Tag Archives: elections

Reflections on the New York City Electorate and, Secondarily, on the Mayoral Candidacy of Zohran Mamdani

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Like Zohran Mamdani, but more like Albert Einstein, Noam Chomsky, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Pepe Mujica and many others, I define myself as a democratic socialist.  That is very different from authoritarian socialists, “social democrats” and very, very different from a supporters of the ill-named Democratic Party or of the GOP although, with respect to the latter two, I find the Democratic Party much more hypocritical, despicable and dangerous.  I am not a Trump or MAGA supporter, far from it, but nor am I afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Trump has many faults but all are shared by the most prominent Democrats, Democrats like war mongers Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden to name just a few, especially with respect to their primary allegiance to Israel, allegiance bought and paid for by AIPAC.  My primary regret with reference to Mr. Mamdani’s candidacy is that it is Messrs. Cuomo and Adams who are running as independents and Mr. Mamdani will be the candidate of the utterly corrupt Democratic Party, although its leadership has not only rejected him but is actively opposing him.  More than anything, New York City, New York State and the United States need new political alternatives whose loyalty is to the United States and its citizenry rather than to a foreign government (Israel) or to the billionaire caste (it’s more a caste than a class).  But no such luck.  At least not yet.

I find the article entitled “Debunking the Myths about Mamdani’s Candidacy” written by Stewart Lawrence and published on August 13, 2025 in Counterpunch (available at https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/13/debunking-the-myths-about-mamdanis-candidacy/) not only interesting, but reflective of a hopeful sign, i.e.,  that the young may prove significantly less naïve and less subject to media manipulation and much more cognitively competent and ethical than most of their elders, a bit strange given that my generation, the Baby Boomers, shared many of their values when we were their age. When purportedly, “the Times they were a ‘Changing”.  That is a double edged sword, though, as my generation permitted its idealism to be corrupted in a quest for financial security as soon as we became parents.  One wonders if that same affliction will also contaminate the best of Generation X and Generation Z, etc.

While I share some, perhaps many, perhaps even most of Mr. Mamdani’s values and beliefs, there are postures I feel are simplistically addressed by him.  For example, those dealing with issues like immigration and law enforcement which, while very important, are more complex than what he perceives.  And, I’m concerned that beneath it all, he’s a partisan Democrat who suffers from the obligatory Trump Derangement Syndrome and who, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“AOC”, a moniker I find presumptive) will, if he is elected (a near certainty, sell out his values in exchange for acceptance by the same old power brokers who have always controlled everything and that he will all too soon permit himself to serve as little more than a deceptive token.  A cynical view, I know, but one well earned.

Still, for now, Mr. Mamdani is a breath of fresh air and much more importantly, those who are drawn to him, especially those among the young and among most of New York City’s Jewish population seem to have had the cobwebs removed from their eyes and their ears and their mouths reflecting a political awakening that may help lead us away from the Deep State’s perpetual wars and thus from the edge of the apocalyptic abyss. It may center us on the importance of spending our hard earned tax revenue on positive things, items like free universal health care, like free education for all at all levels, like affordable housing for all, like adequate nutrition for all, like all of the things, including the foregoing, available to Israeli and European citizens, who our government subsidizes. 

Wouldn’t that be something? 

Especially if the New York City electorate has really woken to the realities facing us, especially if they reflect not just a New York City phenomenon.  Especially if they can reject “woke” triumphalism and virtue shaming which, rather than draw others to their idealistic goals, just turns them off.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections and Prognostications with respect to a First Tuesday Following a First Monday in November

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Dateline: October 3, 2024

Faith in electoral processes all over the world seems to be at all-time lows, largely because, for so long, elections in most places have been manipulated, either through distortion of information presenting false scenarios and expectations or, because of threats of economic or military castigation should voters fail to follow electoral scripts designed by their self-perceived “betters”.  As last resorts, until fairly recently, orchestrated coups d’état and even direct military intervention from abroad were popular; however, new technologies, especially with respect to communications and hackable electronic voting have reintroduced a strain of subtlety.  The British and the French were the past masters of such manipulation but for a century at least, it has been the United States that has taken over that function, initially through the State Department but now through intelligence agencies; and intelligence agencies acting more and more on their own.  Power, of course, is the ultimate prize, economic power derived through theft of natural resources but more and more, through organized war profiteering of the kind Ike warned against as he left office. 

