Trump vs. the Deep State vs. Reality
I hate the narrative that "the people" elected Donald Trump because they were tired of the status quo, that those who voted for him were those most affected by the jobs leaving the country, the white poor from the rust belt and rural areas, the "working class", the "99%".
The fact is Trump got 27% of the voting eligible public's vote, 73% of all adult Americans did not vote for him. Among that 27%, the vast majority were regular republican voters, i.e., people who would have voted republican anyway and a significant percentage are rich and or well off, in the top 20-40%. If Jeb Bush had been the republican candidate for president, he would have received primarily the same voting reception from the public.
That is to say, people should stop giving Trump so much goddamn credit.
It's always republican vs. democrat, usually about half and half and this time about 55% of the voting eligible public voted. He got basically the numbers any republican president would have under these conditions and predominantly the same kind, typical republican voters.
Paul Craig Roberts had this to say:
"Americans whose economic life and prospects for their children have been destroyed by the offshoring of American manufacturing and tradable professional skills jobs, such as software engineering, answered the question by electing Donald Trump.
The Americans, dispossessed by the offshoring corporations, elected Trump, because Trump was the only American running for a political office who called attention to the problem and declared his intention to fix it.
Dispossessed Americans rose up. They ignored the presstitute media, or perhaps were driven to support Trump by the hostility of the media. Trump was elected by dispossessed America, by the working class."
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/03/done-paul-craig-roberts/
Come on man. I know alot of "dispossessed" Americans and very few voted for Donald Trump. And based on the fact that only 27% of the voting eligible public voted for him and most were regular republican voters, I have to surmise that the percentage of "dispossessed" citizens that didn't vote for Trump far exceeded those that did. Hell, the real dispossessed are the 45% that don't vote because the system does not represent them at all. That's over 100 million people. And Trump wasn't the only one calling attention to the "problem", there was this guy named Bernie.
So stop with the bullshit. It makes me wonder why?
I know why, it's because Trump is perceived to be the enemy of their enemy, the "Deep State" (background music please). So they do all they can to justify their hopes in a sociopathic bilionaire republican president. I've followed Paul Craig Roberts (PCR) for years now and generally agree with his views. He's even a 9/11 Truther, right on. It is true the Deep State has been doing it's best to sabotage/control Trump's presidency and influence foreign and economic policy. So what else is new? Why do you think they call it the Deep State? But with Trump, they're believing his lies that he wants to clean the swamp, challenge the deep state. I saw one article today from a prominent left alternative writer who claimed Trump is just waiting for the right timing to "drain the swamp". Like Obama's thirteen dimensional chess approach we heard so often in his early months. Like Chomsky and Zinn giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, like maybe he too would take on the Deep State.
Or maybe they really believe it, still, that Trump does want to drain the swamp and give power to the people. The most some will say is that some of his early actions and decisions worry them or have them concerned. Maybe Trump . . . lied? Maybe he's just a big fucking liar just like Obama, just like Bush and just like Clinton? Could it be? We'll see what happens next they say, it always put off until the next thing.
No man, it sounded too good, his words were too right. It's the Deep State, not Trump. And look, they're coming after him, that means it's true.
They're still holding out hope even after Trump has pledged to build the biggest military in the entire universe and greatly increase the war budget, even after stating he wants a nuclear arms race, that he supports NATO, that Russia stole Crimea, that China is evil, that torture is good, that he wants to build a wall around the country, that he wants to expand the war OF terror and the war on drugs, that he wants to "restore law and order", i.e., increase the police state, that he wants to cut taxes for the rich and corporations, deregulate corporations and banks, replace Obamacare with something he can't define, and generally make all hell break loose. Even after he hired who he hired.
He has said and done all that and yet those that seemingly should know better on the left and in libertarian land still think he should be not only given the benefit of the doubt, but SUPPORTED, because HE is fighting the deep state and the deep state is fighting him. Like somehow this has got to be beneficial to the common people, the working class, the so called 99%, because he's against the Deep State and so are we.
Well, it's only been close to 50 days (50 days?) so it's still early, even though it's late if you know what I mean (Lee Michaels, I'll play that in a minute). I have seen a shift from near full on support for Trump vs. the Deep State, to a tenuous and fading connection with a mental prepping for the inevitable. But it's still largely about Trump caving, the Deep State got to him, not about him lying his ass off the whole time. That probably won't change much.
"You see, we keep electing these fantasticly virtuous people for president and BAM!, as soon as they move into the White House, the Deep State gets to them and it's all over but the shouting. They do the best they can, really they do."
Right.
The fight is against the entire ruling class, the oligarchy and plutocracy, unregulated capitalism, imperialism, the deep state, and the duopoly political system that enables all of it. Trump is one of THEM no matter how you paint it. Getting too caught up in this ruling class gang fight is not only useless but it indicates a lack of progress on the revolution front. We need to up our game.
Comments
Um, yeah,
I'm gonna have to uh, agree with you there...he's been kinda flakey.
[In my best Lumbergh impersonation, though I did change his words
]
You're overlooking the HER factor,
and I'm surprised at you for that. HER was so appallingly awful that anybody the (R) party put up was likely to win. But of course the Establishment doesn't want anyone to look closely at - or even think about - that. Not with another prospective run (or hobble) coming up in 2020!
