Keir Starmer didn't even wait for the final declaration of the US election before congratulating Donald Trump on his "historic victory".
This hasty doffing of the cap to the new US president at the start of Prime Minister's Questions, was no doubt meant to remind Trump of the "special relationship" between the world's top dog and its obedient, ever-at-heel poodle.
Then up stood Kemi Badenoch, who, in her first outing as Tory Party leader, asked Starmer whether he and Foreign Secretary David Lammy had "apologised" to Trump for Lammy's past description of the new president as a "woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath". That was back in 2018, in an article he'd written for Time magazine... Starmer didn't answer, but one can be sure that now that they all belong to the same club of political leaders, big and small, this is just water under the bridge...
Anyway, Trump himself has never had control over his tongue. And fortunately for him, it seems his voters did not take some of his craziest utterances to heart. For instance he could say that immigrants coming over the Mexican border were "eating dogs and cats", and that they were "all drug dealers, criminals and rapists" - and still get the votes of the descendants of immigrants who'd originally come over that self-same border!
Tweedledee VS Tweedledum
This US election was called "the most divisive" in US election history. It certainly did look that way: it pitted a black woman claiming to stand up for women's rights against a white male, former president and game-show host, waving the Christian bible. "Democratic liberalism" against "Republican conservatism"!
But no matter these apparent differences. The reality is that both candidates stood on the very same side of the class divide. Harris never questioned the interests of big business; nor of course, did Trump, a big businessman himself! And if the capitalist class wants the screw turned harder today on the working class, which it does, it doesn't really care who sits in the White House. Whoever is president will comply. That's how the system is designed and that's how it works.
So the nature of the next US government and its domestic and international policies will be decided not by Trump, no matter how much he postures and parades his overblown ego: it will be decided by the American capitalist class. That is the only "US electorate" which counts.
That said, it's all the better for the big bosses, if Trump can claim a mandate from ordinary voters. And this time, unlike in 2017, he is able to do so, having won the popular vote. What's more, the Republicans have also won the Senate and Congress, so Trump's new laws will pass without obstruction...
For a world without borders
It's possible that voters chose Trump, just because he wasn't Biden or Harris, rather than his evident good looks. The turnout is said to be a record high, at around 65%. A few million did vote for independents, Greens or socialists - knowing this was a mere gesture, but for them, it was at least a way to express their opposition to this dead-end, two-party system which actually ensures no change.
Yes, just like in Britain and in the rest of what politicians call the "Free World", the choice provided by the capitalist system's politicians at election time is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. It's a question of choosing who will drown you.
The worst thing about this is that today, with global capitalism in terminal crisis, things may be bad in the rich world, but in many poor countries, the populations are facing sure death unless they flee. And this has caused an unprecedented movement of refugees and migrants across national borders and across precarious seas, in even more precarious boats...
But it seems no politician who this world has to offer, can mouth anything but stupidities over immigration. The latest being Keir Starmer who repeats ad nauseam that he's going after people- smuggling gangs to solve the problem!
Yes, and all because every single one of these politicians is tied to a world system of individual nation states which defend tooth and nail their own borders and try to keep their declining capitalist economies going by raising trade barriers and imposing protectionist tariffs.
When the only solution to this shrinking planet, which is getting ever-hotter, is to open it all up, let people and air circulate - and plan its economy and its future on the basis of one big borderless land mass, shared by everyone.