Until recently, the foregoing did not bother United States citizens very much, even when it involved domestic electoral fraud.  We were aware that domestic electoral fraud was not unusual.  Bribery was a tradition as was vote buying and, when all else failed, destruction of ballots with replacements stuffed into ballot boxes.  Nor unusual were the super patriotic voting dead.  In any case, electoral promises were always illusory, few felt they would be kept and fewer seemed to care that they’d been deceived.  Elections were a sort of game, like baseball perhaps, but of the Black Sox variant.  Now, however, chickens seem to have come home to roost.  Of a sudden, the United States electorate really seems to care about the results, albeit futilely so. 

One cannot tell if the United States federal elections of 2020 (both presidential and for the Senate, i.e., in Georgia) were “stolen”, something a substantial portion of the United States electorate believes.  We will probably never find out.  But groundwork for electoral fraud in 2020 was facilitated by the orchestrated response to the Covid 19 pandemic, with electoral safeguards demolished both bureaucratically and judicially, purportedly in the name of democracy.  During the past decade electoral safeguards have been minimized in the United States in a manner not seen anywhere else in the world.  Almost everywhere else, at least the illusion of ballot security is maintained with voters required to establish who they are through picture identification, signatures and finger prints before being permitted to exercise their so-called “sacred franchise”.  Additionally, ballots are strictly restricted to voting booths, with their collection strictly controlled.  Those are the norms except in a number of states in the purportedly United States. 

Electoral manipulation in the United States would seem difficult on a national scale given the nature of federalism, with important electoral functions vested at the county level, but in a society so polarized, electoral fraud need not be widespread but rather, concentrated at the points most equally divided in the states with the most electoral votes, and with efforts coordinated at the national level through sources of logistical and legal support. 

Electoral orchestration has evolved from an art form to a science.  Of course, implementing the groundwork for successful electoral manipulation is not enough, it must at least be flavored with plausible deniability.  Thus, the same bureaucracy and judiciary that facilitates electoral creativity shields electoral fraud from being proven by refusing to seriously investigate allegations of electoral improprieties, usually dismissing most such allegations on technicalities after which, the corporate media that supported the electoral misconduct in the first place, loudly proclaims that the allegations were bogus and that those alleging the existence of electoral fraud are evil, seditious “election deniers”.  That is the world in which the citizenry of the United States now lives, the same world the United States has forced on so many other countries whenever it suited the interests of those who controlled it.

Democracy, in the sense of majority rule, does not exist anywhere and never has, even absent electoral shenanigans.  It doesn’t exist because most people are not interested enough in electoral participation, either because it bores them or because they believe it is futile, thus, because of inadequate participation, majorities are rarely possible.  Instead, the majoritarian concept is replaced by mere plurality, i.e., were usually more votes are collectively cast against a specific candidate or proposal, or not at all, than in favor.  However, for some strange psychosocial reason, both the victims and the victimizers of political fraud feel that a semblance of popular government is essential, something we perhaps inherited from the Greeks and the Romans.

In a few days the people of the United States, both citizens and in all probability a number of non-citizens as well, will again earnestly participate in an electoral charade, a futile exercise by a populace utterly polarized by a corrupt corporate media, a corrupt entertainment industry and a corrupt bureaucracy, all making us relatively easy to manipulate, although we seem to be tottering closer than ever to a breaking point as more and more people have somehow gotten the impression that their votes can make a difference.  Indeed, we may be approaching a possibly violent breaking point such as has not been seen in the United States in over a century and a half, and that, despite the best efforts of the powers-that-be to create the impression that, as the Borg may someday become fond of saying, “resistance is futile”.  During the past four years it has become clear that, under Democratic Party rule, protest will not be tolerated unless it is orchestrated by the right people (e.g., the “woke”), that has been made more than abundantly clear through prosecution and persecution of those who dared to express their refusal to accept what they honestly believed was a stolen election in 2020.  A reality which many, too many, discovered on and after January 6, 2021. It is worth noting how different the attitude towards rejection of electoral results deemed fraudulent is when the protestors are political allies of the United States, as in the recent cases of Venezuela and Georgia (the country, not the state), as opposed to our opponents.  Evidently protest abroad is patriotic when in support of United States puppets but involves terrorism when challenging those the United States places and maintains in power.  At home, it’s even more hypocritical.  Electoral protest in the United States against results orchestrated by those who really rule us is anathema, it is seditious and treasonous, notwithstanding the platitudes redolent in our Declaration of Independence.