Ergo, all the fancy scenarios to distract the public from just how badly HER stank and tanked.
NB: After July 2016 there was only one candidate remaining who was calling attention to the dispossession of Americans by the Corporate State. HER had robbed and squelched Bernie, and anything he said was from the sidelines - he was no longer a factor.
Also, if we don't up our game, 2020 will be more of the same and worse.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
^^ This ^^
::
Seriously, Al. You don't need to push back to diminish Trump voters. Nobody is enshrining them. Nobody sensible thinks that "democracy" occurred in the US.
There were two Party-Establishment Outsiders in the 2016 elections — Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
They were each elevated into winning positions by a gigantic wave of voters who were disenfranchised or jettisoned by the the two major Parties. When Bernie left the race, his wave crashed and they were sucked back out to sea, where they disengaged again. If Trump had left the race, the same thing would have happened to his wave.
This mood was (and still is) usurping elections and referendums all over the world. The people of the world have become restive and anti-status quo.
Establishment governments everywhere are pushing back with bizarre distractions; a new one every day. But it is what it is. Dare I say it?
Burn it down.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Not getting why Clinton is a factor in what I wrote.
If I may:
Trump voters didn't give you President Trump.
Hillary did.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I must have screwed this one up because that's not what
I thought I said. Say La Vee.
uh oh. I better look again.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
That's OK Pluto
I'm not sure what I was getting at now anyway. Just a rant. I'm already starting a new one, about the republican proposal for "health" care. We should talk about that, it's a big deal because it really, really sucks.
You're on fire.
And I like it.
Rant away.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
It's a good rant
I think a lot of people feel dispossessed, especially Bernie supporters, who were probably treated the worst. I'm hoping that means that lots of people are forming ideas in their heads about their own individual actions to get change. The planning in everybody's head, should show results soon, so that hopefully we will see all sorts of creative and effective mass actions, initiated by individuals and picked up by everybody else. I wonder what plans people here have been making. I know Steven D is running for President, which is awesome. I'm interested in alternatives to an internet that is controlled by big, corporate gatekeepers. I'm also interested in helping make a website that funds and facilitates popular, grassroots actions and responses. I'm also going to try to move into the solar energy field for employment.
Beware the bullshit factories.
@TheOtherMaven and then there's the Pied
and then there's the Pied Piper strategy. Look, the Deep State wanted Hillary. They took her--and her political machine's--advice on how to get her an easy win. It was a dumbass idea and it exploded in their faces, and now they're pouring the propaganda on thick and fast to try and corral people's wandering perceptions back into the veal pen.
Donald Trump is a comparatively small part of all of this. The only thing interesting about him is that he decided, somewhat vaingloriously, to stick around when he saw he could actually become President--and he seems to have a genuine interest in not blowing Russia up so that people can make money off their resources and poison the planet some more instead.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I disagree somewhat.
The deep state is fairly vast. They often collaborate. Wall Street with the politicos. Military with the spooks, education with corporations. These are some of our smartest people. They've seen a lot they have access to the big data, big iron (super computers) algorithmic modeling. And the other big iron, military materiel. They run they own it. As an aside I've always said that Hillary was the deep state candidate. trump not so much. He's from the hookers and blow Wall Street side of the deep state. Although recent revelations suggest he has more affinity to the criminal deep state, dark pools, money laundering, crooked money foreigners, etc. after all gold is his color, not a coinkydink. The deep state runs us, they have the experience, and they are if amoral in some cases at least they are generally competent. Nonmenklatura the soviets called them. Sure they are going to co op Trump. It's what they do. Look these people have seen the future or at least doped out the event horizon. We are in endgame. The deep state sees it. Around the world it is self evident. resource grabs, exponential debt build up, low level military dust ups., pissed off people. Watch the Norks go down in next 2 years,( don't worry .china with step in.) Egypt going to flair up, Euro area fragment. Two big ones on the Middle East. KSA and Iran will have problems.
This has always been going on. You say.. No this time it's different. Over-population, resource depletion, and climate change makes it different. It will start in China or Japan in the financial markets. Or maybe in France if Marine wins.
I'm mailing a question
to all my state Superdelegates. "Who have you chosen to throw your support behind in 2020?.
Just to let them know, I fucking remember.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
If the choices are Trump is bad OR the Deep State is bad
there's no way to choose accurately. Which may be the point, I guess. Someone's gone to some trouble to create a dichotomous choice neither side of which is true; that way, no matter which choice we make, we'll be wrong, and we can spend a lot of time arguing about it and end up wrong regardless.
Having said that, there are very few people, at least on here--maybe 2 of the people who've been talking on here since Dec--that think Trump is good and Deep State is bad. There are a lot of people on here who think Trump is bad and the Deep State is worse. There's also a lot of people who think both are equally bad.
Here's the extent to which I "side" with Trump: I would prefer that he stay in office, and that he continue to push back against this war with Russia, even though the only reason he's doing it is so that he and Rex Tillerson can make a lot of money on Russian oil deals. Oh, and the fact that, in my estimation, Donald Trump likes the world just fine as is, and would see no reason to rock the boat with a nuclear war. (Endless war, yes. Nuclear war, probably not.)
