 Hello, and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we're joined by Praveer Purga. I said we're going to be talking about the situation in the United States, of course, but also the situation globally in the aftermath of the attack, the storming of the capital in Washington DC by Trump's supporters a few days ago. Thank you so much, Praveer, for joining us. So we have seen, of course, a lot of responses to the storming of the capital, shock and horror in the United States. Foreign leaders very sanctimoniously talking about democracy, including our prime minister here. And but one interesting aspect, of course, is the fact that many have pointed out how this is the case of, in some senses, the chickens coming home to roost. The United States, of course, creating such situations across the world, the same system also allowing for a very strong right-wing fascist mobilization internally as well, very racist mobilization as well. And all this is, in some senses, culminated in the attack we saw in Washington DC. So do we see that in the coming months and years, the possibility of any sort of, say, not forget reversal of this trend, but any sort of attempt to actually seriously address these issues or is this just going to be treated as one kind of aberration and the system will move forward? No, that requires a crystal ball and that's a very difficult exercise to predict what's going to happen. But I think one thing is very clear. The kind of forces that has been unleashed in the United States go to continue and it's not that it is in the United States alone. We have various right-wing forces coming into power or wanting to come into power in different parts of the world. Bolsonaro is not very different from Trump and Modi's India is also not very different from Trump in this sense. They're both right-wing forces. They have right-wing mobilizations. They complement it with electoral politics, but the mobilization on the ground has been right-wing mobilization and based on sectarian politics. So that's the hallmark of this. And of course, there are authoritarian regime elsewhere as well. You have Erdogan, you have Duterte, but this kind of right-wing mobilization, which you see, it seems to be at the moment these three are really the representative of that. Now, these are much more long-term phenomena and they shouldn't be traced to only one president or one instance of something happening. So I think that part of the equation is going to continue and it's also very clear that Trump did get a large number of votes. That's not something which can be wished away. He still has a strong support among the Republican party followers, those who voted for the Republican party. And it seems they do believe, 80% of them do believe that what Trump is saying is right, that somehow magically the votes for Trump disappeared and Biden won. So all of this, if we put it into the pot and then cook it, it's clear that this kind of toxic right-wing campaign has a base, has a social base and it is going to continue. And with the kind of social media platforms that are available, I'm not talking about only Twitter and Facebook, but I'm talking about the whole number of other platforms that also exist. It's also clear there is a mobilization that can take place using those platforms. So you have that in the background. It's also very clear that Trump may have overplayed his hand and therefore there is some amount of pushback and some of the Republican party may steer away from him for the short run. But as I said, the deeper pauses at play, which is white supremacy in fear of losing its majority, trying to co-opt a section of the Hispanic population within it. Let's not forget in the United States originally, the Irish were looked down upon very strongly. Catholics were also not allowed to be politically very prominent. Kennedy was the first Catholic who wins. So all of this is a reconfiguration of the forces that can take place. So it's very difficult to predict which way it's going to go, but for sure that this division in the United States polity is going to stay. It's also interesting that you also have a left, right, or left, right of center division in the Democratic party. So you also now see the Republican party, the Trump and others trying to steer away from Trump in division emerging. So both the parties have fractures within them. And of course, the social fracture is very neat. I think what you are asking is, is it going to sort of settle down the business as usual after this presidency? I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think Biden presidency is going to lead back to something which is of the 80s, 90s United States. I think this is a new course that it has taken. And it has taken this course because increasingly the economic crisis is also growing in the United States. The rich are getting richer. The poorer not only getting poorer, there's an absolute drop of economic standards for the section among them, but also the future isn't looking bright for them at all. So the exclusion from the economic wealth that a small section is garnering in the United States, that is continuing. It will lead to anger amongst certain sections who think that it is the cause of this is globalization, the cause of this is democratic party, the beltway, outsiders have to be brought to power, all of that. But the reality is that growth is basically has been bipartisan support to accumulation of wealth by a small section, smaller and smaller section. And you can see the classic rise of the stock market in the period when you have the working people have taken a huge hit on their incomes, their standards of living and everything. So all of this put together, I don't think we are going to see a return to normalcy in the United States. If normal is the, as I said, 60, 70s, 80s, 90s United States, you are seeing something which is different. And that's really different kinds of social forces coming into play. And also the fact that the United States is no longer the preeminent industrial power it was after the Second World War and it produced a significant part of the globe's GDP. That's no longer true. So with all of this, the weakening internationally and the weakening within the United States as an industrial power, I think the things are heading towards a different direction in the United States. It's very difficult, as I said, to predict what will happen. Will it mean the rise of the right as Trump signifies? Or will it mean the rise of different kinds of left democratic forces, which can raise these questions and they become central to the American politics? And I think that's an open question. Biden also defeated, as you know, the Bernie Sanders, that was a defeat of the left within the democratic party and center holding and all the centrist forces coming together to defeat Bernie Sanders. So