As an aside, I wonder what vice president Kamala Harris will do in the unlikely event that her opponent prevails when it comes time for her to exercise her constitutional function and certify the result.  An unlikely situation given my pessimistic analysis of probabilities but, wouldn’t that be interesting?  The Chinese have a curse that sounds a bit like a proverb “may you live in interesting times”.  It certainly seems to apply to us.  To many of us, the results of the proximate elections have already been written and, unlike 2016, that script will, in all likelihood, not be subject to evasion, not even temporarily. And even if it were, as Mr. Trump found out during his term in office, the federal bureaucracy and judiciary are so riddled with moles that governance contrary to the interest of the tiny group of powerful elites who rule us as if they possessed Sauron’s ring of power, is virtually impossible.  The reality is probably that, even if the election were not rigged by misinformation and electoral fraud, our future would remain bleak as we will, in all probability, continue to be led towards the Armageddon too many see as an essential way-stop on the road to paradise.  Tipping points are all but impossible to reverse and we seem to have reached ours as both major presidential campaigns applaud genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid and most of the United States electorate, as German citizens once did, looks the other way; and as antagonizing powers that share our capacity to destroy everything has become a bipartisan ideal.

As a supporter of third party and independent candidates for many decades, no candidate likely to win ever enjoys my support, but that is not as negative as it sounds.  Those of us who find ourselves perpetually outside-looking-in tend to attain a clearer vision of political realities, one free of the emotional price associated with passionate advocacy and of a hope to share in the spoils.  Thus, from the sidelines, what most matters to me and others like me is to share perspectives concerning the greatest threats to whatever remnants of liberty remain, not many as during the past four years censorship and castigation of deviation from opinions deemed acceptable has become the norm, and of course, it is important to those of us with strong civic consciousness to share information concerning how electoral processes are safeguarded in diverse parts of the world, contrasting such safeguards with trends in the ever more autocratic United States, a country whose people, if not its governments, I love profoundly.

From the fringes, the more decent among the political class, a tiny group led by aspirants to political power like Jill Stein, Cornell West and Dennis Kucinech, look on horrified, desperately fighting against the fatal entropy that has us firmly in its grasp, while the universe, disinterested, spins on its merry way.  So, don’t be surprised when this November 6, 2024, at the end of a long evening, the elections of 2020 are once more repeated, their format now become the template with which our subjugation will be made ever more clear.  Perhaps, in the future, rather than bother to deceive us, the charade will end and we’ll just assume the posture and accept the inevitable, hoping for the best, knowing that as has almost always been the case: in our own destiny we have little if any say.

So sayeth the realist (that’s what pessimists always call themselves), as from the Global South, where hope still somehow survives, an expat in exile looks North.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections from the Edge of a Seemingly Bottomless Pit

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November 5, 2024 is purportedly federal election day in the United States of America but the concept of an “election day” has become meaningless.  And that may not be a negative although how that has come about is troubling given that the main goal of that evolutive process seems to have become, not the implementation of more effective democracy but rather, the facilitation of more efficient electoral fraud and manipulation.

How so?

Well, in its least malign aspect, the evolving trend towards a voting season rather than an electoral day looks to “lock-in” voters prior to the availability of information necessary to make adequately informed voting decisions, thus making electoral manipulation more feasible.  That, of course, is tied into the manipulation of essential information by the corporate media through not only the publication and dissemination of distortions and outright lies as facts, but by the obfuscation of important relevant information, the Hunter Biden laptop from Hell being a prime, albeit far from the most important, example.  At least as nefarious are the range of voting procedures crafted by those who seek to minimize electoral safeguards through a longer, less organized and poorly monitored voting cycle, one where, for example, the State of California has criminalized required identity verification prior to voting and indeed, where most states controlled by the Democratic Party have taken steps to permit the casting of votes by people who provide no proof of who they are nor of their right to do so. 