Sorry, but the one evil bad guy who probably doesn't want a shooting war between superpowers is better than the whole machine of evil bad guys who, apparently, want that shooting war a lot.
But none of that means that either side here is good. I don't know why that's such a hard pill to swallow; after all, Stalin and Hitler were enemies. Neither of them was good.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Yep
Yes, fully agreed.
Trump's election managed to torpedo the TPP and the other two trade deals that were in the works. For that, I'll always be thankful, because those were poised to give corporations legal authority over a lot of what we can do (free speech, for instance), bypass our courts, ship even more jobs overseas and kill the American middle class even more quickly. HRC basically helped write the TPP, supported it for a very long time, and her "switch" against it was, in my estimation, an attempt to appease the left into voting for her. She would have made it happen.
Also, the Deep State is and has been prepping the country for a war against Russia. Lots of money to be made there! HRC was all for that. Trump seems to be looking to attack Iran. If I had to choose, I'd rather provoke a war against Iran than against Russia--although, like the Hitler/Stalin choice above, I'd rather have neither.
Otherwise, Trump has made awful choices so far and will likely be considered one of our worst presidents of all time. He's really, really bad. But, actually, I'm not sure that Pence wouldn't be worse. If the Deep State is trying to get rid of Trump, we'll end up with Pence, and that might actually end up being a worse thing than Trump. Not really sure.
@apenultimate Pence will be
Pence will be everything Trump is, except he believes his beliefs are God-given. And I bet, given that his treasure is in heaven, and he thinks he'll get it faster if the world is destroyed (Dominionist), that he'd be more likely to give the Deep State the nuclear war they seem to want.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Yeah, well:
"You see, we keep electing these fantastically virtuous people for president and BAM!, as soon as they move into the White House, the Deep State gets to them and it's all over but the shouting. They do the best they can, really they do."
If we ever did elect fanatastically virtuous people, I'm sure the Deep State would get to them, unless they were prepared more or less like agents themselves--unless they were people who were prepared to die and who had few human ties that could be used to blackmail them.
But we don't elect fantastically virtuous people; we don't even elect decent people (and that's assuming you believe we actually elect anybody). Obviously, the system is quite well rigged to discourage electing any such thing.
However, that begs the question of why you think we ought to focus on the individual bad characters of politicians when clearly the problem is systemic.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What is the last election you recall
...when the Deep State didn't have a compliant candidate on both sides of the race?
When have Americans ever asked why they were fighting communism, with guns no less? Did they ever question why they hated Russians, with whom they had no contact? When was the last time Americans weren't jerked around by these embedded phobias?
But such questions just take us deeper into the weeds. Your question goes to the core:
I can't spot a fantastically virtuous person. I'm not sure what that looks like. But I can hear intellectual dishonesty a mile away. Until this year, I never realized that intellectual dishonesty wasn't obvious to everyone. I am both astonished and much relieved.
No matter how painful the words are, I would always vote for intellectual honesty. I think I might even end up with virtue. Bernie really brought the intellectual honesty in a way I haven't seen before. But I immediately noticed he would not bring it to the one place where the Deep State lived: America's doomsday war for Empire. That suggests to me that the only way out for the American People may be through the door marked, "Failed State."
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
@Pluto's Republic No matter how painful
No matter how painful the words are, I would always vote for intellectual honesty. I think I might even end up with virtue. Bernie really brought the intellectual honesty in a way I haven't seen before.
I don't know if Bernie is exactly unique, even in American politics, but you just described the reason I returned to the Democratic party last year and cast a vote. I saw a man telling the truth; I couldn't leave him hanging.
That won't work on me again.
Once he left me hanging, for whatever reason, I decided not to work through a DC politician or a duopoly party any more. That's final.
The Democrats have played all their cards but two, and I'm not dumb enough to come back again for another round of the same thing because Tulsi Gabbard and Nina Turner are still in the party.
Now I need both the truth (you and I are alike in that) and a trustworthy source, since liars are capable of using the truth like I might put cheese in a mousetrap.
It's uncomfortable for me, because I don't like making my decisions based on the source of the message; I don't like personality-based political decisions, or character-based ones; I like evidence-based decisions, impersonal. However, I'm not a fool. If five separate people at separate times drink from the same well and fall to the ground clutching their throats as green foam comes out of their mouths and bright purple spots erupt over the bodies, I have to conclude that that well is a bad idea and I probably want to avoid anything that comes out of it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Little quote from the book Experiences in Groups
"It is almost as if human beings were aware of the painful and often fatal consequences of having to act without an adequate grsp of reality, and therefore were aware of the need for truth as a criterion in the evaluation of their findings." (p. 100)
@Pluto's Republic The Americans who ask
The Americans who ask questions like "why should we fight communism" are not heard or represented, in media or politics. That doesn't mean they don't exist. Our communications web, most of it, is like amber hardening around us. It keeps us from seeing each other. That's why I'm still posting here; it's one of the few places where it's possible to see and hear some other people who aren't marching to the beat of the current propaganda drum.
But if Americans can't see each other, then there's no way people overseas will be able to see us.
One of the things which is remarkable is that we're all able to snap back in our minds to the assumptions that Americans who ask these questions don't exist, or that they are an incredibly tiny number, even when there's been evidence that that isn't true.
