They see that the Trump camp rages ineffectually against the corporate elite, deluded into believing that a member of that very same elite will serve as their saviour. And they see that the Biden camp represents an ineffectual rainbow coalition of competing social identities, deluded into believing that those divisions will make them stronger, not weaker, in the fight for economic justice. Both of these camps appear resigned to being serially - maybe ritually - disappointed.
Failure does not inspire these camps to seek change, it makes them cling all the more desperately to their failed strategies, to attach themselves even more frantically and fervently to their perceived tribe.
That is why this US election - at a moment when the need for real, systemic change is more urgent, more evident than ever before - produced not just one but two of the worst presidential candidates of all time. We are looking at exactly what happens when a whole society not only stops growing but begins to putrefy.
Enervating divisionsNot everyone in the US is so addicted to these patterns of self-delusion and self-harm.
Large swaths of the population don't bother to vote out of hard-borne experience. The system is so rigged against them that they don't think it matters much which corporate party is in power. The outcome will be the same for them either way.
Others vote third party, or consciously abstain in protest at big money's vice-like grip on the two-party system. Others, appalled at the prospect of Trump - and before him the two Bushes, and before that Ronald Reagan - were forced once again to vote for the Democratic ticket with a heavy heart. They know all too well who Biden is (a creature of his corporate donors) and what he stands for (whatever his corporate donors want). But he is slightly less monstrous than his rival, and in the US system those are the meaningful electoral options.
And among Trump's supporters too, there are many desperate for wholesale change. They voted for Trump because at least he paid lip service to change.
These groups - most likely a clear electoral majority - could redirect the US towards political, social, even spiritual growth, if they could find a way to come together. They suffer from their own enervating divisions.
How should they best use their numerical strength? Should they struggle to win the presidency, and if so should it be a third-party candidate or should they work within the existing party structures? What lesson should they draw from the Democratic leadership's sabotaging - twice over - of Bernie Sanders, a candidate offering meaningful change? Is it time to adopt an entirely different strategy, rejecting traditional politics? And if so, can it be made to work when all the major institutions - from the politicians and courts, to the police, intelligence services and media - are firmly in the hands of the corporate enemy?
Terrible reckoningThere is no real way to sleep through life, or politics, and not wake up one day - usually when it is too late - realising catastrophic mistakes were made.
As individuals, we may face that terrible reckoning on our death-beds. Empires rarely go so quietly. They fall when it is time for their citizens to learn a painful lesson about hubris. Their technological innovations come back to haunt them, as ancient Rome's lead water-pipes supposedly once did. Or they over-extend with ambitious wars that drain the coffers of gold, as warrior-kings have discovered to their cost through the ages. Or, when the guardians of empire least expect it, "barbarians" - the victims of their crimes - storm the city gates.
The globe-spanning US empire faces the rapid emergence of all these threats on a planetary scale. Its endless wars against phantom enemies have left the US burdened with astounding debt. Its technologies, from nuclear weapons to AI, mean there can be no possible escape from a major miscalculation. And the US empire's insatiable greed and determination to colonise every last inch of the planet, if only with our waste products, is gradually killing the life-systems we depend on.
If Biden becomes president, his victory will be a temporary win for torpor, for complacency. But a new Trump will emerge soon enough to potentise - and misdirect - the fury steadily building beneath the surface. If we let it, the pendulum will swing back and forth, between ineffectual lethargy and ineffectual rage, until it is too late. Unless we actively fight back, the stagnation will suffocate us all.
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