The mass mailing of unsolicited ballots coupled with the ability to “harvest” and return such ballots is obviously designed, in its most benign aspect, to create a “market” for the purchase and sale of votes, and for the theft and unauthorized casting of ballots in its most nefarious form.  And that is where we find ourselves as the electoral season draws to a close “on or about” this November 5.  I use the phrase “on or about” because there is no longer a “hard date” by which votes must be cast given that judges and electoral officials in Democratic Party controlled states, and even in Democratic Party controlled counties and electoral districts have taken to insisting that the absence of postmarks or the receipt of ballots with postmarks beyond the date fixed for their return should be ignored in the interests of what they claim is a more ample form of democracy, something that seems akin to the old political slogan of “vote early and vote often”.

I have long avocated for an electoral period rather than an election day in order to make participation in the electoral process more convenient.  Decades ago I proposed that elections should take place over a series of set dates, perhaps as long as three or four, with results published daily to motivate the lazy to cast their votes when it became obvious that their participation would be essential in order for candidates they preferred to emerge victorious. But I understood that as important as participation in the electoral process was, safeguarding of the electoral process was at least as important, and that real democracy required limiting participation to eligible voters through strictly enforced safeguards, safeguards in fact effectively imposed in the poorest and least technologically advanced countries, safeguards such as photo identification cards, signatures and fingerprints.  In the Republic of Colombia where I currently reside such procedures are uniformly applied and though not perfect (electoral fraud still exists), at least efforts are made to minimize electoral fraud rather than to promote it.

In the United States, democracy is not thriving, it never has.  At the best of times the country has been ruled through a patchwork two-party dictatorship at the local, state, regional and federal levels, the “duopoly” at it is referred to by its critics, among them many smaller political parties, independent candidates and concerned voters.  But today’s Democratic Party seeks to eliminate even the duopoly.  During the past four years it has utterly corrupted the penal and judicial systems in order to minimize the ability of opponents to run against its pre-selected candidates, and I do not refer specifically to Donald Trump.  He at least is powerful enough to fight back.  But rather, to the most decent among alternative options, people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of the assassinated senator and former attorney general, Robert Francis Kennedy and the nephew of the assassinated president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy; people like the eminent and brilliant Afro-American philosopher, academic and civic leader, Cornell West; people like eminent physician and civic leader, Jill Stein; people like former Democratic Party congressman and peace activist Dennis Kucinich.  Perhaps even worse, in an effort to retain permanent dictatorial power for the ill-named Democratic Party, the Biden administration has done everything possible to curtail opposing viewpoints through criminalization of the right to hold and express opposing opinions and in that effort has recruited the major news media and the major internet platforms.

Not that the GOP, the Grand Old Party, otherwise known as the Republicans are all that much better although, except when it comes to blind allegiance to Zionists imperil ambitions, it is significantly less inclined to engage in military adventures abroad or to censorship and lawfare at home.  Still, its candidate in this election is one of the world’s least pleasant persons, an egotistical, self-promoting demagogue.  How far have we sunk as a polity when he seems far more trustworthy than the slick loophole specialists who oppose him, the Clintons and the Obamas if not quite the Bidens, those who offer us as a choice the chameleonic Kamala Harris, lawyers all, lawyers beloved of the quasi-cultural Hollywood and New York elites and, of course, of the Deep State moles who believe they’ve found the “one ring to rule us all and in the darkness bind us”.

Absolute power seems to be the goal and, as the old adage claims, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  Today, the descendants of those who believed they were fighting against such tyranny instead find themselves actively involved in promoting genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid on the one hand as they court nuclear holocaust on the other, all in order to enrich the tiny minority of billionaires reliant for their political and economic power on perpetual war and oppression.  And on our own cowardice, cupidity and stupidity.