On the other hand, and in support of your point, the current propaganda seems to be working really well. I think some Americans' minds have broken under the strain of the constant blitzkrieg, political, social, moral, and economic, of the past 40 years.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
On Broken Minds….
The self-reinforcing collective mind was broken, for sure. I pinpoint it back to around 1972. It must have been a terrible thing; the collective mind dropped into a coma.
I struggle with this intellectual loneliness. Most of the Winstons* do. [*Protagonist from Orwell's 1984.] When you watch the smartest people of the generations finally succumb to the brainwashing and slip beneath the dark waters and you know they're gone forever — it is so sad. Losing Bill Moyers like that hit me hardest. But the Millennials are thankfully immune. They never lived on this planet before there were computers for source analysis and fact checking; their filters protected them from the Deep State propaganda.
No doubt, the other shoe will drop when President Big Brother comes up with the new slogan, "Making America Safe Again" and the gate slams shut, locking us in. The world will sort it out.
The funny thing about Americans is that they've always had the right stuff locked inside. It's been there for half a century, untapped and unexpressed.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Excellent comment, Pluto.
"Intellectual loneliness" goes to the heart of it, I think.
As you say, too many in the media have crumbled when really put to the test, people we've known and trusted for so many years, as in the case of dear Bill Moyers. Everyone freaked and lost their rational senses when Drumpf won. So many friends have lost their ability to think rationally and critically. Reminds me of the meltdown of fear and panic after 9/11 in some ways.
Propaganda and the dissemination of what we think is "news" is the fulcrum. To start with, people have to turn off all corporate mainstream media if we're ever going to get anywhere.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
It's possible that Trump might do just that -
lead us right into the "failed State" option. I can think of a number of scenarios where that might at least begin to happen. Had Clinton been elected, disintegration would have been much less likely. Trump's presidency is now, and will continue to be a destabilizing factor. For one thing, he is not himself a psychologically stable person. He tends to act impulsively and instinctively, more often than coolly and rationally. It's a pronounced characteristic of his, making it difficult for anyone to gauge the range of what he might possibly do. It casts everyone's future into some degree of doubt, and puts people on edge.
And he has initiated a battle royal with the Deep State, which is no small matter, and he does command a great deal of very passionate support from the populist Right. This support is downplayed by the msm, but given a crisis situation it could conceivably erupt into widespread civil disobedience. And how would TPTB react to that?
Add to these factors the very real possibility of military engagements with either Russia or China or Iran, and the domestic conflicts that these wars would inevitably inspire. The situation as a whole is extremely volatile. With an erratic oddball CiC like Trump calling the shots, and the US public being as ideologically divided as it now is, and both political Parties in utter disarray, almost anything is possible...anything except stability.
native
The world is already performing a post mortem on the US
I personally believe the absurd US attack on Afghanistan was the last nail in the Failed State coffin for the US. Like lemmings, the Americans lurched off in the footsteps of the Soviet Union and other great Empires who go to Afghanistan to die.
The US as a failed state has been much discussed in recent months. For example, Stanford's Institute of International Studies:
The American people are always the last to know. It happens in just a matter of hours. But the rest of the world is preparing as best they can. They started preparing several years ago for the inevitable. Trump's victory was certainly no surprise to anyone..
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
As usual, the great sage Carlin nailed this one.
We reap what we sow. Education system is an indoctrination center, consumerism is our religion and everyone thinks they're one lottery ticket from becoming a millionaire, which they've been sold as the "American Dream."
The virtuous people for the most part are outside of politics, doing the hard day in and day out work of mending communities, caring for the unhealthy and oppressed, feeding the hungry and assisting the overwhelmed ground up in the ever-churning merciless grinder of unbridled capitalism. They're not coddled, suit-wearing, glad-handing phonies dialing for dollars all day and getting shuttled in in the back of black SUV's to make public relations appearances.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Is that what I do CSTS?
Is that what I do CSTS? "focus on the bad characters?"
I guess you're right. I've been uneasy about writing lately, thinking I'm just saying the same old shit day after day.
You're right, time for something new.
@Big Al On occasion, you focus
On occasion, you focus on the bad characters. In this essay, you do. I'm just not sure why we're debating whether Trump or the CIA is worse. I'm on the other side of that debate from you, at least that's what this essay seems to indicate, but why is that even the discussion we're having?
Does it matter if dfarrah thinks Trump could be a good guy? You know that sooner or later, every wart Trump has will be visible--in this case it will be sooner, because the CIA will helpfully illuminate most of them. Not all of them--that's why their discussion of so-called election rigging is so distorted and strange; they don't want to point out Trump's warts in such a way that the establishment's warts will show up too. But seriously, if you're worried about people idealizing politicians, or putting their faith in bad characters, I'd say worry more about Tulsi Gabbard and Nina Turner--not because I know them to be bad characters, but because they are trusted leaders who are working within the system, which means that eventually they will inevitably betray the people. Well, OK, they will either betray the people or leave the system; my bet is on betrayal.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ouch!
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
@Pluto's Republic It's not because
It's not because they're evil; it's because eventually, they will either do evil things or be spat out of the system. The system will refuse to tolerate them.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Pluto and CSTS, gotta match?
