to the US.  Because of the huge Chinese market and cheap labor, US corporate wealth has prospered greatly in the exchange, but at the cost of giving vital technology to a potential enemy.  As Chinese power was growing, Chinese leaders were carefully observing the often-nasty games major powers play.  China is now exercising military muscle in the Taiwan Straits and shows a knack for statecraft.  But this should be no surprise.  Two thousand years ago, during the Han and Tang Dynasties, China rivaled the Roman Empire in size and power-over-others.  It is now rivaling ours, everywhere in the world.

Eager to benefit from America’s internal weakness, Putin hopes to restore Russian power in Eastern Europe through oil revenues, alliances, and, likely, military conquest. Nuclear weapons can bolster Russian interests elsewhere.  His ambitions probably depend on a Trump victory.  Europe and Japan show signs of alarm at growing US disfunction.  And the smaller powers in Africa and Latin America–aghast at the abandonment of what once looked, at NAFTA time in 1994, like a stable set of rules within which they could play a subordinate but dignified role—grow restless and hedge bets.

NATO, the backbone of US power until Corporate America took over much of this role, has been revived by Biden and Zelensky.  It will likely dissolve should Trump become President, as a new structure of power, full of surprises, emerges.  How Trump’s administration would exercise US power is a mystery. Members of the elite media, intimidated, have not risked asking this impertinent question, so we have no idea.  The record of his first administration is one of appalling servility to Putin and gross ignorance of the non-business world.  But this could change, right?

Harris has shown no more understanding of global affairs than Trump, so it is possible national elites and the billionaire class have decided—with a Congress unable to find its butt with either hand—to leave foreign affairs in the less-transparent but stable hands of corporate and finance America.  A Harris administration is likely to repeat the familiar and comforting rhetoric of Biden—bolster NATO, counter Russia, dance nervously with China, two-state solution, Iran is an outlaw state, etc.  But so far there seems to be no zeal for new direction in the face of mounting challenges.  Both camps just say, “trust us.”  Yeah, right.

At the national level, voters seem caught between the evisceration of the formal vestiges of democracy, promised by Project 2025, and the weakness of the Democratic Party’s response to global and national calamities.  What might be the domestic policy goals after implementation of Project 2025?  We don’t know. What do Democrats offer?  More of the same.  The public senses need for change but Harris has not convinced anyone she has an imagination for change.  Whether or not a few thousand voters in swing states are willing to accept this passive, I-am-not-Trump appeal while offering stale ideas—is going to determine the outcome of the election, a sad commentary on the current state of American democracy. Whatever happens, democratic norms are likely to continue to dissolve, and corporate-finance America is likely to be in charge.  Sorry, Bernie.

Here in New Mexico, elites enjoy a comfortable status quo.  The feds continue to shovel easy money into the economy; the oil patch, for the moment, is filling the legislature’s Christmas stockings with billions of new dollars—enough to keep lobbyists and public institutions happy.  Progressives tinker to improve the status of transgender and gay people, while doing nothing but shrug at the state’s decline in education, health care, affordable housing, or the decline of livability in Albuquerque.  The elections will not change this, not immediately.

But pay attention.  The global architecture of power is changing, as it is domestically.  We are not immune.  Change is coming and it won’t be as easy as before.  Don your helmet, gloves, and motorcycle jacket.  Brace yourself as you start your Harley.  We are in for a bumpy ride on the road ahead.