It is, in all probability, too late to defeat the forces of darkness arrayed against us, but we can still, at least, back our own versions of Tolkien’s Frodo: I allude to people like Jill Stein and Cornell West who are still options, and in other elections, we can decide to vote for any candidate unaligned with the duopoly.  As always, if enough of us took that road less travelled, we might somehow find ourselves glimpsing a light at the end of that deep dark tunnel into which we’ve been forced to descend, assured that the wreak of filth and death we smell is really milk and honey.

As the purportedly Wicked Witch of the West exclaimed in the 1930’s movie version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, … “what a world, what a world”!  But perhaps hers is not the last word.

In 1875 poet William Ernest Henley, perhaps channeling the “darker days referenced by Sigmund Freud, wrote a poem he entitled “Invictus”, one I share as I close, albeit set in prose:

Out of the night that covers me, black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.  Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet, the menace of the years finds and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Law of Unintended Consequences and the First United States Presidential Debate of 2024

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United States president Joseph Robinette Biden was a disaster in his initial 2024 presidential debate against Donald Trump, the truncated affair orchestrated by CNN which, at the demand of the Biden administration, excluded presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein and Cornell West, PhD, each of whom would also have trounced the inept Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump performed well, to an extent curbing his impulsive nature and was the clear winner. However, the fear of accountability should Donald Trump return to the Whitehouse will increase rather than decrease abuse of the corporate media and the legal system by the Deep State, possibly leading it to panic and take ever more drastic actions to prevent the American electorate from exercising its political rights.

So, what to expect?

Well, the potential for an assassination of Mr. Trump orchestrated by the Deep State is higher than ever. The potential for adverse judgments against Mr. Trump in the pending wave of “lawfare against him orchestrated by the Deep State, the Biden administration and their supporters at the state level, including private citizens, will increase. And the Supreme Court will experience massive pressure from mortified traditional Republicans, especially on the Chief Justice, to rule in favor of Mr. Trump’s opponents. It seems clear that the law of unanticipated if not unintended consequences is merrily at work.

If Mr. Trump nonetheless survives and prevails, assuming massive electoral fraud is unsuccessful, no sure thing, Deep State moles will once again seek to obstruct not so much Mr. Trump’s policies as his ability to govern. There is really very little difference in the policies of the modern Democratic Party and the GOP, other than with respect to abortion and the Second Amendment.
If Mr. Trump is artfully defeated and the electoral fraud is more obvious this time than it was in 2020, then ever increasing civil strife is possible, although the Deep State is so well armed that a civil war would probably prove futile. At any rate, regardless of the results, the electorate, already utterly polarized may fragment from bipolar to multipolar which would be the only positive thing.

The one sure thing seems to be that whoever eventually wins:

• The ensuing administration will continue to support genocide in the Middle East, probably expanded from just the Palestinians to the Lebanese and the Syrians as Nazis in Hell smile and say, we told you so and welcome aboard to their former non-Soviet adversaries in World War II.

• In Europe, confusion may reign. A Trump victory should surely generate much needed introspection and a settlement of the Deep State orchestrated Ukrainian quagmire may result. But it’s also possible that a creeping advance to a third world war, initially conventional but eventually nuclear, will continue. Still, the corruption of the ideal of European unity by NATO may finally be perceived by the electorates in France and Germany and in the flotsam that echoes the posture of those two subservient polities throughout Europe.

• The de facto Sino-Russian alliance is likely to strengthen, as is the growing closeness of Iran, North Korea and Syria with that group, but that would be true regardless of the results of the United States’ election and Global North hegemony will continue its decline as the Global South continues to evolve politically and economically. The demise of the United States dollar will continue as faith in its ability to function as a neutral reserve currency has already been shattered by the abusive United States international economic sanctions regime.

It is unfortunate that with three decent alternative candidates, the Deep State and its corporate media will exclude them from consideration by voters this November but that has been the case since the unexpected Republican victory in 1860, 164 years ago. The echoes of Cassandric warnings are loud and clear but the three monkeys that represent the so-called Western World continue to plug their ears, shut their eyes and cover their mouths.

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The 2024 Presidential Elections as Seen During the End of January from a Sort of Neutral, Albeit Pacifist, Perspective

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As an independent academic, researcher, political analyst and commentator, I have several observations concerning candidates for the 2024 presidential nomination.