This whole thing is ready to blow. While most of the vocal people still think that Medusa was God's gift to this planet or that Donald "drain-the-swamp" Trump is, as has been well-explained by Big Al, only about half of the citizenry cared even enough to attend the 2016 Charade called Presidential election. The non-vocal so far segment is suffering in silence whether due to learned helplessness or Stockholm syndrome. There is a limit to how much marginalization these people will be willing to accept. Many people have been squeezed so slowly that they don't really how squeezed and screwed they really are. But there is a limit. There is always a limit. My feeling is that the as yet unseen limit is quite a bit closer than most believe.
The best outcome of Trump vs. the Deep State is that they will wound each other sufficiently by fighting themselves, that an an energized, hopefully peaceful revolt, can occur. This assumes that Trump has not been assimilated into the Clinton-Soros Deep State faction. Who knows, maybe his love for gold does not include radioactive gold.
"Blood is thicker than water and freedom is thicker than both...
We can all die by our own point of view"
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-oA9w5OE-4]
@Alligator Ed I think Trump WAS part of
I think Trump WAS part of that Clinton/Bush faction, and then got a little greedy, because she flubbed her part so badly.
Or put it this way: she was the one who was supposed to go over, to win the pro wrestling match. But she flubbed her moves so terribly, the crowd turned on her to such an extent, that Trump had the chance to win the wrestling match, which he was booked to lose. Trump freelanced and didn't job to her like he was supposed to. He took the win. That gave the company (heh) a result they hadn't counted on and weren't looking for. So now they want him out of the company, but they need to do it in a way which will maintain the illusion that there was a real fight going on. They can't just fire him, otherwise that will reveal the predetermined nature of the whole thing...it would be funny, if it weren't so unbearably horrible.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Trump Oligarch, ex democrat, now Republican. Following exactly
what Republicans have wanted to do for decades. The outsider thing is utter baloney they just found a better showman, confuse and distract, divide and conquer. The duopoly is just fine and dandy.
Sorry, but the dispossessed are a big part of the 99%
I'm sorry to disagree sharply, but I grew up in western PA where the dispossession of the working class was initiated with the export of the steel industry -- a decision taken by corporate executives who decided to permanently bust the steelworkers' union. The devastation in those communities over the past 40 years is difficult to explain -- especially if you haven't grown up in communities that were once thriving and are now devastated ghosts of what they once were. You are omitting critical steps in the transformation of these communities to Trumpites. If those communities have become 'regular Republicans,' (which I radically disagree with) ask what the Dems have done to cause that. The 'Trump revolution' was qualitatively different than anything that's happened before -- and it is the parallel phenomenon, on the Right, of the Bernie phenomenon on the Left. People are fed up and want fundamental change. Some moved Right because they have bought into the narratives of hate, fear and the demonization of the other. Some moved Left, but the Democratic Party stuffed their candidate. There are no "regular Republicans" here. And many who voted for Trump were historically the bedrock of the Democratic party. I agree with the comments about Her, but she merely represented the consolidation of the alliance between the neoliberals, the MIC and the Deep State. For those who were traditionally deeply committed to what they believed was the support of the Dems for working people and who have observed the lies and betrayals of the Clinton/Obama takeover of a party that used to be something they felt ownership in, the move rightward has been fueled by the Breitbarts and Pittsburgh's Tribune Reviews (owned by the Scaife family). If we continue to refer to said dispossessed voters as "them," as "regular Republicans," as deplorables, then we have no chance to build a united front of people whose interests are not those of the Breitbart and Her. You're way off here and misreading the class character of the demand for fundamental change. The failure not only of the Left but also of the progressive forces within the Democratic Party has left us debating whether to support Hitler or Stalin. A shallow analysis of the class basis of what's happened only aggravates the problems and participates in the same erroneous view of current history that has brought us to this stage in the first place. Go talk to some of those dispossessed people. Don't know which ones you're referring to, but did you see the thousands and thousands of signs for Trump in working class communities that were always the mainstay of the Democratic vote? You're using the two-party system, the Duopoly to explain a phenomenon that is much deeper than that. This is the caucus of the 99% -- not the portion of the 99% that didn't vote for Trump.
So often we all are missing the real issue
and I completely agree with your comment and assessment, particularly this.
Whenever we allow ourselves to fall into the duopoly or into the personality issues of the politicians, we will never be able to unite against what is the real evil, the neoliberal oligarchy and those who promote it. Divide and conquer is exactly what they are counting on because it has worked in the past, but it only works if we let it.
It is very important to try to focus upon what benefits the vast majority of people. In order to do that, we must keep the lines of communication open. We do not have to agree on everything in order to form the alliances we need to fight the neoliberal oligarchy.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Excellent comment, ms. didi.
Observed similar things in PA re: economic displacement and inequality, whenever I've traveled through in the past decade or so. It's all over the country really. All those new gleaming banks, monopoly big box stores and spruced up franchise chains filling our Main St's are all a red herring cover-up for the devastation wrought by the Economic Terrorists of Wall St and Corporate America. Shut up and take your minimum wage McJob and be lucky enough to get cheap groceries at Wal Mart or CVS, can only last so long.
The silver lining in all of this is that when the majority of Trump voters invariably realize they've been duped with this repellent, bigoted, snakeoil salesmen, reality tv star "businessman," there will be possibly the best opportunity we've ever had to coalesce a genuine movement of the 99% outside of the charade of the two-party system.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
So you think I'm wrong, that Trump was elected by the
"working class" as PCR puts it?