those kinds of things are also very much there. So I think that's, this is some, this is more of an existential crisis than the simple crisis of a runaway leader, runaway president who created some storm in the Capitol Hill, Tika. And taking off from that, we just wanted to ask you a question about the issue of democracy itself, because what we've seen, of course, here is, like you said, a huge section of people convinced mathematically, with their own versions of mathematics, for lack of better word, of how this election had been stolen and numbers thrown about. And basically the democratic process, which is at the heart of so much of the world today, being completely challenged. And we've seen this in many other countries as well. Of course, elections being contested on the one, that's one aspect of it, of course, but also subversion of democracy by the right through other ways also be. For instance, we have, say, what's happening in India, what's happening in Brazil, all of this also accompanied by a very strong anti-scientific streak which says comes out to the pandemic, comes out through how, you know, people even analyze some of these questions, conspiracy theories and all that. So this also in some senses, maybe represents a kind of crisis for democracy also in terms of, so for the left, and even for the center, it's a huge challenge in terms of how do we go to say, what do we do in a situation where so many realities are being established for lack of a joint? You know, I would like to take a slightly different position that not calling this just democracy, failure of democracy, it's really what we're talking of the failure of electoral processes. So that's a more narrow definition than we should be talking about in this particular case, illegitimacy of the democratic, the electoral process of the United States. Because if we look at democracy, then of course, the United States starts as a slave owning democracy of the plantation owners, if you will. Then it becomes a democracy in which both the women and the black population is not allowed to vote. And even when the black population does become free, even then it's kept out of political arena it with different strategies. So it's always been an extremely partial, even electoral democracy. And it's only in the 60s that you have something which empowers them a little more. And you have immediately the pushback, runs various other things being used, criminalizing the black population in different ways. And the largest incarcerated population of any country in the world, terms of the percentage of population who are incarcerated. So this is a kind of other side, the flip side of so-called American democracy in which the law, which they have been trying to put to the world. And also the fact that the US has been involved in coups and military actions all around the world for the last 70, 80, 100 years, starting really from its war on Mexico and also on Cuba. So if you look at all of that scenario, what is called the Banana Republic. The Banana Republic has been bandied about George Bush talked about how it has become Banana Republic. Well, Banana Republic was the United Food Company and the US government. That is the genesis of the Banana Republic. So let's not even forget what it was. And in decolonization, as you know, Wilson went with the colonial powers after the First World War. So you can go down chapter and verse of the so-called liberal democracy which the West talks about, which is at the time it was partial slavery and of course also colonies, plunder, lewd, genocide, all of it the companies, the so-called universal values of the West. So I'm not going on that issue. The question is, is the electoral democracy in the United States less respected today by virtue of what's happened? But that we'll have to see whether it, with Trump behaving in this particular way and the support base making a spectacle of itself in term in front of the cameras. In fact, there were really the ones who are live streaming what they're doing in the capital. So you know, capital. So this is, you know, so this oldest images, yes, has to some extent made it more difficult for that wing. But nevertheless, electoral democracy, some sheen of it has been worn off and it can only come back if the larger issues are addressed. And that unfortunately at the moment, we don't see that kind of forces in the United States as yet the left forces which are there in the Democratic Party have shown at least the ability to bring some of these issues of the agenda of the country. But it's still, it has not cut across to sections who are with Trump or who believe this is really whites being disenfranchised in some way. So the electoral democracy, there are two things in it. One was that our votes were not counted, okay? The others voted. But there is also this issue. The others who voted who are dead is the only the cover. The basic issue is that those who voted are not the ones we consider Americans. They are really a population who should not have the vote itself. That's why the Confederate flag was visible in the rallies and have been so in the Trump rally. So this is a clear assertion of white supremacy. In fact, quite open. So therefore one shouldn't really talk about electoral democracy here because the demand of this section is disenfranchisement and they're doing it in different ways. The electoral laws they have passed, the way they have made it much more difficult for people to vote, particularly coming from a certain community. So all of this if you put together and those who lose voting rights by virtue of convictions, all of that put together is basically to see that you get back to white supremacy days. And that is the battle being fought in the United States. It has been so. That's why the black lives matter. All these issues that have come up, they're really a consequence of assertion that we all other communities also have rights and equal rights in the American constitution today. So that is I think a much wider battle that will be fought. And as I said, whether it will be papered over after Trump's becoming a little more unfashionable maybe amongst a section of the people or it will continue with somebody else coming in, somebody else taking over that empty space which Trump might be forced to vacate or behind Trump himself for 2024 elections, we have to see. And from it finally very briefly there, maybe not the impact of this per se but how this plays out in the international arena as well because we saw of course a lot of leaders like I said, responding earlier, lot of them definitely looking forward to Biden coming back to power so that the business as usual model continues that the US like you talked about before reestablishes ties with Europe continues to play the same role as before but in a much more say diplomatic way so to speak and while continuing its support for Cousin staff but do we see any change for this in the global arena as well? Well, I think it is something which always confronts us when you have a change in American politics. So you had George Bush go and Obama come in and Obama go and you have Trump coming in. So all of this, what does it mean for rest of the world? It's an issue because whether we like it or not the American president is the nearest we have to a global emperor. The fact that it has overwhelming financial strength in the sense of financial structure of the world is controlled by the United States. The internet is controlled by the United States except in China and partly in Russia and in Iran. Rest of the world it is still controlled by the United States. US has enormous soft power to the extent that people have forgotten who actually defeated Germany in the Second World War to ask even the French who were occupied by Germany. They will say the Americans defeated Germany while after the war that was not the picture that goes there with the French. So you can wipe off the history of the world and create a new history if you have Hollywood with you and you have all the instruments of global media with you which is what it has. So given all of that, will the world shift dramatically with Biden coming back to the countervailing force? The countervailing forces of America is globally much weaker economically. But the kind of military dominance it had is no longer holding not because others have become equally militarily powerful but asymmetric warfare has made it difficult. For instance, for the US to take out Iran today. Iran is a big country. People forget it's almost 100 million people. It's the same size as major countries like Germany or Turkey, certainly not India and China but certainly major countries. So they have a regional role which the United States was denying them by virtue of having bases all around them and also the overwhelming military power they could project in any part of the world. Now that ability to project military power in any part of the world is today challenged by the fact that these countries have developed asymmetric warfare capabilities. And if, for instance, Iran is taken out by the United States, which Trump repeatedly wanted to, the reality is it would take down Saudi Arabia to take down the United Arab Emirates and possibly Israel as well. Yes, it would get destroyed, but it would not happen that it would leave the American bases in the region untouched. They have at least the rocket tree and the missile capability to do that as well as large parts of the West Asia infrastructure and including if Hezbollah gets into the act, possibly destruction of Israel's infrastructure as well. So all of this equalizes. It doesn't allow these countries to attack the United States and beat it back, but it also makes the cost of an attack on these countries by the United States that much higher. And that's why I think the US army, military never really wanted to get into Iran. See, attacking Iraq was relatively easy. It's a much smaller country, but attacking Iran is a much, is a different ballgame altogether. And that's something the American military also understood, apart from the fact, of course, they were already overextended in Afghanistan and in Iraq. So given all of this, this is, it's the weakening at the economic level that the US now has, the asymmetric warfare that capabilities, others have developed, means that we are entering into new age. And the fact that China is clearly the preeminent economic power in the world today, in terms of particularly manufacturing industry, its abilities in science and technology are growing, still not the scale of the United States. It means European Union and Southeast Asia, have to make up their minds which way they will go. And the signals are very clear. You have seen that our set, the economic agreement that was reached sometime back. And very recently, the European Union and China's trade agreement. Both of them are very clear indicators that they have decided that they have to deal with China. They have to engage with China. Without that, they cannot really on their own survive. Now that signal which has come, whatever the differences may be that they have to engage with it, also means they have broken ranks in some sense in the United States who wanted to put it completely in a corner. So the US hegemony at the moment runs on Latin America still, yes. It runs in the Pacific Ocean, which is of course militarily still controlled by the United States, but it doesn't seem to run over East Asia, Southeast Asia. The only country the ought man out in all this is actually India. And that particularly because of the border clashes that took place recently. It means India has weird much more strongly to the US side. If you remember Modi was a strong proponent of Trump. So in fact, endorsing his election itself, unfortunately for him, Biden has won. So he's now put some blue water between himself and Trump talking about criticizing what happened in the capital. But if you take all of this geo-strategically, India is the only odd man out in this by aligning against China. Not so much, of course, with US, but not so much publicly with US except for the Quad and Pacific Southeast Asia manoeuvres, Indian Ocean manoeuvres that they're doing. So this is the rather complex scenario that is emerging. There are many more players than we thought earlier. And those players will be also regional players. Latin America, hopefully regional players will arise, but you can see in Central Asia with Armenia, Azerbaijan issue, it was Turkey and Russia who settled the problem. And Iran playing a backdoor role, let's not forget, Iran has a historic relationship with Armenia. And Iran, as I said, is going to be a regional player now in Central Asia as well as in West Asia. So I think all of these issues are going to come to a head with multiple players playing their role and the kind of American hegemony that existed weakened. I think that's clear. Can the reverse it militarily? I don't think that's an option any longer. So I think this is going to be a more difficult, tortuous path. And I have to give one word of caution. I think some of my friends were in one conference and they talked about that how American Imperium is falling. I said, yes, but it's falling is going to be extremely bloody fall. So let's not forget that, yes, it is weakening, but in its weakening moments, it can inflict enormous damage. And that is still the problem. And it's not just Bush or Trump. It was also during Obama, if Hillary had won, we'd have seen it in the Hillary as well. So I think those are the kind of cautionary words we must have when you think about what's happening or what's going to happen. Thank you so much for talking to us. That's all. We have time for the day. Thank you.