First, as to the GOP, albeit only two of the four mentioned remain, I would rank candidates as follows on the basis of danger to humanity and world peace:  most dangerous, Nicky Haley (a Biden clone and Deep State shill); then, Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy.   Ramaswamy seemed the most interesting, notwithstanding his Hindu inspired Islamophobia and reminded me of Tulsi Gabbard in some respects, but, as in the case of DeSantis, he has acknowledged the inevitable and dropped out.  There were other GOP candidates but they really had nothing to offer, indeed, as in the case of Haley, most were sponsored and paid for by pro-Biden, Deep State loyal Democratic Party related donors.  Of course, ranked on the basis of lousy personality, pomposity, apparent ego and childishness, no one can touch “the” Donald.  Haley refuses to abandon her quest but that may be a preplanned Deep State strategy to cause Mr. Trump to expend resources ahead of the real contest in November.  Ms. Haley and the Deep State are as friendly as is Mr. Biden and the Deep State.  Cozier than that one cannot get.

On the Democratic Party side, well, there is no side although two candidates Dean Phillips, a Biden clone who feels Biden is just too old and infirm, and Marianne Williamson, a talanted and interesting non-politician, are running.  However, the ill named Democratic Party has refused to organize debates and the corporate media is doing all it can to cooperate by rendering everyone but Mr. Biden invisible.  Still, Ms. Williamson bears consideration.  On the worst to best basis therefore, Ms. Williamson seems best, followed by Mr. Phillips (as neutral, or neutered, as one can get), and then, in last place, the worst candidate from any party, movement, etc., perhaps ever, the eternal warmonger and merchant of personal greed and corruption, “Genocide Joe”, aka, Mr. Joseph Robinette Biden. 

Independents and third party candidates are very interesting and provide the most intelligent, competent and honest candidates so, of course, they are carefully facing assassination by silence.  For the record, and in their case, in no particular order given that they are all pretty good, I would rank the top three as follows: Cornel West, an Afro-American philosopher, academic, civil rights leader, political activist and pacifist as the best, although his campaign seems terminally hokey; then, his former running mate (she was at the top of the ticket, he was in the second spot), perpetual Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, who shares most of Mr. West’s political perspectives but is a Jewish woman, rather than an Afro-American male; and, perhaps most interesting but with a fatal flaw, the most recognized candidate among the independents (largely because of his family name), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He is, of course, the son of the late senator, attorney general and assassinated presidential candidate whose name he bears, and the nephew of the late, assassinated president, John F. Kennedy.  Mr. Kennedy shares many of Dr. West’s and Ms. Stein’s progressive perspectives but is apparently owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), not unexpected given the reality that his father was assassinated by a Palestinian, but still, his tolerance for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing pretty much neutralizes his many positive qualities for most people who might otherwise have been inclined to support him. 

The real question is, of course, given realities associated with the United States electoral system as impacted by lax voting standards and requirements; interference by the legal and penal system as well as the intelligence agencies; interference by most of the owners of major Internet platforms; and, the utter lack of objectivity by the corporate press (most in favor of Democrats, no matter what, but one in favor of Republicans on the same basis), what difference do candidates make, or the will of the electorate for that matter??? 

Of course, as in 2016, all of us but especially the Deep State may be surprised.  But I doubt it.  They’ve learned their lesson.  The one sure thing is that the best person running, the most ethical, most experienced, with the best judgment, hasn’t a chance.

Good (and bad news) from another source concerning this year’s federal election, the person who would have been the best presidential candidate (he once was, but was trounced), Dennis Kucinich, is running for the House of Representatives again, albeit this time, wisely, as an independent.  Goooo Dennis!!!  Gooo independents!!!!  The bad news is that he is not running for president.  The corporate press, of course, is doing all it can (again) to make him invisible so any help readers can provide to overcome that tactic would, I’m sure, be greatly appreciated.  He was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s campaign manager but resigned when Mr. Kennedy’s anti-Palestinian bias led him to support Israeli atrocities.  Good for him (Dennis, not Robert), his integrity, unlike that of most politicians, is neither for sale nor for lease.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.