That's fine, all I'm saying is I consider myself working class, my kids and friends are working class and none of us voted for Trump. And I'd wager there are far more of the working class in this country that did not vote for Trump than did.
Relative to the 99%, there's not going to be any agreement among the 99% on anything and those of us interested in saving the planet and the human race from the plutocracies and right wing ideologies are going to have to battle (don't accuse me of violence because that's not what I'm referring to there) those with different ideologies, like those that want to build a wall to keep people out (or in).
And I know a lot of dispossessed here in Washington State. The way I define the term, it's not limited to those in the steel belt who lost their manufacturing jobs. How about Native Americans, talk about dispossessed. I'd consider the bottom 60% of the country effectively dispossessed.
It's a class issue,& the desperate can go Right as well as Left
Sneering at "Deplorables"" or "White Trash" (who quite reasonably rejected Hillary) isn't going to pull anyone Left. It's just more of the classism/elitism that is destroying us and driving our people to desperation. That lack of empathy will just infuriate people and drive them to any other option. Didn't work so well for Hillary, did it?
Incidentally, 62% of those polled recently said that they wouldn't have $500 for an emergency without borrowing if or selling something. The poor are not only the uneducated these days; it's creeping up on all of us.
Are you directing that at me?
I'm directing it at the discussion of the issues
I agree with you 100% and like others across the Country
I can offer up my own anecdote of the City I grew up in, Fort Worth Tx, aka Cowtown which voted big time for Trump.
The story is virtually the same in different parts of the City but I'll use the southside of Town along Hemphill St. (major hemp growing area for WW2 rope) where Texas Steel, American Manufacturing(where my late Step father worked 29 years before it suddenly shut down) and numerous other manufacturing businesses and support businesses thrived big time.
Almost all the houses in that area were occupied by the workers and their families and there were bars, pool rooms, Movie theaters, restaurants, gas stations, a big Mall and assorted stores up and down Hemphill. On a Friday, payday, night it was almost a traffic jam of activity, people spending money right and left. Avery active area and one continually represented in the City Council by Democrats and FDR was still a good memory for many.
Now the area has a couple of small dive Bars,(drugs and crime a big problem) a small family run Mexican food restaurant, empty buildings warehouses and other long closed stores. That big Mall is a collection of empty stores,the Movie Theater is long gone and the neighborhood is full of empty houses (built in the 1950's) and the area looks a City version of the town in the movie 'The Last Picture Show'.
Oh yeah Democrats no longer get elected and Trump signs were all over the place. BUT if you sit in one of the dives, drink beer and talk with 'the deplorables', as I have, you find a LOT of agreement about the problems with the only stumbling block usually being about where the blame belongs, which PARTY bears the brunt of the responsibility.
The Democratic Party deserves all the blame it gets from them mainly because they brought the 'good times' but very clearly are the ones that took it away, their fingerprints are all over it all from good to terrible. In fact a lot of Republican support comes from anger at the Dems but very few of them have anything good to say about the Republican Party as well.
I went on too long but I gotta add there are a LOT of good people there and when respectfully treated a lot of common ground was found, which is something Bernie Sanders talked about and fwiw a number of the LIKED Bernie Sanders but the distaste for Hillary was palpable.
Thanks for the birdseye view from Ft. Worth
Great comment.
I think the more folks share firsthand observations like yours, the more likely we are to understand just how widespread and deep this economic crisis is. And the closer we'll get to forging a real movement borne out of this recognition.
For one thing, the media has completely shirked their journalistic integrity, by not reflecting back to us our own personal economic dilemmas as "news." When it's all celebrity gossip, manufactured controversy and fear propaganda, people begin to both distrust their own senses about what they're enduring, which leads to shame, humiliation and apathy, and then get frustrated with no being able to identify the cause of that malaise.
Most important takeaway, to me, is we begin to see the power of these stories, and potentially as a "people's news" citizen journalism. At the same time, and the linchpin for something like that to succeed, we must implore folks to completely and utterly get rid of all mainstream news media. It has such a ruinous effect and is probably the main cause in preventing the 99% from coalescing into a serious movement.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Oh, Trump totally lied.
Thanks Obama!
He did after all, set the precedent for completely doing a 180 immediately after the election to the policies of the MIC.
Here on, we have to assume that anybody who gains actual power is going to be coerced into following the agenda. The agenda being of course, global hegemony and dominance.
I was joking with my SO, that I'm far more British in mentality than American, even after my time in the trenches. I have a nasty tendency to respect "my betters", I apologize for everything, and I believe that Empire is the domain of fools and the ignorant. I honestly feel that the problem with the American ruling class is that we don't acknowledge it exists, therefore freeing them from all responsibility to those they exercise power over.
A bad king is a king who dies at the hands of those he abuses. A bad president... is praised by those that he abuses.
I'd rather have a bad king.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
"the problem is not admitting the ruling class exists"
Science philosopher Karl Popper framed the dilemma so well:
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Didn't Bernie steer well clear of foreign policy issues for the
most part? I'm beginning to believe that Bernie, with his long tenure in both meat markets, the House and Senate, understood very well the compromises he would have to make. He knew it would be futile to go against those that control the hidden levers of real power in the US should he become President. As a long standing Independent, he would have been attacked from the left and the right as well as from above and below. He had little connection to the enablers of those that control those levers - he had been too honest to play their games over the years.
Bernie also knew he could not be a front man like Obama and allow his image to conceal and mislead what the true contents of the box was. The Clintons, being part and parcel of the contents, knew full well how the product was to be marketed. Remember when Her made the remark about having a public position and a private position? Her knows full well how to sell "shit-on-a-stick". Just cover it in sauce, freeze it solid, put it in a fancy box with Her face on the lid and say cook from frozen. If there's enough sauce, the rubes will eat it.
The main reason for Bernie's popularity is because he was not part of the Kabuki that is the American oligarch duopoly that runs this country. The one thing that Trump has done is to rip down part of the curtain and expose the machination that goes on behind the scenes. We can now see them running around with sheets, trying to cover up the machinery, until they can get the curtains repaired.
Bernie Sanders did not have the chance of a snowball in hell of becoming a successful president. He wanted something for the people that the power structure is not willing to grant - short of an outright revolution.
How do you square your
assertion that the dispossessed had little to do with Trump's win with the data that shows voters swung from Obama to Trump in various counties and that gap between the dem and repub vote was reduced compared to Obama in some counties? How do you explain two states going from reliably dem to repub?
I thought the narrative you hate,
I hate the narrative that "the people" elected Donald Trump because they were tired of the status quo, that those who voted for him were those most affected by the jobs leaving the country, the white poor from the rust belt and rural areas, the "working class", the "99%".
was based on some solid evidence.
dfarrah
There were over 62 million that voted for Trump
not just those in a few counties. Blacks and Hispanics also have large percentage belonging to the working class and they largely did not back Trump and aren't traditional republican voters.
"In the end, according to exit polls, the election result seems to have been more about the clear backing of America’s white and wealthy voters for Donald Trump – including white graduates, and white female voters.
Far from being purely a revolt by poorer whites left behind by globalisation, who did indeed turn out in greater numbers for the Republican candidate than in 2012, Trump’s victory also relied on the support of the middle-class, the better-educated and the well-off.
Of the one in three Americans who earn less than $50,000 a year, a majority voted for Clinton. A majority of those who earn more backed Trump."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/white-voters-victory-don...
Okay.....
I guess I've read contradictory data.
dfarrah
could it be "trickle down"
is now "trickling up"?
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
You can't analyze the election outcome using raw numbers
You must factor in the Electoral Collage and look at the demographics of the red-blue maps.
Otherwise, Hillary wins and the argument evaporates.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Trump isn't some big
Trump isn't some big phenomenon. He got 45.9% of the popular vote, comfortably below the 46.2% that I predicted 10 years ago (in case you're interested, the cap for the Republicans in 2020 is 44.6%). The anomaly was that Clinton managed to lose.
So we've got some factional infighting. I find it hard to care. Trump is an amateur, with few allies, and other than cutting taxes he won't accomplish much - they'll keep him tied in knots. Definitely a one term wonder, if he manages to make it through one term.
EDIT: Oops, was replying to the main post. I still haven't got the hang of the new format.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
asdf
I hate the narrative that "the people" elected Donald Trump because they were tired of the status quo, that those who voted for him were those most affected by the jobs leaving the country, the white poor from the rust belt and rural areas, the "working class", the "99%".
Here's what's accurate:
Some of "the people" elected Donald Trump because they were tired of the status quo; part of the "white poor from the rust belt and rural areas" voted for him; part of the "99%" elected him. It was mainly that part of the 99% who are conservative, but also included a small percentage of those who had been hurt so badly by the Clinton machine during the primaries that they wanted to do whatever they could to hurt the machine which had so clearly identified itself as their enemy. If a boot can consider an ant an enemy.
Most of the disenfranchised went to Trump, to Stein, to Gary Johnson, to voting everywhere but the top line, and to their couches. Not in that order. If I were going to guess, I'd say the right order, from largest percentage to smallest, would go something like this:
Couches
Downballot only
Trump
Johnson
Stein
Some of the disenfranchised voted for Hillary because Stockholm Syndrome is a thing. Or because they embraced the kryptonite that racism has become for the white left. (Want to disable the white left, immediately and permanently? Accuse them of racism for not supporting an establishment politician or cause. Better yet, hire a black person to do so. They'll fall right in line with whatever you want them to support, up to and including nuclear war. Anything to avoid being accused of racism and having it stick. Did you wonder where all those crowds of white people in the streets protesting against Trump came from? That's where they came from. That's why they weren't there after Eric Garner was strangled in a park by three cops, but they are there now. That's why they didn't give a shit about what our intelligence community has been doing to the Muslims who live in this country, nor gave a rat's ass about how we were destroying Muslim countries, but they are there now. Not every individual attended those rallies for a bad reason; many were sincere and well-intentioned. But the numbers are so high because white liberal America needs to distance itself from Trump.)
But back to your comment. What you're really saying is that up vs down is less important than left vs right--in other words, conservatives can't be motivated by economic pain or oppression, and we don't care if they are. The other part of what you're saying is that Donald Trump is a liar. Well, yes, he pretty much is.
But what's really happening is that we're replaying political narratives from earlier this century. This time, the left, or at least the liberals, get to play the role the right wing once played, a kind of combination of Chicken Little and Job's messenger, and instead of the Twin Towers falling, the catastrophic crystallizing event is the election of Trump. While the left, or at least the liberals, shriek in the streets about how the catastrophic crystallizing event Changes Everything, the right is gazing dewy-eyed at the Guy Who's Gonna Get In There And Clean House.
Trump is the right's Obama. But unlike Obama, the establishment didn't want him to win. He was working for them, but he's now freelanced beyond his scripted role. They want him out. And they're gonna get him out.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
There's the people who want to fight in the class war
(though "want" may not be quite the right term; I think most of us would have liked to forego it, but we're being blitzed and don't want to just lie here and take it). And there's people who want to fight in the left vs right conflict. It's the same damned quarrel the Boomers were having with their parents, and here we are still stuck in the middle of it.
People are unwilling to change the way they've been thinking about politics and fighting political fights for the last fifty years. They're going to keep doing what they've been doing, occasionally taking a break to ask those who don't agree with their thinking and tactics where their plan is, ignoring the fact that the only person who could have a fully formulated plan for dealing with this monstrous situation would be a person with massive amounts of power at their fingertips. In a situation this asymmetrical, you can't produce a plan quickly, unless you yourself have enough power at your fingertips to successfully oppose the CIA and Wall St and the oil barons, just to mention a few--or unless your plan itself is a lie. We don't currently have the conditions necessary to produce a freedom movement, and we haven't invented the tactics that could preserve such a movement for more than a few months, if we had it.
The situation requires, among other things, a revolutionary level of inventiveness, and people are too exhausted and upset to operate at that level, even if they could, or were willing to try. And not everyone is willing to try. Most people want someone else to be the leader and invent the path for them.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
An excellent comment:
The failure not only of the Left but also of the progressive forces within the Democratic Party has left us debating whether to support Hitler or Stalin.
What we should be looking at, if we're interested in continuing the discussion within a right vs left frame, is how the left was dismantled in this country, what mistakes we made that got us there, and how we should change our assumptions moving forward.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Look at it on the bright side ...
We - the American Voters - get to pick our very own Bogyman/Bogywoman every four years.......isn't Democracy good enough for you?
So this time, it's the Deep State ...!
No. We get to pick our oppressors.
The Deep State picks our boogymen. Beyond that, they have no interest in US domestic affairs.
That's modern American democracy. Apparently it's been good enough for the past fifty years because Americans keep participating in the process.
Americans are the ultimate innocents. They are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling the truth.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Big Al,
I think your essay is one of the best things I've read since November. I don't know if your demographic sense of who voted for Trump is correct or not. But your paragraph defining all the bad things he has done since the inauguration is so powerful and straightforward it eliminates anything I might disagree with.
In response, I can only say I would not have voted for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances because of war, but that I didn't vote for Trump either. However, I was very relieved that he won because she lost and because I hoped that his awfulness would awaken the American people to the precariousness of our foreign policy and the horribleness of our wars. I am amazed at how instantly the liberal community has seemed to come alive to the importance of foreign policy, even if they're delusional about it.
Pretty soon I think they will have to come to grips with the question, if Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea unprovoked, is nuclear war the appropriate response? Maybe someone will explain to them what such a war would be like. Maybe they'll get it that there could be other options. (Maybe they'll even entertain the notion that he was provoked.) But whatever the course of the discussion, at least they're awake. It's as if the spell placed on them by Obama's nice guy quality has worn off.
I say this because the demographic that fights in these wars, the young people who are traumatized, maimed, and abused, are low-income Americans, and their votes come with having seen things that make Trump's sins look like nothing. I think the injustice of war has been a factor in the voting that outweighed any possible support for his policies, such that it was, like so many other things, a vote against her.
Putin "invading" Crimea?
That would be like the US invading Florida. Too bad we can't pound some sense into the broken brains that are misrunning this country.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
@TheOtherMaven A little more like the
A little more like the US invading Puerto Rico, if Puerto Rico were English-speaking.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@TheOtherMaven I mean, if Puerto Rico
I mean, if Puerto Rico were primarily English-speaking. Obviously there's plenty of English spoken in PR; it's been a long (secondary) colonization.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I picked Florida deliberately because
it is 1) a peninsula attached to the United States 2) with a long military tradition (was thinking particularly of the naval base near Jacksonville) 3) including a significant minority of "other-speaking" citizens and 4) with a history of non-US sovereignty (mainly Spanish).
I might, perhaps with more justification, have selected Key West, which staged a successful "secession" of the Grand Fenwick type (make your point and then immediately surrender) - they still, mostly tongue in cheek, celebrate the "independence" of the "Conch Republic" every April 23). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
@TheOtherMaven Wow, you seriously
Wow, you seriously thought that out! Sorry--I should have given my response more thought.
I guess I thought PR because I didn't think Crimea precisely belonged to Russia the way Florida belongs to the United States.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The Crimean population is over 95 percent
…ethnic Russian. They are not Ukrainian and were horrified when the senile Khrushchev attached them to Ukraine territory when they were all part of the Soviet Union.
They do not speak Ukrainian.
They have been suing in the world courts ever since.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato