The populist ethno-nationalists in the Trump White House do not believe in this order. Their
critique — which is simultaneously moral, religious, economic, political and racial — is nicely summarized
in the remarks Steve Bannon made to a Vatican conference in 2014.
Once there was a collection of Judeo-Christian nation-states, Bannon argued, that practiced a humane
form of biblical capitalism and fostered culturally coherent communities. But in the past few decades,
the party of Davos — with its globalism, relativism, pluralism and diversity — has sapped away the moral
foundations of this Judeo-Christian way of life.
Humane capitalism has been replaced by the savage capitalism that brought us the financial crisis.
National democracy has been replaced by a crony-capitalist network of global elites. Traditional virtue
has been replaced by abortion and gay marriage. Sovereign nation-states are being replaced by hapless
multilateral organizations like the E.U.
“I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”
Is this what got Donald Trump elected? Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's selection for White House chief strategist, says he's an "economic nationalist".
Unlike most nationalists he rejects enthonationalism and rasism. In this sense he is closer to
"cultural nationalists". For Bannon Us citizenship is defining feature of "belonging to the club".
For approximately half a year Bannon was the "Make America Great Again" guy in the White House.
Then he was ousted by MIC wing of Trump cabinet.
Economic nationalism includes some key
populist ideas: Jobs, jobs, jobs, infrastructure investments,
immigration limits, rejection of neoliberal globalization (which paradoxically included taxing
transnationals).
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bannon, a former Breitbart News executive, cast himself
as an opponent of "globalism" -- including free trade deals.
"And I have admired nationalist movements throughout the world, have said repeatedly strong nations
make great neighbors. I've also said repeatedly that the ethno-nationalist movement, prominent in Europe,
will change over time. I've never been a supporter of ethno-nationalism."
Bannon has been a target of Democratic criticism since his selection by Trump. Many liberals have
pointed to incendiary Breitbart headlines -- items that mock "trannies," labeled Weekly Standard editor
Bill Kristol a "renegade Jew" and more -- in urging Trump to cut ties with Bannon. He ismissed that criticism, casting it as disappointment from Democrats who expected Trump to lose. "They were ready to coronate Hillary Clinton. That didn't happen, and I'm one of the reasons why.
So, by the way, I wear these attacks as an emblem of pride," he said.
He also cast Breitbart as "edgy" but "vibrant," and said, "Our definition of the alt-right is younger
people who are anti-globalists, very nationalist, terribly anti-establishment."
From Wikipedia
Economic nationalism refers to an ideology favoring policies that emphasize domestic control
of the economy, labor, and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and
other restrictions on the movement of labor, goods and capital. In many cases, economic
nationalists oppose globalization or at least question the benefits of unrestricted free trade.
Economic nationalism may include such doctrines as protectionism, mercantilism, or import
substitution.
U.S. Trade Balance (1895–2015)
Governments have traditionally had a strong interest in preserving their economic, and
therefore political, strength, and have therefore sought to use the tools at their disposal,
particularly tax structure and discretionary spending, to stimulate economic growth. This was
especially true when warfare was endemic in the early-modern period: a strong economy often meant
the difference between political independence, and conquest by a foreign power. This resulted in
the economic system generally known as mercantilism.
The Italian City State of Venice designed its whole economy around expanding its national power.
For example, Venice mandated that all trade carried on Venetian ships must stop in Venice,
regardless of its origin and destination. This guaranteed Venice a bigger share of any profits
made in the spice trade. Although this was less economically efficient, the cost was passed onto
consumers, while Venice benefited from its position as middleman. Venice also only imported raw
materials, leaving the refining and processing to be done by Venetian craftsmen. The success of
this strategy was noted by a prominent Venetian businessman:
Nothing is better to increase and enrich the condition of our city than to give all liberty and
occasion that commodities of our city be brought here and procured here rather than elsewhere,
because this results in advantage both to the state and to private persons.[1]
Great Britain pursued economically nationalistic policies during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. The two pillars of its economic strategy were: (1) high tariff rates and (2) acquiring
new markets for its products. In the mid-1700s, the average tariff rate in Britain was 30%, by
the 1820s it had grown to 57%.[2] This shut out foreign manufactured goods from British markets,
and was one of the primary conditions enabling the Industrial Revolution.
Canada also practiced economic nationalism known as the National Policy Conservative governments
in Canada, such as those of Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Robert Borden, R. B. Bennett, and John
Diefenbaker, were known for supporting an active role for government in the economy of the
creation of government-operated businesses (early Crown Corporations such as the Canadian
National Railway) to develop and protect Canadian industries, protectionist programs such as the
National Policy. It lasted from 1879 until sometime in early 1950s.
Modern examples
Examples of this include Henry Clay's American System, French Dirigisme, Japan's use of MITI to
"pick winners and losers", Malaysia's imposition of currency controls in the wake of the 1997
currency crisis, China's controlled exchange of the yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs
and devaluation in the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to
protect domestic steel production.
As a policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational
outcomes, the following list of would be examples of an economic nationalistic policy, were there
a consistent and rational doctrine associated with each individual protectionist measure:
Proposed takeover of Arcelor (Spain, France and Luxembourg) by Mittal (India).[3]
French governmental listing of Danone (France) as a 'strategic industry' to pre-empt a
potential takeover bid by PepsiCo (USA).[4]
Blocked takeover of Autostrade, an Italian toll-road operator by the Spanish company
Abertis.[5]
Proposed takeover of Endesa (Spain) by E.ON (Germany), and the counter-bid by Gas Natural
(Spain).[6]
Proposed takeover of Suez (France) by Enel (Italy), and the counter-bid by Gaz de France
(France).[7]
United States Congressional opposition to the takeover bid for Unocal (USA) by CNOOC (PR
China), and the subsequent takeover by Chevron (USA).[8]
Political opposition in 2006 to sell port management businesses in six major U.S. seaports
to a company DP World based in the United Arab Emirates
Case of new draft legislation at the beginning of 2007 restricting foreign companies'
access to Russia's natural-resource wealth and selected Russian industries.[9]
The New Zealand Government veto of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's bid for a
majority stake in Auckland Airport in 2008.[10]
The renationalization since 2003 in Argentina of numerous formerly state-owned firms
privatized during the 1990s; some of the most significant firms controlled by foreign
ownership at the time of their renationalization include Aguas Argentinas (the water utility
serving Buenos Aires), Aerolíneas Argentinas, the energy firm YPF,[11] and Metrogas.[12]
Italian ministers Pier Carlo Padoan and Carlo Calenda have criticized French government for
decision to nationalize the STX France shipyards in order to prevent Fincantieri taking
majority control.[13]
The reason for a policy of economic protectionism in the cases above varied from bid to bid,
In the case of Mittal's bid for Arcelor, the primary concerns involved job security for the
Arcelor employees based in France and Luxembourg. The cases of French Suez and Spanish Endesa
involved the desire for respective European governments to create a 'national champion' capable
of competing at both a European and global level. Both the French and US government used national
security as the reason for opposing takeovers of Danone, Unocal, and the bid by DP World for 6 US
ports. In none of the examples given above was the original bid deemed to be against the
interests of competition. In many cases the shareholders supported the foreign bid. For instance
in France after the bid for Suez by Enel was counteracted by the French public energy and gas
company Gaz De France the shareholders of Suez complained and the unions of Gaz De France were in
an uproar because of the privatization of their jobs.
Trumponomics
More recently, the emergence of Trumponomics in the United States in the wake of the United
States presidential election, 2016 was considered by some as a (partial) return to the economic
nationalism of the Theodore Roosevelt Era.[14]
Economic patriotism
Economic patriotism is the coordinated and promoted behaviour of consumers or companies (both
private and public) that consists of favoring the goods or services produced in their country or
in their group of countries. Economic patriotism can be practiced either through demand
stimulation (encouraging consumers to purchase the goods and services of their own country) or
through supply protection, the shielding of the domestic market from foreign competition through
tariffs or quotas (protectionism). A recently emerging form of economic patriotism is financial
protectionism, the hostility against acquisitions by foreign groups of companies considered of
"strategic value"[15] for the economy of the country.
Objectives
The objective is to support economic activity and promote social cohesion. The supporters of
economic patriotism describe it as a kind of self-defence of local economic interests (national
or supranational in case of the countries of the European Union). Some manifestations of economic
patriotism are attempts to block foreign competition or acquisitions of domestic companies. An
often cited example is France, where economic patriotism was the main rationale used in the
Pepsico-Danone, Mittal-Arcelor, and GDF-Suez affairs.
In the United States, an example of economic patriotism would be the numerous bumper stickers:
"Be American, Buy American".
Criticism
Consumer preference for local goods gives local producers more market power, affording them the
ability to lift prices to extract greater profits. Firms that produce locally produced goods can
charge a premium for that good. Consumers who favor products by local producers may end up being
exploited by profit-maximizing local producers.[16] For example; a protectionist policy in
America placed tariffs on foreign cars, giving local producers (Ford and GM market) market power
that allowed them to raise the price of cars, which negatively affected American consumers who
faced fewer choices and higher prices.[17]
Locally produced goods can attract a premium if consumers show a preference towards it, so firms
have an incentive to pass foreign goods off as local goods if foreign goods have cheaper costs of
production than local goods.[16] This is a viable strategy because the line between foreign-made
and locally-made is blurry. However, as supply chains expand globally, the definition of local
goods becomes hazy. For example, while a particular car may be assembled in America, its engine
may be made in another country such as China. Furthermore, while the engine may be made in China,
the engine's components may be imported from several other countries: the pistons may come from
Germany and the spark plugs may come from Mexico. The components that make up the spark plugs and
pistons may come from different countries and so on.
The populist ethno-nationalists in the Trump White House do not believe in this order. Their
critique — which is simultaneously moral, religious, economic, political and racial — is nicely summarized
in the remarks Steve Bannon made to a Vatican conference in 2014.
Once there was a collection of Judeo-Christian nation-states, Bannon argued, that practiced a humane
form of biblical capitalism and fostered culturally coherent communities. But in the past few decades,
the party of Davos — with its globalism, relativism, pluralism and diversity — has sapped away the moral
foundations of this Judeo-Christian way of life.
Humane capitalism has been replaced by the savage capitalism that brought us the financial crisis.
National democracy has been replaced by a crony-capitalist network of global elites. Traditional virtue
has been replaced by abortion and gay marriage. Sovereign nation-states are being replaced by hapless
multilateral organizations like the E.U.
Decadent and enervated, the West lies vulnerable in the face of a confident and convicted Islamofascism,
which is the cosmic threat of our time.
In this view, Putin is a valuable ally precisely because he also seeks to replace the multiracial,
multilingual global order with strong nation-states. Putin ardently defends traditional values. He knows
how to take the fight to radical Islam.
It’s actually interesting to read Donald Trump’s ideologist, Bannon, next to Putin’s ideologist Alexander
Dugin. It’s like going back to the 20th century and reading two versions of Marxism.
One is American Christian and the other orthodox Russian, but both have grandiose, sweeping theories
of world history, both believe we’re in an apocalyptic clash of civilizations, both seamlessly combine
economic, moral and political analysis. Both self-consciously see themselves as part of a loosely affiliated
international populist movement, including the National Front in France, Nigel Farage in Britain and
many others.
Dugin wrote positively about Trump last winter, and Bannon referred to Dugin in his Vatican remarks.
“We must create strategic alliances to overthrow the present order of things,” Dugin has written,
“of which the core could be described as human rights, anti-hierarchy and political correctness — everything
that is the face of the Beast, the Antichrist.”
“We, the Judeo-Christian West, really have to look at what [Putin] is talking about as far as
traditionalism goes,” Bannon said, “particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of
nationalism.”
Last week’s intelligence report on Russian hacking brought the Republican regulars, like John McCain
and Lindsey Graham, into direct conflict with the ethno-nationalist populists. Trump planted himself
firmly in the latter camp, and dragged Fox News and a surprising number of congressional Republicans
with him.
If Trump were as effective as Putin, we’d probably see a radical shift in American grand strategy,
a shift away from the postwar global consensus and toward an alliance with various right-wing populist
movements simmering around the globe.
But Trump is no Putin. Putin is theological and cynical, disciplined and calculating, experienced
and knowledgeable. When Bannon, Michael Flynn and others try to make Trump into a revolutionary foreign
policy president, they will be taking on the entire foreign policy establishment under a leader who
may sympathize with them, but is inattentive, unpredictable and basically uninterested in anything but
his own status at the moment.
I’m personally betting the foreign policy apparatus, including the secretaries of state and defense,
will grind down the populists around Trump. Frictions will explode within the insanely confusing lines
of authority in the White House. Trump will find he likes hanging around the global establishment the
way he liked having the Clintons at his wedding. In office he won’t be able to fixate on ISIS but will
face a blizzard of problems, and thus be dependent on the established institutions.
Garrett Lin, Florida January 10, 2017
Taking Bannon at his word in interviews, his goal for the GOP is not to build a party of 'ethno-nationalism,'
but one of 'economic nationalism,' (read: globally competitive nationalism) rooted in robust economic
growth for all Americans--a true populism inclusive of Americans of all 'identities,' all of whom,
in fact, have a vested interest that the US maintain geopolitical strength enough to match the manufacturing
base of China.
Bannon's "Judeo-Christian West," can be read separately from his 'American Nationalism,' but they
are not entirely exclusive. Bannon knows the US Constitution was a development of Enlightenment-era
ideals of Protestant Western nations, and thus, all Americans who live under this document do, indeed,
share in the heritage of the US as a nation of Western society. That is the connection. Ethnicity
has nothing to do with it.
If Bannon intended to build some sort of (implicitly white) 'ethno-nationalism,' would his campaign
have scheduled the 'Hindu-Americans for Trump' event, which took place last October, as an example?
I think not.
Bannon knows who his audience is. He knows how that provocative headlines raise the hair of moralist
puritans. Of course he knows to emphasize the 'Judeo-Christian' West when addressing the Vatican.
And indeed he also knows that running the United States of America is different than delivering a
keynote to a few priests.
Nothing at all to do with petty value judgments, the relative morality of capitalism, etc.
The Trump administration denounced or threatened trade agreements and "jaw-boned" particular
manufacturers without tangible or lasting results for young workers. It continued drone warfare
and bombing runs, exacerbating refugee problems. Its ham-handed actions relating to visa and
green card holders with vested rights partially wasted its "trump card" on immigration. Its
deregulatory and tax proposals had little appeal to its three new constituencies, and in its
kindness to fund managers, it forgot Bernard De Jouvenel's maxim that "the wealth of merchants
is resented more than the pomp of rulers."
There are still available, either to a Republican Party cleansed of Trump or to the Biden
administration, my 11 proposals of a populist nature, none very expensive. Since the Trump
administration was a milder version of what Hermann Rauschning in the 1930s called "A
Revolution of Nihilism," any effort to enlarge its constituency of malcontents was forsworn.
Accordingly, these ideas are re-tendered:
1. Completely relieving workers under the age of 25 of payroll taxation, as in Germany and
Holland. Over the long term, this would render them the most employed, rather than the most
unemployed, age cohort. Because they make up at most 10 percent of the labor force, and
typically enjoy barely half of average earnings, relieving them of 12.4 percent payroll taxes
would require an increase in general payroll tax rates of, at most, 5 to 10 percent of one
percent.
2. A revived Civilian Conservation Corps, a cause promoted only by Senator Bernie Sanders,
with its focus on low-tech infrastructure projects and services, including such neglected
fields of activity as soil conservation, reforestation, disaster relief, reclamation of
abandoned mine sites, creation of new national parks in Appalachia, hydrology, desert
agriculture, creation of footpaths and youth hostels, and training as practical nurses and
nursing assistants.
3. Making the services of the United States Employment Service, a largely moribund adjunct
of the unemployment system, available to all workers under the age of 25.
4. Tax credits, like those in Germany, Finland, and Japan, to encourage the installation of
second kitchens in owner-occupied housing, thereby fostering the creation of low-cost housing
in the form of accessory apartments, duplex houses, and mother-in-law flats. This is a far more
economical method of generating new low-cost small units than subsidized housing, and
restrictions to owner-occupied homes would eliminate the fears and controversies accompanying
public housing proposals.
5. Limited incentives, in the form of handbooks and nominal tax credits, to foster the
creation of cooperative old-age clubs on the Japanese pattern to assist the elderly in
remaining in their own homes, removing pressures on Medicaid.
6. Promotion of model state and local legislation and tax incentives for the creation of
land readjustment and land assembly districts on the postwar Japanese, Korean, and German
pattern, to foster private redevelopment of blighted urban and inner-suburban areas.
7. Support for a revived TEAM Act providing for the organization of single-plant works
councils, with the authority to negotiate local pay and productivity deals, work rules, and
employee grievances. Legislation to this effect sponsored by the Dunlap Commission appointed by
Labor Secretary Robert Reich and including several former Democratic secretaries of labor was
vetoed by President Clinton at the behest of the United Auto Workers. Since private-sector
union membership has declined by 60 percent since Clinton's veto, even Democratic congressmen
might now support it, to the great benefit of the low-income work force in non-union chain
establishments.
8. An orderly de-criminalization of marijuana on the Canadian pattern, accompanied by an
educational campaign stressing its de-motivating characteristics and enlisting schools and
colleges in its discouragement through selective drug testing, as in the military and adult
work force. This will eliminate nearly a million arrests a year and defund much of the
underworld that is the youth employer of first resort in depressed areas.
9. An effort to revive depressed downtown areas in small towns and cities with incentives
for the creation of Business Improvement Districts, together with enhanced enforcement of
antitrust, predatory pricing, and bribery laws against offending large retailers.
10. Relief for credit unions and community banks from the more oppressive Sarbanes-Oxley and
Dodd-Frank regulations without holding them hostage to secure unjustified deregulation for
larger banks.
11. Grant of work permits to undocumented workers without criminal records and with long
records of American employment upon payment by them, their families, employers, or
philanthropies of large ($5,000) application fees, the proceeds to be dedicated to a fund for
law enforcement, housing, and nurse practitioner programs addressing migration in its Central
American and other source countries. As with women's suffrage prior to 1920, the question of
enfranchisement should be left to the States, pursuant to Article I, Sections 2 and 4 of the
Constitution.
It may be objected that measures to relieve the young are of limited political appeal, since
they do not vote in large numbers. They do not, but their mothers do. And many of the other
measures will provide citizens with a greater sense of control over their own lives.
While much of this agenda may not appeal to gradgrind Republicans who appreciate the price
of everything and the value of nothing, nor to those whose idea of an infrastructure program is
aid to a contracting class and its representatives on K Street, some might be led to follow a
vagrant thought of former speaker Paul Ryan. It will be recalled that he uttered the only
memorable words of the 2012 Republican Convention when he declared that "college graduates
should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at faded Obama
posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life."
George W. Liebmann, a Baltimore lawyer, is the author of various books on public policy and
history, including Solving Problems Without Large Government: Devolution, Fairness, and
Equality (Praeger, 1999), reprinted as Neighborhood Futures (Transaction Books, 2003).
I would modify Item#1 and Item#3 to not just encourage employment for those under 25 but I
would:
1) exclude all (legal, illegal or visa workers from programs to encourage their
employment.
2) such programs should also include the difficult to employ like the disabled
3) such programs should also include the difficult to employ over 50 job seeker.
I especially support Item 4 (small studio apartments or granny flats)
I oppose Item#7 It is much to dangerous for such worker councils to be usurped by our
leftist Marxist woke culture, political activist, social justice, cancel culture, diversity,
inclusivity, cross sectional race theorists, etc. which will translate into a hostile
anti-white, anti-male, anti-Christian, anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-chrildren,
anti-American corporate enforced ideology. If you thought the left's false accusations of
rape on campus and the lefts false accusations of race hatred on campus, it you thought false
accusations of Jesse Smollett in Chicago were an example of ruining an individuals life on
hearsay then wake until these work councils get taken over by leftist activists and watch
what they do to innocent working class employees who just want to do their job but don't
follow the leftist narrative.
I oppose Item#11. We lost 250,000 jobs due to COVID (the chinese bat flu stew). Our
unemployment rate is 6.7%. At the same time we are losing jobs our legal immigration rate is
steady at 1 million per year. No, I do not support illegal immigration, legal immigration,
refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants, temporary work or education visas. No western
nation can continue to relieve the problems of over population by mass immigration. It is not
fair to the citizens of the US or any other western/westernized country.
I don't disagree with very much here though as a practical matter I will point out a
mistaken assumption that seems to underlie #5:
Re: Limited incentives, in the form of handbooks and nominal tax credits, to foster the
creation of cooperative old-age clubs on the Japanese pattern to assist the elderly in
remaining in their own homes, removing pressures on Medicaid.
I assume that is about nursing homes, but those are almost always a last resort when the
patient is so seriously disabled that they cannot possibly live independently and their
medical needs surpass the abilities of family members to care for them.
Also, I don't think that youth unemployment is the big bugaboo with deindustrialization.
Young people are a good deal more flexible, and have fewer financial commitments, than older
people after all. Rather the disemployment of middle aged (and older) blue collar workers is
the larger problem. These people expected to be in the same job (or type of job) for life and
they had the rug pulled out from under them and found themselves with few prospects. Some of
them ended up in low paying service jobs, some lived off a still-employed spouse, some went
on SSDI, and some few even ended up homeless.
Most of these barely sound conservative. One-company workers' councils violate NLRB rules,
for reasons probably having to do with Clinton's veto; these days they would vastly increase
the number of workers in organized setting.
The marijuana suggestion contains bits of the old War on Drugs: forced drug testing of
workers, and propaganda that focuses on marijuana rather than the dangers of any kind of
excess substance use/addiction. *Free employers to pursue a drug-free work place
rather than a drug-free work force. *Any govt-sponsored statements on drugs should be
based on facts and even-handed research, not the whoring that scientists have done for the
last 50 years, and should include the tonic effects of both a mild buzz and deep psychedelic
experience.
As a moderate Democrat, most of these ideas appeal to me. As someone who has paid
attention for decades, I see no chance in hell of any of these things happening [during Biden
administration], especially if proposed by a Democrat. As an optimist, I wish moderate
Republicans could join moderate Democrats in making such things a possibility. As a realist,
I don't think America is capable of solving any problems right now, especially tough ones. As
an American, it saddens me.
Most of the ideas are excellent. I would add much greater funding for vocational education
at the secondary and post-secondary level. Our public schools are far too focused on
preparing students for college with insufficient training for those ill suited for or
uninterested in seeking a university education.
The lack of affordable housing is a major obstacle for twenty somethings to get out of
their childhood home and begin the process of family formation. We need tax incentives to
build limited equity cooperative apartment buildings, resident-owned mobile/modular home
parks and small bungalow-style houses.
I like the proposal for worker councils but employee ownership is an even better idea.
Workers owning a share in their business should be strongly encouraged by public policy at
all levels.
Steve Bannon, Former Senior Trump Advisor, Arrested For Defrauding Trump VotersMark Thomason , Aug 20 2020 16:12 utc |
1
It is likely that U.S. President Donald Trump will soon says that he hardly knew his
former campaign manager and senior advisor Steve Bannon and that he had always suspected that
Bannon was a crook.
Today the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York
announced an indictment against Bannon and others:
Starting in approximately December 2018, BRIAN KOLFAGE, STEPHEN BANNON, ANDREW BADOLATO,
and TIMOTHY SHEA, and others, orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of
donors, including donors in the Southern District of New York, in connection with an online
crowdfunding campaign ultimately known as "We Build The Wall" that raised more than $25
million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States. In particular, to
induce donors to donate to the campaign, KOLFAGE repeatedly and falsely assured the public
that he would "not take a penny in salary or compensation" and that "100% of the funds
raised ... will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose" because, as BANNON
publicly stated, "we're a volunteer organization."
Those representations were false.
The four indicted persons who ran the "We Build The Wall" campaign funneled donations into
their own pockets:
[STEVE] BANNON, through a non-profit organization under his control ("Non-Profit-1"),
received over $1 million from We Build the Wall, at least some of which BANNON used to
cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in BANNON's personal expenses.
Bannon and the other three accused persons are now under arrest.
Interestingly the indictments come from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern
District of New York which in June was involved in a
spat with Trump :
Geoffrey Berman, the powerful U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said
late Friday that he had not resigned after Attorney General William Barr said he would be
stepping down. Barr sent a letter to Berman on Saturday saying he had asked President Trump
to fire Berman, and the president had done so.
"I was surprised and quite disappointed by the press statement you released last night,"
Barr said in a statement. "Because you have declared that you have no intention of
resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so."
Berman's office had investigated some of President Trump's associates, including the
president's former personal attorney Michael Cohen.
There were at that time
several known cases in the Southern District that involved people somewhat associated
with Trump. But it still is not known why exactly Trump intervened in that office.
Could it have been because of the case against Bannon which was not publicly known at that
time?
Probably not. Bannon and the others defrauded people who want to build the wall and are
thereby on Trump's side. Trump is not probably not stupid enough to intervene in such a
case.
Then again ...
The advisory board of We
Build The Wall includes several other pro-Trump figures including mercenary salesman Erik
Prince.
CBS reports that Bannon was
taken into custody by US Postal Inspection Service agents. In the announcement of the
indictment Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New
York, explicitly praises the USPIS for its support. In light of the recent dust up over
alleged Trump moves against the Postal Service that deserves a chuckle.
Bannon had recently worked with the Chinese crook Guo Wengui to build up a media company.
As we noted a year
ago :
A non-profit that "did not pay him" actually paid for services that
benefited him. There was just a nominal cut out between him and the payment by his
non-profit.
Bannon said this was wrong when the Clinton's did it. That is how the money got from their
non-profit Foundation to them, and in much larger amounts than what Bannon took.
Bannon said it was wrong then when the Clinton's did it. Democrats say it is wrong now
when Bannon did it. They are both correct.
Economic self-sufficiency which is also a foundation of REAL national security starts
from industry. No industry--no American nation. Simple as that.
The very idea of an American nation has all but been destroyed. The very people who
built the US have been vilified and many within this group have gone along with it. The
problem is beyond material. America is suffering from a psycho-social ailment. It is at
least 2 or 3 different cultures within the borders of one country. Even if industries were
brought back what purpose would they serve? Hedonism, self-worship, and consumerism are the
new trinity of many within the elite and a great many in the so called middle class. I
doubt economic self-sufficiency is possible let alone long-suffering given the absence of
purpose and meaning in people's lives. The secular reigns supreme over the sacred.
cdvision • 19
hours ago It is practically impossible for the US to recover as a manufacturing nation.
The skills are gone, the education and training has gone, the culture will not accept it,
and anyway it would be massively more expensive than buying superior goods at a cheaper
price - think cars, for example. The US is massively behind the curve; I read recently that
China has more robots producing stuff than the rest of the world combined. And what robots
are working in the US have likely been put in by Daimler or BMW - and be Chinese made
robots.
The US may try and break its dependency on China - say to Vietnam or India - but have
any of those idiots suggesting this been to Vietnam or India. You see an awful lot of
Chinese companies there manufacturing stuff. So changing the Made in China label to Made in
Vietnam label changes nothing.
According to latest stats only 16% of Chinese exports go to the US. If this went to zero
it would be a short term problem for China, but a massive blow for the US. Its not just the
cheap shit that ends up in Walmart, there are few end products that don't have parts made
in China, and realistically changing that is impossible. I keep repeating that all China
has to do is stop exporting to the US and in a week of so the US would be on its knees. Oh,
and its a myth that China is ripping off US IP - maybe in the past, but now the future is
out east. Think 5G; its a given that the countries with the best infrastructure will
prosper.
Vasya Pypkin •
20
hours ago With this elite nothing good is going to happen. So, there must be elites
thinking along Andrei lines, but here comes the question of power. To push measures
necessary to industrialize those new elite must have power and not in a sense like Trump
has or rather not...
Smells like revolutionary coup is needed to safe USA. see more
Steve Bannon is an American Exceptionalist. He argues that USA-style capitalism and Chinese
communism are incompatible systems which cannot "compete" for influence because, to his
thinking, the Chinese model will always "win" (i.e. seem a better system, particularly in
Global south). He advocates first, strict de-coupling; and second, a WW2 level total war with
goal of destroying CCP.
I know people who have taken to Bannon's populist message, but seem to miss the "total
war" part. This is the danger of a USA lurch towards fascism, should such occur as the
coronavirus lockdown proceeds, as a messianic crusade against the Chinese would be a
centrepiece.
This Indian neocon forgets that it was the USA which brought destruction on Syria by unleashing the civil war in order to achieve goals of its Middle East policy.
Fueling money, weapons (from already destructed Libya), and jihadists (financed by Saudi and Golf monarchies.) There are apple
documents about this activities and the amount of foreign mercenaries in ISIS forces. It was
Obama and Hillary who created ISIS.
The fact that Haaretz republished such a weak article, originally published on Jan 24, 2019 on Oct 19, 2019 suggests that
Tulsi has few friends in Israel lobby, which is deepely interested in the USA interventionalist policies in the Middle East.
Notable quotes:
"... Though not of Indian origin, Gabbard has been warmly embraced by pro-Modi elements of the Hindu-American diaspora in the U.S., many of whom came forward and donated generously to her campaign. According to The Intercept , "Nearly one-third of Gabbard's overall donations - $1.24 million - came from more than 800 individual donors with names of Hindu origin, many of whom made repeat donations." ..."
"... Steve Bannon "loves Tulsi Gabbard." He thinks she "gets the foreign policy stuff, the Islamic terrorism stuff ." Tucker Carlson loves her Assad-as-genocidaire skepticism, David Duke loves how she's realigning U.S. politics, and Richard Spencer lauds her "bravery" in the diplomatic field. ..."
"... Bannon was so impressed with Gabbard as a potential ally that as he brokered a meeting between her and the newly-installed President Donald Trump . Tulsi jumped at the opportunity: in her own words , "I walked out thinking that there may be some opportunity to work with this administration to shift our foreign policy in a more positive, less destructive direction." ..."
This article was originally published on 24th January 2019
"For too long, the U.S. has turned a blind eye to the atrocities being committed against civilians in Yemen by the Saudi-U.S.
coalition [a] genocidal war that has killed tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians with bombs and mass starvation, creating the worst
humanitarian crisis in the world The time for crocodile tears and baseless platitudes is over. Enough is enough. The U.S must end
its support for Saudi Arabia and stop waging interventionist wars [unauthorized by Congress] that increase destruction, death and
suffering around the world "
You wouldn't be surprised if this was a speech given by
Vladimir Putin or
Bashar Assad . But this isn't a quote
from the Kremlin or Damascus. It part of a speech by a member of the U.S. Congress who's joined the running to be selected as the
Democratic Party's presidential nominee:
Tulsi Gabbard
.
U.S. politicians criticizing imperialist U.S. foreign policy interventions, this time in the Middle East, and helpfully excluding
other major world powers' own interventions, is exactly the message Russia seeks to amplify through its propaganda channels. On cue,
Russia's 24 hour English news channel, RT, serially
posted Gabbard's video clip on their YouTube
channel with the headline that read: "Speeches that still matter: Rep Gabbard on bringing an end to U.S. interventionism."
Was Gabbard's speech a genuinely passionate plea on humanitarian grounds, to the powers that be, to end the humanitarian crisis
in Yemen? Or was it carefully constructed political opportunism? One clear way to triangulate the authenticity of her call would
be to test how consistently Gabbard has called out state-led humanitarian crises and deaths around the world.
The death and destruction in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere is heartbreaking. It's difficult for any conscientious human being
to be insensitive to grotesque acts of war where civilians are bombed or gassed to death. But what is perplexing is Tulsi's selective
geographic umbrage on this issue.
Hey @realdonaldtrump : being Saudi Arabia's
bitch is not "America First."
On the one hand, she condemns the Saudi-U.S. led coalition as complicit in a genocidal war, but she welcomes India's Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, who has been called the "
man with a massacre on his hands " with open arms.
Some background: In 2002, Modi was chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat when fire broke out in a train full of Hindu
pilgrims. This is how The Guardian's Aditya Chakrabortty describes what followed:
"Within hours and without a shred of evidence, Modi declared that the Pakistani secret services had been to blame; he then had
the charred bodies paraded in the main city of Ahmedabad; and let his own party support a state-wide strike for three days.
"What followed was mass bloodshed: 1,000 dead on official estimates, more than 2,000 by independent tallies. The vast majority
of those who died were Muslim. Mobs of men dragged women and young girls out of their homes and raped them. One [of the ringleaders]
boasted of how he slit open the womb of a pregnant woman."
There were clear signs that the attackers benefitted from state-level support. The attackers, armed with swords, machetes or iron
bars, carried computer print-outs listing the addresses of Muslim families, shops and businesses,
according to a report in The Telegraph.
Across Gujarat, 180 mosques were destroyed or damaged along with thousands of Muslim-owned businesses and homes. Callers to police
stations were told: "We don't have orders to save you," and "We cannot help you, we have orders from above." Survivors called for
this to be recognized not by the over-used term of 'intercommunal riots' but rather a pogrom, or attempted genocide.
The U.S. government's belief in Modi's complicity was clear when it rejected his request for a U.S. visa in 2005, by which time
he had become leader of India's nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). He was
excluded under
a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that "makes any government official who was responsible for or directly carried
out at any time particularly severe violations of religious freedom ineligible for a visa."
President Obama overturned the visa ban in 2016. India's courts have exonerated Modi. He has, on numerous occasions, says he has
"moved on." But the ghosts of Gujarat haven't moved anywhere.
Tulsi Gabbard has an exceptional appreciation for Modi.
Hers is a very personal rapport. She presented him with her own copy of the Bhagavad-Gita, on which she took her Congressional
oath of office, when he visited the U.S. Modi sent her with "a beautiful message of Krishna" for her wedding. Gabbard then presented
him with a CD of music from her wedding.
Upon Mr Modi's invitation, she took a trip to India
where she was widely regarded as the "darling of the BJP and the RSS" – the RSS (a right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer
organization) being the BJP's ideological "parent." Both groups, which wield enormous power in India, take pride in a narrow, chauvinistic
view of India as a Hindu country where Muslims and other minorities should be considered second-class citizens.
Such was her affinity that Tulsi
opposed House
Resolution 417 - "Praising India's rich religious diversity and commitment to tolerance and equality, and reaffirming the need to
protect the rights and freedoms of religious minorities" - that was seen as a veiled criticism of Modi. She even tried to
brush away the Gujarat
pogrom by saying, "There was a lot of misinformation that surrounded the event in 2002."
When it comes to Modi, Gabbard seems to have no pangs of conscience about "destruction, death and suffering" and comfortably wipes
the blood off the hands of those complicit in murder.
Why would Tulsi Gabbard damn what she sees as America's complicity in Yemen but embrace an authoritarian foreign leader with blood
on his hands? Why does she openly support and endorse Modi's poor track record on human rights? What distinction does Gabbard draw
between the thousands of Muslims massacred in Gujarat and the thousands of Muslims who died in Yemen? Why isn't she making a similarly
passionate plea to Prime Minister Modi to stop the ongoing mob lynchings and rapes in India?
One obvious reason she won't do that is the financial and electoral benefits she accrues from openly supporting Modi. By displaying
her carefully cultivated public support for Modi, she has won the support of many Indian Americans - particularly those with links
to the RSS - by flaunting her 'loyal' Hindu identity.
Though not of Indian origin, Gabbard has been warmly embraced by pro-Modi elements of the Hindu-American diaspora in the U.S.,
many of whom came forward and donated generously to her campaign.
According to The Intercept
, "Nearly one-third of Gabbard's overall donations - $1.24 million - came from more than 800 individual donors with names of
Hindu origin, many of whom made repeat donations."
It's not just the Hindu right who love Gabbard. America's resurgent hard and far right agrees, not least because she was an outspoken
critic of the Obama administration's alleged reluctance to recognize that "Islamic extremists are our enemy."
Steve Bannon "loves Tulsi Gabbard." He thinks she "gets the foreign policy stuff,
the Islamic terrorism
stuff ." Tucker Carlson
loves her Assad-as-genocidaire skepticism, David Duke loves how she's realigning U.S. politics, and Richard Spencer lauds her
"bravery" in the diplomatic field.
Her own aunt, Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, has noted her discomfort with this mixed bag of endorsements, in low-key language:
Gabbard "has a notably mixed voting record, and associations that veer from certain progressive causes to the apparent
courting of strongmen such as Narendra
Modi, Bashar al-Assad, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (not to mention Trump) - this zigzagging path through positions is vexing."
Bannon was so impressed with Gabbard as a potential ally that as he brokered a meeting between her and the newly-installed President
Donald Trump . Tulsi jumped at the opportunity:
in her own words , "I
walked out thinking that there may be some opportunity to work with this administration to shift our foreign policy in a more positive,
less destructive direction."
Amongst other obvious obstacles to a Democratic congresswomen freelancing coordination with the White House, her dream of a foreign
policy "shift" getting a presidential stamp burst when she went to Damascus,
met Bashar Assad , and claimed that she was "skeptical" of claims that Assad's government was to blame for Syria's genocide.
Those Assad apologetics are rightly one reason why Gabbard's once-rising-star among Democrats is stalling. But her pro-Modi apologetics,
far less examined and far more seldom interrogated in the U.S. media, should have been just as good a reason to repudiate her candidacy.
A fellow at the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and a graduate of the London School
of Economics, Shrenik Rao is a digital entrepreneur and filmmaker. Rao revived the
Madras Courier , a 232-year-old newspaper, as a digital publication of which
he is the editor-in-chief.
Stephen K. Bannon served as chief strategist for President Trump from January 2017 to
August 2017.
Getting tough with China to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States was the
linchpin of President Trump's electoral march through the Rust Belt during his 2016 victory.
Today, the goal of the radical cadre running China -- the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) -- is
to be the global hegemonic power. The president's threatened
tariffs on Sunday demonstrate the severity of this threat. But as Washington and Beijing
wrap up months of negotiations on a trade deal this month, whatever emerges won't be a trade
deal. It will be a temporary truce in a years-long economic and strategic war with China.
These are six "understandings" that highlight why it is futile to compromise with this
regime.
The first understanding : The CCP has been waging economic war against industrial
democracies ever since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, and now China
has emerged as the greatest economic and national security threat the United States has ever
faced.
As a framework for the current trade talks, China must agree to end forced technology
transfers; intellectual property theft; cyberintrusions into business networks; currency
manipulation; high tariff and nontariff barriers; and unfair subsidies to state-owned
enterprises. However, if the CCP agrees to the United States' demands in an enforceable manner,
it would amount to a legal and regulatory dismantling of Chinese state capitalism.
The second understanding : The trade deal under negotiation this month is not a deal between
two similar systems seeking closer ties, as its cheerleaders on Wall Street and in the media
and academia argue. Rather, this is a fundamental clash between two radically different
economic models.
The best U.S. result is a detailed document in which China renounces its predatory,
confiscatory and mercantilist practices while providing ample means to monitor and promptly
enforce the agreement.
The best CCP result is to get the tariffs lifted by filing reams of paper with false,
unenforceable promises that will allow it to run out the clock on the Trump administration and
hope for a less antagonistic Democratic alternative.
The third understanding : Chinese state capitalism is highly profitable for its owners --
the members of the CCP. Stagnant state-owned enterprises gain a competitive edge through
massive government subsidies and the cost savings won by stealing the intellectual property,
technology and innovations of foreigners.
If China halted such grand theft, its enterprises would be rapidly outcompeted by the
Germans, South Koreans, Japanese and especially the United States.
This fact explains much about internal Chinese politics today. President Xi Jinping faces a
palace sharply divided between reformers led by chief trade negotiator Liu He and a swarm of
hawks who have profited and gained power from the status quo. Within China itself, it is both
gallows humor and even money as to whether Liu He will be celebrated as the next Deng Xiaoping
or end up in a Chinese gulag.
The fourth understanding : Trump advisers inside and outside the White House are playing on
the president's well-earned pride in a rising stock market and a fear he might lose the Farm
Belt to try to box him into a weak deal. But it is a decidedly false narrative that any failure
to reach a deal will lead to a market meltdown and economic implosion.
In fact, there is no better argument for Trump keeping his bold tariffs on China than the
latest report that the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.2 percent
in the first quarter .
Anything less than a great deal will subject the president to relentless criticism from the
Charles E. Schumer and Bernie Sanders wings of the Democratic Party. In addition, Sens. Marco
Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) might use it to get to the right of Trump on China --
potentially setting up a later primary challenge. For these reasons, the president's best
political option is not to surrender, but rather, to double down on the tariffs -- they have
been highly effective in pressuring the Chinese without harming the U.S. economy.
The fifth understanding : Even the toughest agreement needs effective monitoring, which is
difficult even with accommodating partners and perhaps impossible with China. The danger is for
the president to sign what appears to be a reasonable deal and find out several years later
that the United States was hoodwinked.
The United States failed to adequately monitor China's entry into the WTO in 2001. Instead
of access to a billion Chinese consumers, the United States lost more than 5 million
manufacturing jobs since 2000.
The sixth understanding : The world now bears witness to a rapidly militarizing totalitarian
state imprisoning
millions in work camps; persecuting Uighurs, Christians and Buddhists; and spying on, and
enslaving, its own population.
This is history in real time; and the world is a house divided -- half slave, half free.
Trump and Xi are facing off to tip the scales in one direction or the other. One way leads to
the benefits of freedom, democracy and free-market capitalism. The other leads to a
totalitarian and mercantilist power run on state capitalism with Chinese characteristics.
The United States' fight is not with the Chinese people but with the CCP. The Chinese people
are the first and continuous victims of this barbarous regime.
The central issues that must be faced are China's intentions on the world stage and what
those ambitions mean for U.S. prosperity. With our country at a crossroads, it is more
important than ever that Trump follow his instincts and not soften his stance against the
greatest existential threat ever faced by the United States.
1. China must agree to end forced technology transfers; intellectual property theft;
cyberintrusions into business networks; currency manipulation; high tariff and nontariff
barriers; and unfair subsidies to state-owned enterprises.
In the good 'ol USA, we refer to this as "corporate welfare", direct federal subsidies (eg
farm subsidies), MIC and government 'no-bid defense' contract, oil depletion allowance, tax
credits and other tax incentives such as accelerated depreciation, dividend tax, Advanced
Technology Program, federal land giveways, local & state land & tax "incentive"
giveways, carried interest, welfare and food stamp costs paid to employees of companies like
Walmart and McDonalds (because employee wages for full time employment fall below poverty
level), the clunker auto subsidy program to bail out US auto companies, the mortgage interest
deduction, and more. The cherry on top is, of course, the trillions of dollars in TARP and QE
given to giant banks to bail out Wall Street.
For all the hot air, it appears that reciprocity is not really what Steve has in mind.
2. The best U.S. result is a detailed document in which China renounces its predatory,
confiscatory and mercantilist practices while providing ample means to monitor and promptly
enforce the agreement.
Steve? Steve?? Are you aware that the U.S. is currently trying to economically strangle
countries all over the world with economic sanctions? Venezuela. Cuba. Syria. Iran.
Russia.North Korea. Lebanon. Yemen. And if economic sanctions don't work, we bomb them. Iraq.
Afghanistan. Libya. Syria.
3. by stealing the intellectual property, technology and innovations of
foreigners.
Libya's gold "disappeared". As did much of Iraq's gold. And the Bank of England, citing
U.S. sanctions as its legal fig leaf, confiscated $1.2 billion of Venezuelan gold. As to
stealing technology, no one does it better than Uncle Same: Vault 7 and Stuxnet are prime
examples of US spying on foreign technology companies.
4. But it is a decidedly false narrative that any failure to reach a deal will lead to
a market meltdown and economic implosion.
I dunno. I'm hearing a lot of very unhappy muttering in the rural Midwest, where I live. I
think we're facing the very real possibility of a large-scale Trumpian economic disaster, due
to his trade war, negative trending macoeconomic indicators, the unbelievable Trumpian debt
(the biggest debt in the history of the galaxy, putting Obama and Bush Jr., and even WWII
debt to shame), and the looming loss of the dollar's world reserve currency status. Toss in a
global recession, to boot. This feels like "implosion" to me.
5. Instead of access to a billion Chinese consumers, the United States lost more than 5
million manufacturing jobs since 2000.
Typical capitalist hypocrisy. We demand free markets for other people. Never for
ourselves. Many American companies have been doing fine selling to "a billion Chinese
consumers". The problem is, Americans participating in the free market often choose Chinese
goods.
Not only are you full of hot air, Steve-- you and Bolton and the rest of Trump's
Israel-first neocon apologists are effectively destroying our economy and our country. When
the very likely "implosion" does occur, watch the rats (hate to use that metaphor, since the
lowest mangy flea-bitten rat is better than any neocon) scurry for the exits, blaming
everyone but themselves.
Who is Steve Bannon going to blame? Ocasio-Cortez, who else?
Understanding the core nature of China is important to comprehend the lack of flexibility
ingrained in their system. This comes in the ideology that directs its actions. China is
still very much a communist country, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls
everything. While it may appear both State-owned and private firms operate within China's
economic system. This is mostly an illusion following economic reforms in the 1980s.
In reality, the communist system does not allow for true private ownership and views all
"tech innovation" as essential to its national interests. Thus, private and state-owned
Chinese firms act in the interest of the Chinese regime when it comes to foreign investments
in the high-tech sectors. Below is the second part of a part-two series which explores why
China is on a one-track path and blind to other options going forward. This is a recipe for
conflict.
What pisses me off is the fact that pretty much every western company has decided to
manufacture in China.
My Mrs bought me a coat today. A nice snazzy Italian brand. Then looking at the label it
says made in China. So it's not an Italian coat at all. It's a Chinese coat with Italian
branding.
Burberry do the same thing. They can basically charge whatever they want for coats, and as
a consumer you buy into that British heritage . Low and behold their stuff is made in
China.
Perhaps we should slap the tariffs (I'm not a fan of tariffs BTW,) on the western
companies that continue to outsource to China .
The ceding of national interests, without the wilful, knowing consent of both political
parties, and citizens believing they could simply vote their way out of this or that brand of
swamp, could never have been accomplished ..
The story of the scorpion, and the frog, crossing the river ..
After much pleading by the scorpion, the frog did give the scorpion a lift to safely cross
the river, and after being bitten during the crossing, frog crys out "but you promised you
would not bite me!!"
Scorpion replys, " you knew what i was when you picked me up .. "
The story of the American body politic, on steroids the last 40 -50 years ..
That is exactly what happened. The murican and other corporations moved to the larger
consumer markets for their products, Asia. China has moar than 3 times the population of
murica. Labour is plenty, wages are low, no benefits or overtime. 12 hour days or moar is the
norm there. It's not China that people should be blaming for the transition to manufacture
there. The corporations are all about profits. They care less about you and yoar family or
jobs for you. The corporations are making money like never before. GM sells 3 times as many
cars in China than in murica. It costs money to ship over seas, cheaper to move manufacturing
to where the demand is.
China also has a growing middle class that will be big consumers of goods, whereas murica
has a decling middle class and retiring baby boomers. Murica is in decay. Neglected
infrastructure, dying cities, NY, Baltimore, Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, SanFran, farms are
over producing and need social welfare from tax payers, high consumer debts, low consumption
of goods. Car manufacturers will be back at the Fed window for free tax payers money to avert
total bankruptcy. We've seen this play before and here we are again.
Murica is bankrupt. This is why the banks around the world are buying gold reserves. All
currencies eventually become worthless paper for fire starting or heating in winter. There is
no currency that ever exceeded 100 yrs. as money. Gold has been money for thousands of
years.
Economies work best when currencies are stable in value. Once we know what the goal is, we
then look for a way to achieve it and the best way has always been to base a currency on
gold. Nobody has found a better way, even in the form of a proposal and nobody has ever
needed to find a better way, because gold has always worked very well.
The fight is actually with America's own politicians and corporations. They sold out
America long ago. The Chinese trade differently. They don't have to bomb. It's really too bad
what American democracy stands for today around the world. Nobody wants anything to do with
it and gradually they're dumping it.
British and Roman empires were not much different towards the end of their rein. They
become complacent and arrogant towards other countries. Eventually they run out of friends,
then start woars to rape and pillage gold, silver and resources. An attempt to sustain the
costs of maintaining their exuberant life style and military around the globe. Rome at first
started debasing their gold and silver money. Once trading partners realized their coins were
not pure, they called the empire a fraud and didn't want to trade with the crooks. Woar
ensued.
what a dumbass. bannon represents the wacko christian wing of the zionazi party.
usa oligarchy greed did this to the american people. the chinese happily cooperated likely
wondering how they were being screwed because the usa policy was so stupid. the usa made the
mistake of thinking the chinese would roll over like the japanese and koreans did, once the
spice started flowing.
the chinese don't have to give anything because the usa screwed itself so badly they need
china to keep producing crap for the usa because there is no competitive alternative either
by other countries to fill the gap and certainly not with a built from scratch usa
manufacturing sector. the usa is so stupid it has foreign countries make critical military
tech parts to maximize profit for mic.
does bannon really think the chinese people won't riot if they are unhappy with .gov? does
he remember tianemen square? it's american people who won't do anything about .gov and the
oligarchs screwing them.
according to bannon it is okay for the usa to kill millions of muslims and christians in
the mid east for jewland and the zionazis but wrong for china to control their influence in
china?
bannon's calling is a homeless alchy. he fits the part with lunatic rants and his
appearance.
The problem here isn't the WTO, it's the WTC. Bannon says China entered the WTO in 2001
and have been criminals ever since. Also in 2001 the Neocons started their insane wars after
blowing up the WTC and have been criminals ever since. Eighteen years of pissing away cash
and not minding the store - and these lunatics are back in the White House. Anybody hoping
for a happy ending with China is just as nuts.
You fat ******* zio-slob/slut troll. It may have been a good idea if it were just about
trade and you are willing to actually seek a mutually beneficial compromise, but when you are
also poking them militarily it changes the dynamics of the successful negotiations and
cooperation. Who wants to do a deal with someone who continually sends warships up and down
your coastline in engaging in provactive actions
Bannon has got some screws loose in the head. Getting tough with China isn't going to
bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States for ten reasons:
1. Those jobs have nowhere in the U.S. to come home to. Most of the factories have been
shut down and demolished years ago.
2. American workers have been out of the loop for so long, that they are basically
unskilled and untrained at this point...... all 95.5 million of them!
3. The fight isn't against China, as it is against corporate America. Corporate America
doesn't want to pay the higher wages or benefits here. That is why they went hunting for the
cheap labor in China in the first place. It's not China's fault!
4. America's entire tax system stinks and its predatory. There is nothing that is going to
make those businesses in China go to America , particularly when China is offering those same
companies tax incentives to stay.
5. China's transportation infrastructure is far better than America's. America's road
system is now a full 40 years behind China's, and America's rail system is 75 years behind
China's. Air transportation is about the same as the U.S., but China has the better airports
for handling large number of passengers and freight. Maritime shipping is first rate all the
way, the U.S. can't hardly touch them in moving freight overseas.
6. The United States routinely blocks the World Trade Organization's appointments of
judges who could rule on tariffs, because the U.S. wants to load the dice in their favor at
the WTO. Companies are often used as captive hostages by the U.S.,. Not the case with
China.
7. The U.S. has a notoriety for not honoring any treaty it signs. The WTO has cited the
U.S. as undisciplined, and the decision of whether to comply with international legal
obligations varies depending on which domestic political actors are engaged in the policy
process. Some American institutions are more likely to supply compliance than others. Why
would any company want to come to America without any assurances in governing trade rules or
a hostile political environment that turns on a dime?
8. China is the ideal place for emerging markets. It has access to lots of different
manufacturing for emerging businesses, something the U.S. lacks these days.
9. China has economic free zones, like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, etc.,. The U.S. has
nothing to compare.
10. China's main priority has been shifted from expansion to stability. By stability, what
is implied is demand that is internal, rather than external, and that requires a focus on the
consumer. This could represent an opportunity for businesses that invest in the opportunity
to sell goods in the country. As it stands now, there is really no reason for a company in
China to come to the U.S., because every American is maxed out on credit and doesn't have the
money to buy anything. Why set up a business in the U.S. when the U.S. economy is in imminent
danger of collapsing over night, and becoming a casualty???
This is another false (fraudulent non-existent choice) being presented by the global so
called but no longer existent elite. U.S. vs China. It doesn't make any difference whether it
is the corporations presenting the false choice or the so called deep state. Either way it
has no truth and therefore no value.
As I've provided extensive facts and evidence as details on both sides all governments are
full of traitors. Traitors both foreign, domestic and international. Any future global
attempt at government will never consist of any of these two places or any other since all
others continue to fail in their own right to take the appropriate actions in their own
governments or against those that are attempting to implement wholly criminal operations
internationally.
Very little of the Chinese technology was stolen by them. It was freely given by US
universities getting big bucks to fill seats and US corporations looking to boost executives
pay and perks, plus offloading the headaches they were getting paid big bucks to solve, by
offshoring to China. As evidenced by the recent tax cut for corporations and the funds they
brought back from overseas bringing back or creating jobs in the US is a pipe dream. Your
CEO's thought it was more important to feather their nests, and in many cases putting their
company into hock, to buy back their stock. Raises or funds for R&D? Fuggeddaboutit. With
China in the cross hairs the captains of industry are sailing to other shitholes for their
stuff rather than the US. Don't blame the Chinese for the "best and brightest" selling the US
down the drain to enrich themselves. One of the many reasons the US is circling drain due to
self inflicted hurt is the whole country from top to bottom wants **** and they want it now
no matter what it takes whether it be power, riches, or both.
What follows is a conversation between journalist Lacqueline
Luqman, Truthdig contributor Jeff Cohen and Marc Stiner of the Real News
Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the
post.
MARC STEINER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Marc Steiner. Great to have you
all with us. This is the third part of our conversation today about what's happening in this
week's news. We are going to look at Stephen Miller in the Trump administration and the power
of the white nationalist Right in that administration. What's happening is emblematic of what's
happening inside the Department of Homeland Security. We are joined here once again by Jeff
Cohen, who is founder of RootsAction.org and the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting, and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in the Corporate Media, and
Jacqueline Luqman, who is Editor-in-chief of Luqman Nation and a regular contributor here at
The Real News. So let's jump right into this.
This is pretty stunning that Stephen Miller has got all this power in the White House,
one of Steve Bannon's proteges and Jeff Session's righthand for a long time, and he's a
survivor. Bannon was thrown out . Maybe he didn't know how to dress right. I'm not sure,
but he was thrown out and switched to Stephen Miller. He's there but he's changing the dynamic
of this administration. He seems to be moving them further to the right, pushing for these
changes first in the D.H.S., Homeland Security. So tell me what this portends for the two of
you. Jeff, let me start with you again.
JEFF COHEN: Well for saying the obvious truth, Miller is a white nationalist. He's
an immigrant basher. One of the weirdest schemes exposed by The Washington Post with really
good sourcing, is that they had a scheme. They were going to take detainees at the Mexico
border and transport them to places like San Francisco and put them in sanctuary cities. They
take people they've got under arrest in custody and bus them to these cities that are sanctuary
cities. It's utterly outrageous.
If the Democrats weren't so obsessed with Russiagate, they might talk about this kind of
craziness is impeachable. To me, the most interesting thing about Stephen Miller is his
wonderful uncle, Dr. David Glosser. I've read his columns. I've seen him on Democracy Now! He
points out that if it wasn't for restrictive immigration, dozens of Stephen Miller's ancestors
would not have been killed by the Holocaust that in 1924, was this restrictive immigration law
and then there were a bunch of anti-Semites in the State Department. Even with the rise of
fascism and the rise of Hitler, they wouldn't let these people in, and they died. So there's a
lot of sympathy for refugees in the Jewish community. Stephen Miller is an exception.
"... Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends. ..."
"... Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams. ..."
"... And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal, hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly admitted recently, " It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. " ..."
"... Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance. ..."
Government shutdown, Venezuela: Donald Trump evolves into the best propagator of neoliberal fascism that tends to become a
normFebruary
07, 2019by system failure
Even before the 2016 US presidential election, this blog supported that Donald Trump is
apure sample of neoliberal barbarism . Many almost laughed at this perception because Trump was being already promoted,
more or less, as the 'terminator' of the neoliberal establishment. And many people, especially in the US, tired from the economic
disasters, the growing inequality and the endless wars, were anxious to believe that this was indeed his special mission.
Right after the elections, we supported that the
US establishment
gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in power, against the only candidate that the same
establishment identified as a real threat: Bernie Sanders.
In 2017 , Trump bombed Syria for the first time, resembling the lies that led us to the Iraq war disaster. Despite the fact that
the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the
targeted airport was operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep state that he is
prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of the confrontation with Russia.
Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered
a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends.
In the middle of all this 'orgy' of pro-establishment moves, Trump offered a controversial withdrawal of US forces from Syria
and Afghanistan to save whatever was possible from his 'anti-interventionist' profile. And it was indeed a highly controversial action
with very little value, considering all these US military bases that are still fully operational in the broader Middle East and beyond.
Not to mention the various ways through which the US intervenes in the area (training proxies, equip them with heavy weapons, supporting
the Saudis and contribute to war crimes in Yemen, etc.)
And then , after this very short break, Trump returned to 'business as usual' to satisfy the neoliberal establishment with a 'glorious'
record. He achieved a 35-day government shutdown, which is the
"longest shutdown in US history"
.
Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this
was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams.
And now, we have the Venezuela issue. Since Hugo Chavez nationalized PDVSA, the central oil and natural gas company, the US empire
launched a fierce economic war against the country. Yet, while all previous US administrations were trying to replace legitimate
governments with their puppets as much silently as possible through slow-motion coup operations, Trump has no problem to do it in
plain sight.
And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal,
hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly
admitted recently, " It will make
a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities
in Venezuela. "
Therefore, one should be very naive of course to believe that the Western imperialist gang seriously cares about the Venezuelan
people and especially the poor. Here are three basic reasons behind the open US intervention in Venezuela:
The imperialists want to grab the rich oil fields for the US big oil cartel, as well as the
great
untapped natural resources , particularly gold (mostly for the Canadian companies).
Venezuela must not become an example for other countries in the region on social-programs policy, which is mainly funded
by the oil production. The imperialists know that they must interrupt the path of Venezuela to real Socialism by force if
necessary. Neoliberalism must prevail by all means for the benefit of the big banks and corporations.
Venezuela must not turn to cooperation with rival powers like China and Russia. Such a prospect may give the country
the ability to minimize the effects of the economic war. The country may find an alternative to escape the Western sanctions in
order to fund its social programs for the benefit of the people. And, of course, the West will never accept the exploitation of
the Venezuelan resources by the Sino-Russian bloc.
So, when Trump declared the unelected Juan Guaido as the 'legitimate president' of Venezuela, all the main neoliberal powers of
the West rushed to follow the decision.
This is something we have never seen before. The 'liberal democracies' of the West - only by name - immediately, uncritically
and without hesitation jumped on the same boat with Trump towards this outrageously undemocratic action. They recognized Washington's
puppet as the legitimate president of a third country. A man that was never elected by the Venezuelan people and has very low popularity
in the country. Even worse, the EU parliament
approved this action
, killing any last remnants of democracy in the Union.
Yet, it seems that the US is finding increasingly difficult to force many countries to align with its agenda. Even some European
countries took some distance from the attempted constitutional coup, with Italy even
trying to
veto EU's decision to recognize Guaido.
Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes
the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism
with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and
ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance.
This unprecedented action by the Western neoliberal powers to recognize Guaido is a serious sign that neoliberalism returns
to its roots and slips towards fascism. It appears now that this is the only way to maintain some level of power.
Voters around the world revolt against leaders who won't improve their lives.
Newly-elected Utah senator Mitt Romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the Washington Post
that savaged Donald Trump's character and leadership. Romney's attack and Trump's response
Wednesday morning on Twitter are the latest salvos in a longstanding personal feud between the
two men. It's even possible that Romney is planning to challenge Trump for the Republican
nomination in 2020. We'll see.
But for now, Romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. It's well-worth reading. It's a
window into how the people in charge, in both parties, see our country.
Romney's main complaint in the piece is that Donald Trump is a mercurial and divisive
leader. That's true, of course. But beneath the personal slights, Romney has a policy critique
of Trump. He seems genuinely angry that Trump might pull American troops out of the Syrian
civil war. Romney doesn't explain how staying in Syria would benefit America. He doesn't appear
to consider that a relevant question. More policing in the Middle East is always better. We
know that. Virtually everyone in Washington agrees.
Corporate tax cuts are also popular in Washington, and Romney is strongly on board with
those, too. His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year
ago.
That's not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain
Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an
existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt,
extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions.
Romney became fantastically rich doing this.
Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. This is the
private equity model. Our ruling class sees nothing wrong with it. It's how they run the
country.
Mitt Romney refers to unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist
foreign policy as the "mainstream Republican" view. And he's right about that. For generations,
Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while
simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. Modern Democrats generally support those
goals enthusiastically.
There are signs, however, that most people do not support this, and not just in America. In
countries around the world -- France, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, and many others
-- voters are suddenly backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a
decade ago. These are not isolated events. What you're watching is entire populations revolting
against leaders who refuse to improve their lives.
Something like this has been in happening in our country for three years. Donald Trump rode
a surge of popular discontent all the way to the White House. Does he understand the political
revolution that he harnessed? Can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are
destroying America? Those are open questions.
But they're less relevant than we think. At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest
of us will be gone, too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then? How
do we want our grandchildren to live? These are the only questions that matter.
The answer used to be obvious. The overriding goal for America is more prosperity, meaning
cheaper consumer goods. But is that still true? Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones,
or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They
haven't so far. A lot of Americans are drowning in stuff. And yet drug addiction and suicide
are depopulating large parts of the country. Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be
summed up in GDP is an idiot.
The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It's happiness.
There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence.
Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things that you want for your
children. They're what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.
But our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to
the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through.
They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even
bother to understand our problems.
One of the biggest lies our leaders tell us that you can separate economics from everything
else that matters. Economics is a topic for public debate. Family and faith and culture,
meanwhile, those are personal matters. Both parties believe this.
Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party
who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words,
functionally libertarian. They don't care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the
markets function. Somehow, they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the
health of our economy, or for that matter, the country's ability to pay its bills. As far as
they're concerned, these are two totally separate categories.
Social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective, and yet
reach a strikingly similar conclusion. The real problem, you'll hear them say, is that the
American family is collapsing. Nothing can be fixed before we fix that. Yet, like the
libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct.
The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They
refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy.
Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined.
Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies
possible. You can't separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The
evidence is now overwhelming. How do we know? Consider the inner cities.
Thirty years ago, conservatives looked at Detroit or Newark and many other places and were
horrified by what they saw. Conventional families had all but disappeared in poor
neighborhoods. The majority of children were born out of wedlock. Single mothers were the rule.
Crime and drugs and disorder became universal.
What caused this nightmare? Liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. They were
benefiting from the disaster, in the form of reliable votes. Conservatives, though, had a ready
explanation for inner-city dysfunction and it made sense: big government. Decades of
badly-designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives
called a "culture of poverty" that trapped people in generational decline.
There was truth in this. But it wasn't the whole story. How do we know? Because virtually
the same thing has happened decades later to an entirely different population. In many ways,
rural America now looks a lot like Detroit.
This is striking because rural Americans wouldn't seem to have much in common with anyone
from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political
beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Rural people are white conservatives,
mostly.
Yet, the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown
Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A
terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes. How did this happen? You'd
think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They
don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of
native-born Americans who are slipping behind.
But Republicans now represent rural voters. They ought to be interested. Here's a big part
of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but
disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools
and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made
more than men.
Now, before you applaud this as a victory for feminism, consider the effects. Study after
study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them.
Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations, this causes a drop
in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births, and all the familiar disasters that inevitably
follow -- more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the
next generation.
This isn't speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science.
We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all. That's why they get married before they
have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in
America can afford.
And yet, and here's the bewildering and infuriating part, those very same affluent married
people, the ones making virtually all the decisions in our society, are doing pretty much
nothing to help the people below them get and stay married. Rich people are happy to fight
malaria in Congo. But working to raise men's wages in Dayton or Detroit? That's crazy.
This is negligence on a massive scale. Both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. Our
mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961, and the biggest problem American families
face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or
Facebook executives.
For our ruling class, more investment banking is always the answer. They teach us it's more
virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own
kids.
Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook wrote an entire book about this. Sandberg explained that our
first duty is to shareholders, above our own children. No surprise there. Sandberg herself is
one of America's biggest shareholders. Propaganda like this has made her rich.
We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule.
They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in
this game, and it shows.
What's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. We didn't question why Sandberg was
saying this. We didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it. Our corporate media
celebrated Sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. Her book became a bestseller: "Lean
In." As if putting a corporation first is empowerment. It is not. It is bondage. Republicans
should say so.
They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all
commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? Or
charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect
400 percent annual interest.
We're OK with that? We shouldn't be. Libertarians tell us that's how markets work --
consenting adults making voluntary decisions about how to live their lives. OK. But it's also
disgusting. If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans,
whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street.
And by the way, if you really loved your fellow Americans, as our leaders should, if it
would break your heart to see them high all the time. Which they are. A huge number of our
kids, especially our boys, are smoking weed constantly. You may not realize that, because new
technology has made it odorless. But it's everywhere.
And that's not an accident. Once our leaders understood they could get rich from marijuana,
marijuana became ubiquitous. In many places, tax-hungry politicians have legalized or
decriminalized it. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner now lobbies for the marijuana
industry. His fellow Republicans seem fine with that. "Oh, but it's better for you than
alcohol," they tell us.
Maybe. Who cares? Talk about missing the point. Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who's
been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. Do you want
that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the
reason. Because they don't care about us.
When you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. Our leaders don't even
try. They hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships and slots at prestigious universities
based purely on how we look. There's nothing less fair than that, though our tax code comes
close.
Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate
as someone who's living off inherited money and doesn't work at all. We tax capital at half of
what we tax labor. It's a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.
In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He
paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners,
the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But
for everyone else, it's infuriating.
Our leaders rarely mention any of this. They tell us our multi-tiered tax code is based on
the principles of the free market. Please. It's based on laws that the Congress passed, laws
that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. It worked well for
those people. They did increase their economic advantage. But for everyone else, it came at a
big cost. Unfairness is profoundly divisive. When you favor one child over another, your kids
don't hate you. They hate each other.
That happens in countries, too. It's happening in ours, probably by design. Divided
countries are easier to rule. And nothing divides us like the perception that some people are
getting special treatment. In our country, some people definitely are getting special
treatment. Republicans should oppose that with everything they have.
What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive
country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own
profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you're old.
A country that listens to young people who don't live in Brooklyn. A country where you can
make a solid living outside of the big cities. A country where Lewiston, Maine seems almost as
important as the west side of Los Angeles. A country where environmentalism means getting
outside and picking up the trash. A clean, orderly, stable country that respects itself. And
above all, a country where normal people with an average education who grew up in no place
special can get married, and have happy kids, and repeat unto the generations. A country that
actually cares about families, the building block of everything.
What will it take a get a country like that? Leaders who want it. For now, those leaders will
have to be Republicans. There's no option at this point.
But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a
religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool
to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do
not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Internalizing all this will not be easy for Republican leaders. They'll have to unlearn
decades of bumper sticker-talking points and corporate propaganda. They'll likely lose donors
in the process. They'll be criticized. Libertarians are sure to call any deviation from market
fundamentalism a form of socialism.
That's a lie. Socialism is a disaster. It doesn't work. It's what we should be working
desperately to avoid. But socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a
group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that
protects normal people.
If you want to put America first, you've got to put its families first.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2,
2019.
"... America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." ..."
"... He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement." ..."
"... The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president. ..."
"... The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke ..."
"... Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people." ..."
"... "What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?" ..."
"... Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it." ..."
"... Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment. ..."
"... Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax. ..."
"... "I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not." ..."
"... Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed." ..."
"... But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left. ..."
"... Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin. ..."
"... Hillbilly Elegy ..."
"... Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature." ..."
"All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God."
Last Wednesday, the conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson started a fire on the right after airing a prolonged
monologue on his show that was, in essence, an indictment of American capitalism.
America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking
marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families
is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society."
He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate
the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement."
The monologue was stunning in itself, an incredible moment in which a Fox News host stated that for generations, "Republicans
have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars." More
broadly, though, Carlson's position and the ensuing controversy reveals an ongoing and nearly unsolvable tension in conservative
politics about the meaning of populism, a political ideology that Trump campaigned on but Carlson argues he may not truly understand.
Moreover, in Carlson's words: "At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone too. The country will remain.
What kind of country will be it be then?"
The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher
wrote of Carlson's monologue,
"A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would
be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president." Other conservative commentators scoffed. Ben Shapiro wrote in
National Review that Carlson's monologue sounded far more like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than, say, Ronald Reagan.
I spoke with Carlson by phone this week to discuss his monologue and its economic -- and cultural -- meaning. He agreed that his
monologue was reminiscent of Warren, referencing her 2003
bookThe Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke . "There were parts of the book that I disagree
with, of course," he told me. "But there are parts of it that are really important and true. And nobody wanted to have that conversation."
Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank
fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any
policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites
-- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people."
But whether or not he likes it, Carlson is an important voice in conservative politics. His show is among the
most-watched television programs in America. And his raising questions about market capitalism and the free market matters.
"What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put
these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?"
Populism on the right is gaining, again
Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald
Trump, whose populist-lite
presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless
you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it."
Populism is a rhetorical approach that separates "the people" from elites. In the
words of Cas
Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia, it divides the country into "two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people
on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other." Populist rhetoric has a long history in American politics, serving as the focal
point of numerous presidential campaigns and powering William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic nomination for president in 1896.
Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative,
thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment.
When right-leaning pundit Ann Coulter
spoke with Breitbart Radio about Trump's Tuesday evening Oval Office address to the nation regarding border wall funding, she
said she wanted to hear him say something like, "You know, you say a lot of wild things on the campaign trail. I'm speaking to big
rallies. But I want to talk to America about a serious problem that is affecting the least among us, the working-class blue-collar
workers":
Coulter urged Trump to bring up overdose deaths from heroin in order to speak to the "working class" and to blame the fact
that working-class wages have stalled, if not fallen, in the last 20 years on immigration. She encouraged Trump to declare, "This
is a national emergency for the people who don't have lobbyists in Washington."
Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax.
These sentiments have even pitted popular Fox News hosts against each other.
Sean Hannity warned his audience that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's economic policies would mean that "the rich people
won't be buying boats that they like recreationally, they're not going to be taking expensive vacations anymore." But Carlson agreed
when I said his monologue was somewhat reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's
past comments on the economy , and how even a strong economy was still leaving working-class Americans behind.
"I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home
an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not."
Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent
a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that
labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and
figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed."
"I think populism is potentially really disruptive. What I'm saying is that populism is a symptom of something being wrong," he
told me. "Again, populism is a smoke alarm; do not ignore it."
But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current
state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are
its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson
railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation
of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left.
Carlson's argument that "market capitalism is not a religion" is of course old hat on the left, but it's also been bubbling on
the right for years now. When National Review writer Kevin Williamson
wrote
a 2016 op-ed about how rural whites "failed themselves," he faced a massive backlash in the Trumpier quarters of the right. And
these sentiments are becoming increasingly potent at a time when Americans can see both a booming stock market and perhaps their
own family members struggling to get by.
Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense
of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin.
At the Federalist, writer Kirk Jing
wrote of Carlson's
monologue, and a
response
to it by National Review columnist David French:
Our society is less French's America, the idea, and more Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" (involving a very different
French). The lowest are stripped of even social dignity and deemed
unworthy of life . In Real America, wages are stagnant, life expectancy is crashing, people are fleeing the workforce, families
are crumbling, and trust in the institutions on top are at all-time lows. To French, holding any leaders of those institutions
responsible for their errors is "victimhood populism" ... The Right must do better if it seeks to govern a real America that exists
outside of its fantasies.
J.D. Vance, author of
Hillbilly Elegy
, wrote that the [neoliberal] economy's victories -- and praise for those wins from conservatives -- were largely meaningless
to white working-class Americans living in Ohio and Kentucky: "Yes, they live in a country with a higher GDP than a generation ago,
and they're undoubtedly able to buy cheaper consumer goods, but to paraphrase Reagan: Are they better off than they were 20 years
ago? Many would say, unequivocally, 'no.'"
Carlson's populism holds, in his view, bipartisan possibilities. In a follow-up email, I asked him why his monologue was aimed
at Republicans when many Democrats had long espoused the same criticisms of free market economics. "Fair question," he responded.
"I hope it's not just Republicans. But any response to the country's systemic problems will have to give priority to the concerns
of American citizens over the concerns of everyone else, just as you'd protect your own kids before the neighbor's kids."
Who is "they"?
And that's the point where Carlson and a host of others on the right who have begun to challenge the conservative movement's orthodoxy
on free markets -- people ranging from occasionally mendacious bomb-throwers like Coulter to writers like
Michael Brendan Dougherty -- separate
themselves from many of those making those exact same arguments on the left.
When Carlson talks about the "normal people" he wants to save from nefarious elites, he is talking, usually, about a specific
group of "normal people" -- white working-class Americans who are the "real" victims of capitalism, or marijuana legalization, or
immigration policies.
In this telling, white working-class Americans who once relied on a manufacturing economy that doesn't look the way it did in
1955 are the unwilling pawns of elites. It's not their fault that, in Carlson's view, marriage is inaccessible to them, or that marijuana
legalization means more teens are smoking weed (
this probably isn't true ). Someone,
or something, did this to them. In Carlson's view, it's the responsibility of politicians: Our economic situation, and the plight
of the white working class, is "the product of a series of conscious decisions that the Congress made."
The criticism of Carlson's monologue has largely focused on how he deviates from the free market capitalism that conservatives
believe is the solution to poverty, not the creator of poverty. To orthodox conservatives, poverty is the result of poor decision
making or a
lack of virtue that can't be solved by government programs or an anti-elite political platform -- and they say Carlson's argument
that elites are in some way responsible for dwindling marriage rates
doesn't make sense .
But in French's response to Carlson, he goes deeper, writing that to embrace Carlson's brand of populism is to support "victimhood
populism," one that makes white working-class Americans into the victims of an undefined "they:
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic cultural changes -- civil rights, women's
rights, a technological revolution as significant as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual
revolution, etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of what they are
doing to you .
And that was my biggest question about Carlson's monologue, and the flurry of responses to it, and support for it: When other
groups (say, black Americans) have pointed to systemic inequities within the economic system that have resulted in poverty and family
dysfunction, the response from many on the right has been, shall we say,
less than
enthusiastic .
Really, it comes down to when black people have problems, it's personal responsibility, but when white people have the same
problems, the system is messed up. Funny how that works!!
Yet white working-class poverty receives, from Carlson and others, far more sympathy. And conservatives are far more likely to
identify with a criticism of "elites" when they believe those elites are responsible for the
expansion of trans
rights or creeping secularism
than the wealthy and powerful people who are investing in
private prisons or an expansion
of the
militarization of police . Carlson's network, Fox News, and Carlson himself have frequently blasted leftist critics of market
capitalism and efforts to
fight
inequality .
I asked Carlson about this, as his show is frequently centered on the turmoils caused by "
demographic change
." He said that for decades, "conservatives just wrote [black economic struggles] off as a culture of poverty," a line he
includes in his monologue .
He added that regarding black poverty, "it's pretty easy when you've got 12 percent of the population going through something
to feel like, 'Well, there must be ... there's something wrong with that culture.' Which is actually a tricky thing to say because
it's in part true, but what you're missing, what I missed, what I think a lot of people missed, was that the economic system you're
living under affects your culture."
Carlson said that growing up in Washington, DC, and spending time in rural Maine, he didn't realize until recently that the same
poverty and decay he observed in the Washington of the 1980s was also taking place in rural (and majority-white) Maine. "I was thinking,
'Wait a second ... maybe when the jobs go away the culture changes,'" he told me, "And the reason I didn't think of it before was
because I was so blinded by this libertarian economic propaganda that I couldn't get past my own assumptions about economics." (For
the record, libertarians have
critiqued Carlson's
monologue as well.)
Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an
economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a
function or raw nature."
And clearly, our market economy isn't driven by God or nature, as the stock market soars and unemployment dips and yet even those
on the right are noticing lengthy periods of wage stagnation and dying little towns across the country. But what to do about those
dying little towns, and which dying towns we care about and which we don't, and, most importantly, whose fault it is that those towns
are dying in the first place -- those are all questions Carlson leaves to the viewer to answer.
America's
trade policy is in incoherent shambles. Decades of neoliberal "free trade" pacts -- which as
often as not simply gave corporations an end run around the state, or their very own rigged,
pseudo-legal system -- have created terrible social carnage around the world and a furious
political backlash. And President Trump's incoherent, haphazard response has done little to
change the system, let alone reform it in a sensible fashion.
Overhauling such a gargantuan, world-spanning system is a dizzying task. But Timothy Meyer
and Ganesh Sitaraman at the Great Democracy Initiative have a
new paper that presents a solid starting point for developing a fundamental reform of
American trade structure.
Meyer and Sitaraman identify three large problems with the status quo, and propose policy
solutions for each:
The complicated and unbalanced structure of the bureaucracy that oversees trade
policy
The enormous pro-rich bias that is built into trade deals
How the inequality resulting from trade routinely goes totally unaddressed
Let's take these in turn.
The extant trade bureaucracy -- as usual for the American state -- is highly fragmented and
bizarrely structured. There is the Department of Commerce, the United States Trade
Representative, the Export-Import Bank, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, plus the
International Development Finance Corporation coming soon. Then there are a slew of other
agencies that have some bearing on trade-related security or economic development.
Meyer and Sitaraman logically suggest combining most of these functions into a single
Department of Economic Growth and Security. The point is not just to streamline the trade
oversight structure, but also to make it consider a broader range of objectives. Neoliberals
insist that trade is simply about making the self-regulating market more "efficient," but trade
very obviously bears on employment, domestic industry, and especially security.
For instance, for all its other disastrous side effects, Trump's haphazard tax on aluminum
has dramatically
revived the American aluminum industry . Ensuring a reasonable domestic supply of key
metals like that is so obviously a security concern -- for military and consumer uses
alike -- that it wouldn't have even occurred to New Deal policymakers to think otherwise. It
takes a lot of ideological indoctrination to think there's no problem when a small price
disadvantage causes a country to lose its entire supply chain of key industrial
commodities.
Then there is the problem of pro-rich bias. Put simply, the last few decades of trade deals
have been outrageously biased towards corporations and the rich. They have powerfully enabled
the growth of
parasitic tax havens , which allow companies to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions,
starving countries of rightful revenue (and often leading to companies piling up gargantuan
dragon hoards of cash they don't know what to do with).
Corporations, meanwhile, have gotten their own fake legal system in the form of
Investor-State Dispute Settlement trade deal stipulations. As I have written before ,
the point of these arbitration systems is to create a legal system ludicrously slanted in favor
of the corporation -- allowing them not just to win almost every time, but to sue over
nonsensical harms like "taking away imaginary future profits."
Meyer and Sitaraman suggest renegotiating the tax portions of trade deals to enforce a
"formulary" tax system -- in which profits are taxed where they are made, not where they are
booked. This would go a considerable distance towards cracking down on tax havens -- who knows,
perhaps Luxembourg might even develop some productive business.
Finally, there is the problem of distributive justice. Again contrary to neoliberal dogma,
trade very often creates winners and losers -- witness the wreckage of Detroit and the fat
salaries of the U.S. executive class. Meyer and Sitaraman suggest new mechanisms to consider
the side effects of trade deals (and ways to compensate the losers), to take action against
abusive foreign nations (for example, by dumping their products below cost, or violating
environmental or labor standards), and finally directly taxing the beneficiaries.
Something the authors don't discuss is the
problem of trade imbalances . When one country develops a surplus (that is, it exports more
than it imports), another country must of necessity be in a deficit. The deficit country in
turn must finance its imports, usually by borrowing. That can easily create a severe economic
crisis if the deficit country suddenly loses access to loans -- which then harms the exporting
country, though not as much. This has been a disastrous problem in the eurozone.
The U.S. does have extremely wide latitude to run a trade deficit, because it controls the
global reserve currency, meaning a strong
demand for dollar-denominated assets so other countries can settle their international
accounts. But this creates its own problems, as discussed above.
To be fair, this is not exactly an omission for a paper focused on domestic policy. Creating
a specifically international trade architecture would require an entire paper of its own, if
not a book or three. But it would be something future trade policymakers will have to
consider.
At any rate, it's quite likely that trade policy will be a major topic of discussion in 2020
-- if for no reason other than Trump's ridiculous shenanigans in the area. However, even that
demonstrates an important fact: The U.S. president has a great deal of unilateral authority
over trade. Democrats should be thinking hard about how they would change things.
This paper is a great place to start.
President Donald Trump is planning on using his executive powers to cut food stamps for more
than 700,000 Americans.
The United States Department of Agriculture is proposing that states should only be allowed
to waive a current food stamps requirement -- namely, that adults without dependents must work
or participate in a job-training program for at least 20 hours each week if they wish to
collect food stamps for more than three months in a three-year period -- on the condition that
those adults live in areas where unemployment is above 7 percent,
according to The Washington Post . Currently the USDA regulations permit states to waive
that requirement if an adult lives in an area where the unemployment rate is at least 20
percent greater than the national rate. In effect, this means that roughly 755,000 Americans
would potentially lose their waivers that permit them to receive food stamps.
The current unemployment rate is 3.7 percent.
The Trump administration's decision to impose the stricter food stamp requirements through
executive action constitutes an end-run around the legislative process. Although Trump is
expected to sign an $870 billion farm bill later this week -- and because food stamps goes
through the Agriculture Department, it contains food stamp provisions -- the measure does not
include House stipulations restricting the waiver program and imposing new requirements on
parents with children between the ages of six and 12. The Senate version ultimately removed
those provisions, meaning that the version being signed into law does not impose a conservative
policy on food stamps, which right-wing members of Congress were hoping for.
"Congress writes laws, and the administration is required to write rules based on the law,"
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told The New York Times (Stabenow is the top Democrat on the
Senate's agriculture committee). "Administrative changes should not be driven by ideology. I do
not support unilateral and unjustified changes that would take food away from families."
Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from
Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His
work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.
When people who voted for Obama realized the Obama is a fraud with strong CIA connections it
was too late...
When people who voted for Trump realized that Trump was a fraud with strong Israeli
connections it was too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Nor does the caravan 'fix' or even illuminate decades of US abuses in Central and South America. It simply gives Trump an opportunity to grandstand and urge his voters to go to the polls. ..."
...And it seems likely, if not certain, that the caravan is a political stunt that will
end in disappointment for the caravan migrants. So I fail to see why you are so angry Debs.
Our discussion doesn't ignore the realities. Nor does the caravan 'fix' or even
illuminate decades of US abuses in Central and South America. It simply gives Trump an
opportunity to grandstand and urge his voters to go to the polls.
We are being played by an establishment that wants to move the country to the right. MAGA!
is a bi-partisan effort fueled by the challenge from China and Russia. This is clear from
Democratic Party priorities and actions as well as what they don't say or do.
"... Trump has succeeded in implementing some of his campaign ideas and not all of them are 100% evil or wrongheaded. He has shaken the long term calcification of the US foreign and trade policy, has introduced tariffs especially to combat clearly unfair Chinese trade practices while demanding European and Asian allies pay more for their defense of empire. ..."
"... As b stated recently, Trump is an astute salesman (unfortunately, that is all he is) but what is left unmentioned is that he is of the sales school that is totally unmoored for any sense of ethical, moral or legal responsibility. ..."
"... The US political system was invested with an ability to self-correct, or self-police through separation of powers within the tripartite political system. It is hardly news this system is about dead, starting not with Trump of course, but now reaching its absolute low point under his rule and the acquiescence of the spineless GOP. ..."
That is, he started off on the wrong foot. Campaigning as a populist who eschewed accepted
mainstream "progressive" and "conservative" political positions, he completely cratered the
unpopular Republican orthodoxy during the 2016 primaries by promising such heretical ideas as
a non-interventionist foreign policy, protection for Medicare/Medicaid and social security,
improvement on Obamacare, higher taxes on the wealthiest and a massive infrastructure program
to rebuild the decaying facilities of this so-called once grate nation.
These are all ideas that gained the support of enough Obama voters and independents in
just the right flyover states to lead Trump to an improbable victory while being soundly
thrashed in the popular voting nationwide. A stunning, historical accomplishment as much as
and as much in reaction too, the 2008 Obama victory.
Of course, to those of us who understand the modern GOP and the history of the lying-ass
self promotion of the Trump entertainment spectacle its own self, we were neither duped nor
surprised when the initial 2017 legislative agenda items proferred were none of the populist
agenda but instead were the repeal of Obamacare, massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the
reversal of all Obama executive orders, most notably in the areas of refugee resettlement and
immigration.
Trump, the so-called change agent who in fact was and still is clueless regarding how to
function as President simply let the craven Obama opposition leaders of the prior 8 years,
McConnell and Ryan set out the typical GOP legislative agenda, which is opposed by a
majority, in some cases overwhelming majority, of Amerikkkans.
Obamacare repeal failed memorably based on but one late night thumb's down taken more out
of personal revenge than the ideology of a very soon to be dead Senator.
Trump's ruling style in large part has substituted for any sense of a coherent agenda in
that he obviously cares only about his base (an obdurate block of 36% of the electorate
consisting almost entirely of white, entitled, racist baby boomers who have devolved into
anti-democratic fascists now that they no longer represent a majority of the US population
and believe (falsely) they have something to protect).
Trump has succeeded in implementing some of his campaign ideas and not all of them are
100% evil or wrongheaded. He has shaken the long term calcification of the US foreign and
trade policy, has introduced tariffs especially to combat clearly unfair Chinese trade
practices while demanding European and Asian allies pay more for their defense of
empire.
While I have my own view of whether any of Trump's policies contain great value from a
long term historical perspective, I do recognize Trump's appeal to certain sectors of the
internet, including most obviously certain useful idiots of the ultra left.
I do not believe his victory to be a fluke of nature but rather in keeping with the
current worldwide trend borne of aging whitebread fear, cyncism and disenchantment with
elitist political/economic establishments and which has been amped to a viral degree by a
staggering wealth disparity, but only as it impacts the formerly entitled feeling, aging
white people situated in western countries.
The natural response to any socially or cultural threat is to band together tribally and
fight back. And the main threat, when it is boiled down, is the fear of overpopulation (and
its accompnaying unstoppable environmental degradation) driven by what is viewed
through the Trump voter political lens as non-white, primitive, illsuited people from
shithole countries who are and will continue to ruin Amerikkka and Western Europe.
As perfectly illustrated by the migrant caravan heading to Tijuana.
Unfortunately, Trump through disinterest or incompetence or both hasn't followed through
either with enough of the promises he made that are actually meaningful to most people,
whether GOP or Democratic. He has been able to bind his tribe to him and conquer the GOP
political apparatus simply because the Party platform was already so badly decayed
(overcooked Reagan leftovers) and out of touch with reality pre-Trump that the Donald could
bend delusional conservative tropes in any way he saw fit to his electoral advantage. As long
as he infotained well, and he has indeed, he would dominate.
As b stated recently, Trump is an astute salesman (unfortunately, that is all he is)
but what is left unmentioned is that he is of the sales school that is totally unmoored for
any sense of ethical, moral or legal responsibility.
In other words, Trump is that quintessential Amerikkkan salesman: the grifter. This
particular breed of business person is not an exception in the US but rather the rule. In
fact, the US system has devolved to the point where laws and regulations now enfranchise what
previously had been considered illegal activity. Amerikkkans are heavily incentivised these
days by the call to a form of monopolistic, crony capitalism and institulionised rigged
gambling ("Wall Street"), which in more quaint times was considered mobsterism.
Institutions have been purposefully compromised so they no longer support whatever
criminal laws still exist. It is not by accident that the IRS is now chronically understaffed
and has no effective way to stop income tax cheating or collection of the minimal taxes now
due.
It is not by accident that Trump's main role as President is to weaken institutions such
as the media, to further debase language and kill whatever generally accepted objective truth
remain extant in the land. He is recognisable to all Amerikkkans as a CEO in support of this
ongoing wave of legal criminality through which the 1% and their lackeys section have
prospered at the expense of the 99%.
The US political system was invested with an ability to self-correct, or self-police
through separation of powers within the tripartite political system. It is hardly news this
system is about dead, starting not with Trump of course, but now reaching its absolute low
point under his rule and the acquiescence of the spineless GOP.
And no, I don't believe the Demotardic Party to be absolved of blame in any way. Rather,
the Demotards have entirely gone along to get along with this same trend because of course
the Party leaders have been able to criminally enrich themselves and their cronies along the
way too.
However, let's be real for minute and drop all pretense of holier than thou keyboard
revolutionism. The ultimate solution of the world's disease is not going to be resolved in
2018 through a political revolution, especially one inspired by the disharmony and fraud of
internet based social media and its acolytes. D'uh.
Look around. Since we have been blogging our lives away the world has only grown further
away from leftism. We live in a fascist police state owned and operated by teh ultra wealthy
who have dropped pretense of any humanitarian or religious concern for those less firtunated
than themselves.
Donald Trump has one more chance to make himself truly into the transformational leader he
believes himself to be in his degraded soul.
The first bill on the 2019 legislative needs to be a bipartisan infrastructure bill of
such scope and magnitude that it will serve not only a political change of direction but also
redirect the economy in such way that wealth is re-directed from the wealthy to the rest of
us, particularly those able bodied non-college educated people who have suffered through the
last several decades without hope or gain.
Trump must dictate to his party that Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security will not only
be maintained but strengthened through improved benefits.
Am I dreaming? Yes, I admit that I am. But I'm also calling out to the criminal conman in
chief: it's not too late to reclaim your own legacy.
Among the many untruths told about Donald Trump is the claim that his is not a movement of
ideas. As a candidate in 2016, Trump may not have spoken the language of the policy wonks. But
unlike those Republicans who did, his view of the world was not a stale ideological cliche. It
was instead refreshingly frank: about a foreign policy that couldn't win the wars it waged, an
economy that imperiled middle- and working-class America, and an immigration regime only the
employers of illegal nannies could love. Trump recognized reality, and that drew to his cause
independent-minded intellectuals who had also done so. The Trump movement suffers not from a
dearth of ideas or thinkers, but a dearth of institutions. It has thinkers but no think
tank.
F.H. Buckley, Foundation Professor at George Mason University's Scalia School of Law, is one
of its thinkers. His new book, The Republican Workers Party , comes from a publisher --
Encounter -- led by another, Roger Kimball. Buckley is no relation to William F., who as
writer, editor, and Firing Line host did more than anyone to make conservatism a byword
for eloquence in the latter half of the 20th century. But much as the other Buckley remade the
Right by founding National Review in 1955, this one aims to bring about a profound
change of heart and mind among conservatives. He wants to make good on the promise of the GOP
as a party for American workers.
It was a promise made right from the beginning, when in the mid-19th century the Republicans
were the party of free labor against the slavocracy. But the GOP and the country lost their
way. Today, in Buckley's telling, a self-perpetuating "New Class" of administrators and
mandarins runs the country from perches of privilege in the academy and nonprofit sector, as
well as the media, government, and much of the business world. Republicans of the Never Trump
variety are as much a part of this ruling caste as Clinton-Schumer-Pelosi Democrats are. And if
you might wonder whether someone in Buckley's position isn't part of the same professional
stratum, his answer is that he very much aspires to be a traitor to his class, just as Donald
Trump is.
Trump, writes Buckley, is "unlike anything we've seen before, for the simple reason that
he's up against something that we've never seen before: a liberalism that has given up on the
American Dream of a mobile and classless society." Those who today style themselves as
progressives are nothing of the sort -- they are not revolutionaries but the new aristocrats:
"They are Bourbons who seek to pass themselves off as Jacobins. They have bought into a radical
leftism, while resisting the call to unseat a patrician class that leftists in the past would
have opposed."
This is an eloquent explanation for an inversion that has puzzled many observers. Today's
Left, at least the mainstream Left represented by the Democratic Party, is now
establishmentarian. The Republican Right is now populist, if not downright revolutionary. "When
the upper class is composed of liberals who support socialist measures to keep us immobile and
preserve their privileged position," Buckley argues, "class warfare to free up our economy by
tearing down an aristocracy is conservative and just, as well as popular."
Buckley came to these conclusions before the rise of Donald Trump. They are at the heart of
his last two books, The Way Back and The Republic of Virtue . He recognized in
Trump a force for salutary change. So in early 2016, he signed up as a speechwriter for the
candidate and his family. At one point, this attracted unwanted attention: a speech delivered
by Donald Trump Jr. was found to have plagiarized an article in . Except it wasn't plagiarism:
Buckley was the author of both. I was editor of the magazine at the time, and Buckley is
correct when he says in The Republican Workers Party that I enjoyed the non-scandal --
because it brought attention to an essay I thought deserved a brighter spotlight than it had
initially received.
A further disclosure or two is in order: I also published some of the material that appears
in The Republican Workers Party in the journal I now edit, Modern Age , and I'm
thanked in the book's acknowledgments. My warm words for Buckley's last volume are quoted on
the dust jacket of this one. The review you're reading now is honest, but subjective -- I'm a
part of the story. Only a small one, however: Buckley reveals many details of the Trump
campaign and post-election transition that I had never heard before, including how Michael
Anton came to be hired and fired.
The campaign memoir is intriguing in its own right, but it's in the service of the book's
larger purpose. I've known Buckley to refer to himself as an economic determinist, and he's
also said that the future will be decided by a fight between the right-wing Marxists and the
left-wing Marxists. But those are exaggerations, and The Republican Workers Party isn't
primarily about economics: quite the contrary, it's about solidarity, humanity, and the
Christian spirit of brotherhood. The book is informed by a religious sensibility as much as it
is by policy acumen. But it's a religious sensibility that addresses the soul through material
conditions. Buckley is critical of attempts at a "moral rearmament crusade" that amounts to
shaming the poor and blaming them for their own condition.
On this, Buckley is at odds with what movement conservatism has promoted over the last
30-odd years, which is a pure moralism alongside a theoretically pure free-market economism,
each restricted to its own categorical silo. An economic conservative or libertarian might thus
approach Buckley's book with the trepeditation of a holy Inquisitor fearful that a friend will
be found committing heresy. But there is little in these pages that a free-market conservative
can quibble with at the policy level: rather it is the spirit in which economic conservatives
conduct politics that Buckley criticizes. He is even on the side of conservative orthodoxy,
more or less, when it comes to tariffs. He's a free trader at heart, though not a dogmatic
one.
On immigration, he favors a more Canadian-like, points-based system that would prioritize
skills, with a view toward providing maximum benefit for our current citizens, especially the
least well off among them. The present system "admits people who underbid native-born Americans
for low-skill jobs, while refusing entry to people with greater skills who would make life
better for all Americans." Canada lets in many more immigrants in proportion to its population
than the United States does, but "Canadians see an immigration policy designed to benefit the
native-born, so they don't think their government wants to stick it to them," even when it
comes to generous admission of refugees.
Buckley speaks from experience about immigration and Canada -- he was born, brought up, and
lived most of his life there before becoming a U.S. citizen in 2014. Like Alexander Hamilton,
whose Caribbean origins gave him a view of America's national economy unprejudiced by sectional
interests, Buckley's Canadian background gives him an independent vantage from which to
consider our characteristic shibboleths unsparingly. The separation of powers, for one, is a
dismal failure that "has given us two or more different Republican parties: a presidential
party, which today is the Republican Workers Party, but also congressional Republican parties
rooted in the issues and preference of local members. There's the Freedom Caucus composed of
Tea Party members, the more moderate Main Street Partnership and whatever maverick senators
were thinking this morning." Federalism too is a mixed bag. These are themes touched lightly
upon here but worked out in detail in such earlier Buckley books as The Once and Future
King .
That's not to say there's something alien about Buckley's ideas. He's an heir to Viscount
Bolingbroke, as were many of the Founding Fathers. (He contrasts Bolingbroke's disinterested
ideal of a patriot king, for example, with the identity-driven politics of the Democratic
Party.) But Buckley is also an heir to George Grant and the Anglo-Canadian tradition of Red
Toryism, a form of conservatism that does not bother itself with anti-government formulas that
never seem to reduce the size of government one iota anyway. Buckley's heroes are "leaders such
as Disraeli, Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston's father) and even Winston Churchill himself."
"They were conservative" but "they supported generous social welfare policies."
The policies that Buckley is most concerned about, however, are those that generate social
mobility. Education is thus high on his agenda. He is a strong supporter of vouchers and school
choice and points again to Canada as a success story for private schools receiving public
funds. But America is a rather different country, and as popular as vouchers are on the Right,
some of us can't help but wonder whether they would lead to the same outcome in primary and
secondary education that federal financial aid has produced in higher education. With the money
comes regulation, and usually soaring prices, too.
But Buckley is right that the defects of our present education system go a long way toward
explaining the rise of the new status class, and other countries have found answers to the
questions that perplex American politics -- or some of them at least. More adventurous thinking
is required if anything is to be saved of the American dream of mobility, in place of the
nightmare of division into static castes of winners and losers.
Libertarian economists and blame-the-poor moralizers are not the only figures on the Right
Buckley criticizes. He has no patience for the barely disguised Nietzscheanism of certain "East
Coast" Straussians, who imagine themselves to be philosopher-princes, educating a class of
obedient gentlemen who will in turn dominate a mass of purely appetitive worker bees and cannon
fodder.
Buckley's book is an argument against right-wing heartlessness. Its title may conjure in
some minds phantoms of the National Socialist German Workers Party or America's own penny-ante
white nationalist Traditionalist Workers Party, on which the media has lavished a certain
amount of attention in recent years. But fascists are not traditionalists, workers, or even,
properly speaking, socialists -- they simply steal whatever terms happen to be popular. Buckley
refuses to concede their claims and appease them.
He is eloquent in his American -- not white -- nationalism. "There isn't much room for white
nationalism in American culture," he writes, "For alongside baseball and apple pie, it includes
Langston Hughes and Amy Tan, Tex-Mex food and Norah Jones. You can be an American if you don't
enjoy them, but you might be a wee bit more American if you do." It's populism, not
nationalism, that he considers a toxic term, its genealogy tracing to figures like "Pitchfork
Ben" Tillman, a Jim Crow proponent and defender of lynch mobs.
He is right to defend the honor of nationalism, but Buckley may be mistaken in his animus
toward "populism," a word that for most people is more likely to bring to mind William Jennings
Bryan than the Ku Klux Klan.
Buckley's project in The Republican Workers Party parallels on the Right the task
taken up by Mark Lilla on the Left in last year's The Once and Future Liberal . Like
Lilla, Buckley wants to see a revival of mid-20th-century liberalism. For both, politics is
ultimately class-based, not identity-based. Lilla trains his fire on the identity-parsing Left,
while Buckley rebukes the Right for failing to fight the class war -- or rather, for fighting
on the wrong side, that of the self-serving New Class, the aristocracy of education,
connections, and right-thinking opinion.
This may seem nostalgic, but it's not: Buckley does not expect a return to JFK or Camelot,
even if, like Lilla, he once borrowed a title from T.H. White. The 21st century can only give
us a new and very different Kennedy or Disraeli -- an insurgent from the Right to retake the
center. In Donald Trump, F.H. Buckley found such a figure, but a movement needs a program as
well as a leader, and the program has to be grounded in an idea of humanity and the limits of
politics. The nation defines those limits, and while not every Trump supporter will agree with
Buckley's policy thought in all its specifics, the spirit of Buckley's endeavor represents what
is finest in the Trump moment, and what is best in conservatism, too.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.
"... As to your question about who votes for Bolsonaro, I think we can break this down into three or four categories. His hard core is the sort of middle class of small business owners, plus members of the police and the armed forces. This would be, I guess, your classic fascist constituency, if you want to call it that. But you know, that's a very small proportion. ..."
"... Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is a former academic sociologist who was exiled during the military dictatorship and was president of Brazil in the late '90s. He has yet to endorse Haddad, despite the fact that Bolsonaro previously said something about 10 years ago that Fernando Henrique Cardoso should have been killed by the military dictatorship. This is a real, in my opinion, a real failure of character, a real cowardice from the Brazilian supposedly-centrist elite to defend democracy against the very obvious threat that Bolsonaro poses. ..."
As to your question about who votes for Bolsonaro, I think we can break this down into
three or four categories. His hard core is the sort of middle class of small business owners,
plus members of the police and the armed forces. This would be, I guess, your classic fascist
constituency, if you want to call it that. But you know, that's a very small proportion.
And certainly in terms of his voters, in terms of his voter base, that's a small proportion.
What you have, then, is the rich, amongst whom he has a very significant lead. He polls 60-65
percent amongst the rich. And these people are motivated by what is called [inaudible]machismo,
which is anti-Worker's Party sentiment, which is really a sort form of barely-disguised class
loathing which targets the Worker's Party, rails against corruption, but of course turns a
blind eye to corruption amongst more traditional right-wing politicians.
These are the people who, at the end of the day, are quite influential, and have probably
proved decisive for Bolsonaro. But that isn't to say that he doesn't have support amongst the
poor, and this is the real issue. Bolsonaro would not win an election with just the support of
the reactionary middle class and the rich. He needs the support amongst the broad masses, and
he does have that to a significant degree, unfortunately.
What are they motivated by? They're motivated by a sense that politics has failed them, that
their situation is pretty hopeless. The security situation is very grave. And Bolsonaro seems
to be someone who might do something different, might change things. It's a bit of a rolling of
the dice kind of situation. And you know, here the Worker's Party does bear some blame. They've
lost a large section of the working class. A large section of the poor feel like they were
betrayed by the Worker's Party, who didn't stay true to its promises. The Worker's Party
implemented the austerity in its last government under Dilma, which led to a ballooning of
unemployment. And you know, there's a sense that- well, what have you done for us? A lot of
people don't want to return to the path. They want something better, and kind of roll the dice
hoping that maybe Bolsonaro does something, even though all evidence points to the fact that
he'll be a government for the rich, and the very rich, and for the forces of repression.
GREG WILPERT: So finally, in the little time that we have remaining, what is
happening to Brazil's left? Is it supporting the Haddad campaign wholeheartedly?
ALEX HOCHULI: Yes, absolutely. It's pretty much uniform amongst the left. Certainly
in terms of, you know, in terms of individuals, in terms of groups, in terms of movements.
Everyone, from even the kind of far-left Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party who
hate PT have told its members that they should vote for Fernando Haddad who, it should be
noted, is a figure to the right of that of PT, I guess, within the party. He's a much more
centrist figure. So that's kind of notable.
What hasn't happened is a broad front against fascism. That hasn't really materialized,
because the Brazilian center has failed to defend its democratic institutions against the very
obvious threat that Bolsonaro represents. You know, just to highlight one thing, Eduardo
Bolsonaro, who is Jair Bolsonar's son and a congressman, has threatened the Supreme Court,
saying that you could close down the Supreme Court. All you have to do is send one soldier and
one corporal, and they'll shut down the Supreme Court. I mean, this is a pretty brave threat
against Brazilian institutions. And a lot of the center has failed to really manifest itself,
really failed to take a stand. Marina Silva, who was at one point polling quite high about six
months ago, who is a kind of an environmentalist and an evangelical and a centrist, and who is
known for always in her speeches talking about doing things democratically, even she- it took
her until this week to finally endorse Haddad, lending Haddad critical support.
The center right, which should be the, you know, the Brazilian establishment, the ones
upholding the institutions, have broadly failed to endorse Haddad as the democratic candidate.
Which is really, really striking. I mean, just to give you one example, probably the best known
figure for your viewers outside of Brazil who might not know the ins and outs and all the
players involved, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is a former academic sociologist who was
exiled during the military dictatorship and was president of Brazil in the late '90s. He has
yet to endorse Haddad, despite the fact that Bolsonaro previously said something about 10 years
ago that Fernando Henrique Cardoso should have been killed by the military dictatorship. This
is a real, in my opinion, a real failure of character, a real cowardice from the Brazilian
supposedly-centrist elite to defend democracy against the very obvious threat that Bolsonaro
poses.
GREG WILPERT: Wow. Amazing. We'll definitely keep our eyes peeled for what happens on
Sunday. We'll probably have you back soon. I'm speaking to Alex Hochuli, researcher and
communication consultant based in Sao Paulo. Thanks again, Alex, for having joined us
today.
Fascism is always eclectic and its doctrine is composed of several sometimes contradicting each other ideas. "Ideologically speaking,
[the program] was a wooly, eclectic mixture of political, social, racist, national-imperialist wishful thinking..." (Ideologically speaking,
[the program] was a wooly, eclectic mixture of political, social, racist, national-imperialist wishful thinking..."
)
Some ideas are "sound bite only" and never are implemented and are present only to attract sheeple (looks
National Socialist Program ). he program championed
the right to employment , and called for the institution of
profit sharing , confiscation of
war profits , prosecution of usurers and profiteers,
nationalization of trusts , communalization of department stores,
extension of the old-age pension system, creation of a
national education program of all classes, prohibition
of child labor , and an end to the dominance of
investment capital "
There is also "bait and switch" element in any fascism movement. Original fascism was strongly anti-capitalist, militaristic and
"national greatness and purity" movement ("Make Germany great again"). It was directed against financial oligarchy and anti-semantic
element in it was strong partially because it associated Jews with bankers and financial industry in general. In a way "Jews" were codeword
for investment bankers.
For example " Arbeit Macht Frei " can be viewed as
a neoliberal slogan. Then does not mean that neoliberalism. with its cult of productivity, is equal to fascism, but that neoliberal
doctrine does encompass elements of the fascist doctrine including strong state, "law and order" mentality and relentless propaganda.
The word "fascist" is hurled at political / ideological opponents so often that it lost its meaning. The Nazi Party (NSDAP) originated
as a working-class political party . This is not true about
Trump whom many assume of having fascist leanings. His pro white working class rhetoric was a fig leaf used for duration or elections.
After that he rules as a typical Republican president favoring big business. And as a typical neocon in foreign policy.
From this point of view Trump can't be viewed even as pro-fascist leader because first of all he does not have his own political
movement, ideology and political program. And the second he does not strive for implementing uniparty state and abolishing the elections
which is essential for fascism political platform, as fascist despise corrupt democracy and have a cult of strong leader.
All he can be called is neo-fascist s his some of his views do encompass ideas taken from fascist ideology (including "law and order";
which also is a cornerstone element of Republican ideology) as well as idealization and mystification of the US past. But with Bannon
gone he also can't even pretend that he represents some coherent political movement like "economic nationalism" -- kind of enhanced
mercantilism.
Of course, that does not mean that previous fascist leaders were bound by the fascism political program, but at least they had one.
Historian Karl Dietrich Bracher writes that, "To [Hitler,
the program] was little more than an effective, persuasive propaganda weapon for mobilizing and manipulating the masses. Once it had
brought him to power, it became pure decoration: 'unalterable', yet unrealized in its demands for nationalization and expropriation,
for land reform and 'breaking the shackles of finance capital'. Yet it nonetheless fulfilled its role as backdrop and pseudo-theory,
against which the future dictator could unfold his rhetorical and dramatic talents."
Notable quotes:
"... Fascist politics invokes a pure mythic past tragically destroyed. Depending on how the nation is defined, the mythic past may be religiously pure, racially pure, culturally pure, or all of the above. But there is a common structure to all fascist mythologizing. In all fascist mythic pasts, an extreme version of the patriarchal family reigns supreme, even just a few generations ago. ..."
"... Further back in time, the mythic past was a time of glory of the nation, with wars of conquest led by patriotic generals, its armies filled with its countrymen, able-bodied, loyal warriors whose wives were at home raising the next generation. In the present, these myths become the basis of the nation's identity under fascist politics. ..."
"... In the rhetoric of extreme nationalists, such a glorious past has been lost by the humiliation brought on by globalism, liberal cosmopolitanism, and respect for "universal values" such as equality. These values are supposed to have made the nation weak in the face of real and threatening challenges to the nation's existence. ..."
"... fascist myths distinguish themselves with the creation of a glorious national history in which the members of the chosen nation ruled over others, the result of conquests and civilization-building achievements. ..."
"... The function of the mythic past, in fascist politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology -- authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle. ..."
It's in the name of tradition that the anti-Semites base their "point of view." It's in the name of tradition, the long, historical
past and the blood ties with Pascal and Descartes, that the Jews are told, you will never belong here.
-- Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
It is only natural to begin this book where fascist politics invariably claims to discover its genesis: in the past. Fascist
politics invokes a pure mythic past tragically destroyed. Depending on how the nation is defined, the mythic past may be religiously
pure, racially pure, culturally pure, or all of the above. But there is a common structure to all fascist mythologizing. In all fascist
mythic pasts, an extreme version of the patriarchal family reigns supreme, even just a few generations ago.
Further back in time, the mythic past was a time of glory of the nation, with wars of conquest led by patriotic generals,
its armies filled with its countrymen, able-bodied, loyal warriors whose wives were at home raising the next generation. In the present,
these myths become the basis of the nation's identity under fascist politics.
In the rhetoric of extreme nationalists, such a glorious past has been lost by the humiliation brought on by globalism, liberal
cosmopolitanism, and respect for "universal values" such as equality. These values are supposed to have made the nation weak in the
face of real and threatening challenges to the nation's existence.
These myths are generally based on fantasies of a nonexistent past uniformity, which survives in the traditions of the small towns
and countrysides that remain relatively unpolluted by the liberal decadence of the cities. This uniformity -- linguistic, religious,
geographical, or ethnic -- can be perfectly ordinary in some nationalist movements, but fascist myths distinguish themselves
with the creation of a glorious national history in which the members of the chosen nation ruled over others, the result of conquests
and civilization-building achievements. For example, in the fascist imagination, the past invariably involves traditional, patriarchal
gender roles. The fascist mythic past has a particular structure, which supports its authoritarian, hierarchical ideology. That past
societies were rarely as patriarchal -- or indeed as glorious -- as fascist ideology represents them as being is beside the point.
This imagined history provides proof to support the imposition of hierarchy in the present, and it dictates how contemporary society
should look and behave.
In a 1922 speech at the Fascist Congress in Naples, Benito Mussolini declared:
We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion. It is not necessary for it to be a reality. . . . Our myth is
the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total
reality, we subordinate everything.
The patriarchal family is one ideal that fascist politicians intend to create in society -- or return to, as they claim. The patriarchal
family is always represented as a central part of the nation's traditions, diminished, even recently, by the advent of liberalism
and cosmopolitanism. But why is patriarchy so strategically central to fascist politics?
In a fascist society, the leader of the nation is analogous to the father in the traditional patriarchal family. The leader is
the father of his nation, and his strength and power are the source of his legal authority, just as the strength and power of the
father of the family in patriarchy are supposed to be the source of his ultimate moral authority over his children and wife. The
leader provides for his nation, just as in the traditional family the father is the provider. The patriarchal father's authority
derives from his strength, and strength is the chief authoritarian value. By representing the nation's past as one with a patriarchal
family structure, fascist politics connects nostalgia to a central organizing hierarchal authoritarian structure, one that finds
its purest representation in these norms.
Gregor Strasser was the National Socialist -- Nazi -- Reich propaganda chief in the 1920s, before the post was taken over by Joseph
Goebbels. According to Strasser, "for a man, military service is the most profound and valuable form of participation -- for the
woman it is motherhood!" Paula Siber, the acting head of the Association of German Women, in a 1933 document meant to reflect official
National Socialist state policy on women, declares that "to be a woman means to be a mother, means affirming with the whole conscious
force of one's soul the value of being a mother and making it a law of life . . . the highest calling of the National Socialist
woman is not just to bear children, but consciously and out of total devotion to her role and duty as mother to raise children for
her people." Richard Grunberger, a British historian of National Socialism, sums up "the kernel of Nazi thinking on the women's question"
as "a dogma of inequality between the sexes as immutable as that between the races." The historian Charu Gupta, in her 1991 article
"Politics of Gender: Women in Nazi Germany," goes as far as to argue that "oppression of women in Nazi Germany in fact furnishes
the most extreme case of anti-feminism in the 20th century."
Here, Mussolini makes clear that the fascist mythic past is intentionally mythical. The function of the mythic past, in fascist
politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology -- authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity,
and struggle.
With the creation of a mythic past, fascist politics creates a link between nostalgia and the realization of fascist ideals. German
fascists also clearly and explicitly appreciated this point about the strategic use of a mythological past. The leading Nazi ideologue
Alfred Rosenberg, editor of the prominent Nazi newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter, writes in 1924, "the understanding of and the
respect for our own mythological past and our own history will form the first condition for more firmly anchoring the coming generation
in the soil of Europe's original homeland." The fascist mythic past exists to aid in changing the present.
Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Before coming to Yale in 2013, he was Distinguished
Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Stanley is the author of Know How; Languages in Context;
More about Jason Stanley
This could have been such a helpful, insightful book. The word "fascist" is hurled at political / ideological opponents so
often that it has started to lose its meaning. I hoped that this book would provide a historical perspective on fascism by examining
actual fascist governments and drawing some parallels to the more egregious / worrisome trends in US & European politics. The
chapter titles in the table of contents were promising:
- The Mythic Past
- Propaganda
- Anti-Intellectual
- Unreality
- Hierarchy
- Victimhood
- Law & Order
- Sexual Anxiety
- Sodom & Gomorrah
- Arbeit Macht Frei
Ironically (given the book's subtitle) the author used his book divisively: to laud his left-wing political views and demonize
virtually all distinctively right-wing views. He uses the term "liberal democracy" inconsistently throughout, disengenuously equivocating
between the meaning of "representative democracy as opposed to autocratic or oligarchic government" (which most readers would
agree is a good thing) and "American left-wing political views" (which he treats as equally self-evidently superior if you are
a right-thinking person). Virtually all American right-wing political views are presented in straw-man form, defined in such a
way that they fit his definition of fascist politics.
I was expecting there to be a pretty heavy smear-job on President Trump and his cronies (much of it richly deserved...the man's
demagoguery and autocratic tendencies are frightening), but for this to turn into "let's find a way to define virtually everything
the Republicans are and do as fascist politics" was massively disappointing. The absurdly biased portrayal of all things conservative
and constant hymns of praise to all things and all people left-wing buried some good historical research and valid parallels under
an avalanche of partisanism.
If you want a more historical, less partisan view of the rise of fascist politics, I would highly recommend Darkness Over Germany
by E. Amy Buller (Review Here). It was written during World War II (based on interviews with Germans before WWII), so you will
have to draw your own contemporary parallels...but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
strip away the right of Corprati0ns to have the legal standing of a person in a Court of
Law .
when we could just abolish the institution of incorporation without remorse? This
would like treating a cause of widespread disease with an ounce of inexpensive
prevention.
Buh-bye limited liability parasitism. Buh-bye rootless, world-wandering capital with scant
interest in the hosts' long-term wellbeing.
I suppose that there would be a shrill outcry of protest from the many little fire teams,
squads, and platoons of mind rapists (e.g. A. Cockburn) who have a career interest in
complaining for a living. But so what? It would be fun to watch "social justice" factions
twist and squirm as a chorus of abolitionists asks why the "Resistance" never resisted
"corporatocracy" with abolitionism. The rapists will "spew" much sanctimonious b.s.
defensively between artful meals in nice restaurants, but the chorus will know a real
reason. Lefty humanist finds incorporation very useful for cultivating the intense
concentration of wealth and power which he pretends to oppose.
Eventually the chorus will get around to asking lefty internationalist about his
contemporary plans to merge every firm with government without looking like an old fashioned
commie expropriationist. The chorus might ask the mind rapists still more embarassing
questions:
Righteous Lefty, why would you establish incorporation now if it wasn't a feature of
commerce already? Because you would not then have a little handful of company shares to
trade in a stock exchange? Nor be planning to exploit a stock tip from an ally who is
married to a corporate go-getter with C-level knowledge of plans?
Traditional labor unions, TOO, have been involved with the racketeering of incorporation.
Take the UMWA, for example. Where in the eleven points of its constitution is there any hint
that labor organizers and their Blair Mountain warriors were thinking about abolishing a
pernicious institution which had done so much to slant market power in favor of neverlaboring
mine operators?
It's been obvious for some time that the allegedly right wing "ALT RIGHT" is another
faction with little interest in getting rid of the corporation. It is sympathetic,
however, to old fashioned communist schemes like "Social Security" and communist health care
finance. So what, um, pecuniary interest does its leading lights have in maintaining the
incorporated status quo? Explain, please.
This is a very weak article, but it raises several important questions such as the role or neoliberal MSM in color revolution
against Trump and which social group constituted the voting block that brought Trump to victory. The author answers incorrectly on
both those questions.
I think overall Tremblay analysis of Trump (and by extension of national neoliberalism he promotes) is incorrect. Probably the largest group
of voters which voted for Trump were voters who were against neoliberal globalization and who now feel real distrust and aversion to
the ruling neoliberal elite.
Trump is probably right to view neoliberal journalists as enemies: they are tools of intelligence agencies which as agents of
Wall Street promote globalization
At the same time Trump turned to be Obama II: he instantly betrayed his voters after the election. His
election slogan "make Ameraca great again" bacem that same joke as Obama "Change we can believe in". And he proved to be as
jingoistic as Obama (A Nobel Pease Price laureate who was militarists dream come true)
In discussion of groups who votes for Trump the author forgot to mention part of professional which skeptically view neoliberal
globalization and its destrction of jobs (for example programmer jobs in the USA) as well as blue color
workers decimated by offshoring of major industries.
Notable quotes:
"... "Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people [journalists], the fake news Just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. " ..."
"... Donald Trump (1946- ), American President, (in remarks made during a campaign rally with Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Kansas City, July 24, 2018) ..."
"... "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." ..."
"... This is a White House where everybody lies ..."
"... I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power ..."
"... The second one can be found in Trump's artful and cunning tactics to unbalance and manipulate the media to increase his visibility to the general public and to turn them into his own tools of propaganda. ..."
"... ad hominem' ..."
"... Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical showman diva , behaving in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if one considers politics and public affairs as no more than a reality show, this means that they are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians. ..."
"... He prefers to rely on one-directional so-called 'tweets' to express unfiltered personal ideas and emotions (as if he were a private person), and to use them as his main public relations channel of communication. ..."
"... checks and balance ..."
"... The centralization of power in the hands of one man is bound to have serious political consequences, both for the current administration and for future ones. ..."
"Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people [journalists], the fake news Just remember, what
you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. "
Donald Trump (1946- ), American President, (in remarks made during a campaign rally with Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Kansas
City, July 24, 2018)
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) (1903-1950), English novelist, essayist, and social critic, (in '1984', Ch. 7, 1949)
" This is a White House where everybody lies ." Omarosa Manigault Newman (1974- ), former White House aide to President
Donald Trump, (on Sunday August 12, 2018, while releasing tapes recording conversations with Donald Trump.)
" I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power ." Benjamin Franklin (
1706 –
1790 ), American inventor and US Founding Father, (in 'Words of
the Founding Fathers', 2012).
***
In this day and age, with instant information, how does a politician succeed in double-talking, in bragging, in scapegoating and
in shamefully distorting the truth, most of the time, without being unmasked as a charlatan and discredited? Why? That is the mysterious
and enigmatic question that one may ask about U. S. President Donald Trump, as a politician.
The most obvious answer is the fact that Trump's one-issue and cult-like followers do not care what he does or says and whether
or not he has declared a
war on truth and reality , provided he delivers the political and financial benefits they demand of him, based on their ideological
or pecuniary interests. These groups of voters live in their own reality and only their personal interests count.
1- Four groups of one-issue voters behind Trump
There are four groups of one-issue voters to
whom President Donald Trump has delivered the goodies:
Christian religious right voters, whose main political issue is to fill the U. S. Supreme Court with ultra conservative
judges. On that score, Donald Trump has been true to them by naming one such judge and in nominating a second one.
Super rich Zionists and the Pro-Israel Lobby, whose obsession is the state of Israel. Again, on that score, President
Donald Trump has fulfilled his promise to them and he has unilaterally moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in addition
to attacking the Palestinians and tearing up the 'Iran Deal'.
The one-percent Income earners and some corporate owners, whose main demand to Trump was substantial tax cuts and
deregulation. Once again, President Trump has fulfilled this group's wishes with huge tax cuts, mainly financed with future public
debt increases, which are going to be paid for by all taxpayers.
The NRA and the Pro-Gun Lobby, whose main obsession is to have the right to arm themselves to the teeth, including
with military assault weapons, with as few strings attached as possible. Here again President Donald Trump has sided with them
and against students who are increasingly in the line of fire in American schools.
With the strong support of these four monolithic lobbies -- his electoral base -- politician Donald Trump can count on the indefectible
support of between 35 percent and 40 percent of the American electorate. It is ironic that some of Trump's other policies, like reducing
health care coverage and the raising of import taxes, will hurt the poor and the middle class, even though some of Trump's victims
can be considered members of the above lobbies.
Moreover, some of Trump's supporters regularly rely on
hypocrisy and on excuses to exonerate their favorite
but flawed politician of choice. If any other politician from a different party were to say and do half of what Donald Trump does
and says, they would be asking for his impeachment.
There are three other reasons why Trump's rants, his
record-breaking lies , his untruths, his deceptions and his dictatorial-style attempts to
control information , in the eyes of his fanatical supporters, at least, are like water on the back of a duck. ( -- For the record,
according to the
Washington Post , as of early August, President Trump has made some 4,229 false claims, which amount to 7.6 a day, since his
inauguration.)
The first reason can be found in Trump's view that politics and even government business are first and foremost another form
of
entertainment , i.e. a sort of TV reality show, which must be scripted and acted upon. Trump thinks that is
OK to lie
and to ask his assistants to
lie
. In this new immoral world, the Trump phenomenon could be seen a sign of
post-democracy .
The second one can be found in Trump's artful and cunning tactics to unbalance and
manipulate the media to increase his visibility to the general public and to turn them into his own tools of propaganda.
When Trump attacks the media, he is in fact coaxing them to give him free coverage to spread his
insults , his fake accusations, his provocations, his constant
threats , his denials or reversals, his convenient
changes of subject or his political spins. Indeed, with his outrageous statements, his gratuitous accusations and his attacks
' ad hominem' , and by constantly bullying and insulting adversaries at home and foreign heads of states abroad, and
by issuing threats in repetition, right and left, Trump has forced the media to talk and journalists to write about him constantly,
on a daily basis, 24/7.
That suits him perfectly well because he likes to be the center of attention. That is how he can change the political rhetoric
when any negative issue gets too close to him. In the coming weeks and months, as the Special prosecutor
Robert Mueller's report is likely to be released, Donald Trump is not above resorting to some sort of "
Wag the Dog " political trickery, to change the topic and to possibly push the damaging report off the headlines.
In such a circumstance, it is not impossible that launching an illegal war of choice, say against Iran (a
pet
project of Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton), could then look very convenient to a crafty politician like Donald
Trump and to his warmonger advisors. Therefore, observers should be on the lookout to spot any development of the sort in the
coming weeks.
That one man and his entourage could whimsically consider launching a
war of aggression is a throwback to ancient times
and is a sure indication of the level of depravity to which current politics has fallen. This should be a justified and clear
case for impeachment .
Finally, some far-right media outlets, such as
Fox News and
Sinclair Broadcasting , have taken it upon themselves to systematically present Trump's lies and misrepresentations as some
'alternative' truths and facts.
Indeed, ever since 1987, when the Reagan administration abolished the
Fairness Doctrine for licensing public radio
and TV waves, and since a Republican dominated Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed for the
mass conglomeration of local broadcasting
in the United States, extreme conservative news outlets, such as the Fox and Sinclair networks, have sprung up. They are well
financed, and they have essentially become powerful
political propaganda machines , erasing the line between facts and fiction, and regularly presenting fictitious alternative
facts as the truth.
In so doing, they have pushed public debates in the United States away from facts, reason and logic, at least for those listeners
and viewers for whom such outlets are the only source of information. It is not surprising that such far-right media have also
made Donald Trump the champion of their cause, maliciously branding anything inconvenient as 'fake' news, as Trump has done in
his own anti-media campaign and his sustained assault on the free press.
2- Show Politics and public affairs as a form of entertainment
Donald Trump does not seem to take politics and public affairs very seriously, at least when his own personal interests are involved.
Therefore, when things go bad, he never volunteers to take personal responsibility, contrary to what a true leader would do, and
he conveniently
shifts the blame on somebody else. This is a sign of immaturity or cowardice. Paraphrasing President Harry Truman, "the buck
never stops at his desk."
Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical
showman diva , behaving
in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if one considers politics and public affairs as no more than
a reality show, this means that they are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians.
3- Trump VS the media and the journalists
Donald Trump is the first U.S. president who rarely holds scheduled press conferences. Why would he, since he considers journalists
to be his "enemies"! It doesn't seem to matter to him that freedom of the press is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution by the First
Amendment. He prefers to rely on one-directional so-called 'tweets' to express unfiltered personal ideas and emotions (as if
he were a private person), and to use them as his main public relations channel of communication.
The ABC News network
has calculated that, as of last July, Trump has tweeted more than 3,500 times, slightly more than seven tweets a day. How could he
have time left to do anything productive! Coincidently, Donald Trump's number of tweets is not far away from the number of outright
lies and misleading claims that he has told and made since his inauguration.
The Washington Post has counted no less than 3,251 lies or misleading claims of his, through the end of May of this year, --
an average of 6.5 such misstatements per day of his presidency. Fun fact: Trump seems to accelerate the pace of his lies. Last year,
he told 5.5 lies per day, on average. Is it possible to have a more cynical view of politics!
The media in general, (and
not only American ones), then serve more or less voluntarily as so many resonance boxes for his daily 'tweets', most of which
are often devoid of any thought and logic.
Such a practice has the consequence of demeaning the public discourse in the pursuit of the common good and the general welfare
of the people to the level of a frivolous private enterprise, where expertise, research and competence can easily be replaced by
improvisation, whimsical arbitrariness and charlatanry. In such a climate, only the short run counts, at the expense of planning
for the long run.
Conclusion
All this leads to this conclusion: Trump's approach is not the way to run an efficient government. Notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution
and what it says about the need to have " checks and balance s" among different government branches, President Donald Trump
has de facto pushed aside the U.S. Congress and the civil servants in important government Departments, even his own
Cabinet
, whose formal meetings under Trump have been little more than photo-up happenings, to grab the central political stage for himself.
If such a development does not represent an ominous threat to American democracy, what does?
The centralization of power in the hands of one man is bound to have serious political consequences, both for the current
administration and for future ones.
"... Serious border enforcement, demanding our wealthy allies do more for their own security, infrastructure investment, the (campaign's) refutation of Reaganomics, acknowledging the costs of globalism, calling BS on all of the dominant left PC pieties and lies, were themes of Trump's campaign that were of value. ..."
Serious border enforcement, demanding our wealthy allies do more for their own security,
infrastructure investment, the (campaign's) refutation of Reaganomics, acknowledging the
costs of globalism, calling BS on all of the dominant left PC pieties and lies, were themes
of Trump's campaign that were of value.
Trump was able to harness and give voice to some very important energies. But being Trump,
he's poisoned these issues for a couple of generations. No serious leader will be able to
touch these things.
Add this to all the institutional and political ruin he has created.
"... he has brought North Korea away from the edge of nuclear war and established at least tentative diplomatic relations with that nation, something no president has done before him. Against frenzied opposition from the American Establishment, he has somewhat softened U.S. relations with Russia. ..."
"... On domestic and environmental matters, Trump is pro-plutocrat, a climate change denier, and the installer of arch-reactionary Supreme Court justices. But this is more a function of the current national Republican party than of Trump himself. Any of Trump's opponents in the 2016 primaries would have followed the same policies. ..."
Trump is not crazy at all. He is the proponent of a particular philosophy, Trumpism, which
he follows very clearly and consistently.
As president, he has had significant successes. Notably, he has brought North Korea away
from the edge of nuclear war and established at least tentative diplomatic relations with
that nation, something no president has done before him. Against frenzied opposition from the
American Establishment, he has somewhat softened U.S. relations with Russia.
On domestic and environmental matters, Trump is pro-plutocrat, a climate change denier,
and the installer of arch-reactionary Supreme Court justices. But this is more a function of
the current national Republican party than of Trump himself. Any of Trump's opponents in the
2016 primaries would have followed the same policies.
Trumpism is undeniably a form of near-fascism. Trump has followed viciously anti-immigrant
tendencies, and this, along with his ties to out-and-out racists, is the worst part of his
presidency. But these horrible aspects do not at all show that he is crazy. He has used them
coldly and calculatedly to gain power.
And while his schtick and bluster are indeed bizarre, he has used them very consistently
to keep a 40%-plus approval rating in the face of an Establishment opposition the like of
which has used against a president at least in our lifetimes.
As I have commented here before, except for Trump's disgusting anti-immigration policies,
George W. Bush was on balance a far worse president.
This is partially incorrect view on Trump foreign policy. At the center of
which is careful retreat for enormous expenses of keeping the global neoliberal
empire, plus military Keyseanism to revive the us economy. Which means
tremendous pressure of arm sales as the only way to improve trade balance.
NATO was always an instrument of the USA hegemony,
so Trump behavior is perfectly compatible with this view -- he just downgraded vassals
refusing usual formal respect for them, as they do no represent independent nations.
That's why he addressed them with the contempt. He aptly remarked that German stance
of relying on Russia hydrocarbons and still claiming the it needs the USA defense
is pure hypocrisy. On the other side china, Russia and North Korea can't be considered
the USA vassals.
China is completely dependent on the USA for advanced technologies so their
dreams of becoming the world hegemon is such exist are premature.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington's dominance over the world economy had begun to wither and its once-superior work force to lose its competitive edge. ..."
"... By 2016, in fact, the dislocations brought on by the economic globalization that had gone with American dominion sparked a revolt of the dispossessed in democracies worldwide and in the American heartland, bringing the self-proclaimed "populist" Donald Trump to power. ..."
"... Determined to check his country's decline, he has adopted an aggressive and divisive foreign policy that has roiled long-established alliances in both Asia and Europe and is undoubtedly giving that decline new impetus. ..."
"... On the realpolitik side of that duality, Washington constructed a four-tier apparatus -- military, diplomatic, economic, and clandestine -- to advance a global dominion of unprecedented wealth and power. This apparatus rested on hundreds of military bases in Europe and Asia that made the U.S. the first power in history to dominate (if not control) the Eurasian continent. ..."
"... Instead of reigning confidently over international organizations, multilateral alliances, and a globalized economy, Trump evidently sees America standing alone and beleaguered in an increasingly troubled world -- exploited by self-aggrandizing allies, battered by unequal trade terms, threatened by tides of undocumented immigrants, and betrayed by self-serving elites too timid or compromised to defend the nation's interests. ..."
"... Instead of multilateral trade pacts like NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), or even the WTO, Trump favors bilateral deals rewritten to the (supposed) advantage of the United States. ..."
"... As he took office, the nation, it claimed, faced "an extraordinarily dangerous world, filled with a wide range of threats." ..."
"... Despite such grandiose claims, each of President Trump's overseas trips has been a mission of destruction in terms of American global power. Each, seemingly by design, disrupted and possibly damaged alliances that have been the foundation for Washington's global power since the 1950s ..."
"... Donald Trump acted more like Argentina's former presidente Juan Perón, minus the medals. ..."
"... Beijing's low-cost infrastructure loans for 70 countries from the Baltic to the Pacific are already funding construction of the Mediterranean's busiest port at Piraeus, Greece, a major nuclear power plant in England, a $6 billion railroad through rugged Laos, and a $46 billion transport corridor across Pakistan. If successful, such infrastructure investments could help knit two dynamic continents, Europe and Asia -- home to a full 70% percent of the world's population and its resources -- into a unified market without peer on the planet. ..."
"... In January, to take advantage of Arctic waters opened by global warming, Beijing began planning for a "Polar Silk Road," a scheme that fits well with ambitious Russian and Scandinavian projects to establish a shorter shipping route around the continent's northern coast to Europe. ..."
"... Financial Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Yet neither China nor any other state seems to have the full imperial complement of attributes to replace the United States as the dominant world leader. ..."
"... In addition to the fundamentals of military and economic power, "every successful empire," observes Cambridge University historian Joya Chatterji, "had to elaborate a universalist and inclusive discourse" to win support from the world's subordinate states and their leaders. ..."
"... China has nothing comparable. Its writing system has some 7,000 characters, not 26 letters. ..."
"... During Japan's occupation of Southeast Asia in World War II, its troops went from being hailed as liberators to facing open revolt across the region after they failed to propagate their similarly particularistic culture. ..."
"... A test of its attitude toward this system of global governance came in 2016 when the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled unanimously that China's claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea "are contrary to the Convention [on the Law of the Sea] and without lawful effect." ..."
...Although they started this century on generally amicable terms, China
and the U.S. have, in recent years, moved toward military competition and open
economic conflict. When China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
in 2001, Washington was confident that Beijing would play by the established
rules and become a compliant member of an American-led international community.
There was almost
no awareness of what might happen when a fifth of humanity joined the world
system as an economic equal for the first time in five centuries.
By the time Xi Jinping became China's seventh president, a decade of rapid
economic growth averaging 11% annually and currency reserves surging toward
an unprecedented $4 trillion had created the economic potential for a rapid,
radical shift in the global balance of power. After just a few months in office,
Xi began tapping those vast reserves to launch a bold geopolitical gambit, a
genuine challenge to U.S. dominion over Eurasia and the world beyond. Aglow
in its status as the world's sole superpower after "winning" the Cold War, Washington
had difficulty at first even grasping such newly developing global realities
and was slow to react.
China's bid couldn't have been more fortuitous in its timing. After nearly
70 years as the globe's hegemon, Washington's dominance over the world economy
had begun to wither and its once-superior work force to lose its competitive
edge.
By 2016, in fact, the dislocations brought on by the economic globalization
that had gone with American dominion sparked a revolt of the dispossessed in
democracies worldwide and in the American heartland, bringing the self-proclaimed
"populist" Donald Trump to power.
Determined to check his country's decline, he has adopted an aggressive
and divisive foreign policy that has roiled long-established alliances in both
Asia and Europe and is undoubtedly giving that decline new impetus.
Within months of Trump's entry into the Oval Office, the world was already
witnessing a sharp rivalry between Xi's advocacy of a new form of global collaboration
and Trump's version of economic nationalism. In the process, humanity seems
to be entering a rare historical moment when national leadership and global
circumstances have coincided to create an opening for a major shift in the nature
of the world order.
Trump's Disruptive Foreign Policy
Despite their constant
criticism of Donald Trump's leadership, few among Washington's corps of
foreign policy experts have grasped his full impact on the historic foundations
of American global power. The world order that Washington built after World
War II rested upon what I've
called a "delicate duality": an American imperium of raw military and economic
power married to a community of sovereign nations, equal under the rule of law
and governed through international institutions such as the United Nations and
the World Trade Organization.
On the realpolitik side of that duality, Washington constructed a four-tier
apparatus -- military, diplomatic, economic, and clandestine -- to advance a
global dominion of unprecedented wealth and power. This apparatus rested on
hundreds of military bases in Europe and Asia that made the U.S. the first
power in history to dominate (if not control) the Eurasian continent.
Even after the Cold War ended, former national security adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski
warned that Washington would remain the world's preeminent power only as
long as it maintained its geopolitical dominion over Eurasia. In the decade
before Trump's election, there were, however, already signs that America's hegemony
was on a downward trajectory as its share of global economic power fell from
50% in 1950 to just
15% in 2017. Many financial forecasts now
project that China will surpass the U.S. as the world's number one economy
by 2030, if not before.
In this era of decline, there has emerged from President Trump's torrent
of tweets and off-the-cuff remarks a surprisingly coherent and grim vision of
America's place in the present world order. Instead of reigning confidently
over international organizations, multilateral alliances, and a globalized economy,
Trump evidently sees America standing alone and beleaguered in an increasingly
troubled world -- exploited by self-aggrandizing allies, battered by unequal
trade terms, threatened by tides of undocumented immigrants, and betrayed by
self-serving elites too timid or compromised to defend the nation's interests.
Instead of multilateral trade pacts like NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP), or even the WTO, Trump favors bilateral deals rewritten to the (supposed)
advantage of the United States. In place of the usual democratic allies
like Canada and Germany, he is trying to weave a web of personal ties to avowedly
nationalist and autocratic leaders of a sort he clearly admires: Vladimir Putin
in Russia, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, Adel Fatah el-Sisi
in Egypt, and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Instead of old alliances like NATO, Trump favors loose coalitions of like-minded
countries. As he sees it, a resurgent America will carry the world along, while
crushing terrorists and dealing in uniquely personal ways with rogue states
like Iran and North Korea.
His version of a foreign policy has found its fullest
statement in his administration's December 2017 National Security Strategy.
As he took office, the nation, it claimed, faced "an extraordinarily dangerous
world, filled with a wide range of threats." But in less than a year of his
leadership, it insisted, "We have renewed our friendships in the Middle East
to help drive out terrorists and extremists America's allies are now contributing
more to our common defense, strengthening even our strongest alliances." Humankind
will benefit from the president's "beautiful vision" that "puts America First"
and promotes "a balance of power that favors the United States." The whole world
will, in short, be "lifted by America's renewal."
Despite such grandiose claims, each of President Trump's overseas trips
has been a mission of destruction in terms of American global power. Each, seemingly
by design, disrupted and possibly damaged alliances that have been the foundation
for Washington's global power since the 1950s. During the president's first
foreign trip in May 2017, he promptly
voiced withering complaints about the supposed refusal of Washington's European
allies to pay their "fair share" of NATO's military costs, leaving the U.S.
stuck with the bill and, in a fashion unknown to American presidents, refused
even to endorse the alliance's core principle of collective defense. It was
a position so extreme in terms of the global politics of the previous half-century
that he was later forced to formally
back down . (By then, however, he had registered his contempt for those
allies in an unforgettable fashion.)
During a second, no-less-divisive NATO visit in July, he charged that
Germany was "a captive of Russia" and pressed the allies to immediately
double their share of defense spending to a staggering 4% of gross domestic
product (a
level even Washington, with its monumental Pentagon budget, hasn't reached)
-- a demand they all ignored. Just days later, he again questioned the very
idea of a common defense,
remarking that if "tiny" NATO ally Montenegro decided to "get aggressive,"
then "congratulations, you're in World War III."
Moving on to England, he promptly kneecapped close ally Theresa May, telling
a British
tabloid that the prime minister had bungled her country's Brexit withdrawal
from the European Union and "killed off any chance of a vital U.S. trade deal."
He then went on to Helsinki for a summit with Vladimir Putin, where he visibly
abased himself before NATO's nominal nemesis, completely enough that there were
even brief, angry
protests
from leaders of his own party.
During Trump's major Asia tour in November 2017, he
addressed the Asian-Pacific Economic Council (APEC) in Vietnam, offering
an extended "tirade" against multilateral trade agreements, particularly the
WTO. To counter intolerable "trade abuses," such as "product dumping, subsidized
goods, currency manipulation, and predatory industrial policies," he swore that
he would always "put America first" and not let it "be taken advantage of anymore."
Having denounced a litany of trade violations that he termed nothing less than
"economic aggression" against America, he
invited everyone there to share his "Indo-Pacific dream" of the world as
a "beautiful constellation" of "strong, sovereign, and independent nations,"
each working like the United States to build "wealth and freedom."
Responding to such a display of narrow economic nationalism from the globe's
leading power, Xi Jinping had a perfect opportunity to play the world statesman
and he took it,
calling upon APEC to support an economic order that is "more open, inclusive,
and balanced." He spoke of China's future economic plans as an historic bid
for "interconnected development to achieve common prosperity on the Asian, European,
and African continents."
As China has lifted 60 million of its own people out of poverty in just a
few years and was committed to its complete eradication by 2020, so he urged
a more equitable world order "to bring the benefits of development to countries
across the globe." For its part, China, he assured his listeners, was ready
to make "$2 trillion of outbound investment" -- much of it for the development
of Eurasia and Africa (in ways, of course, that would link that vast region
more closely to China). In other words, he sounded like a twenty-first century
Chinese version of a twentieth-century American president, while Donald
Trump
acted
more like Argentina's former presidente Juan Perón, minus the medals. As
if to put another nail in the coffin of American global dominion, the remaining
11 Trans-Pacific trade pact partners, led by Japan and Canada,
announced major progress in finalizing that agreement -- without the United
States.
In addition to undermining NATO, America's Pacific alliances, long its historic
fulcrum for the defense of North America and the dominance of Asia, are eroding,
too. Even after 10 personal meetings and frequent phone calls between Japan's
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump during his first 18 months in office,
the president's America First trade policy has
placed a "major strain" on Washington's most crucial alliance in the region.
First, he ignored Abe's
pleas and cancelled the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact and then, as
if his message hadn't been strong enough, he promptly imposed heavy
tariffs on Japanese steel imports. Similarly, he's
denounced the Canadian prime minister as "dishonest" and
mimicked Indian Prime Minister Modi's accent, even as he made chummy with
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and then
claimed ,
inaccurately , that his country was "no longer a nuclear threat."
It all adds up to a formula for further decline at a faster pace.
Beijing's Grand Strategy
While Washington's influence in Asia recedes, Beijing's grows ever stronger.
As China's currency reserves
climbed rapidly from $200 billion in 2001 to a peak of $4 trillion in 2014,
President Xi launched a new initiative of historic import. In September 2013,
speaking in Kazakhstan, the heart of Asia's ancient Silk Road caravan route,
he
proclaimed a "one belt, one road initiative" aimed at economically integrating
the enormous Eurasian land mass around Beijing's leadership. Through "unimpeded
trade" and infrastructure investment, he suggested, it would be possible to
connect "the Pacific and the Baltic Sea" in a proposed "economic belt along
the Silk Road," a region "inhabited by close to 3 billion people." It could
become, he predicted, "the biggest market in the world with unparalleled potential."
Within a year, Beijing had
established a Chinese-dominated Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank
with 56 member nations and an impressive $100 billion in capital, while launching
its own $40 billion Silk Road Fund for
private equity projects. When China convened what it called a "belt and
road summit" of 28 world leaders in Beijing in May 2017, Xi could, with good
reason,
hail his initiative as the "project of the century."
Although the U.S. media has often described the individual projects involved
in his "one belt, one road" project as
wasteful ,
sybaritic ,
exploitative , or even
neo-colonial , its sheer scale and scope merits closer consideration. Beijing
is expected to
put a mind-boggling $1.3 trillion into the initiative by 2027, the largest
investment in human history, more than 10 times the famed American Marshall
Plan, the only comparable program, which
spent a more modest $110 billion (when adjusted for inflation) to rebuild
a ravaged Europe after World War II.
Beijing's low-cost infrastructure
loans for 70 countries from the Baltic to the Pacific are already funding
construction of the Mediterranean's
busiest port at Piraeus, Greece, a major nuclear power plant in England,
a $6 billion
railroad through rugged Laos, and a $46 billion transport
corridor across Pakistan. If successful, such infrastructure investments
could help knit two dynamic continents, Europe and Asia -- home to a full 70%
percent of the world's population and its resources -- into a unified market
without peer on the planet.
Underlying this flurry of flying dirt and flowing concrete, the Chinese leadership
seems to have a design for transcending the vast distances that have historically
separated Asia from Europe. As a start, Beijing is building a comprehensive
network of trans-continental gas and oil pipelines to import fuels from Siberia
and Central Asia for its own population centers. When the system is complete,
there will be an integrated inland energy grid (including Russia's extensive
network of pipelines) that will extend 6,000 miles across Eurasia, from the
North Atlantic to the South China Sea. Next, Beijing is working to link Europe's
extensive rail network with its own expanded high-speed rail system via transcontinental
lines through Central Asia, supplemented by spur lines running due south to
Singapore and southwest through Pakistan.
Finally, to facilitate sea transport around the sprawling continent's southern
rim, China has already bought into or is in the process of building more than
30 major port facilities, stretching from the Straits of Malacca across
the Indian Ocean, around Africa, and along
Europe's extended coastline. In January, to take advantage of Arctic waters
opened by global warming, Beijing began
planning for a "Polar Silk Road," a scheme that fits well with ambitious
Russian and
Scandinavian projects to establish a shorter shipping route around the continent's
northern coast to Europe.
Though Eurasia is its prime focus, China is also pursuing economic expansion
in Africa and Latin America to create what might be dubbed the strategy of the
four continents. To tie Africa into its projected Eurasian network, Beijing
already had doubled its
annual trade there by 2015 to $222 billion, three times that of the United
States, thanks to a massive infusion of capital expected to reach a trillion
dollars by 2025. Much of it is financing the sort of commodities extraction
that has already made the continent China's second largest source of crude oil.
Similarly, Beijing has
invested heavily in Latin America, acquiring, for instance, control over
90% of Ecuador's oil reserves. As a result, its commerce with that continent
doubled in a decade, reaching $244 billion in 2017, topping U.S. trade with
what once was known as its own "backyard."
A Conflict with Consequences
This contest between Xi's globalism and Trump's nationalism has not been
safely confined to an innocuous marketplace of ideas. Over the past four years,
the two powers have engaged in an escalating military rivalry and a cutthroat
commercial competition. Apart from a
shadowy struggle for
dominance in space and cyberspace, there has also been a visible, potentially
volatile naval arms race to control the sea lanes surrounding Asia, specifically
in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. In a 2015 white paper, Beijing
stated
that "it is necessary for China to develop a modern maritime military force
structure commensurate with its national security." Backed by lethal land-based
missiles, jet fighters, and a global satellite system, China has built just
such a modernized fleet of 320 ships, including nuclear submarines and its first
aircraft carriers.
Within two years, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson
reported
that China's "growing and modernized fleet" was "shrinking" the traditional
American advantage in the Pacific, and warned that "we must shake off any vestiges
of comfort or complacency." Under Trump's latest $700-billion-plus defense budget,
Washington has responded to this challenge with a crash program to build 46
new ships, which will
raise its total to 326 by 2023. As China builds new naval bases bristling
with armaments in the Arabian and South China seas, the U.S. Navy has begun
conducting assertive "freedom-of-navigation" patrols near many of those same
installations, heightening the potential for conflict.
It is in the commercial realm of trade and tariffs, however, where competition
has segued into overt conflict. Acting on his
belief that "trade wars are good and easy to win," President Trump
slapped heavy tariffs, targeted above all at China, on steel imports in
March and, just a few weeks later, punished that country's intellectual property
theft by
promising tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports. When those tariffs
finally hit in July, China immediately
retaliated against what it called "typical trade bullying" with similar
tariffs on U.S. goods. The Financial Times
warned that this "tit-for-tat" can escalate into a "full bore trade war
that will be very bad for the global economy." As Trump
threatened to tax $500 billion more in Chinese imports and
issued confusing, even contradictory demands that made it unlikely Beijing
could ever comply, observers became
concerned that a long-lasting trade war could destabilize what the New
York Times called the "mountain of debt" that sustains much of China's
economy. In Washington, the usually taciturn Federal Reserve chairman issued
an uncommon
warning that "trade tensions could pose serious risks to the U.S. and global
economy."
China as Global Hegemon?
Although a withering of Washington's global reach, abetted and possibly accelerated
by the Trump presidency, is already underway, the shape of any future world
order is still anything but clear. At present, China is the sole state with
the obvious requisites for becoming the planet's new hegemon. Its phenomenal
economic rise, coupled with its expanding military and growing technological
prowess, provide that country with the obvious fundamentals for superpower status.
Yet neither China nor any other state seems to have the full imperial complement
of attributes to replace the United States as the dominant world leader. Apart
from its rising economic and military clout, China, like its sometime ally Russia,
has a self-referential culture, non-democratic political structures, and a developing
legal system that could deny it some of the key instruments for global leadership.
In addition to the fundamentals of military and economic power, "every
successful empire,"
observes Cambridge University historian Joya Chatterji, "had to elaborate
a universalist and inclusive discourse" to win support from the world's subordinate
states and their leaders. Successful imperial transitions driven by the
hard power of guns and money also require the soft-power salve of cultural suasion
for sustained and successful global dominion. Spain espoused Catholicism and
Hispanism, the Ottomans Islam, the Soviets communism, France a cultural
francophonie , and Britain an Anglophone culture.
Indeed, during its century of global dominion from 1850 to 1940, Britain
was the exemplar par excellence of such soft power, evincing an enticing
cultural ethos of fair play and free markets that it propagated through the
Anglican church, the English language and its literature, and the virtual invention
of modern athletics (cricket, soccer, tennis, rugby, and rowing). Similarly,
at the dawn of its global dominion, the United States courted allies worldwide
through soft-power programs promoting democracy and development. These were
made all the more palatable by the appeal of such things as Hollywood films,
civic organizations like
Rotary International , and popular sports like basketball and baseball.
China has nothing comparable. Its writing system has some 7,000 characters,
not 26 letters. Its communist ideology and popular culture are remarkably, even
avowedly, particularistic. And you don't have to look far for another Asian
power that attempted Pacific dominion without the salve of soft power. During
Japan's
occupation of Southeast Asia in World War II, its troops went from being
hailed as liberators to facing open revolt across the region after they failed
to propagate their similarly particularistic culture.
As command-economy states for much of the past century, neither China nor
Russia developed an independent judiciary or the autonomous rules-based order
that undergirds the modern international system. From the foundation of the
Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 1899 through the formation of
the International Court of Justice under the U.N.'s 1945 charter, the world's
nations have aspired to the resolution of conflicts via arbitration or litigation
rather than armed conflict. More broadly, the modern globalized economy is held
together by a web of conventions, treaties, patents, and contracts grounded
in law.
From its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China gave primacy to
the party and state, slowing the growth of an autonomous legal system and the
rule of law. A test of its attitude toward this system of global governance
came in 2016 when the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague
ruled unanimously that China's claims to sovereignty in the South China
Sea "are contrary to the Convention [on the Law of the Sea] and without lawful
effect." Beijing's Foreign Ministry simply
dismissed the adverse decision as "invalid" and without "binding force."
President Xi
insisted China's "territorial sovereignty and maritime rights" were unchanged,
while the state Xinhua news agency
called the ruling "naturally null and void."
If Donald Trump's vision of world disorder is a sign of the American future
and if Beijing's projected $2 trillion in infrastructure investments, history's
largest by far, succeed in unifying the commerce and transport of Asia, Africa,
and Europe, then perhaps the currents of financial power and global leadership
will indeed transcend all barriers and flow inexorably toward Beijing, as if
by natural law. But if that bold initiative ultimately fails, then for the first
time in five centuries the world may face an imperial transition without a clear
successor as global hegemon. Moreover, it will do so on a planet where the "
new normal " of
climate change -- the heating of the atmosphere and the
oceans , the intensification of flood, drought, and
fire , the rising seas that will
devastate coastal cities, and the
cascading damage to a densely populated world -- could mean that the very
idea of a global hegemon is fast becoming a thing of the past.
Alfred W. McCoy, a
TomDispatch regular , is the Harrington professor of history at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity
in the Global Drug Trade , the now-classic book which probed the conjuncture
of illicit narcotics and covert operations over 50 years, and the recently published
In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global
Power (Dispatch Books).
That might have been true .then. However, Bannon was never the puppet master (Trump is a
capitalist who has never listened to anyone else apart from his own messy ego in his life: the
idea that he would be a puppet for anyone, Bannon, Putin or whatever, is risible). Without
wanting to raise from the dead the 'Trump is teh Hitler' meme: there is a very very tiny grain
of truth in it, just as there is a very very tiny grain of truth in the right wing idea that
Hitler was a socialist because his party had the word 'socialist' in it. Hitler's initial
programme really did have a tiny element of 'socialism' in it, and some elements of the working
class (shamefully) swallowed the lies and gained him votes.
But it was never real and Hitler was never going to deliver. He dealt with the Brownshirts
(the most authentically 'working class' and 'socialist' part of the Nazi movement) in the Night
of the Long Knives, and from that point on, the 'socialist' parts of the Nazi programme were
steadily ditched, as the regime became more and more strongly right wing throughout the
'30s.
Same with Trump (in this respect only). It's true that in the run up to the election he
threw some scraps to the working class, and some of his protectionist rhetoric swung him some
states in the Rust Belt. Some union supporters, to their shame, trooped along to the White
House soon after.
But Trump, a right wing Republican who is, as I've said, far more orthodox a Republican than
the media would have you believe, was never going to deliver. Bannon was the most 'left wing'
of Trump's circle (and as his admiration for Thatcher makes clear, he was never very left wing)
and he was quickly cast out. Trump did not, in fact, 'drain the swamp' and nor did he try. His
major economic policy has turned out to be .tax cuts for the rich. And he has totally failed to
follow through on the (interesting) isolationist rhetoric he used in his election campaign
(despite the fact that some of us hoped otherwise). He has turned out to be as much of a
warmonger as Obama or even Bush jr (even towards Russia, again despite what the media would
have you believe).
And we haven't heard too much about that 'trillion dollar' investment in infrastructure
recently have we?
The problem is that the Democrats have concentrated on the (mainly trivial and
uninteresting) ways in which Trump differs from previous Republican Presidents (the lies, the
silly tweets, the dubious rhetoric) and have therefore persuaded themselves that this
'unorthodox' President will have to be removed by 'unorthodox means'. 'Tain't so. Trump will be
removed the only way any President (except Nixon) has ever been removed since the dawn of the
Republic: by the opposing party organising, developing a strong program that people can believe
in, and getting out the core vote. No election has ever been won any other way. In the case of
the Democrats this means using the might and money of organised labour and activists to get
candidates who can inspire and who have a genuinely progressive message that resonates with
people.
Democrats, #Russiagate will not save you. Getting your core vote out to vote for a genuinely
progressive candidate, will.
Likbez
@Hidari 08.18.18 at 6:41 pm
Powerful post and a veryclear thinking. Thank you !
Also an interesting analogy with NSDAP the 25-point Plan of 1928
Hitler's initial programme really did have a tiny element of 'socialism' in it, and some
elements of the working class (shamefully) swallowed the lies and gained him votes.
But it was never real, and Hitler was never going to deliver. He dealt with the Brownshirts
(the most authentically 'working class' and 'socialist' part of the Nazi movement) in the Night
of the Long Knives, and from that point on, the 'socialist' parts of the Nazi programme were
steadily ditched, as the regime became more and more strongly right wing throughout the
'30s.
Same with Trump (in this respect only). It's true that in the run-up to the election he
threw some scraps to the working class, and some of his protectionist rhetoric swung him some
states in the Rust Belt. Some union supporters, to their shame, trooped along to the White
House soon after.
Actually NSAP program of 1928 has some political demands which are to the left of Sanders
such as "Abolition of unearned (work and labor) incomes", ".We demand the nationalization of
all (previous) associated industries (trusts)." and "We demand a division of profits of all
heavy industries."
7.We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood
and way of life for the citizens... ... ...
... ... ...
9.All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10.The first obligation of every citizen must be to productively work mentally or
physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality,
but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.
Consequently, we demand:
11.Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
12.In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands
of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the
people. Therefore, we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13.We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14.We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15.We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16.We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate
communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the
utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or
municipality.
17.We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free
expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and
prevention of all speculation in land.
18.We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the
general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be
punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
... ... ...
21.The state is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and
child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the
legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all
organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
22.We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
23.We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press...
.... ... ...
24.We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as
they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race...
But I think Trump was de-facto impeached with the appointment of Mueller. And that was the
plan ( "insurance" as Strzok called it). Mueller task is just to formalize impeachment.
Pence already is calling the shots in foreign policy via members of his close circle (which
includes Pompeo). The recent "unilateral" actions of State Department are a slap in the face
and, simultaneously, a nasty trap for Trump (he can cancel those sanctions only at a huge
political cost to himself) and are a clear sign that Trump does not control even his
administration. Here is how <a
href="http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/august/17/america-the-punitive/">Philip
Giraldi</a> described this obvious slap in the face:
The most recent is the new sanctioning of Russia over the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury
England. For those not following developments, last week Washington abruptly and without any
new evidence being presented, imposed additional trade sanctions on Russia in the belief that
Moscow ordered and carried out the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March
4th. The report of the new sanctions was particularly surprising as Yulia Skripal has recently
announced that she intends to return to her home in Russia, leading to the conclusion that even
one of the alleged victims does not believe the narrative being promoted by the British and
American governments.
Though Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded with restraint, avoiding a
tit-for-tat, he is reported to be angry about the new move by the US government and now
believes it to be an unreliable negotiating partner. Considering the friendly recent exchanges
between Putin and Trump, the punishment of Russia has to be viewed as something of a surprise,
suggesting that the president of the United States may not be in control of his own foreign
policy.
From the very beginning, any anti-globalization initiative of Trump was sabotaged and often
reversed. Haley is one example here. She does not coordinate some of her actions with Trump or
the Secretary of State unliterary defining the US foreign policy.
Her ambitions worry Trump, but he can so very little: she is supported by Pence and Pence
faction in the administration. Rumors "Haley/Pence 2020" surfaced and probably somewhat poison
atmosphere in the WH.
Add to this that Trump has hostile to him Justice Department, CIA, and FBI. He also does not
control some critical appointments such as the recent appointment of CIA director (who in no
way can be called Trump loyalist).
Which means that in some ways Trump already is a hostage and more ceremonial President than
a real.
"... By Sanjay Reddy, Associate Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
Grappling with the shock of Donald Trump's election victory, most analysts focus on his
appeal to those in the United States who feel left behind, wish to retrieve a lost social
order, and sought to rebuke establishment politicians who do not serve their interests. In this
respect, the recent American revolt echoes the shock of the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom,
but it is of far greater significance because it promises to reshape the entire global order,
and the complaisant forms of thought that accompanied it.
Ideas played an important role in creating the conditions that produced Brexit and Trump.
The 'social sciences' -- especially economics -- legitimated a set of ideas about the economy
that were aggressively peddled and became the conventional wisdom in the policies of mainstream
political parties, to the extent that the central theme of the age came to be that there was no
alternative. The victory of these ideas in politics in turn strengthened the iron-handed
enforcers of the same ideas in academic orthodoxy.
It is never clear whether ideas or interests are the prime mover in shaping historical
events, but only ideas and interests together can sustain a ruling consensus for a lengthy
interval, such as the historic period of financialization and globalization running over the
last 35 years. The role of economics in furnishing the now-rebuked narratives that have reigned
for decades in mainstream political parties can be seen in three areas.
First, there is globalization as we knew it. Mainstream economics championed
corporate-friendly trade and investment agreements to increase prosperity, and provided the
intellectual framework for multilateral trade agreements. Economics made the case for such
agreements, generally rejecting concerns over labor and environmental standards and giving
short shrift to the effects of globalization in weakening the bargaining power of workers or
altogether displacing them; to the need for compensatory measures to aid those displaced; and
more generally to measures to ensure that the benefits of growth were shared. For the most
part, economists casually waved aside such concerns, both in their theories and in their policy
recommendations, treating these matters as either insignificant or as being in the jurisdiction
of politicians. Still less attention was paid to crafting an alternate form of globalization,
or to identifying bases for national economic policies taking a less passive view of
comparative advantage and instead aiming to create it.
Second, there is financialization, which led to increasing disconnection between stock
market performance and the real economy, with large rewards going to firms that undertook asset
stripping, outsourcing, and offshoring. The combination of globalization and financialization
produced a new plutocratic class of owners, managers and those who serviced them in global
cities, alongside gentrification of those cities, proleterianization and lumpenization of
suburbs, and growing insecurity and casualization of employment for the bulk of the middle and
working class.
Financialization also led to the near-abandonment of the 'national' industrial economy in
favor of global sourcing and sales, and a handsome financial rentier economy built on top of
it. Meanwhile, automation trends led to shedding of jobs everywhere, and threaten far more.
All of this was hardly noticed by the discipline charged with studying the economy. Indeed,
it actively provided rationales for financialization, in the form of the efficient-markets
hypothesis and related ideas; for concentration of capital through mergers and acquisitions in
the form of contestable-markets theory; for the gentrification of the city through attacks on
rent control and other urban policies; for remaking of labor markets through the idea that
unemployment was primarily a reflection of voluntary leisure preferences, etc. The mainstream
political parties, including those historically representing the working and middle classes, in
thrall to the 'scientific' sheen of market fetishism, gambled that they could redistribute a
share of the promised gains and thus embraced policies the effect of which was ultimately to
abandon and to antagonize a large section of their electorate.
Third, there is the push for austerity, a recurrent trope of the 'neoliberal' era which,
although not favored by all, has played an important role in creating conditions for the rise
of popular movements demanding a more expansionary fiscal stance (though they can paradoxically
simultaneously disdain taxation, as with Trumpism). The often faulty intellectual case made by
many mainstream economists for central bank independence, inflation targeting, debt
sustainability thresholds, the distortive character of taxation and the superiority of private
provision of services including for health, education and welfare, have helped to support
antagonism to governmental activity. Within this perspective, there is limited room for fiscal
or even monetary stimulus, or for any direct governmental role in service provision, even in
the form of productivity-enhancing investments. It is only the failure fully to overcome the
shipwreck of 2008 that has caused some cracks in the edifice.
The dominant economic ideas taken together created a framework in which deviation from
declared orthodoxy would be punished by dynamics unleashed by globalization and
financialization. The system depended not merely on actors having the specific interests
attributed to them, but in believing in the theory that said that they did. [This is one of the
reasons that Trumpism has generated confusion among economic actors, even as his victory
produced an early bout of stock-market euphoria. It does not rebuke neoliberalism so much as
replace it with its own heretical version, bastard neoliberalism, an orientation without a
theory, whose tale has yet to be written.]
Still, to the extent that Trumpism has any economic policy content it's the idea that a
package of immigration restrictions and corporate tax cuts[1] will make workers better off by
reducing competition from migrants and increasing labor demand from corporations. The second
part of this claim has been pretty thoroughly demolished, so I want to look mainly at the
first. However, as we will see, the corporate tax cuts remain central to the argument.
Still, to the extent that Trumpism has any economic policy content it's the idea that a
package of immigration restrictions and corporate tax cuts[1] will make workers better off
by reducing competition from migrants and increasing labor demand from corporations.
The emergence of Trumpism signifies deepening of the ideological crisis for the
neoliberalism. Neoclassical economics fell like a house of cards. IMHO Trumpism can be viewed
as a kind of "national neoliberalism" which presuppose rejection of three dogmas of "classic
neoliberalism":
1. Rejection of neoliberal globalization including, but not limited to, free movement
of labor. Attempt to protect domestic industries via tariff barriers.
2. Rejection of excessive financialization and primacy of financial oligarchy.
Restoration of the status of manufacturing, and "traditional capitalists" status in
comparison with financial oligarchy.
3. Rejection of austerity. An attempt to fight "secular stagnation" via Military
Keysianism.
Trumpism sent "Chicago school" line of thinking to the dustbin of history. It exposed
neoliberal economists as agents of financial oligarchy and "Enemy of the American People"
(famous Trump phase about neoliberal MSM).
It is never clear whether ideas or interests are the prime mover in shaping historical
events, but only ideas and interests together can sustain a ruling consensus for a lengthy
interval, such as the historic period of financialization and globalization running over
the last 35 years. The role of economics in furnishing the now-rebuked narratives that have
reigned for decades in mainstream political parties can be seen in three areas.
First, there is globalization as we knew it. Mainstream economics championed
corporate-friendly trade and investment agreements to increase prosperity, and provided the
intellectual framework for multilateral trade agreements. ...
Second, there is financialization, which led to increasing disconnection between stock
market performance and the real economy, with large rewards going to firms that undertook
asset stripping, outsourcing, and offshoring. The combination of globalization and
financialization produced a new plutocratic class of owners, managers and those who
serviced them in global cities, alongside gentrification of those cities,
proletarianization and lumpenization of suburbs, and growing insecurity and casualization
of employment for the bulk of the middle and working class.
Financialization also led to the near-abandonment of the 'national' industrial economy
in favor of global sourcing and sales, and a handsome financial rentier economy built on
top of it. Meanwhile, automation trends led to shedding of jobs everywhere, and threaten
far more.
All of this was hardly noticed by the discipline charged with studying the economy.
Indeed, it actively provided rationales for financialization, in the form of the
efficient-markets hypothesis and related ideas; for concentration of capital through
mergers and acquisitions in the form of contestable-markets theory; for the gentrification
of the city through attacks on rent control and other urban policies; for remaking of labor
markets through the idea that unemployment was primarily a reflection of voluntary leisure
preferences, etc. The mainstream political parties, including those historically
representing the working and middle classes, in thrall to the 'scientific' sheen of market
fetishism, gambled that they could redistribute a share of the promised gains and thus
embraced policies the effect of which was ultimately to abandon and to antagonize a large
section of their electorate.
Third, there is the push for austerity, a recurrent trope of the 'neoliberal' era which,
although not favored by all, has played an important role in creating conditions for the
rise of popular movements demanding a more expansionary fiscal stance (though they can
paradoxically simultaneously disdain taxation, as with Trumpism). The often faulty
intellectual case made by many mainstream economists for central bank independence,
inflation targeting, debt sustainability thresholds, the distortive character of taxation
and the superiority of private provision of services including for health, education and
welfare, have helped to support antagonism to governmental activity. Within this
perspective, there is limited room for fiscal or even monetary stimulus, or for any direct
governmental role in service provision, even in the form of productivity-enhancing
investments. It is only the failure fully to overcome the shipwreck of 2008 that has caused
some cracks in the edifice.
The dominant economic ideas taken together created a framework in which deviation from
declared orthodoxy would be punished by dynamics unleashed by globalization and
financialization. The system depended not merely on actors having the specific interests
attributed to them, but in believing in the theory that said that they did. [This is one of
the reasons that Trumpism has generated confusion among economic actors, even as his
victory produced an early bout of stock-market euphoria. It does not rebuke neoliberalism
so much as replace it with its own heretical version, bastard neoliberalism, an orientation
without a theory, whose tale has yet to be written.]
Finally, interpretations of politics were too restrictive, conceptualizing citizens'
political choices as based on instrumental and usually economic calculations, while
indulging in a wishful account of their actual conditions -- for instance, focusing on low
measured unemployment, but ignoring measures of distress and insecurity, or the indignity
of living in hollowed-out communities.
Mainstream accounts of politics recognized the role of identities in the form of wooden
theories of group mobilization or of demands for representation. However, the psychological
and charismatic elements, which can give rise to moments of 'phase transition' in politics,
were altogether neglected, and the role of social media and other new methods in politics
hardly registered. As new political movements (such as the Tea Party and Trumpism in the
U.S.) emerged across the world, these were deemed 'populist' -- both an admission of the
analysts' lack of explanation, and a token of disdain. The essential feature of such
movements -- the obscurantism that allows them to offer many things to many people,
inconsistently and unaccountably, while serving some interests more than others -- was
little explored. The failures can be piled one upon the other. No amount of quantitative
data provided by polling, 'big data', or other techniques comprehended what might be
captured through open-eyed experiential narratives. It is evident that there is a need for
forms of understanding that can comprehend the currents within the human person, and go
beyond shallow empiricism. Mainstream social science has offered few if any resources to
understand, let alone challenge, illiberal majoritarianism, now a world-remaking
phenomenon.
Why, then, would a coalition of leftish and right-wing patriots not join in
denouncing a leader who seemed to put Russia's interests ahead of those of his own country?
Sorry to say, things are not so simple. Look a bit more closely at what holds the anti-Trump
foreign policy coalition together, and you will discover a missing reality that virtually no
one will acknowledge directly: the existence of a beleaguered but still potent American Empire
whose junior partner is Europe. What motivates a broad range of the President's opponents,
then, is not so much the fear that he is anti-American as the suspicion that he is
anti-Empire.
Of course, neither liberals nor conservatives dare to utter the "E-word." Rather, they argue
in virtually identical terms that Trump's foreign and trade policies are threatening the
pillars of world order: NATO, the Group of Seven, the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, the OSCE, and so forth. These institutions, they claim, along with
American military power and a willingness to use it when necessary, are primarily responsible
for the peaceful, prosperous, free, and democratic world that we have all been privileged to
inhabit since the Axis powers surrendered to the victorious Allies in 1945.
The fear expressed plainly by The New York Times 's David Leonhardt, a
self-described "left-liberal," is that "Trump wants to destroy the Atlantic Alliance." Seven
months earlier, this same fear motivated the arch-conservative National Review to
editorialize that, "Under Trump, America has retreated from its global and moral leadership
roles, alienated its democratic allies, and abandoned the bipartisan defense of liberal ideals
that led to more than 70 years of security and prosperity." All the critics would agree with
Wolfgang Ischinger, chair of the Munich Security Conference, who recently stated, "Let's face
it. Mr. Trump's core beliefs conflict with the foundations of Western grand strategy since the
mid-1940's."
"Western grand strategy," of course, is a euphemism for U.S. global hegemony – world
domination, to put it plainly. In addition to peace and prosperity (mainly for privileged
groups in privileged nations), this is the same strategy which since 1945 has given the world
the Cold War, the specter of a nuclear holocaust, and proxy wars consuming between 10 and 20
million lives in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
and Yemen. Its direct effects include the overthrow of elected governments in Guatemala, Iran,
Lebanon, Congo, Nigeria, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Granada, Ukraine, et al.;
the bribery of public officials and impoverishment and injury of workers and farmers world-wide
as a result of exploitation and predatory "development" by Western governments and
mega-corporations; the destruction of natural environments and exacerbation of global climate
change by these same governments and corporations; and the increasing likelihood of new
imperialist wars caused by the determination of elites to maintain America's global supremacy
at all costs.
It is interesting that most defenders of the Western Alliance (and its Pacific equivalent:
the more loosely organized anti-Chinese alliance of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand,
and South Korea) virtually never talk about American hegemony or the gigantic military
apparatus (with more than 800 U.S. bases in 60 or so nations and a military-industrial complex
worth trillions) that supports it. Nor is the subject of empire high on Mr. Trump's list of
approved twitter topics, even when he desecrates NATO and other sacred cows of the Alliance.
There are several reasons for this silence, but the most important, perhaps, is the need to
maintain the pretense of American moral superiority: the so-called "exceptionalist" position
that inspires McCain to attack Trump for "false equivalency" (the President's statement in
Helsinki that both Russia and the U.S. have made mistakes), and that leads pundits left and
right to argue that America is not an old-style empire seeking to dominate, but a new-style
democracy seeking to liberate.
The narrative you will hear repeated ad nauseum at both ends of the liberal/conservative
spectrum tells how the Yanks, who won WW II with a little help from the Russians and other
allies, and who then thoroughly dominated the world both economically and militarily,
could have behaved like vengeful conquerors, but instead devoted their resources and
energies to spreading democracy, freedom, and the blessings of capitalism around the world. Gag
me with a Tomahawk cruise missile! What is weird about this narrative is that it "disappears"
not only the millions of victims of America's wars but the very military forces that
nationalists like Trump claim deserve to be worshipfully honored. Eight hundred bases? A
million and a half troops on active duty? Total air and sea domination? I'm shocked . . .
shocked!
In fact, there are two sorts of blindness operative in the current U.S. political
environment. The Democratic Party Establishment, now swollen to include a wide variety of
Russia-haters, globalizing capitalists, and militarists, is blind (or pretends to be) to the
connection between the "Western Alliance" and the American Empire. The Trump Party (which I
expect, one of these days, to shed the outworn Republican label in favor of something more
Berlusconi-like, say, the American Greatness Party) is blind – or pretends to be –
to the contradiction between its professed
"Fortress America" nationalism and the reality of a global U.S. imperium.
This last point is worth emphasizing. In a recent article in The Nation , Michael
Klare, a writer I generally admire, claims to have discovered that there is really a method to
Trump's foreign policy madness, i.e., the President favors the sort of "multi-polar" world,
with Russia and China occupying the two other poles, that Putin and Xi Jinping have long
advocated. Two factors make this article odd as well as interesting. First, the author argues
that multi-polarity is a bad idea, because "smaller, weaker states, and minority peoples
everywhere will be given even shorter shrift than at present when caught in any competitive
jousting for influence among the three main competitors (and their proxies)." Wha? Even shorter
shrift than under unipolarity? I think not, especially considering that adding new poles (why
just three, BTW? What about India and Brazil?) gives smaller states and minority peoples many
more bargaining options in the power game.
More important, however, Trump's multi-polar/nationalist ideals are clearly contradicted by
his determination to make American world domination even more overwhelming by vastly increasing
the size of the U.S. military establishment. Klare notes, correctly, that the President has
denounced the Iraq War, criticized American "overextension" abroad, talked about ending the
Afghan War, and declared that the U.S. should not be "the world's policeman." But if he wants
America to become a mere Great Power in a world of Great Powers, Trump will clearly have to do
more than talk about it. He will have to cut the military budget, abandon military bases,
negotiate arms control agreements, convert military-industrial spending to peaceful uses, and
do all sorts of other things he clearly has no intention of doing. Ever.
No – if the Western Alliance, democratic values, and WTO trade rules provide
ideological cover and junior partners for American global hegemony, "go-it-alone" nationalism,
multi-polarity, and Nobel Peace Prize diplomatic efforts provide ideological cover for . . .
American global hegemony! This can be seen most clearly in the case of Iran, against whom Trump
has virtually declared war. He would like to avoid direct military involvement there, of
course, but he is banking on threats of irresistible "fire and fury" to bring the Iranians to
heel. And if these threats are unavailing? Then – count on it! – the Empire will
act like an empire, and we will have open war.
In fact, Trump and his most vociferous critics and supporters are unknowingly playing the
same game. John Brennan, meet Steve Bannon! You preach very different sermons, but you're
working for the same god. That deity's name changes over the centuries, but we worship him
every time we venerate symbols of military might at sports events, pay taxes to support U.S.
military supremacy, or pledge allegiance to a flag. The name unutterable by both Trump and his
enemies is Empire.
What do we do with the knowledge that both the Tweeter King and the treason-baiting
coalition opposing him are imperialists under the skin? Two positions, I think, have to be
rejected. One is the Lyndon Johnson rationale: since Johnson was progressive on domestic
issues, including civil rights and poverty, that made him preferable to the Republicans, even
though he gave us the quasi-genocidal war in Indochina. The other position is the diametric
opposite: since Trump is less blatantly imperialistic than most Democratic Party leaders, we
ought to favor him, despite his billionaire-loving, immigrant-hating, racist and misogynist
domestic policies. Merely to say this is to refute it.
My own view is that anti-imperialists ought to decline to choose between these alternatives.
We ought to name the imperial god that both Trump and his critics worship and demand
that the party that we work and vote for renounce the pursuit of U.S. global hegemony.
Immediately, this means letting self-proclaimed progressives or libertarians in both major
parties know that avoiding new hot and cold wars, eliminating nuclear weapons and other WMD,
slashing military spending, and converting war production to peaceful uses are top priorities
that must be honored if they are to get our support. No political party can deliver peace and
social justice and maintain the Empire at the same time. If neither Republicans nor Democrats
are capable of facing this reality, we will have to create a new party that can.
Notes.
[1]
The author is University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason
University. His most recent book is Resolving Structural Conflicts : How Violent
Systems Can Be Transformed (2017).
Why, then, would a coalition of leftish and right-wing patriots not join in
denouncing a leader who seemed to put Russia's interests ahead of those of his own country?
Sorry to say, things are not so simple. Look a bit more closely at what holds the anti-Trump
foreign policy coalition together, and you will discover a missing reality that virtually no
one will acknowledge directly: the existence of a beleaguered but still potent American Empire
whose junior partner is Europe. What motivates a broad range of the President's opponents,
then, is not so much the fear that he is anti-American as the suspicion that he is
anti-Empire.
Of course, neither liberals nor conservatives dare to utter the "E-word." Rather, they argue
in virtually identical terms that Trump's foreign and trade policies are threatening the
pillars of world order: NATO, the Group of Seven, the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, the OSCE, and so forth. These institutions, they claim, along with
American military power and a willingness to use it when necessary, are primarily responsible
for the peaceful, prosperous, free, and democratic world that we have all been privileged to
inhabit since the Axis powers surrendered to the victorious Allies in 1945.
The fear expressed plainly by The New York Times 's David Leonhardt, a
self-described "left-liberal," is that "Trump wants to destroy the Atlantic Alliance." Seven
months earlier, this same fear motivated the arch-conservative National Review to
editorialize that, "Under Trump, America has retreated from its global and moral leadership
roles, alienated its democratic allies, and abandoned the bipartisan defense of liberal ideals
that led to more than 70 years of security and prosperity." All the critics would agree with
Wolfgang Ischinger, chair of the Munich Security Conference, who recently stated, "Let's face
it. Mr. Trump's core beliefs conflict with the foundations of Western grand strategy since the
mid-1940's."
"Western grand strategy," of course, is a euphemism for U.S. global hegemony – world
domination, to put it plainly. In addition to peace and prosperity (mainly for privileged
groups in privileged nations), this is the same strategy which since 1945 has given the world
the Cold War, the specter of a nuclear holocaust, and proxy wars consuming between 10 and 20
million lives in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
and Yemen. Its direct effects include the overthrow of elected governments in Guatemala, Iran,
Lebanon, Congo, Nigeria, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Granada, Ukraine, et al.;
the bribery of public officials and impoverishment and injury of workers and farmers world-wide
as a result of exploitation and predatory "development" by Western governments and
mega-corporations; the destruction of natural environments and exacerbation of global climate
change by these same governments and corporations; and the increasing likelihood of new
imperialist wars caused by the determination of elites to maintain America's global supremacy
at all costs.
It is interesting that most defenders of the Western Alliance (and its Pacific equivalent:
the more loosely organized anti-Chinese alliance of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand,
and South Korea) virtually never talk about American hegemony or the gigantic military
apparatus (with more than 800 U.S. bases in 60 or so nations and a military-industrial complex
worth trillions) that supports it. Nor is the subject of empire high on Mr. Trump's list of
approved twitter topics, even when he desecrates NATO and other sacred cows of the Alliance.
There are several reasons for this silence, but the most important, perhaps, is the need to
maintain the pretense of American moral superiority: the so-called "exceptionalist" position
that inspires McCain to attack Trump for "false equivalency" (the President's statement in
Helsinki that both Russia and the U.S. have made mistakes), and that leads pundits left and
right to argue that America is not an old-style empire seeking to dominate, but a new-style
democracy seeking to liberate.
The narrative you will hear repeated ad nauseum at both ends of the liberal/conservative
spectrum tells how the Yanks, who won WW II with a little help from the Russians and other
allies, and who then thoroughly dominated the world both economically and militarily,
could have behaved like vengeful conquerors, but instead devoted their resources and
energies to spreading democracy, freedom, and the blessings of capitalism around the world. Gag
me with a Tomahawk cruise missile! What is weird about this narrative is that it "disappears"
not only the millions of victims of America's wars but the very military forces that
nationalists like Trump claim deserve to be worshipfully honored. Eight hundred bases? A
million and a half troops on active duty? Total air and sea domination? I'm shocked . . .
shocked!
In fact, there are two sorts of blindness operative in the current U.S. political
environment. The Democratic Party Establishment, now swollen to include a wide variety of
Russia-haters, globalizing capitalists, and militarists, is blind (or pretends to be) to the
connection between the "Western Alliance" and the American Empire. The Trump Party (which I
expect, one of these days, to shed the outworn Republican label in favor of something more
Berlusconi-like, say, the American Greatness Party) is blind – or pretends to be –
to the contradiction between its professed
"Fortress America" nationalism and the reality of a global U.S. imperium.
This last point is worth emphasizing. In a recent article in The Nation , Michael
Klare, a writer I generally admire, claims to have discovered that there is really a method to
Trump's foreign policy madness, i.e., the President favors the sort of "multi-polar" world,
with Russia and China occupying the two other poles, that Putin and Xi Jinping have long
advocated. Two factors make this article odd as well as interesting. First, the author argues
that multi-polarity is a bad idea, because "smaller, weaker states, and minority peoples
everywhere will be given even shorter shrift than at present when caught in any competitive
jousting for influence among the three main competitors (and their proxies)." Wha? Even shorter
shrift than under unipolarity? I think not, especially considering that adding new poles (why
just three, BTW? What about India and Brazil?) gives smaller states and minority peoples many
more bargaining options in the power game.
More important, however, Trump's multi-polar/nationalist ideals are clearly contradicted by
his determination to make American world domination even more overwhelming by vastly increasing
the size of the U.S. military establishment. Klare notes, correctly, that the President has
denounced the Iraq War, criticized American "overextension" abroad, talked about ending the
Afghan War, and declared that the U.S. should not be "the world's policeman." But if he wants
America to become a mere Great Power in a world of Great Powers, Trump will clearly have to do
more than talk about it. He will have to cut the military budget, abandon military bases,
negotiate arms control agreements, convert military-industrial spending to peaceful uses, and
do all sorts of other things he clearly has no intention of doing. Ever.
No – if the Western Alliance, democratic values, and WTO trade rules provide
ideological cover and junior partners for American global hegemony, "go-it-alone" nationalism,
multi-polarity, and Nobel Peace Prize diplomatic efforts provide ideological cover for . . .
American global hegemony! This can be seen most clearly in the case of Iran, against whom Trump
has virtually declared war. He would like to avoid direct military involvement there, of
course, but he is banking on threats of irresistible "fire and fury" to bring the Iranians to
heel. And if these threats are unavailing? Then – count on it! – the Empire will
act like an empire, and we will have open war.
In fact, Trump and his most vociferous critics and supporters are unknowingly playing the
same game. John Brennan, meet Steve Bannon! You preach very different sermons, but you're
working for the same god. That deity's name changes over the centuries, but we worship him
every time we venerate symbols of military might at sports events, pay taxes to support U.S.
military supremacy, or pledge allegiance to a flag. The name unutterable by both Trump and his
enemies is Empire.
What do we do with the knowledge that both the Tweeter King and the treason-baiting
coalition opposing him are imperialists under the skin? Two positions, I think, have to be
rejected. One is the Lyndon Johnson rationale: since Johnson was progressive on domestic
issues, including civil rights and poverty, that made him preferable to the Republicans, even
though he gave us the quasi-genocidal war in Indochina. The other position is the diametric
opposite: since Trump is less blatantly imperialistic than most Democratic Party leaders, we
ought to favor him, despite his billionaire-loving, immigrant-hating, racist and misogynist
domestic policies. Merely to say this is to refute it.
My own view is that anti-imperialists ought to decline to choose between these alternatives.
We ought to name the imperial god that both Trump and his critics worship and demand
that the party that we work and vote for renounce the pursuit of U.S. global hegemony.
Immediately, this means letting self-proclaimed progressives or libertarians in both major
parties know that avoiding new hot and cold wars, eliminating nuclear weapons and other WMD,
slashing military spending, and converting war production to peaceful uses are top priorities
that must be honored if they are to get our support. No political party can deliver peace and
social justice and maintain the Empire at the same time. If neither Republicans nor Democrats
are capable of facing this reality, we will have to create a new party that can.
Notes.
[1]
The author is University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason
University. His most recent book is Resolving Structural Conflicts : How Violent
Systems Can Be Transformed (2017).
"... As widely loathed as the Democratic establishment is, it has been remarkably adept at engineering a reactionary response in favor of establishment forces. Its demonization of Russia! has been approximately as effective at fomenting reactionary nationalism as Mr. Trump's racialized version. Lest this be overlooked, the strategy common to both is the use of oppositional logic through demonization of carefully selected 'others.' ..."
"... What preceded Donald Trump was the Great Recession, the most severe capitalist crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Great Recession followed approximately three decades of neoliberal de-industrialization, of policies intended to reduce the power of organized labor, reduce working class wages and raise economic insecurity under the antique capitalist theory that destitution motivates workers to produce more for less in return. ..."
"... The illusion / delusion that these problems -- lost livelihoods, homes, social roles, relationships, sense of purpose and basic human dignity -- were solved, or even addressed, by national Democrats, illustrates the class divide at work. The economy that was revived made the rich fabulously rich, the professional / managerial class comfortable and left the other 90% in various stages of economic decline. ..."
"... Asserting this isn't to embrace economic nationalism, support policies until they are clearly stated or trust Mr. Trump's motives. But the move ties analytically to his critique of neoliberal economic policies. As such, it is a potential monkey wrench thrown into the neoliberal world order. ..."
"... Democrats could have confronted the failures of neoliberalism without resorting to economic nationalism (as Mr. Trump did). And they could have confronted unhinged militarism without Mr. Trump's racialized nationalism. But this would have meant confronting their own history. And it would have meant publicly declaring themselves against the interests of their donor base. ..."
"... Mr. Trump's use of racialized nationalism is the primary basis of analyses arguing that he is fascist. Left unaddressed is the fact the the corporate-state form that is the basis of neoliberalism was also the basis of European fascism. Recent Left analysis proceeds from the premise that Trump control of the corporate-state form is fascism, while capitalist class control -- neoliberalism, is something else. ..."
"... Lest this not have occurred, FDR's New Deal was state capitalism approach within the framework of the corporatism (merge of corporations and a state) social formation. The only widely known effort to stage a fascist coup in the U.S. was carried out by Wall Street titans in the 1930s to wrest control from FDR before the New Deal was fully implemented. Put differently, the people who caused the Great Depression wanted to control its aftermath. And they were fascists. ..."
"... As political scientist Thomas Ferguson has been arguing for decades and Gilens and Page have recently chimed in, neither elections nor the public interest hold sway in the corridors of American power. The levers of control are structural -- congressional committee appointments go to the people with lots of money. Capitalist distribution controls the politics. ..."
"... The best-case scenario looking forward is that Donald Trump is successful with rapprochement toward North Korea and Russia and that he throws a monkey wrench into the architecture of neoliberalism so that a new path forward can be built when he's gone. If he pulls it off, this isn't reactionary nationalism and it isn't nothing. ..."
"... Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book ..."
The election of Donald Trump fractured the American Left. The abandonment of class analysis
in response to Mr. Trump's racialized nationalism left identity politics to fill the void. This
has facilitated the rise of neoliberal nationalism, an embrace of the national security state
combined with neoliberal economic analysis put forward as a liberal / Left response to Mr.
Trump's program. The result has been profoundly reactionary.
What had been unfocused consensus around issues of economic justice and ending militarism
has been sharpened into a political program. A nascent, self-styled socialist movement is
pushing domestic issues like single payer health care, strengthening the social safety net and
reversing wildly unbalanced income and wealth distribution, forward. Left unaddressed is how
this program will move forward without a revolutionary movement to act against countervailing
forces.
As widely loathed as the Democratic establishment is, it has been remarkably adept at
engineering a reactionary response in favor of establishment forces. Its demonization of
Russia! has been approximately as effective at fomenting reactionary nationalism as Mr. Trump's
racialized version. Lest this be overlooked, the strategy common to both is the use of
oppositional logic through demonization of carefully selected 'others.'
This points to the most potent fracture on the Left, the question of which is the more
effective reactionary force, the Democrats' neoliberal nationalism or Mr. Trump's racialized
version? As self-evident as the answer apparently is to the liberal / Left, it is only so
through abandonment of class analysis. Race, gender and immigration status are either subsets
of class or the concept loses meaning.
By way of the reform Democrat's analysis , it was the shift of
working class voters from Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016 that swung the election
in Mr. Trump's favor. To the extent that race was a factor, the finger points up the class
structure, not down. This difference is crucial when it comes to the much-abused 'white
working-class' explanation of Mr. Trump's victory.
What preceded Donald Trump was the Great Recession, the most severe capitalist crisis
since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Great Recession followed approximately three
decades of neoliberal de-industrialization, of policies intended to reduce the power of
organized labor, reduce working class wages and raise economic insecurity under the antique
capitalist theory that destitution motivates workers to produce more for less in
return.
The illusion / delusion that these problems -- lost livelihoods, homes, social roles,
relationships, sense of purpose and basic human dignity -- were solved, or even addressed, by
national Democrats, illustrates the class divide at work. The economy that was revived made the
rich fabulously rich, the professional / managerial class comfortable and left the other 90% in
various stages of economic decline.
Left apparently unrecognized in bourgeois attacks on working class voters is that the
analytical frames at work -- classist identity politics and liberal economics, are ruling class
ideology in the crudest Marxian / Gramscian senses. The illusion / delusion that they are
factually descriptive is a function of ideology, not lived outcomes.
Here's the rub: Mr. Trump's critique of neoliberalism can ] accommodate class analysis
whereas the Democrats' neoliberal nationalism explicitly excludes any notion of economic power,
and with it the possibility of class analysis. To date, Mr. Trump hasn't left this critique
behind -- neoliberal trade agreements are currently being renegotiated.
Asserting this isn't to embrace economic nationalism, support policies until they are
clearly stated or trust Mr. Trump's motives. But the move ties analytically to his critique of
neoliberal economic policies. As such, it is a potential monkey wrench thrown into the
neoliberal world order. Watching the bourgeois Left put forward neoliberal trade theory to
counter it would seem inexplicable without the benefit of class analysis.
Within the frame of identity politics rich and bourgeois blacks, women and immigrants have
the same travails as their poor and working-class compatriots. Ben Carson (black), Melania
Trump (female) and Melania Trump (immigrant) fit this taxonomy. For them racism, misogyny and
xenophobia are forms of social violence. But they aren't fundamental determinants of how they
live. The same can't be said for those brutalized by four decades of neoliberalism
The common bond here is a class war launched from above that has uprooted, displaced and
immiserated a large and growing proportion of the peoples of the West. This experience cuts
across race, gender and nationality making them a subset of class. If these problems are
rectified at the level of class, they will be rectified within the categories of race, gender
and nationality. Otherwise, they won't be rectified.
Democrats could have confronted the failures of neoliberalism without resorting to
economic nationalism (as Mr. Trump did). And they could have confronted unhinged militarism
without Mr. Trump's racialized nationalism. But this would have meant confronting their own
history. And it would have meant publicly declaring themselves against the interests of their
donor base.
Mr. Trump's use of racialized nationalism is the primary basis of analyses arguing that
he is fascist. Left unaddressed is the fact the the corporate-state form that is the basis of
neoliberalism was also the basis of European fascism. Recent Left analysis proceeds from the
premise that Trump control of the corporate-state form is fascism, while capitalist class
control -- neoliberalism, is something else.
Lest this not have occurred, FDR's New Deal was state capitalism approach within the
framework of the corporatism (merge of corporations and a state) social formation. The only
widely known effort to stage a fascist coup in the U.S. was carried out by Wall Street titans
in the 1930s to wrest control from FDR before the New Deal was fully implemented. Put
differently, the people who caused the Great Depression wanted to control its aftermath. And
they were fascists.
More recently, the effort to secure capitalist control has been led by [neo]liberal
Democrats using Investor-State Dispute Resolution (ISDS) clauses in trade agreements. So that
identity warriors might understand the implications, this control limits the ability of
governments to rectify race and gender bias because supranational adjudication can overrule
them.
So, is race and / or gender repression any less repressive because capitalists control the
levers? Colonial slave-masters certainly thought so. The people who own sweatshops probably
think so. Most slumlords probably think so. Employers who steal wages probably think so. The
people who own for-profit prisons probably think so. But these aren't 'real' repression, are
they? Where's the animosity?
As political scientist Thomas Ferguson
has been arguing for decades and
Gilens and Page have recently chimed in, neither elections nor the public interest hold
sway in the corridors of American power. The levers of control are structural -- congressional
committee appointments go to the people with lots of money. Capitalist distribution controls
the politics.
The liberal explanation for this is 'political culture.' The liberal solution is to change
the political culture without changing the economic relations that drive the culture. This is
also the frame of identity politics. The presence of a desperate and destitute underclass
lowers working class wages (raising profits), but ending racism is a matter of changing
minds?
This history holds an important lesson for today's nascent socialists. The domestic programs
recently put forward, as reasonable and potentially useful as they are, resemble FDR's effort
to save capitalism, not end it. The time to implement these programs was when Wall Street was
flat on its back, when it could have been more. This is the tragedy of betrayal by Barack Obama
his voters.
Despite the capitalist rhetoric at the time, the New Deal wasn't 'socialism' because it
never changed control over the means of production, over American political economy. Internal
class differences were reduced through redistribution, but brutal and ruthless imperialism
proceeded apace overseas.
The best-case scenario looking forward is that Donald Trump is successful with
rapprochement toward North Korea and Russia and that he throws a monkey wrench into the
architecture of neoliberalism so that a new path forward can be built when he's gone. If he
pulls it off, this isn't reactionary nationalism and it isn't nothing.
Otherwise, the rich have assigned the opining classes the task of defending their realm.
Step 1: divide the bourgeois into competing factions. Step 2: posit great differences between
them that are tightly circumscribed to prevent history from inconveniently intruding. Step 3:
turn these great differences into moral absolutes so that they can't be reconciled within the
terms given. Step 4: pose a rigged electoral process as the only pathway to political
resolution. Step 5: collect profits and repeat. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Rob Urie
Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His bookZen Economicsis
published by CounterPunch Books.
We are in the point when capitalist system (which presented itself as asocial system that created a large middle class)
converted into it opposite: it is social system that could not deliver that it promised and now want to distract people from this
sad fact.
The Trump adopted tax code is a huge excess: we have 40 year when corporation paid less taxes. This is last moment when they
need another gift. To give them tax is crazy excess that reminding
Louis XV of France. Those gains are going in buying of socks. And real growth is happening elsewhere in the world.
After WW2 there were a couple of decades of "golden age" of US capitalism when in the USA middle class increased considerably.
That was result of pressure of working class devastated by Great Depression. Roosevelt decided that risk is too great and he
introduced social security net. But capitalist class was so enraged that they started fighting it almost immediately after the
New Deal was introduced. Business class was enrages with the level of taxes and counterattacked. Tarp act and McCarthyism were
two successful counterattacks. McCarthyism converting communists and socialists into agents of foreign power.
The quality of jobs are going down. That's why Trump was elected... Which is sad. Giving your finger to the
neoliberal elite does not solve their problem
Notable quotes:
"... Finally, if everybody tries to save themselves (protection), we have a historical example: after the Great Depression that happened in Europe. And most people believe that it was a large part of what led to WWII after WWI, rather than a much saner collective effort. But capitalism doesn't go for collective efforts, it tends to destroy itself by its own mechanisms. There has to be a movement from below. Otherwise, there is no counter force that can take us in another direction. ..."
"... When Trump announced his big tariffs on China, we saw the stock market dropped 700 points in a day. That's a sign of the anxiety, the danger, even in the minds of capitalists, about where this is going. ..."
"... Everything is done to avoid asking the question to what degree the system we have in place - capitalism is its name - is the problem. It's the Russians, it's the immigrants, it's the tariffs, it's anything else, even the pornstar, to distract us from the debate we need to have had that we haven't had for a half a century, which puts us in a very bad place. We've given a free pass to a capitalist system because we've been afraid to debate it. And when you give a free pass to any institution you create the conditions for it to rot, right behind the facade. ..."
"... The Trump presidency is the last gasp, it's letting it all hang out. A [neoliberal] system that's gonna do whatever it can, take advantage of this moment, grab it all before it disappears. ..."
In another interesting interview with Chris Hedges, Richard Wolff explains why the Trump presidency is the last resort of a system
that is about to collapse:
Finally, if everybody tries to save themselves (protection), we have a historical example: after the Great Depression that happened
in Europe. And most people believe that it was a large part of what led to WWII after WWI, rather than a much saner collective effort.
But capitalism doesn't go for collective efforts, it tends to destroy itself by its own mechanisms. There has to be a movement from
below. Otherwise, there is no counter force that can take us in another direction.
So, absent that counter force we are going to see this system spinning out of control and destroying itself in the very way its
critics have for so long foreseen it well might.
When Trump announced his big tariffs on China, we saw the stock market dropped 700 points in a day. That's a sign of the anxiety,
the danger, even in the minds of capitalists, about where this is going. If we hadn't been a country with two or three decades of
a middle class - working class paid really well - maybe we could have gotten away with this. But in a society that has celebrated
its capacity to do what it now fails to do, you have an explosive situation.
Everything is done to avoid asking the question to what degree the system we have in place - capitalism is its name - is the problem.
It's the Russians, it's the immigrants, it's the tariffs, it's anything else, even the pornstar, to distract us from the debate we
need to have had that we haven't had for a half a century, which puts us in a very bad place. We've given a free pass to a capitalist
system because we've been afraid to debate it. And when you give a free pass to any institution you create the conditions for it
to rot, right behind the facade.
The Trump presidency is the last gasp, it's letting it all hang out. A [neoliberal] system that's gonna do whatever it can, take advantage
of this moment, grab it all before it disappears.
In France, it was said
'Après moi, le déluge' (after me the
catastrophe). The storm will break.
"... A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order ..."
"... The American ruling class turned to neoliberalism after the failure of Keynesianism -- with its emphasis on state intervention and state-led development -- to overcome the economic crisis of the 1970s and restore profitability and growth in the system. Neoliberalism was not a conspiracy hatched by the Chicago School of Economics, but a strategy that developed in response to globalization and the end of the long postwar boom. ..."
"... For a period, the United States did indeed superintend a new global structure of world imperialism. It integrated most of the world's states into the neoliberal order it dubbed the Washington Consensus, using its international financial and trade institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization to compel all nations to adopt neoliberal policies that benefited a handful of powerful players. It used international loans and debt restructuring not only to remove trade and investment restrictions, but also to impose privatization and cuts in health, education, and other vital social services in states all over the world. The Pentagon deployed its military might to police and crush any so-called rogue states like Iraq. ..."
"... The Making of Global Capitalism ..."
"... Washington's attempt to lock in its dominance through its 2003 war and occupation of Iraq backfired. Even before launching the invasion, Bush recognized that the United States needed to do something to contain China and other rising rivals. In a sign of this growing awareness, he and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, rebranded China, which Clinton had called a strategic partner, as a strategic competitor. ..."
"... Bush used 9/11 as an opportunity to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, as part of a plan for serial "regime change" in the region. If it succeeded, the United States hoped it would be able to control rivals, particularly China, which is dependent on the region's strategic energy reserves. Instead, Washington suffered, in the words of General William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency, its "greatest strategic disaster in American history." ..."
"... Iran, one of the projected targets for regime change in Bush's so-called "Axis of Evil," emerged as a beneficiary of the war. It secured a new ally in the form of the sectarian Shia fundamentalist regime in Iraq. And while the United States was bogged down in Iraq, China became increasingly assertive throughout the world, establishing new political and economic pacts throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and a number of African countries. ..."
"... Finally, the Great Recession of 2008 hammered the United States and its allies in the EU particularly hard. By contrast, Beijing's massive state intervention in the economy sustained its long boom and lifted the growth rates of countries in Latin America, Australia, Asia, and sections of Africa that exported raw materials to China. ..."
"... Trump's strategy to restore American dominance in the world is economic nationalism. This is the rational kernel within his erratic shell of bizarre tweets and rants. He wants to combine neoliberalism at home with protectionism against foreign competition. It is a position that breaks with the American establishment's grand strategy of superintending free-trade globalization. ..."
"... Demagogic appeals to labor aside, Trump is doing none of this for the benefit of American workers. His program is intended to restore the competitive position of American capital, particularly manufacturing, against its rivals, especially in China but also in Germany. ..."
"... This economic nationalism is paired with a promise to rearm the American military, which he views as having been weakened by Obama. Thus, Trump has announced plans to increase military spending by $54 billion. He wants to use this 9 percent increase in the military budget to build up the Navy and to modernize and expand the nuclear arsenal, even if that provokes other powers to do the same. As he quipped in December, "Let it be an arms race." 21 Trump's fire-breathing chief strategist, former Brietbart editor Steve Bannon, went so far as to promise, "We're going to war in the South China Sea in five to ten years. There's no doubt about that." 22 ..."
"... Trump threatens a significant break with some previously hallowed institutions of US foreign policy. He has called NATO outdated. This declaration is really just a bargaining position to get the alliance's other members to increase their military spending. Thus, both his secretary of state and defense secretary have repeatedly reassured European states that the United States remains committed to NATO. More seriously, he denounced the EU as merely a vehicle for German capital. Thus, he supports various right-wing populist parties in Europe running on a promise to imitate Britain and leave the EU. ..."
"... Trump's "transactional" approach comes out most clearly in his stated approach to international alliances and blocs. He promises to evaluate all multilateral alliances and trade blocs from the standpoint of American interests against rivals. He will scrap some, replacing them with bilateral arrangements, and renegotiate others. Much of the establishment has reacted in horror to these threats, denouncing them as a retreat from Washington's responsibilities to its allies. ..."
"... Hoping that he can split Russia away from China and neutralize it as a lesser power, Trump then wants to confront China with tariffs and military challenges to its assertion of control of the South China Sea. Incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has already threatened to deny China access to its newly-built island bases in the South China Sea. ..."
"... On top of all this, multinational capital opposes his protectionism. Of course almost all capital is more overjoyed at his domestic neoliberalism, a fact demonstrated in the enormous stock market expansion, but they see his proposals of tariffs, renegotiation of NAFTA, and scrapping of the TPP and the TTIP as threats to their global production, service, and investment strategies. They consider his house economist, Peter Navarro, to be a crackpot. ..."
"... Beneath the governmental shell, whole sections of the unelected state bureaucracy -- what has been ominously described as the "deep state" -- also oppose Trump as a threat to their interests. He has openly attacked the CIA and FBI and threatens enormous cuts to the State Department as well as other key bureaucracies responsible for managing state policy at home and abroad. Many of these bureaucrats have engaged in a campaign of leaks, especially of Trump's connections with the Russian state. ..."
"... One of Trump's key allies, Newt Gingrich, gives a sense of how Trump's backers are framing the dispute with these institutions. "We're up against a permanent bureaucratic structure defending itself and quite willing to break the law to do so," he told the New York Times ..."
"... The Democratic Party selectively opposes some of Trump's program. But, instead of attacking him on his manifold reactionary policies, they have portrayed him as Putin's "Manchurian Candidate," posturing as the defenders of US power willing to stand up to Russia. ..."
"... Even if Trump weathers the storm of this resistance from above and below, his foreign policy could flounder on its own internal conflicts and inconsistencies. To take one example: his policy of collaboration with Russia in Syria could flounder on his simultaneous commitment to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. Why? Because Iran is a Russian ally in the region. Most disturbingly, if the Trump administration goes into a deeper crisis, it will double down on its bigoted scapegoating of immigrants and Muslims to deflect attention from its failures. ..."
"... China is accelerating the transformation of its economy. It seeks to push out multinationals that have used it as an export-processing platform and replace them with its own state-owned and private corporations, which, like Germany, will export its surplus manufactured goods to the rest of the world market. 31 No wonder, then, that a survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce found that 80 percent of American multinationals consider China inhospitable for business. ..."
"... China is also aggressively trying to supplant the United States as the economic hegemon in Asia. Immediately after Trump nixed the TPP, China appealed to states in the Asia Pacific region to sign on to its alternative trade treaty, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). China is determined to challenge American imperial rule of the Asia Pacific. Though its navy is far smaller than Washington's, it plans to accelerate efforts to build up its regional naval power against Trump's threats to block Chinese access to the strategic islands in the South China Sea. ..."
"... Financial Times ..."
"... Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy ..."
"... Wall Street's Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order ..."
"... International Socialism Journal ..."
"... Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance ..."
"... International Socialist Review ..."
"... Imperialism and World Economy, ..."
"... International Socialist Review ..."
"... A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and the State in a Transitional World ..."
The neoliberal world order of free-trade globalization that the United States has pioneered
since the end of the Cold War is in crisis. The global slump, triggered by the 2007 Great
Recession, has intensified competition not only between corporations, but also between the
states that represent them and whose disagreements over the terms of trade have paralyzed the
World Trade Organization. Similar conflicts between states have disrupted regional free-trade
deals and regional blocs. Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement failed to come to a
vote in Congress, and now Trump has scrapped it. The vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom is a
precedent that could lead other states to bolt from the European Union. Rising international
tensions, especially between the United States, China, and Russia, fill the daily
headlines.
Indeed, the world has entered a new period of imperialism. As discussed in previous articles
in this journal, the unipolar world order based on the dominance of the United States, which
has been eroding for some time, has been replaced by an asymmetric multipolar
world order. The United States remains the only superpower, and possesses by far the largest
military reach, but it faces a global rival in China and a host of lesser rivals like Russia.
And the competition between nation-states over the balance of geopolitical and economic power
is intensifying.
The multiple crises and conflicts have also confronted all the world's states with the
largest migration crisis in history. Over fifty million migrants and refugees are fleeing
economies devastated by neoliberalism, the economic crisis, political instability, and in the
case of the Middle East -- especially Syria -- counterrevolution against the Arab Spring
uprisings. The bourgeois establishment and their right-wing challengers have scapegoated these
migrants in country after country.
All of this has destabilized bourgeois politics throughout the world, opening the door to
both the Left and the Right posing as alternatives to the establishment. In the United States,
Donald Trump won the presidency with the promise to "Make America Great Again" by putting
"America First." He threatens to retreat from the post-Cold War grand strategy of the United
States overseeing the international free-trade regime, in favor of economic nationalism and
what has been described as a "transactional" approach to international politics.
While Trump aims to continue certain neoliberal policies at home (such as deregulation,
privatization, and tax cuts for the wealthy), his international policies represent a
significant shift away from global "free trade." He has promised to rip up or renegotiate
free-trade deals and impose protectionist tariffs on economic competitors. To enforce this, he
wants to rearm the American military to push back against all rivals -- China in particular --
and conduct what he depicts in racist fashion a civilizational war against Islam in the Middle
East. He marries this militaristic nationalism to a bigoted campaign of scapegoating against
immigrants, Muslims, Blacks, women, and all other oppressed groups.
Panic in the imperial brain trust
The architects and ideologues of American imperialism recognize that their grand strategy is
in crisis, and worry that Trump's new stand will only magnify it. The Financial Times
' Martin Wolf declares,
We are, in short, at the end of both an economic period -- that of western-led
globalization -- and a geopolitical one -- the post-cold war "unipolar moment" of a US-led
global order. The question is whether what follows will be an unraveling of the post-second
world war era into de-globalization and conflict, as happened in the first half of the 20th
century, or a new period in which non-western powers, especially China and India, play a
bigger role in sustaining a co-operative global order. 1
Obama's favorite neocon Robert Kagan warns that Washington's retreat from managing the world
system risks "backing into World War III," the title of the piece in which he writes:
Think of two significant trend lines in the world today. One is the increasing ambition
and activism of the two great revisionist powers, Russia and China. The other is the
declining confidence, capacity, and will of the democratic world, and especially of the
United States, to maintain the dominant position it has held in the international system
since 1945. As those two lines move closer, as the declining will and capacity of the United
States and its allies to maintain the present world order meet the increasing desire and
capacity of the revisionist powers to change it, we will reach the moment at which the
existing order collapses and the world descends into a phase of brutal anarchy, as it has
three times in the past two centuries. The cost of that descent, in lives and treasure, in
lost freedoms and lost hope, will be staggering. 2
In somewhat more measured tones, the imperial brain trust of American imperialism, the
Council on Foreign Relations, is using their journal, Foreign Affairs , to oppose
Trump and defend the existing neoliberal order with minor modifications. 3 Stewart
Patrick, for example, worries that Trump has laid-out
no broader vision of the Unites States' traditional role as defender of the free world,
much less outline how the country play that part. In foreign policy and economics, he has
made clear that the pursuit of narrow national advantage will guide his policies --
apparently regardless of the impact on the liberal world order that the United States has
championed since 1945. That order was fraying well before November 8. It had been battered
from without by challenges from China and Russia and weakened from within by economic malaise
in Japan and crises in Europe, including the epochal Brexit vote last year. No one knows what
Trump will do as president. But as a candidate, he vowed to shake up world politics by
reassessing long-standing U.S. alliances, ripping up existing U.S. trade deals, raising trade
barriers against China, disavowing the Paris climate agreement, and repudiating the nuclear
accord with Iran. Should he follow through on these provocative plans, Trump will unleash
forces beyond his control, sharpening the crisis of the Western-centered order.
The Council's Gideon Rose fears that Trump is introducing "damaging uncertainty into
everything from international commerce to nuclear deterrence. At worst, it could cause other
countries to lose faith in the order's persistence and start to hedge their bets, distancing
themselves from the Unites States, making side deals with China and Russia, and adopting
beggar-thy-neighbor programs." 4
But the Council and the rest of the foreign policy establishment have little to offer as a
solution to the crisis they describe. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations' president,
Richard Haass's, new book, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of
the Old Order , produces little more than tactical maneuvers designed to incorporate
America's rivals into the existing neoliberal order. 5 But it is within that very
order that the United States has undergone relative decline against its increasingly assertive
rivals, especially China.
Neoliberalism's solution to the crisis last time
The American ruling class turned to neoliberalism after the failure of Keynesianism -- with
its emphasis on state intervention and state-led development -- to overcome the economic crisis
of the 1970s and restore profitability and growth in the system. Neoliberalism was not a
conspiracy hatched by the Chicago School of Economics, but a strategy that developed in
response to globalization and the end of the long postwar boom.
The US ruling class adopted what later came to be known as neoliberalism in coherent form
under the regimes of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain.
6 Neoliberalism had domestic and international dimensions. At home, the mantra was
privatization and deregulation. The ruling class got rid of regulations on capital and launched
a war against workers. They privatized state-run businesses as well as traditionally state-run
institutions like prisons and schools. They busted unions, drove down wages, and cut the
welfare state to ribbons.
Abroad, the United States expanded the program of "free trade" they had pursued since the
end of World War II. Seeking cheap labor, resources, and markets, Washington used its dominance
of international institutions to pry open national economies throughout the world. It aimed
first to incorporate its allies, then its antagonists in this neoliberal world order, with the
promise that it would work in the interests of "the capitalist class" around the world. As
Henry Kissinger once remarked, "What is called globalization is really another name for the
dominant role of the United States." 7 These domestic and international policies
overcame the crises of the 1970s and ushered in a period of economic expansion (interrupted by
a few recessions) that lasted from the early 1980s through to the early 2000s. 8
The brief unipolar moment
Unable to keep pace with the West's economic expansion and the Reagan administration's
massive rearmament program, and beset by its own internal contradictions, the Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991, and the Cold War's bipolar geopolitical order came to an end. The United
States hoped to establish a new unipolar world order in which it would solidify its position as
the world's sole remaining, and unassailable, superpower.
For a period, the United States did indeed superintend a new global structure of world
imperialism. It integrated most of the world's states into the neoliberal order it dubbed the
Washington Consensus, using its international financial and trade institutions like the IMF,
World Bank, and the World Trade Organization to compel all nations to adopt neoliberal policies
that benefited a handful of powerful players. It used international loans and debt
restructuring not only to remove trade and investment restrictions, but also to impose
privatization and cuts in health, education, and other vital social services in states all over
the world. The Pentagon deployed its military might to police and crush any so-called rogue
states like Iraq.
Amidst the heady days of this unipolar moment, much of the left abandoned the classical
Marxist theory of imperialism developed chiefly by the early twentieth century Russian
revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin and Nikolai Bukharin. In brief, Lenin and Bukharin argued that
capitalist development transformed economic competition into interstate rivalry and war for the
political and economic division and redivision of the world system between the dominant
capitalist powers vying for hegemony. 9
"The development of world capitalism leads," wrote Bukharin, "on the one hand, to an
internationalization of the economic life and, on the other, to the leveling of economic
differences, and to an infinitely greater degree, the same process of economic development
intensifies the tendency to 'nationalize' capitalist interests, to form narrow 'national'
groups armed to the teeth and ready to hurl themselves at one another at any moment."
10
Imperialism was a product of the interplay between the creation of a world market and the
division of the world between national states, and as such was a product of the system rather
than simply a policy of a particular state or party. This was in contrast to the German
socialist Karl Kautsky, who argued that imperialism was a policy favored by some sections of
the capitalists but which ran against the interests of ruling classes as a whole, which, as a
result of the economic integration of the world market, had a greater interest in peaceful
competition.
The new period of globalized capitalism produced new theories that rejected Lenin and
Bukharin's approach. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argued in their 2000 book that
globalization had replaced imperialism with a new structure of domination they termed empire.
Nonstate networks of power, like international financial institutions such as the IMF and the
World Bank, were now, in an era where states were increasingly powerless, the dominant world
players. 11 "The United States does not, and indeed no nation-state can today, form
the center of an imperialist project," they famously wrote in the preface. 12 Others
took the argument further, maintaining that a system of globalized transnational production and
trade was fast displacing states, including Washington, as influential centers of power.
13
On the other extreme, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin argue in their 2012 book The Making of
Global Capitalism that the American state organized globalization and integrated all the
world's states as vassals of its informal empire. 14 Though diametrically opposed at
the start, these arguments ended with the same conclusion -- inter-imperial rivalries between
the world's leading states, including the potential for them to spill over into military
conflict -- are not a necessary outcome of capitalism; and today those rivalries are a thing of
the past.
The return of rivalry in an asymmetric world order
Developments in the real world -- such as the Bush administration's 2001 invasion and
occupation of Afghanistan, and two years later of Iraq -- viscerally disproved these arguments.
Indeed, changes in the real world were already undermining the foundations of the postwar world
order that Kagan and others are frantically holding up against Trump's "America First"
nationalism.
Washington's drive to cement its hegemony in a unipolar world order was undermined in
several ways. The neoliberal boom from the early 1980s to the 2000s produced new centers of
capital accumulation. China is the paradigmatic example. After it abandoned autarkic state
capitalism in favor of state-managed production for the world market, it transformed itself
from a backwater producer to the new workshop of the world. It vaulted from producing about 1.9
percent 15 of global GDP in 1979 to about 15 percent in 2016. 16 It is
now the second-largest economy in the world and predicted to overtake the United States as the
largest economy in the coming years.
But China was not the sole beneficiary of the neoliberal expansion. Brazil and other
regional economies also developed. And Russia, after suffering an enormous collapse of its
empire and its economic power in the 1990s, managed to rebuild itself as a petro-power with
disproportionate geopolitical influence because of its nuclear arsenal. Of course, whole
sections of the world system did not develop at all, but instead suffered dispossession and
economic catastrophe.
Washington's attempt to lock in its dominance through its 2003 war and occupation of Iraq
backfired. Even before launching the invasion, Bush recognized that the United States needed to
do something to contain China and other rising rivals. In a sign of this growing awareness, he
and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, rebranded China, which Clinton had called a
strategic partner, as a strategic competitor.17
Bush used 9/11 as an opportunity to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in
Iraq, as part of a plan for serial "regime change" in the region. If it succeeded, the United
States hoped it would be able to control rivals, particularly China, which is dependent on the
region's strategic energy reserves. Instead, Washington suffered, in the words of General
William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency, its "greatest strategic disaster
in American history."18
Iran, one of the projected targets for regime change in Bush's so-called "Axis of Evil,"
emerged as a beneficiary of the war. It secured a new ally in the form of the sectarian Shia
fundamentalist regime in Iraq. And while the United States was bogged down in Iraq, China
became increasingly assertive throughout the world, establishing new political and economic
pacts throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and a number of African countries.
Russia also took advantage of American setbacks to reassert its power against EU and NATO
expansionism in Eastern Europe. It went to war against US ally Georgia in 2008. In Central
Asia, China and Russia came together to form a new alliance, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization. They postured against American imperialism in their own imperial interests.
Finally, the Great Recession of 2008 hammered the United States and its allies in the EU
particularly hard. By contrast, Beijing's massive state intervention in the economy sustained
its long boom and lifted the growth rates of countries in Latin America, Australia, Asia, and
sections of Africa that exported raw materials to China.
This was the high-water mark of the so-called BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and
South Africa. The lesser powers in this bloc hitched their star to Chinese imperialism,
exporting their commodities to fuel China's industrial expansion. Together they launched the
BRICS bank, officially known as the New Development Bank, and China added another, the Asian
Infrastructure Development Bank, as alternatives to the IMF and World Bank. The recent Chinese
slowdown and the consequent drop in commodity prices have, however, hammered the economies of
many of the BRICS.
These developments cracked the unipolar moment and replaced it with today's asymmetric world
order. The United States remains the world's sole superpower; but it now faces an international
rival in China and in lesser powers like Russia. It must also wrestle with regional powers that
pursue their own interests, sometimes in sync with Washington and other times at odds with
it.
Obama's failure to restore dominance
The Obama administration came to power with the hopes of restoring the credibility and
standing of American power in the wake of Bush's disasters in the Middle East. It implemented a
combined program of stimulus and austerity to restore growth and profitability. By imposing a
two-tier wage structure on the auto industry, it set a precedent for competitive
reindustrialization in the United States, and launched the massive fracking expansion to
provide cheap domestic energy to US corporations.
Intending to extract the United States from its costly and inconclusive ground wars in the
Middle East, Obama turned to air power, shifting the focus of the so-called War on Terror to
drone strikes, Special Force operations, and air support for US proxy forces in different
countries.
Once disentangled from Bush's occupations, Obama planned to conduct the ballyhooed "pivot to
Asia" to contain China's ongoing rise, bolster Washington's political and military alliance
with Japan and South Korea, and prevent their economic incorporation into China's growing
sphere of influence. The now dead Trans-Pacific Partnership was meant to ensure American
economic hegemony in the region, which would then be backed up militarily with the deployment
of 60 percent of the US Navy to the Asia Pacific region. 19 Obama also began to push
back against Russian opposition to the EU and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe -- hence the
standoff over Ukraine.
But Obama was unable to fully implement any of this because US forces remained bogged down
in the spiraling crisis in the Middle East. Retreating from the Bush administration's policy of
regime change to balancing between the existing states, Obama, while continuing to support
historic US allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, at the same time struck a deal with Iran
over its nuclear program. But this strategy was undermined by the Arab Spring, the regimes'
counterrevolutions, attempts by regional powers to manipulate the rebellion for their own ends,
and the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The United States has been unable to resolve many of
these developing crises on its own terms.
Now Russia, after having suffered a long-term decline of its power in the region, has
managed to reassert itself through its intervention in Syria in support of Assad's
counterrevolution. It is now a broker in the Syrian "peace process" and a new player in the
broader Middle East.
While the United States continued to suffer relative decline, China and Russia became even
more assertive. Russia took Crimea, which provoked the United States and Germany to impose
sanctions on the Kremlin. China intensified its economic deal making throughout the world,
increasing its foreign direct investment from a paltry $17.2 billion in 2005 to $187 billion in
2015. 20 At the same time, it engaged in a massive buildup of its navy and air force
(though its military is still dwarfed by the US) and constructed new military bases on various
islands to control the shipping lanes, fisheries, and potential oil fields in the South China
Sea.
Obama did manage to oversee the recovery of the US economy, and China has suffered an
economic slowdown. That has dramatically reversed the economic fortunes of the BRICS, in
particular Brazil, which has experienced economic collapse and a right-wing governmental coup.
The drop in oil prices that accompanied the Chinese slowdown also hammered the OPEC states as
well as Russia.
But China's slowdown has not reversed Beijing's economic and geopolitical ascension. In
fact, China is in the process of rebalancing its economy to replace multinational investment,
expand its domestic market, and increase production for export to the rest of the world. The
aim is to increase its ability to compete with the United States and the EU at all levels.
Thus, well before Trump's election, the United States had been mired in foreign policy
problems that it seemed incapable of resolving.
Trump's break with neoliberalism
Trump's strategy to restore American dominance in the world is economic nationalism. This is
the rational kernel within his erratic shell of bizarre tweets and rants. He wants to combine
neoliberalism at home with protectionism against foreign competition. It is a position that
breaks with the American establishment's grand strategy of superintending free-trade
globalization.
Inside the United States, Trump aims to double down on some aspects of neoliberalism. He
plans to cut taxes on the rich, rip up government regulations that "hamper" business interests,
expand Obama's fracking program to provide corporations cheaper energy, and to go after public
sector unions. He also wants to invest $1 trillion to modernize the country's decrepit
infrastructure. While his Gestapo assault on immigrants is less popular among the business
class, they are salivating over the tax and regulatory cuts. Trump hopes with these economic
carrots to lure American manufacturing companies back to the United States.
At the same time, however, Trump wants to upend the neoliberal Washington Consensus. He is
threatening to impose tariffs on American corporations that move their production to other
countries. He has already nixed the TPP and intends to do the same to the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Europe. He promises to renegotiate NAFTA with Mexico and
Canada to secure better terms, and, in response to Chinese and EU protectionism, he threatens
to impose a border tax of 45 percent on Chinese and others countries' exports to the United
States. These measures could trigger a trade war.
Demagogic appeals to labor aside, Trump is doing none of this for the benefit of American
workers. His program is intended to restore the competitive position of American capital,
particularly manufacturing, against its rivals, especially in China but also in Germany.
This economic nationalism is paired with a promise to rearm the American military, which he
views as having been weakened by Obama. Thus, Trump has announced plans to increase military
spending by $54 billion. He wants to use this 9 percent increase in the military budget to
build up the Navy and to modernize and expand the nuclear arsenal, even if that provokes other
powers to do the same. As he quipped in December, "Let it be an arms race." 21
Trump's fire-breathing chief strategist, former Brietbart editor Steve Bannon, went so far as
to promise, "We're going to war in the South China Sea in five to ten years. There's no doubt
about that." 22
Trump also plans to intensify what he sees as a civilizational war with Islam. This will
likely involve ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran, intensifying the war on ISIS in Iraq and
Syria, and conducting further actions against al Qaeda internationally. It will also likely
involve doubling down on Washington's alliance with Israel. Trump's appointment as ambassador
to Israel, David Friedman, is actually to the right of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. 23 Trump has already begun escalating the ongoing war on Muslims
conducted by the last two administrations, with his executive orders that are in effect an
anti-Muslim ban and have increased the profiling, surveillance, and harassment of Muslims
throughout the country.
To pay for this military expansion, the Trump administration, in Bannon's phrase, plans to
carry out the "deconstruction of the administrative state." Thus, the administration has
appointed heads of departments, like Ed Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, whose
main purpose is to gut them. 24 No doubt this will entail massive cuts to social
programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Trump threatens a significant break with some previously hallowed institutions of US foreign
policy. He has called NATO outdated. This declaration is really just a bargaining position to
get the alliance's other members to increase their military spending. Thus, both his secretary
of state and defense secretary have repeatedly reassured European states that the United States
remains committed to NATO. More seriously, he denounced the EU as merely a vehicle for German
capital. Thus, he supports various right-wing populist parties in Europe running on a promise
to imitate Britain and leave the EU.
Trump's "transactional" approach comes out most clearly in his stated approach to
international alliances and blocs. He promises to evaluate all multilateral alliances and trade
blocs from the standpoint of American interests against rivals. He will scrap some, replacing
them with bilateral arrangements, and renegotiate others. Much of the establishment has reacted
in horror to these threats, denouncing them as a retreat from Washington's responsibilities to
its allies.
In a departure from Obama's policy toward Russia, Trump intends to create a more
transactional relationship with the Kremlin. He does not view Russia as the main threat; he
believes that is China. In addition to considering cutting a deal with Russia to drop sanctions
over its seizure of Crimea, he wants to collaborate with Putin in a joint war against ISIS in
Syria.
Hoping that he can split Russia away from China and neutralize it as a lesser power, Trump
then wants to confront China with tariffs and military challenges to its assertion of control
of the South China Sea. Incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has already threatened to
deny China access to its newly-built island bases in the South China Sea.
Trump's economic nationalism leads directly to his "fortress America" policies. These
policies chiefly target Muslims and immigrants, but they should not be seen in isolation from
other domestic policies. With the wave of protests against his attacks that emerged from the
moment he stepped into office, Trump and his allies in state governments have introduced bills
that impose increasing restrictions on the right to protest and give the police a license for
repression with impunity. Thus the corollary of his "America First" imperialism abroad is
authoritarianism at home.
Can Trump succeed?
Trump faces a vast array of obstacles that could stop him from implementing his new
strategy. To begin with, he is an unpopular president with an approval rating hovering below 40
percent in his first months in office. He and his crony capitalist cabinet will no doubt face
many scandals, compromising their ability to push through their agenda.
He may be his own biggest obstacle. His 6 A.M. tweets are signs of someone more concerned
with his celebrity status than imperial statecraft. He has already lost his national security
adviser, Michael Flynn, due to Flynn's failure to disclose his communication with Russian
diplomats during the campaign, and his Attorney General Jeff Sessions took heat on similar
charges, forcing him to recuse himself from any investigations of the Trump campaign with the
Kremlin.
There are also real economic challenges to his ability to follow through on his economic
program. He simultaneously promises to cut taxes for the wealthy, spend hundreds of millions on
domestic infrastructure (not to mention the billions it would cost to build a wall along the
US–Mexico border), and cut the deficit. This does not square with economic reality.
On top of all this, multinational capital opposes his protectionism. Of course almost all
capital is more overjoyed at his domestic neoliberalism, a fact demonstrated in the enormous
stock market expansion, but they see his proposals of tariffs, renegotiation of NAFTA, and
scrapping of the TPP and the TTIP as threats to their global production, service, and
investment strategies. They consider his house economist, Peter Navarro, to be a crackpot.
25
Even his cabinet opposes much of his program. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testified
that he supports the TTP and American obligations to its NATO allies in Europe, including
recent deployments of American troops to Poland. And Trump's Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog"
Mattis disagrees with Trump's proposal to rip up the nuclear treaty with Iran.
Beneath the governmental shell, whole sections of the unelected state bureaucracy -- what
has been ominously described as the "deep state" -- also oppose Trump as a threat to their
interests. He has openly attacked the CIA and FBI and threatens enormous cuts to the State
Department as well as other key bureaucracies responsible for managing state policy at home and
abroad. Many of these bureaucrats have engaged in a campaign of leaks, especially of Trump's
connections with the Russian state.
One of Trump's key allies, Newt Gingrich, gives a sense of how Trump's backers are framing
the dispute with these institutions. "We're up against a permanent bureaucratic structure
defending itself and quite willing to break the law to do so," he told the New York
Times . 26 Thus, the core of the capitalist state is at least attempting to
constrain Trump, bring down some of his appointees and may, if they see it as necessary, do the
same to Trump himself. At the very least, these extraordinary divisions at the top create a
sense of insecurity, and open up space for questioning and struggle from below.
The Democratic Party selectively opposes some of Trump's program. But, instead of attacking
him on his manifold reactionary policies, they have portrayed him as Putin's "Manchurian
Candidate," posturing as the defenders of US power willing to stand up to Russia. As Glenn
Greenwald writes, the Democrats are
not "resisting" Trump from the left or with populist appeals -- by, for instance, devoting
themselves toprotection ofWall Street and environmental regulations
under attack , or supporting the revocation of jobs-killing free trade
agreements, or demanding that Yemini civilians not be massacred. Instead, they're attacking him
on the grounds of insufficient nationalism, militarism, and aggression: equating a desire to
avoid confrontation with Moscow as a form of treason (just like they did when they were the
leading Cold Warriors).
This is why they're finding such common cause with the
nation's most bloodthirsty militarists -- not because it's an alliance of convenience but
rather one of shared convictions (indeed, long before Trump,
neocons were planning a re-alignment with Democrats under a Clinton presidency).
27
Republicans also object to many of Trump's initiatives. For example, John McCain has
attacked his cozy relationship with the Kremlin. And neoliberals in the Republican Party
support the TPP and free trade globalization in general. The neocon Max Boot has gone so far as
to support the Democrat's call for a special counsel to investigate Trump's collusion with
Putin. He explains,
There is a good reason why Trump and his partisans are so apoplectic about the prospect of
a special counsel, and it is precisely why it is imperative to appoint one: because otherwise
we will never know the full story of the Kremlin's tampering with our elections and of the
Kremlin's connections with the president of the United States. As evidenced by his desperate
attempts to change the subject, Trump appears petrified of what such a probe would reveal.
28
Even if Trump weathers the storm of this resistance from above and below, his foreign policy
could flounder on its own internal conflicts and inconsistencies. To take one example: his
policy of collaboration with Russia in Syria could flounder on his simultaneous commitment to
scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. Why? Because Iran is a Russian ally in the region. Most
disturbingly, if the Trump administration goes into a deeper crisis, it will double down on its
bigoted scapegoating of immigrants and Muslims to deflect attention from its failures.
Economic nationalism beyond Trump?
While Trump's contradictions could stymie his ability to impose his economic nationalist
program, that program is not going to disappear any more than the problems it is intended to
address. The reality is that the United States faces continued decline in the neoliberal world
order. China, even taking into account the many contradictions it faces, continues to benefit
from the current setup.
That's why, in an ironic twist of historic proportions, Chinese premier Xi Jing Ping
defended the Washington Consensus in his country's first address at the World Economic Forum in
Davos Switzerland. He even went so far as to promise to come to the rescue of free-trade
globalization if the Trump administration abandoned it. "No one will emerge as a
winner in a trade war ," he declared. "Pursuing protectionism is just like locking one's
self in a dark room. Wind and rain may be kept outside, but so are light and air."
29
One of his underlings, Zhang Jun, remarked, "If anyone were to say China is playing a
leadership role in the world I would say it's not China rushing to the front but rather the
front runners have stepped back leaving the place to China. If China is required to play that
leadership role then China will assume its responsibilities." 30
China is accelerating the transformation of its economy. It seeks to push out multinationals
that have used it as an export-processing platform and replace them with its own state-owned
and private corporations, which, like Germany, will export its surplus manufactured goods to
the rest of the world market. 31 No wonder, then, that a survey conducted by the
American Chamber of Commerce found that 80 percent of American multinationals consider China
inhospitable for business.32
China is also aggressively trying to supplant the United States as the economic hegemon in
Asia. Immediately after Trump nixed the TPP, China appealed to states in the Asia Pacific
region to sign on to its alternative trade treaty, the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP). China is determined to challenge American imperial rule of the Asia
Pacific. Though its navy is far smaller than Washington's, it plans to accelerate efforts to
build up its regional naval power against Trump's threats to block Chinese access to the
strategic islands in the South China Sea.
All of this was underway before Trump. That's why Obama was already inching toward some of
Trump's policies. He initiated the pivot to Asia, deployed the US Navy to the region, and
imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and tires. He also complained about NATO countries and others
freeloading on American military largesse. He thus encouraged Japan's rearmament and
deployments of its forces abroad. He also began the move to on-shoring manufacturing based on a
low-wage America with cheap energy and revitalized infrastructure.
So it's imaginable that another figure could take up and repackage Trump's economic
nationalism. Regardless of whether this happens or not, it is clear that there is a trajectory
deep in the dynamics of the world system toward interimperial rivalry between the United States
and its main imperialist challenger, China. Obviously there are countervailing forces that
mitigate the tendency toward military conflict between them. The high degree of economic
integration makes the ruling classes hesitant to risk war. And, because all the major states
are nuclear powers, each is reluctant to risk armed conflicts turning into mutual
annihilation.
For background on this key institution of American imperialism see Laurence H. Shoup and
William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States
Foreign Policy (New York: Authors Choice Press, 2004), and Laurence H. Shoup, Wall
Street's Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal
Geopolitics (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2015).
Gideon Rose, "Out of Order," Foreign Affairs (January–February,
2017).
Richard Haass, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old
Order (New York: Penguin Press, 2017).
For one of the best accounts of neoliberalism as a response to globalization and a
strategy to overcome the crisis of the 1970s, see Neil Davidson, "The Neoliberal Era in
Britain: Historical Developments and Current Perspectives," International Socialism
Journal , no. 139 (2013),
http://isj.org.uk/the-neoliberal-era-in-... .
Lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, Oct. 12, 1999, cited by Sam Gindin in "Social Justice
and Globalization: Are They Compatible?" Monthly Review , June 2002, 11.
For an account of the neoliberal boom and consequent crisis and slump, see David McNally,
Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance (Oakland, CA: PM
Press, 2010).
For a summary of the classical theory of imperialism, see Phil Gasper, "Lenin and
Bukharin on Imperialism," International Socialist Review , no. 100 (May 2009),
http://isreview.org/issue/100/lenin-and-...
.
For a summary and critique of Hardt and Negri's ideas see Tom Lewis, "Empire strikes
out," International Socialist Review , no. 24 (July–August 2002), www.isreview.org/issues/24/empire_strike...
.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2000),
xiii–xiv.
See, for example, William Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class,
and the State in a Transitional World (Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins, 2004).
See Ashley Smith, "Global empire or imperialism?" International Socialist Review
, no 92 (Spring 2014), http://isreview.org/issue/92 .
Justin Yifu Lin, "China and the Global Economy," Remarks at the Conference "Asia's Role
in the Post-Crisis Global Economy," November 29, 2011,
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/s... .
Ed Pilkington and Martin Pengelly, "'Let it Be an Arms Race': Donald Trump Appears to
Double Down on Nuclear Expansion," The Guardian , December 24, 2016, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/23/...
.
Phillip Rucker and Robert Costa, "Bannon Vows Daily Fight for the "Deconstruction of the
Administrative State," Washington Post , February 23, 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-wh-s... .
Julie Hirschfeld Davis, "Rumblings of a 'Deep State' Undermining Trump? It Was Once a
Foreign Concept," New York Times , March 6, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/po... .
Stephen Fidler, Te-Ping Chen, and Lingling Wei, "China's Xi Jingping Seizes Role as
Leader of Globalization," Wall Street Journal , January 17, 2017, www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-xi-jinping-d...
.
For further discussion of this point, see Ashley Smith, "Anti-imperialism and the Syrian
Revolution," Socialist Worker , August 25, 2016, https://socialistworker.org/2016/08/25/a...
.
"... Through neoliberal rationales, they are able to reach many of their social objectives even if they fall short of their policy goals ..."
"... The belief that Trump would alter American conservativism away from neoliberal economics is not without its basis. ..."
"... The marriage between neoliberalism and Christian nationalism that neo-conservatives pursued during the George W. Bush era was going to experience a soft separation under Trump. The pursuit of neoliberalism policies would be relegated in importance, if not abandoned completely, and there would be doubling down on Christian nationalism, with a tripling down on the nationalist element. Unsurprisingly, the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reveals that Trump is ready to renege on his end of this bargain with the hope that poor whites will still be willing to keep up their end. ..."
"... The argument that Trump would somehow overturn America's neoliberal economic order myopically focused on Trump's trade policy. In doing so, it both misunderstood what Trump represented and the ideological framework of neoliberalism. Trump's fever pitch agonizing over the United States' trade deficit with China and Mexico are both the wallowing of an economic idiot and the maneuvering of a political savant. ..."
"... The insinuation was for average Americans to take back what was rightfully theirs by engaging in a new round of economic bargaining with these two nations, if not an open trade war. ..."
"... As the latest tax bill has shown, Trump is dedicated to weakening the ability of the government to extract wealth from the rich. This supreme goal takes priority over the Republican gospel of balance budgets. ..."
"... The Right Nation: Conservative Power in ..."
"... The United States now has an Americanized version of European style far Right politics, and its xenophobic ambitious has come about through a constant assertion of neoliberal values. ..."
"... Understood in proper terms, "economic nationalism" is best described as "market statism" -- where, in Milton Friedman's words, the purpose of the state should be "to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets" but nothing else. ..."
The passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has refuted any notion that
Trump's ascension to the White House would mark an end to neoliberalism. Poor whites who
supported Trump expected him to offer America a new version of conservativism that would break
with neoliberalism. Instead, furthering neoliberal policies has become a critical objective
that works in tandem with Trump's xenophobic rhetoric
With the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, President Trump secured his first major
policy victory. Despite their federal dominance, the Republican Party has proven to be
legislatively constipated. Below the surface of party unity, sectarian differences between the
competing strains of American conservatism have hindered it from taking advantage of its
historical positioning. Nevertheless, tax cuts proved to be a workable common ground that Trump
was able to take advantage of. While commentary of the passage has tended to focus on this
Republican unity, the most significant aspect of the Act's passage is the refutation that
Donald Trump's ascension to the White House would somehow mark an end to the era of neoliberal
economics. Furthering neoliberal policies has not only been an aspect of Trump's agenda but a
critical goal that works in tandem with his xenophobic rhetoric. Far from being opposed by the
Bannon faction of Trump's coalition, neoliberalism has provided a comforting aerie for their
fascist inclinations to develop. Through neoliberal rationales, they are able to reach many
of their social objectives even if they fall short of their policy goals .
The belief that Trump would alter American conservativism away from neoliberal economics
is not without its basis. In a bizarre case of enveloping ironies, Trump's presidential
campaign was successful in portraying him as both a billionaire business wizard and as an
example of an American everyman. He advocated for "draining the swamp" of corrupt Wall Street
executives, while at the same time paraded his practice of tax evasion has an example of his
shrewd financial acumen. The incompatibility of these two personas is obvious, but it has a
certain appeal within the context of America's poor whites. Poor white Americans are both
spiteful toward and enamored by capitalism. They are spiteful because it retards their own
social mobility, but enamored with it because it provides a basis for their own privilege over
racial minorities. Unlike their counterparts among racial minorities, poor whites do not
consider themselves poor by class, but poor by temporary misfortune. They are not poor per se,
but rather down-on-their-luck millionaires whose are unjustly treated by liberal elites and
coddled minorities. For these people, Trump represented an enchanting example of uncouth
success. The fact that he was crass and despised only reinforced the notion that it is not
connections and education that made a person wealthy, but hard work and an intuition for
affluence. Culturally speaking, these are traits are considered innate to white Americans. Of
course, to believe this mythology, many of Trump's low-class acolytes were only willing to
support his campaign under the pretext of an unspoken bargain: they would ignore the reality
that his wealth was inherited and not earned, and he would refrain from the usual Republican
claptrap about the virtues of privatizing Social Security and Medicare. That way both partners
could remain comfortable in their delusions that all their current and potential future wealth
was a product of their own doing. The result of this unspoken bargain was that Trump was
supposed to offer America a new version of conservativism. The marriage between
neoliberalism and Christian nationalism that neo-conservatives pursued during the George W.
Bush era was going to experience a soft separation under Trump. The pursuit of neoliberalism
policies would be relegated in importance, if not abandoned completely, and there would be
doubling down on Christian nationalism, with a tripling down on the nationalist element.
Unsurprisingly, the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reveals that Trump is ready to renege
on his end of this bargain with the hope that poor whites will still be willing to keep up
their end.
Astute observers saw this betrayal coming. The argument that Trump would somehow
overturn America's neoliberal economic order myopically focused on Trump's trade policy. In
doing so, it both misunderstood what Trump represented and the ideological framework of
neoliberalism. Trump's fever pitch agonizing over the United States' trade deficit with China
and Mexico are both the wallowing of an economic idiot and the maneuvering of a political
savant. The issue was always economically inane. A trade deficit in-and-of-itself reveals
very little about the overall health of an economy. Whether a nation should strive for or
against a trade deficit is more dependent on that nation's strategic position within the global
economy, and not necessarily an indicator of the health of domestic markets. But, trade proved
to be a salient issue for symbolic purposes. Stagnation and automation have compelled American
middle and lower classes to accept an economic torpor. Making trade deficits a central campaign
tenant provided these people with an outlet for their class anxieties without having to
question the nature of class itself. Lethargic economic growth was blamed on Mexicans and the
Chinese. The insinuation was for average Americans to take back what was rightfully theirs
by engaging in a new round of economic bargaining with these two nations, if not an open trade
war.
While Trump's criticism of Mexico and China seemed to imply an undoing of international
market liberalization and a return to an age of greater protectionism, in reality, Trump very
rarely recommended such policies. Instead, he made vague references to "good people" who will
make "good deals" for American workers and openly preferred lowering America's corporate tax
rate in order to encourage businesses to reinvest in the United States. The first proposal was
always understood as meaningless. Its value was in showmanship. A person can hoodwink the world
into thinking that they are a genius just by referring to everyone around them as a moron.
However, the second proposal not only does not overturn the reigning neoliberal order, it
strengthens it. As the latest tax bill has shown, Trump is dedicated to weakening the
ability of the government to extract wealth from the rich. This supreme goal takes priority
over the Republican gospel of balance budgets. The deficit be damned if preventing it
smacks of any hint of expropriation of the wealthy. But, the deficit is not entirely damned. It
is an open secret that Republicans are salivating for a fiscal crisis that will provide them
with a pretext for cutting Social Security and Medicare. It was only a matter of time before
Trump's administration wholeheartedly joins them.
The fact that the real potential for cutting favored government programs has not resulted in
the same outcry among Trump's supporters, even among low-class demographics, as his suggestion
that he might soften his position on immigration is a grave concern. Social Security and
Medicare are extremely popular in the United States among poor and working people regardless of
ethnicity and political ideology. Nevertheless, tolerance for their obliteration has become
palatable to the majority of white Americans. In 2004, journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian
Wooldridge published their exhaustive history of the American Right, The Right Nation: Conservative Power
inAmerica . At the time, Michlethwait and Wooldridge could accurately claim
that "in no other country is the Right defined so much by values rather than class Yet despite
the importance of values, America has failed to produce a xenophobic 'far Right' on anything
like the same scale as Europe has." A little over a decade later, Michlethwait's and
Wooldridge's observation has become obsolete. Trump is inept at policy and governance, but he
is a skilled mobilizer and has managed to shift the American Right into a new direction.
The United States now has an Americanized version of European style far Right politics, and
its xenophobic ambitious has come about through a constant assertion of neoliberal
values.
Trump has not only furthered the neoliberal doctrine of privatization, but also that of the
economization of everyday life, and specifically, the economization of American racism. While
fear of cultural differences between "the west" and "the rest" has always been front and center
for the Bannon wing of Trump's coalition, more tactical voices find economic justifications for
their xenophobia: immigrants steal jobs, freeride on welfare benefits, and don't pay taxes. The
image that emerges when these talking points converge is a political system enamored with
quantifying and dispensing material goods between those who deserve and those who do not. For
most modern conservatives, opposition to immigration is not based on an open fear of
differences; rather, it is a feeling that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are
unwilling to accept a free market economic system that treats all Americans on fair and equal
terms. Unlike average Americans, who work hard and thus deserve their market remunerations,
immigrants -- and by implication other minorities -- rely on a mixture of government handouts
and liberal acquiescence to the rules. Immigrants cash their welfare checks because liberal
elites look the other way on law enforcement. This worldview suggests that the government
should not only be redirected to strenuous law enforcement but also that it should not be in
the business of providing society with social welfare in the first place. Doing so only creates
an impetus for illegal immigration and lazy minorities. In this manner, Bannon's cheerleading
of "economic nationalism" was always a rhetorical mirage. Understood in proper terms,
"economic nationalism" is best described as "market statism" -- where, in Milton Friedman's
words, the purpose of the state should be "to preserve law and order, to enforce private
contracts, to foster competitive markets" but nothing else.
There is no fundamental difference in the terms of the realpolitik outcomes between
Friedman's neoliberalism and Bannon's economic nationalism, even if they begin from separate
economic philosophies. The only difference is in what should be considered preferable within
market configurations. In Capitalism and Freedom ,
Friedman emphasizes his personal objections to racist ideologies but sees no need for a
government to ensure racial equality. According to Friedman, racism is to be overcome through
individual argumentation, not political struggle; it is the changing of tastes within the
marketplace that will provide the liberation of ethnic minorities, not the paternal hand of the
government preventing discrimination. Friedman's de-politicizing of racial anxieties to mere
matters of "taste," provides an opening for those -- like Bannon -- who are eager to engage in
a culture war, but are well aware of the potentially alienating effects of actually taking up
arms. If racial discrimination is only a matter of "taste," similar to other desires within the
marketplace, then the maintenance of white supremacy is predicated on its profitability. As
long as whiteness can maintain its social hegemony, then Friedman's governmental obligations
"to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets," will
serve to reinforce it. The neoliberal economizing of American racism allows for many of the
effects of white supremacy without necessarily the adoption of any of its core premises.
Trump's coalition of white nationalists and free-market ideologues thus become comfortable
bedfellows, even while maintaining a rhetorical mistrust of each other.
The question is can Trump maintain his coalition of realigned conservatives in time for the
next election cycle? While his low polling numbers and recent Democratic Party successes are
encouraging, they are not foolproof. The destabilizing of the narrative on American racism can
only occur through a refusal to accept the economization of the debate. The exclusion of racial
minorities from social welfare and the utter bureaucratic madness of the United States'
immigration policies have a moral dimension that has to take precedence over concerns regarding
job stealing and tax burdens, no matter how fallacious such arguments are to begin with.
Expecting the Democratic Party's leadership to play a leading role in this de-economization of
the debate is not impossible, but unlikely. Along with Republicans, Democrats have been
complicit in the framing social issues in relations to the economy, and the economy as merely
working in the service of private interests. Only recently has the leftwing of the Democratic
Party been organized and energized enough to counter this influence and return the party to its
New Deal orientation. Whatever its limitations, Roosevelt's "freedom from want" provides a
moral framework for economic policy. It is a reasonable and familiar starting point to break
with a neoliberal credo that economizes all morality within a capitalist framework.
While the left-wing of the Democratic Party has seen tremendous progress, it is still far
from overturning the organization's centrist leadership. In many ways, the passage of the Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act is a painful reminder of how weak the American Left is once Republicans are
able to stay united. Like with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
is extremely unpopular. The trickledown theory of economics that the act is based on is rightly
seen a convenient canard for the rich. So much so, that it has been reduced to a cliché
joke among late night talk show hosts. With the exception of Fox News, the mainstream press has
frequently commented on the nearly universal consensus among economists that the Act will
result in a massive transfer of wealth to the upper class. Intellectually, there is no place
for defenders of the Act to hide. However, unlike opposition to repealing the Affordable Care
Act, opposition to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has been somewhat muted. While Americans still are
seething from the injustices of the 2007-2008 economic collapse, ten years on, they still have
not found a tangible political venue to express their frustrations. This means that regardless
of the outcome of the next election cycle the American Left is going to have to play a
persistent role creating a meaningful outlet for people's dismay, and fostering a political
discourse that recognizes that the Trump phenomenon is rooted in the neoliberal age that
preceded it. The dangerous tantrum-prone child of Trumpism will only be forced off the
playground when its neoliberal parents no longer own the park.
Yes he is a libral domestcally and nationalsit in forign policy -- that's why the term "national neoliberalism" looks appropriate
for definition of his policies
Notable quotes:
"... When one compares these 10 neoliberal commandments with Trump's policy agenda, it is clear that the president is far more neoliberal than his populist rhetoric would suggest. ..."
"... Trump is clearly and consistently positioning himself to cut taxes on the wealthy, deregulate big business and the financial industry, and pursue a wide range of privatization plans and public-private partnerships that will further weaken American unions. In short, he will govern like the neoliberals who came before him and against whom he campaigned so ardently. ..."
"... In fact, Trump's agenda aims to realize the foremost goals of neoliberalism: privatization, deregulation, tax-cutting, anti-unionism, and the strict enforcement of property rights. For example, in his address to Congress , Trump promised "a big, big cut" for American companies and boasted about his administration's "historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations." Ironically, Trump then asserted that he will reduce regulations by "creating a deregulation task force inside of every government agency," itself a contradictory expansion of the administrative state he had just sworn to shrink. ..."
"... Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Trump was correct to criticize the Obama administration, whose economic team was for a time staffed by neoliberal Democrats like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, for saving Wall Street after the financial collapse of 2008 while allowing Main Street to go under. Trump's victory is the direct result of the fact that American workers have not been well served by the country's policymaking elites. ..."
"... Yet the resistance that Trump's presidency has inspired across the country must also learn from the contradictions between his economic nationalism and neoliberalism. Those who reject his phony populism must be careful not to dismiss the concerns of Trump's voters, which has unfortunately been the response of too many who console themselves by deriding Trump's supporters as ignorant "deplorables" who deserve what they will get. ..."
"... The problem with the last paragraph is that it tries once again to put the election in purely economic terms. It wasn't. It was largely white cultural backlash. Much of his vote was driven by bans on immigration and a promise to maintain a white rural/suburban culture by bringing jobs back like coal mining or manufacturing jobs to Northwood Michigan. ..."
In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, President Trump promised to deliver on his populist campaign pledges to protect
Americans from globalization. "For too long," he bemoaned, "we've watched our middle class shrink as we've exported our jobs and
wealth to foreign countries." But now, he asserted, the time has come to "restart the engine of the American economy" and "bring
back millions of jobs." To achieve his goals, Trump proposed mixing massive tax-cuts and sweeping regulatory rollbacks with increased
spending on the military, infrastructure and border control.
This same messy mix of free market fundamentalism and hyper-nationalistic populism is presently taking shape in Trump's proposed
budget. But the apparent contradiction there isn't likely to slow down Trump's pro-market, pro-Wall Street, pro-wealth agenda. His
supporters may soon discover that his professions of care for those left behind by globalization are -- aside from some mostly symbolic
moves on trade -- empty.
Just look at what has already happened with the GOP's
proposed
replacement for Obamacare , which if enacted would bring increased pain and suffering to the anxious voters who put their trust
in Trump's populism in the first place. While these Americans might have thought their votes would win them protection from the instabilities
and austerities of market-led globalization, what they are getting is a neoliberal president in populist clothing.
Neoliberalism is a term most often used to critique market-fundamentalism rather than to define a particular policy agenda. Nonetheless,
it is most useful to understand neoliberalism's policy implications in terms of 10 norms that have defined its historical practice.
These norms begin with
trade liberalization and extend to
the encouragement of exports;
enticement of foreign investment;
reduction of inflation;
reduction of public spending;
privatization of public services;
deregulation of industry and finance;
reduction and flattening of taxes;
restriction of union organization;
and, finally, enforcement of property and land ownership.
Politicians don't necessarily have to profess faith in all of these norms to be considered neoliberal. Rather, they have to buy
into neoliberalism's general market-based logic and its attendant promise of opportunity.
When one compares these 10 neoliberal commandments with Trump's policy agenda, it is clear that the president is far more
neoliberal than his populist rhetoric would suggest. This conclusion will likely surprise his supporters, especially in light
of Trump's assaults on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Despite these attacks, however,
Trump is clearly and consistently positioning himself to cut taxes on the wealthy, deregulate big business and the financial
industry, and pursue a wide range of privatization plans and public-private partnerships that will further weaken American unions.
In short, he will govern like the neoliberals who came before him and against whom he campaigned so ardently.
In fact, Trump's agenda aims to realize the foremost goals of neoliberalism: privatization, deregulation, tax-cutting, anti-unionism,
and the strict enforcement of property rights. For example, in his
address
to Congress , Trump promised "a big, big cut" for American companies and boasted about his administration's "historic effort
to massively reduce job-crushing regulations." Ironically, Trump then asserted that he will reduce regulations by "creating a deregulation
task force inside of every government agency," itself a contradictory expansion of the administrative state he had just sworn to
shrink.
Since so much of Trump's agenda aligns with the long-standing ambitions of the Republican Party, it is likely that Trump will
be able to work with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to pass strictly neoliberal
legislation. Unlike his approach to trade, which congressional Republicans will probably scuttle, there is little reason to doubt
that we will see new legislation that privatizes public lands, overturns Dodd-Frank and other Wall Street regulations, cuts taxes
on business, makes organizing unions difficult, and allows big landowners to develop, mine, log, and shoot without restraint. For
all the animosity that may exist between the Trump administration and Republican congressmen, the two groups share a neoliberal vision
of the world.
From his new budget proposal we also know that Trump plans to continue the neoliberal assault on social service provisions --
such as the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act -- as well as public broadcasting, arts funding, scientific research and foreign
aid. As Trump vowed to Congress, he intends to implement a plan in which "Americans purchase their own coverage, through the use
of tax credits and expanded health savings accounts." Moreover, the money he does want to spend will be expended on military and
infrastructure projects that will almost certainly be organized around public-private partnerships that will fill the coffers of
Trump's business cronies.
What does Trump's neoliberal agenda mean for those whose discontent with globalization gave him the presidency? Nothing good.
The irony here is that the same neoliberalism that Trump plans to strengthen created the conditions that allowed him to enter the
White House. Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Trump was correct to criticize the Obama administration, whose economic team was
for a time staffed by neoliberal Democrats like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, for saving Wall Street after the financial
collapse of 2008 while allowing Main Street to go under. Trump's victory is the direct result of the fact that American workers have
not been well served by the country's policymaking elites.
Yet the resistance that Trump's presidency has inspired across the country must also learn from the contradictions between
his economic nationalism and neoliberalism. Those who reject his phony populism must be careful not to dismiss the concerns of Trump's
voters, which has unfortunately been the response of too many who console themselves by deriding Trump's supporters as ignorant "deplorables"
who deserve what they will get. Going forward, all of those who want to resist the President's agenda must engage those left
behind by neoliberalism and provide them with an economic vision that addresses their very real concerns. After all, Trump's administration
will probably strengthen the forces that have hurt these citizens, and they will need representatives who are genuinely concerned
with their well-being if our political turmoil is to be put to rest.
Don't let his trade policy fool you: Trump is a neoliberal
(2/2) I think the truth is that many of these people are too far gone mentally and emotionally to ever come around to the "correct"
way of thinking (which is to say, they have been so brainwashed by reacting to facile nonsense like "liberty" and "freedom" that
they will believe anything as long as the argument is couched in those terms, despite the fact that when they vote they are indeed
consigning themselves and the rest of the country to a world without those very freedoms for anybody who's not supposedly "one
of them").
A great man once famously said "Conscience do cost." And boy, does it. Liberals need to get over their conscience once and
for all, and push back against conservatives the way conservatives have been for decades, but that can only happen if we are honest
about who we are arguing with, and call them out, boldly and proudly, on their intellectual failings.
(1/2) It's clear the authors don't expose themselves to right-wing news outlets. Far too much is made in liberal media about the
"deplorables" and how they feel suffocated by the economy (or more realistically, by the natural ebb and flow of capitalism),
but they belie the fact that so much of modern conservatism is more about being anti-liberal than it is about any sort of pro-conservative
ideology. The "deplorable" moniker has been adapted and co-opted by conservatives and is now worn proudly as a badge of honor
(in the same way "fake news" began as a liberal criticism of specific, deliberately-misleading media targeted towards the right,
but is now a term used almost exclusively by the right to blanket-describe literally any media that they disagree with). Any criticisms
of Trump are immediately met with criticisms of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Democrats in general. Bring up the KKK's support
of Trump 3 months ago? They'll bring up how the KKK was invented by Democrats 150 years ago.
The authors are too nice/professional to say it, but liberals need to stop handling conservatives with kid gloves and start
calling them what they are: rubes. Because it's not enough that they vote against their own self-interest and the interests of
the country, they take it one further and are actively gleeful in depriving liberals of anything liberals might value. Conversely,
most liberals I know and read online don't have an active hatred of conservatives, instead they have compassion and want to educate
them, and I suppose the thought is that if only enough of these articles get written, they'll eventually come around.
Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Trump was correct to criticize the Obama administration, whose economic team was for a
time staffed by neoliberal Democrats like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, for saving Wall Street after the financial
collapse of 2008 while allowing Main Street to go under.
And here you have it. This is how Trump got elected. The Bernibots are the unwitting agent that gave us Trump. And they
are planing on doubling down
The problem with the last paragraph is that it tries once again to put the election in purely economic terms. It wasn't. It
was largely white cultural backlash. Much of his vote was driven by bans on immigration and a promise to maintain a white rural/suburban
culture by bringing jobs back like coal mining or manufacturing jobs to Northwood Michigan.
It is quite possible that Trump can win again in these areas despite implementing neoliberal policies. And it isn't that Democrats
don't have an economic message, they do. But it is one that includes and supports a much wider cultural base and one that many
of that WWC that voted for Trump don't want to hear.
I-Myslef 3/22/2017 1:37 PM EDT
NO. The Rust Belt was handed over to him by Bernie and non stop assault on Clinton and trade ...
Madeleine Albright is a well known neocon who was instrumental in organizing the invasion of
Yugoslavia
Notable quotes:
"... Every reader will conclude that his or her political enemies fit the bill. ..."
"... And, unfortunately, I fear, she, in one fell swoop of prose, both fuels the fires of division while exiling the book to practical irrelevance. In the end, she will likely only energize both political extremes, and, I suspect, the reader ratings of this book will ultimately reflect that. ..."
"... She notes, for starters, that the Fascist epithet may be appropriate for the US today for reasons having more to do with economics than populism. The Fascist Party of Italy, which gave rise to general use of the term, was the ultimate merger of the corporate and political states. And that is, in fact, what has happened here in the US. ..."
"... The incorporation accelerated greatly during the dot-com 90s when young entrepreneurs were preaching disruption and libertarianism. It is ironic, indeed, that tech's "democratic" perspective has now produced among the biggest and most powerful corporations the world has ever known. And they pulled it off, actually, while the anti-trust regulators in both Republican and Democratic administrations stood by and watched. ..."
"... To me what we have today is not so much analogous to the Fascist or Nazi parties of the mid-20th Century as it is the power of the church in Medieval Europe. The kings and queens of Washington may wear the crowns, but it is the corporate "popes" of Wall Street and Silicon Valley that are really calling the shots. ..."
"... Neither party has defined an agenda that addresses the issues that originally brought Trump to power. And until that happens I believe Albright's Fascist warning will remain valid. ..."
This is a timely book by a brilliant person who had a front row seat to the tragedy that
was Europe in the Mid-20th Century. There is little doubt that the world is starting to look
fearfully like it did at the beginning of those dark hours, starting with the tyranny of
Hitler and Mussolini and culminating in the Cold War and the gulags of the Soviet Union.
Figuratively speaking, this is really three books. The first will be the most divisive and
may, in fact, quite unfortunately, relegate the book to practical irrelevance. The second
book is extremely insightful and informative. And the third book, honestly, is pure gold and
vintage Madeline Albright.
The first book begins with a contradiction. Albright openly acknowledges that Fascism has
become a meaningless epithet, hurled, as it is, by opposing politicians of every stripe and
at parents merely attempting to limit the cell phone usage of their children. She goes on to
defend the titular use of the term, however, by clarifying her use of the term: "To my mind,
a Fascist is someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or
group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are
necessary -- including violence -- to achieve his or her goals."
At that point, however, she hasn't really narrowed the list of politicians who qualify for
the pejorative label at all. Every reader will conclude that his or her political enemies
fit the bill. She seals the fate of this portion of the book, however, when she asks, on
page 4 of the book, " why, this far into the twenty-first century, are we once again talking
about Fascism?" And answers, "One reason, frankly, is Donald Trump. If we think of Fascism as
a wound from the past that had almost healed, putting Trump in the White House was like
ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab." And she goes on to make thinly veiled
comparisons between Trump, Mussolini, and Joseph McCarthy.
And, unfortunately, I fear, she, in one fell swoop of prose, both fuels the fires of
division while exiling the book to practical irrelevance. In the end, she will likely only
energize both political extremes, and, I suspect, the reader ratings of this book will
ultimately reflect that.
That is most unfortunate because without those opening pages this would be a truly
terrific book. It chronicles both relevant history and the recent past to a degree that few
other people on the planet could.
The second part of the book is devoted to an analysis of recent political events in
Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Venezuela, the Philippines, Russia, North Korea, and, of course, the
United States. All, to varying degrees, she maintains, are showing signs of a slide toward
Fascism and the decline of post-war liberal democracy. It is an informative analysis and
unless you are a political junkie, you will learn a lot.
In the third part of the book she truly hits her stride. She notes, for starters, that
the Fascist epithet may be appropriate for the US today for reasons having more to do with
economics than populism. The Fascist Party of Italy, which gave rise to general use of the
term, was the ultimate merger of the corporate and political states. And that is, in fact,
what has happened here in the US.
The incorporation of America has been going on since the conservative movement of the
1980s, however, and while Trump is carrying the corporate water at the moment, he can hardly
be blamed for allowing Wall Street and Silicon Valley to take control of Washington.
The incorporation accelerated greatly during the dot-com 90s when young entrepreneurs
were preaching disruption and libertarianism. It is ironic, indeed, that tech's "democratic"
perspective has now produced among the biggest and most powerful corporations the world has
ever known. And they pulled it off, actually, while the anti-trust regulators in both
Republican and Democratic administrations stood by and watched.
To me what we have today is not so much analogous to the Fascist or Nazi parties of
the mid-20th Century as it is the power of the church in Medieval Europe. The kings and
queens of Washington may wear the crowns, but it is the corporate "popes" of Wall Street and
Silicon Valley that are really calling the shots.
Which is why both parties, I think, should be fearful of whatever happens in the mid-term
elections. Be careful what you wish for. Neither party has defined an agenda that addresses
the issues that originally brought Trump to power. And until that happens I believe
Albright's Fascist warning will remain valid.
In the final chapters of the book Albright notes that putting American interests first
invites Russia, China, and others to do the same. And it is here that she lowers her partisan
guard (we all have one) and calls for unity through the recognition of our common humanity
and the rejection of extremism that favors one group over another.
It is here that she also seems to soften her position on ideals of post-war democratic
liberalism and focuses more on compassion, integrity, and fairness. I think of it as defining
a new standard of shared obligation and responsibility that includes those countries and
those people that aren't rushing to implement an Electoral College and to copy our form of
bare-knuckle individualism, but those are my words, not hers.
In the end she notes that spend her time on issues like: "purging excess money from
politics, improving civic education, defending journalistic independence, adjusting to the
changing nature of the workplace, enhancing inter-religious dialogue, and putting a saddle on
the bucking bronco we call the Internet." It's a perfect ending to what is a very good book
by an inspiring individual.
Got my Economics Degree in 1971 – when they still taught the stuff. Maybe I
shouldn't, but I still go nuts when educated writers like yourself distort the origins of
Fascism. It was a three legged stool consisting of government, industry and labor. Taking
care of the working class was a key element. Also, being socialist, it was not market
oriented. Neoliberalism is exactly the opposite with it's 'lump of labor' and unregulated
markets. It arose in defense of the crushing fist of western capitalism and, had it not
been taken over by dictators, might have done the world a lot of good. Other than that you
wrote a nice piece. Keep it up
"... Trump's vision would seem to include protection of core industries, existing demographics and cultural institutions combined with an end of "democratization," which will result in an acceptance of foreign autocratic or non-conforming regimes as long as they do not pose military or economic threats. ..."
"... Sounds good, I countered but there is a space between genius and idiocy and that would be called insanity, best illustrated by impulsive, irrational behavior coupled with acute hypersensitivity over perceived personal insults and a demonstrated inability to comprehend either generally accepted facts or basic norms of personal and group behavior. ..."
"... Trump's basic objections were that Washington is subsidizing the defense of a wealthy Europe and thereby maintaining unnecessarily a relationship that perpetuates a state of no-war no-peace between Russia and the West. ..."
"... And the neoconservatives and globalists are striking back hard to make sure that détente stays in a bottle hidden somewhere on a shelf in the White House cloak room. Always adept at the creation of new front groups, the neocons have now launched something called the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), with the goal of "uni[ting] the center-left and the center-right." Its founders include the redoubtable Max Boot, The Washington Post's Anne Appelbaum, the inevitable Bill Kristol, and Richard Hurwitz of Council on Foreign Relations. RDI's website predictably calls for "fresh thinking" and envisions "the best minds from different countries com[ing] together for both broad and discrete projects in the service of liberty and democracy in the West and beyond." It argues that "Liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, besieged by authoritarianism, nationalism, and other illiberal forces. Far-right parties are gaining traction in Europe, Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russia and undermines democracy abroad, and America struggles with poisonous threats from the right and left." ..."
"... There are also the internal contradictions in what Trump appears to be doing, suggesting that a brighter future might not be on the horizon even if giving the Europeans a possibly deserved bloody nose over their refusal to spend money defending themselves provides some satisfaction. In the last week alone in Syria the White House has quietly renewed funding for the so-called White Helmets, a terrorist front group. It has also warned that it will take action against the Syrian government for any violation of a "de-escalation zone" in the country's southwest that has been under the control of Washington. That means that the U.S., which is in Syria illegally, is warning that country's legitimate government that it should not attempt to re-establish control over a region that was until recently ruled by terrorists. ..."
"... In Syria there have been two pointless cruise missile attacks and a trap set up to kill Russian mercenaries. Washington's stated intention is to destabilize and replace President Bashar al-Assad while continuing the occupation of the Syrian oil fields. And in Afghanistan there are now more troops on the ground than there were on inauguration day together with no plan to bring them home. It is reported that the Pentagon has a twenty-year plan to finish the job but no one actually believes it will work. ..."
"... The United States is constructing new drone bases in Africa and Asia. It also has a new military base in Israel which will serve as a tripwire for automatic American involvement if Israel goes to war and has given the green light to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. ..."
"... And then there are the petty insults that do not behoove a great power. A friend recently attended the Russian National Day celebration at the embassy in Washington. He reported that the U.S. government completely boycotted the event, together with its allies in Western Europe and the anglosphere, resulting in sparse attendance. It is the kind of slight that causes attitudes to shift when the time comes for serious negotiating. It is unnecessary and it is precisely the sort of thing that Russian President Vladimir Putin is referring to when he asks that his country be treated with "respect." The White House could have sent a delegation to attend the national day. Trump could have arranged it with a phone call, but he didn't. ..."
"... Winston Churchill once reportedly said that to "Jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war." As one of the twentieth century's leading warmongers, he may not have actually meant it, but in principle he was right. So let us hope for the best coming out of Singapore and also for the G-7 or what replaces it in the future. But don't be confused or diverted by presidential grandstanding. Watch what else is going on outside the limelight and, at least for the present, it is not pretty. ..."
"... Phil nails it as usual. Like him, I'm not very optimistic. Whether overall one approves or disapproves of Trump (and count me as a disapprover), it is obvious that most of the government is operating outside his control and this includes many of his own appointees. The continuities of US policy are far deeper than the apparent discontinuities. ..."
I had coffee with a foreign friend a week ago. The subject of Donald Trump inevitably came
up and my friend said that he was torn between describing Trump as a genius or as an idiot, but
was inclined to lean towards genius. He explained that Trump was willy-nilly establishing a new
world order that will succeed the institutionally exhausted post-World War 2 financial and
political arrangements that more-or-less established U.S. hegemony over the "free world." The
Bretton Woods agreement and the founding of the United Nations institutionalized the spread of
liberal democracy and free trade, creating a new, post war international order under the firm
control of the United States with the American dollar as the benchmark currency. Trump is now
rejecting what has become an increasingly dominant global world order in favor of returning to
a nineteenth century style nationalism that has become popular as countries struggle to retain
their cultural and political identifies. Trump's vision would seem to include protection of
core industries, existing demographics and cultural institutions combined with an end of
"democratization," which will result in an acceptance of foreign autocratic or non-conforming
regimes as long as they do not pose military or economic threats.
Sounds good, I countered but there is a space between genius and idiocy and that would be
called insanity, best illustrated by impulsive, irrational behavior coupled with acute
hypersensitivity over perceived personal insults and a demonstrated inability to comprehend
either generally accepted facts or basic norms of personal and group behavior.
Inevitably, I have other friends who follow foreign policy closely that have various
interpretations of the Trump phenomenon. One sees the respectful meeting with Kim Jong-un of
North Korea as a bit of brilliant statesmanship, potentially breaking a sixty-five year logjam
and possibly opening the door to further discussions that might well avert a nuclear war. And
the week also brought a Trump welcome suggestion that Russia should be asked to rejoin the G-7
group of major industrialized democracies, which also has to be seen as a positive step. There
has also been talk of a Russia-U.S. summit similar to that with North Korea to iron out
differences, an initiative that was first suggested by Trump and then agreed to by Russian
President Vladimir Putin. There will inevitably be powerful resistance to such an arrangement
coming primarily from the U.S. media and from Congress, but Donald Trump seems to fancy the
prospect and it just might take place.
One good friend even puts a positive spin on Trump's insulting behavior towards America's
traditional allies at the recent G-7 meeting in Canada. She observes that Trump's basic
objections were that Washington is subsidizing the defense of a wealthy Europe and thereby
maintaining unnecessarily a relationship that perpetuates a state of no-war no-peace between
Russia and the West. And the military costs exacerbate some genuine serious trade imbalances
that damage the U.S. economy. If Trumpism prevails, G-7 will become a forum for discussions of
trade and economic relations and will become less a club of nations aligned military against
Russia and, eventually, China. As she put it, changing its constituency would be a triumph of
"mercantilism" over "imperialism." The now pointless NATO alliance might well find itself
without much support if the members actually have to fully fund it proportionate to their GDPs
and could easily fade away, which would be a blessing for everyone.
My objection to nearly all the arguments being made in favor or opposed to what occurred in
Singapore last week is that the summit is being seen out of context, as is the outreach to
Russia at G-7. Those who are in some cases violently opposed to the outcome of the talks with
North Korea are, to be sure, sufferers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, where they hate
anything he does and spin their responses to cast him in the most negative terms possible. Some
others who choose to see daylight in spite of the essential emptiness of the "agreement" are
perhaps being overly optimistic while likewise ignoring what else is going on.
And the neoconservatives and globalists are striking back hard to make sure that
détente stays in a bottle hidden somewhere on a shelf in the White House cloak room.
Always adept at the creation of new front groups, the neocons have now launched something
called the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), with the goal of "uni[ting] the center-left and
the center-right." Its founders include the redoubtable Max Boot, The Washington Post's Anne
Appelbaum, the inevitable Bill Kristol, and Richard Hurwitz of Council on Foreign Relations.
RDI's website predictably calls for "fresh thinking" and envisions "the best minds from
different countries com[ing] together for both broad and discrete projects in the service of
liberty and democracy in the West and beyond." It argues that "Liberal democracy is in crisis
around the world, besieged by authoritarianism, nationalism, and other illiberal forces.
Far-right parties are gaining traction in Europe, Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russia
and undermines democracy abroad, and America struggles with poisonous threats from the right
and left."
There are also the internal contradictions in what Trump appears to be doing, suggesting
that a brighter future might not be on the horizon even if giving the Europeans a possibly
deserved bloody nose over their refusal to spend money defending themselves provides some
satisfaction. In the last week alone in Syria the White House has quietly renewed funding for
the so-called White Helmets, a terrorist front group. It has also warned that it will take
action against the Syrian government for any violation of a "de-escalation zone" in the
country's southwest that has been under the control of Washington. That means that the U.S.,
which is in Syria illegally, is warning that country's legitimate government that it should not
attempt to re-establish control over a region that was until recently ruled by
terrorists.
And then there is also Donald Trump's recent renunciation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), eliminating a successful program that was preventing nuclear proliferation on
the part of Iran and replacing it with nothing whatsoever apart from war as a possible way of
dealing with the potential problem. Indeed, Trump has been prepared to use military force on
impulse, even when there is no clear casus belli. In Syria there have been two pointless
cruise missile attacks and a trap set up to kill Russian mercenaries. Washington's stated
intention is to destabilize and replace President Bashar al-Assad while continuing the
occupation of the Syrian oil fields. And in Afghanistan there are now more troops on the ground
than there were on inauguration day together with no plan to bring them home. It is reported
that the Pentagon has a twenty-year plan to finish the job but no one actually believes it will
work.
The United States is constructing new drone bases in Africa and Asia. It also has a new
military base in Israel which will serve as a tripwire for automatic American involvement if
Israel goes to war and has given the green light to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians.
In Latin America, Washington has backed off from détente with Cuba and has been
periodically threatening some kind of intervention in Venezuela. In Europe, it is engaged in
aggressive war games on the Russian borders, most recently in Norway and Poland. The
Administration has ordered increased involvement in Somalia and has special ops units operating
– and dying – worldwide. Overall, it is hardly a return to the Garden of Eden.
And then there are the petty insults that do not behoove a great power. A friend recently
attended the Russian National Day celebration at the embassy in Washington. He reported that
the U.S. government completely boycotted the event, together with its allies in Western Europe
and the anglosphere, resulting in sparse attendance. It is the kind of slight that causes
attitudes to shift when the time comes for serious negotiating. It is unnecessary and it is
precisely the sort of thing that Russian President Vladimir Putin is referring to when he asks
that his country be treated with "respect." The White House could have sent a delegation to
attend the national day. Trump could have arranged it with a phone call, but he didn't.
Winston Churchill once reportedly said that to "Jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war."
As one of the twentieth century's leading warmongers, he may not have actually meant it, but in
principle he was right. So let us hope for the best coming out of Singapore and also for the
G-7 or what replaces it in the future. But don't be confused or diverted by presidential
grandstanding. Watch what else is going on outside the limelight and, at least for the present,
it is not pretty.
The Establishment (which includes both major political parties) is furious that Trump may be
defusing the (very real) nuclear threat from Kim for the price of a few plane tickets and
dinners, while the Establishment was gung-ho for throwing away a few trillion dollars,
hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, and our nation's once-good reputation in the process
of neutralizing Saddam Hussein, who didn't even have any nukes to begin with. Yep, they're
sore all right.
Phil nails it as usual. Like him, I'm not very optimistic. Whether overall one approves or
disapproves of Trump (and count me as a disapprover), it is obvious that most of the
government is operating outside his control and this includes many of his own appointees. The
continuities of US policy are far deeper than the apparent discontinuities.
As we await info on Kim-Trump, I think it wise to examine what Trump's outbursts at and
beyond the G6+1 are based upon--his understanding of Economic Nationalism. Fortunately,
we have
an excellent, recent, Valdai Club paper addressing the topic that's not too technical or
lengthy. The author references two important papers by Lavrov and Putin that ought to be read
afterwards. Lavrov's
is the elder and ought to be first. Putin's Belt & Road International Forum
Address, 2017 provides an excellent example of the methods outlined in the first paper.
I
could certainly add more, but IMO these provide an excellent basis for comprehending Trump's
motivations as he's clearly reacting to the Russian and Chinese initiatives. Furthermore, one
can discover why Russia now holds the EU at arms length while
Putin's "I told
you so" reminder had to sting just a bit.
Then to recap it all, I highly suggest reading Pepe Escobar's excellent article I linked to yesterday higher up in the thread.
Questionable but interesting. "Trump's "policy" is simply a reflection of his character as a narcissistic, arrogant
bully.
To "make America great again" means for him "make America the Global Bully" again." Trump really believe like a typical bully.
In case of tough resistance he folds and appologize. Otherwise he tries to press opooneent into complete submission.
Notable quotes:
"... The underlying assumption of Trump's strategic thinking is that 'power works': the more intransigent his posture, the greater his belief in a unipolar world based on US power. As a corollary, Trump interprets any ally, adversary, competitor who seeks negotiations, reciprocity or concessions is 'weak' and should be pressured or forced to concede greater concessions and further retreats and sacrifices, up to the ultimate goal of surrender and submission. ..."
"... Trump views President Rohani as a rug seller not a military strategist. Trump believes that an economic squeeze will lead President Rohani to sacrifice his allies in Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Yemen (Houthi), Palestine (Hamas) and Iraq (Shia)and to dismantle its ICBM defense strategy. ..."
"... Trump pursues the strategic goal of weakening Iran and preparing a regime change, reverting Iran into a client state – as it was prior to the 1979 revolution under the Shah. ..."
"... Trump recognizes and submits to Zionist-Israeli dictates because they have unprecedented power in the media, real estate, finance and insurance (FIRE). Trump recognizes the ZPC's power to buy Congressional votes, control both political parties and secure appointments in the executive branch. ..."
"... Trump is the typical authoritarian: at the throat of the weak, citizens, allies and adversaries and on his knees before the powerful ZPC, the military and Wall Street. ..."
"... Trump's unilateral declaration of a trade war against China accompanied his belief that military threats led to North Korea's "capitulation" – its promise to end its nuclear program. ..."
"... Is Trump playing the Nixon-Kissinger 'madman' tactic, in which the Secretary of State tells adversaries to accept his 'reasonable' demands or face the worst from the President? I don't think so. ..."
"... China got Trumps to waiver ZTE ruling, with Huawei declared no longer a threat to US security. ..."
"... "Speaking to soon-to-be graduates of the Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday, Tillerson dropped this truth bomb: "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom." Woof. ..."
For some time, critics of President Trump's policies have attributed them to a mental
disorder; uncontrolled manic-depression, narcissus bullying and other pathologies. The question
of Trump's mental health raises a deeper question: why do his pathologies take a specific
political direction? Moreover, Trump's decisions have a political history and background, and
follow from a logic and belief in the reason and logic of imperial power.
We will examine the reason why Trump has embraced three strategic decisions which have
world-historic consequences, namely: Trump's reneging the nuclear accord with Iran ;Trump's
declaration of a trade war with China; and Trump's meeting with North Korea.
In brief we will explore the political reasons for his decisions; what he expects to gain;
and what is his game plan if he fails to secure his expected outcome and his adversaries take
reprisals.
Trump's Strategic Framework
The underlying assumption of Trump's strategic thinking is that 'power works': the more
intransigent his posture, the greater his belief in a unipolar world based on US power. As a
corollary, Trump interprets any ally, adversary, competitor who seeks negotiations, reciprocity
or concessions is 'weak' and should be pressured or forced to concede greater concessions and
further retreats and sacrifices, up to the ultimate goal of surrender and submission. In
other words, Trump's politics of force only recognizes counter-force: limitations in Trump's
policies will only result when tangible economic and military losses and costs in US lives
would undermine US imperial rule.
Reasons Why Trump Broke the Peace Accord with Iran
Trump broke the accord with Iran because the original agreement was based on retaining US
sanctions against Iran; the total dismantling of its nuclear program and calling into question
Iran's limited role on behalf of possible allies in the Middle East.
Iran's one-sided concessions; trading military defense for market opportunities encouraged
Trump to believe that he could intimidate Iran militarily by closing all its markets.
Trump views President Rohani as a rug seller not a military strategist. Trump believes
that an economic squeeze will lead President Rohani to sacrifice his allies in Syria, Lebanon
(Hezbollah), Yemen (Houthi), Palestine (Hamas) and Iraq (Shia)and to dismantle its ICBM defense
strategy.
Trump pursues the strategic goal of weakening Iran and preparing a regime change,
reverting Iran into a client state – as it was prior to the 1979 revolution under the
Shah.
The second reason for Trump's policy is to strengthen Israel's military power in the Middle
East. The Trump regime is deeply influenced by the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) in the US,
dubbed 'the Lobby'.
Trump recognizes and submits to Zionist-Israeli dictates because they have unprecedented
power in the media, real estate, finance and insurance (FIRE). Trump recognizes the ZPC's power
to buy Congressional votes, control both political parties and secure appointments in the
executive branch.
Trump is the typical authoritarian: at the throat of the weak, citizens, allies and
adversaries and on his knees before the powerful ZPC, the military and Wall Street.
Trump's submission to Zionist power reinforces and even dictates his decision to break the
peace accord with Iran and his willingness to pressure. France, Germany, the UK and Russia to
sacrifice billion-dollar trade agreements with Iran and to pursue a policy of pressuring
Teheran to accept part of Trump's agenda of unilateral disarmament and isolation. Trump
believes he can force the EU multi-nationals to disobey their governments and abide by
sanctions.
Reasons for Trump's Trade War with China
Prior to Trump's presidency, especially under President Obama, the US launched a trade war
and 'military pivot' to China. Obama proposed the Trans-Pacific Pact to exclude China and
directed an air and naval armada to the South China Sea. Obama established a high-powered
surveillance system in South Korea and supported war exercises on North Korea's border. Trump's
policy deepened and radicalized Obama's policies.
Trump extended Obama's bellicose policy toward North Korea, demanding the de-nuclearization
of its defense program. President Kim of North Korea and President Moon of South Korea reached
an agreement to open negotiations toward a peace accord ending nearly 60 years of
hostility.
However, President Trump joined the conversation on the presumption that North Korea's peace
overtures were due to his threats of war and intimidation. He insisted that any peace
settlement and end of economic sanctions would only be achieved by unilateral nuclear
disarmament, the maintenance of US forces on the peninsula and supervision by US approved
inspectors.
Trump's unilateral declaration of a trade war against China accompanied his belief that
military threats led to North Korea's "capitulation" – its promise to end its nuclear
program.
Trump slapped a trade tariff on over $100 billion dollars of Chinese exports in order to
reduce its trade imbalance by $200 billion over two years. He demanded China unilaterally end
industrial 'espionage', technological 'theft' (all phony accusations) and China's compliance
monitored quarterly by the US. Trump demanded that China not retaliate with tariffs or restrictions or face bigger
sanctions. Trump threatened to respond to any reciprocal tariff by Beijing, with greater tariffs, and
restrictions on Chinese goods and services.
Trump's goals seek to convert North Korea into a military satellite encroaching on China's
northern border; and a trade war that drives China into an economic crisis. Trump believes that as China declines as a world economic power, the US will grow and
dominate the Asian and world economy.
Trump believes a successful trade war will lead to a successful military war. Trump believes
that a submissive China, based on its isolation from the 'dynamic' US market, will enhance
Washington's quest for uncontested world domination.
Trump's Ten Erroneous Thesis
Trump's political agenda is deeply flawed! Breaking the nuclear agreement and imposing harsh
sanctions has isolated Trump from his European and Asian allies. His military intervention will
inflame a regional war that would destroy the Saudi oil fields. He will force Iran to pursue a
nuclear shield against US-Israeli aggression and lead to a prolonged, costly and ultimately
losing war.
Trump's policies will unify all Iranians, liberals and nationalist, and undermine US
collaborators. The entire Muslim world will unify forces and carry the conflict throughout
Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Tel Aviv's bombing [of Iran] will lead to counter-attacks
in Israel.
Oil prices will skyrocket, financial markets will collapse, industries will go bankrupt.
Trump's sanctions and military aggression against Iran will lead to mutual economic
destruction.
Trump's trade war with China will lead to the disruption of the supply chain which sustains
the US economy and especially the 500 US multi-nationals who depend on the Chinese economy for
exports to the US. China will increase domestic consumption, diversify its markets and trading
partners and reinforce its military alliance with Russia. China has greater resilience and
capacity to overcome short-term disruption and regain its dominant role as a global economic
power house.
Wall Street will suffer a catastrophic financial collapse and send the US into a world
depression.
Trump's negotiations with North Korea will go nowhere as long as he demands unilateral
nuclear disarmament, US military control over the peninsula and political isolation from
China.
Kim will insist on the end of sanctions, and a mutual defense treaty with China. Kim will
offer to end nuclear testing but not nuclear weapons. After Trump's reneged on the Iran deal,
Kim will recognize that agreements with the US are not trustworthy.
Conclusion
Trump's loud, threatening gestures are a real danger to world peace and justice. But his
assumptions about the consequences of his policy are deeply flawed. There is no basis to think
his sanctions will topple the Iranian regime; that Israel will survive unscathed from a war
with Iran: that an oil war will not undermine the US economy; that Europe will allow its
companies to be frozen out of the Iran market.
Trump's trade war with China is dead in the water. He cannot find alternative production
sites for US multi-nationals. He cannot freeze China out of the world market, since they have
links with five continents. Trump cannot dominate North Korea and force it to sacrifice its
sovereignty on the basis of empty economic promises to lift sanctions. Trump is heading for
defeats on all counts. But he may take the American people into the nuclear abyss in the
process.
Epilogue
Are Trump's threats of war part of a strategy of bluff and bombast designed to intimidate,
in order to secure political advantages? Is Trump playing the Nixon-Kissinger 'madman'
tactic, in which the Secretary of State tells adversaries to accept his 'reasonable' demands or
face the worst from the President? I don't think so.
Nixon unlike Trump was not led by the nose by Israel. Nixon unlike Trump was not led by
pro-nuclear war advisers. Nixon in contrast to Trump opened the US to trade with China and
signed nuclear reduction agreements with Russia. Nixon successfully promoted peaceful
co-existence.
"Trump's sanctions and military aggression against Iran will lead to mutual economic
destruction."
indeed they will, and sadly it well deserved after the last 20yrs off US terrorism.
the US hubris will soon meet karma, and we all know karma is a bitch..
You didn't have to be genius to see this coming. In fact, NK played Trump as
expected. Anything else would have been gross negligence by their diplomatic
negotiators. Getting Trump to speculate about a prospective Nobel (for himself) for bringing nuclear
peace to the Pacific was baiting the hook nicely.
The US is now dealing from a position of weakness. Let's see what NK can extract in terms of
keeping their weapons and gaining economic assistance in return for getting the meetings back
on track.
This theory is the opposite of what I suppose is the right explanation, the explanation also
given by prof Laslo Maracs, UVA Amsterdam, that Trump and his rich friends understand that
the USA can to longer control the world, conquering the rest of the world totally out of the
question.
The end of the British empire began before 1914, when the twe fleet standard had to lowered
to one fleet.
Obama had to do something similar, the USA capability of fighting two wars at the time was
lowered to one and half.
What half a war accomplishes we see in Syria.
In the thirties the British, some of them, knew quite well they could no longer defend their
empire, at the time this meant controlling the Meditarranean and the Far East.
Lawrence R. Pratt, 'East of Malta, West of Suez', London, 1975
The British guarantees to Poland and countries bordering on the Med lighted the fuse to the
powder keg that had been standing for a long time.
Churchill won, the British thought, and some of them think it still, WWII.
But shortly after WWII some British understood 'we won the war, but lost the peace'.
I still have the idea that Trump has no intention of losing the peace, but time will tell.
I suppose Trump just is buying time against Deep State and Netanyahu.
The fool Netanyahu is happy with having got Jerusalem, he does not see the cost in increased
hatred among Muslims, and Israel having won the Eurovision Song Festival.
Trump's "policy" is simply a reflection of his character as a narcissistic, arrogant
bully.
To "make America great again" means for him "make America the Global Bully" again.
However, behind the facade of all his bravado hides a puppet of the Jewish Power Structure,
which is even more dangerous than Trump himself. "Make Zion Great Again" would be a more
apposite slogan.
Wall Street collapsing will not cause a world depression, but will reflect the very real
depression that will arise from huge disruptions to the US supply chain and energy costs and
the knock-on effect that will have on the global economy.
A strike on Iran won't by itself be enough to cripple the US economy, but the loss of a
single aircraft carrier might be enough of a pull on a thread that unravels the magical
mantle of military force that currently holds the empire together and keeps the vassal-states
in line to cause things to go pear-shaped quickly.
Nobody can accuse Donald of not being obedient executioner of tasks given by his Masters.
You don't have to be dark skinned to reside in Masters quarters, orange haired and white is
ok too..
Overall a good analysis, but as far as his support of Israel is concerned, his family
connections with the most ultra-Zionist factions should not be overlooked.
Trump believes that as China declines as a world economic power, the US will grow and
dominate the Asian and world economy.
On what basis does the author say that? Trump is smart enough to know that China is
growing as an economic and military power, not declining.
A fairly poorly (and likely hastily) written article.
Trump is under the control of Zionists just as is the U.S. gov with Zionist dual citizens in
control of every facet and has been since 1913 when the Zionists created the FED and the IRS.
Trump is like the Roman emperor Caligula and is a Trojan Horse for the Zionist agenda of a
NWO and is continuing the tradition of the U.S. gov breaking its word about everything, just
ask the native American Indians.
The nuke agreement with Iran was a sham. Iran lied about what they were doing. The agreement
had never been submitted to the Senate and so was never ratified. Our "allies" in Europe and
Asia knew that and their reaction has not been nearly as negative as the author of this
column has claimed.
I continue to admire President Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi of China. WHY? .because
RESULTS matter more than opinions on internet websites, T.V., or in printed publications.
N. Korea has stopped performing ICBM or nuke tests, a less extremist regime change "coup"
took place in Saudi Arabia, financing/ weapons flows / intelligence to Syrian terrorists has
dried up with resulting collapse of ISIS, Iran is threatening to release the names of
European & American politicians who previously made millions / billions off the Iran nuke
deal if it is dropped, Harvey Weinstein, Allison Mack, and "Weiner" were untouchable before
Trump, the list just goes on and continues to get bigger.
A major reason for admiration of Putin is that the Mainstream Media (MSM) can't stop
demonizing him. So of course I'm logically led to believe that he is mostly a good guy since
the MSM has proven itself repeatedly to distort the Truth. Putin also largely ended the
oligarchs power, doubled Russian citizens income, used an tiny Russian military in Syria to
gradually reverse ISIS expansion there, improved Russia's internal manufacturing,
agricultural, mining, and technological research/ development, intellectually crushed
international debate opponents repeated using only logic and facts (You should watch the
videos!), built / rebuilt over 10 thousand churches, has patriotic Muslims (Crimea) fighting
for Russia in Syria, etc. etc.
Xi of China has pretty impressive creditials but this post is
overly long anyway.
RESULTS COUNT MORE THAN WORDS!
Of course they do this, they would be stupid if they didn't.
• Agree: CalDre
I like your frankness. Every countries is into this at different degree, with ZUS the
apex. But been leading in most tech area currently & lazy to produce any useful things,
ZUS is very unhappy that their esponage net result is negative, hence the continuous
whining.
When tide reverse with China leading in most tech, ZUS will complaint about complex patent
system as been flawed in exploitating & suppressing of weaker country innovation, juz as
it did for WTO & Globalization now.
Of course any moronic comments about only China is espionaging US IPR & rise purely due
to US FDI & Tech transfer will resonate CalDre into high chime.
Well, he is not meeting with North Korea either, since Kim didn't chicken out, and is not
that stupid as to offer his head on the plate! Bolton made sure of that.
Hastily written article cobbled by bits of public info here & there without deep
analysis.
1. Today NK declared they have indefinitely terminate all high level exchange with SK. If
Trumps insisted on another Libya & Iraq defank & ending model advocate by Bolton,
meeting with Trumps will be cancelled. Trumps needs the Korea peace credit to get his Nobel
Prize, so as to booster his coming Nov election win. Kim has baited Trumps to put him in
tight corner now, hence WH still insisting to go ahead prepare for the meeting.
If venue does changed to Beijing from Trumps' choice of Spore (Kim's cargo plane can't fly
his limousine so far, also a risk of him as Spore is US vassal), we will see Kim has K.O.
Trumps in another round. Kim will get to keep its nuke weapon until USM remove its Korea
present, clear all sanctions, with UNSC guaranteed its safety. If Trumps has the meeting
cancelled, then China can roll out its own play book as unchallenged leader in solving Korea
crisis. Either way, Trumps will lost influence to China.
2. Trade war with China has exposed ZUS deep weakness in its brinkmanship when china
retaliated with no compromise. Four most senior trade & treasury secs scrambled 10,000
miles to Beijing to seek detente, but return empty handed in 2 days with their ridiculous
demands in hubris. Still China got Trumps to waiver ZTE ruling, with Huawei declared no
longer a threat to US security.
Btw, this author has wrongly written about the $100B trade tariff, its only $50B so far.
Another additional $100B is only a empty threat ZUS dare not release to avoid China
retaliation.
3. JCPOA cancelling is godsend move.
First, EU with Germany & France having huge investments in Iran is crying loud that they
have to be free from been ZUS vassal. If they caved in to ZUS sanction threat, then EU bosses – Macron & Merkel will
face revolt from Europe business sector. China & Russia will be happy to pick up whatever
investments in fire sales.
If EU decided to rebel & chart its own destiny with a little spine, then ZUS has lost
its tight clutch over EU. EU has juz announced to trade Iran oil in Euro, hasten
de-dollarization. The geopolitical game is changing tide. In either way of EU decision, China
& Russia win.
Now Iran will continue to enjoy free trades with everyone except ZUS that it dislike most,
& win moral high ground in international standing by keeping to JCPOA.
ZUS has juz ordered Trumps to shoot its own foot. It pay the high price of losing every
credibility in international agreement, forced EU into seeking independency, have EU trade in
Euro, with Iran, China & Russia all smiling.
Of course, but I just wanted to make a point not write a book or even a PhD thesis. thanks
for the supplementary material though. Your comments about oil are spot on as you know. The wars were about smashing some real
competition.
Somebody has to shovel the BS occasionally, to keep the smell down here. I guess it's my
turn today, sigh.
The nuke agreement with Iran was a sham. Iran lied about what they were doing.
Then the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and many of the major European
countries must also be lying when they say that Iran is fully complying with the JCPOA.
The agreement had never been submitted to the Senate and so was never ratified.
The United Nations Security Council endorsed the JCPOA; see UNSC resolution 2231.
According to the UN treaty, UNSC resolutions are automatically the law of the land,
even in the USA -- no Senate ratification needed.
Have you ever made a comment that was other than your mere and clearly biased opinion? Try
it sometime; it would be interesting to see what evidence you provide to support such
transparently erroneous ideas.
Trump's only strategy is to do what Israel orders him to do. The Neocon Jews and their friends including the Jew In Chief of
the White House Jared Kushner are running the show. You can easily see this in ... Niki Haley's presentation before the UN including
walking out before the Palestinian Rep had a chance to speak.
Trump is up to his arms in shady deals with Jewish financiers of his properties and they
will get what they want from him politically. It's Israel against the world and the US is
nothing more than their war whore. More people will die for this strategy that comes from
formerly Tel Aviv and now from the Magic Jewish Capital called Jerusalem.
New York City's Hip Hop station Hot 97's morning show, "Ebro in the Morning," dedicated an
entire segment to yesterday's demonstration in Gaza where the two blasted Israel and
President Donald Trump http://pic.twitter.com/43XIqhKFWZ
-- Gigi Hadid (@GiGiHadid) May 15, 2018
Hadid posted screen shots of Al Jazeera's coverage alongside an image of the Nakba with text
written by a relative,
"Almost One Million Palestinians were violently forced out of their country and never allowed
back to Palestine. The Hadid family was amongst them and they fled in fear to Syria where
they became refugees."
Why are these important? Because they have millions of followers on social media .because
their audience and followers are the coming voter and leadership force .for better or worse
..and for Israel its the 'worse'.
Gigi Hadid for instance has 9 million followers on twitter.
Giuliani: Mueller's team told Trump's lawyers they can't indict a president
This true. BUT ..'if' any criminal wrong doing by Trump before he was president is revealed in the
course of the Russia investigation he can be indicted for that after he is out of office. IN ADDITION ..'if' any criminal wrong doing is revealed in Trump's businesses then any
persons involved in it within his businesses including his sons or daughter can be indicted. And now, as they have no presidential protection.
imo .this is what Trump is most afraid of ..some criminal business like money laundering
being exposed. not that Mueller will find Russian election collusion.
"Speaking to soon-to-be graduates of the Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday,
Tillerson dropped this truth bomb:
"If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative
realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway
to relinquishing our freedom."
Woof.
..
Why is this important? Because the graduating class of VMI selects its speakers so that
tells you where the minds of the elite military schools are on Trumpism.
"... he Dems disgust me with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations). ..."
"... Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns this around and I doubt it's even possible. ..."
"... The Real Reason Establishment Frauds Hate Trump and Obsess About Russia https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/02/20/the-real-reason-establishment-frauds-hate-trump-and-obsess-about-russia/ ..."
"... Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy. Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party. ..."
"... he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit. ..."
"... I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all. ..."
"... My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg ..."
jsn @16 & 40, in complete agreement with you. Great comments! T he Dems disgust me
with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out
their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially
in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations).
Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and
it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a
basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a
form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the
personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of
the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns
this around and I doubt it's even possible.
Back when I used to subscribe to STRATFOR, founder George Friedman always made a point of
evaluating the elites of whatever country he was analyzing and how they operated amongst
themselves and relative to the people and how effective they were or were not in governing a
country. But he never did that for the US. I would have paid extra for that report! But of
course he could not stay in business if he did such a thing as those people are his
clients.
I think Mike Krieger over at Liberty Blitzkrieg nails it from another perspective with
this post:
Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various
defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed
war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their
torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy.
Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching
on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine
before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party.
By throwing every problem in Putin's lap, the entrenched bipartisan status quo can tell
themselves (and everybody else) that it wasn't really them and their policies that voters
rejected in 2016, rather, the American public was tricked by cunning, nefarious Russians.
Ridiculous for sure, but never underestimate the instinctive human desire to deny
accountability for one's own failures. It's always easier to blame than to accept
responsibility.
That said, there's a much bigger game afoot beyond the motivations of individuals looking
to save face. The main reason much of the highest echelons of American power are united
against Trump has nothing to do with his actual policies. Instead, they're terrified that --
unlike Obama -- he's a really bad salesman for empire. This sort of Presidential instability
threatens the continuance of their well oiled and exceedingly corrupt gravy train. Hillary
Clinton was a sure thing, Donald Trump remains an unpredictable wildcard.
... Obama said all the right things while methodically doing the bidding of oligarchy. He
captured the imagination of millions, if not billions, around the world with his soaring
rhetoric, yet rarely skipped a beat when it came to the advancement of imperial policies. He
made bailing out Wall Street, droning civilians and cracking down on journalists seem
progressive. He said one thing, did another, and people ate it up. This is an extraordinarily
valuable quality when it comes to a vicious and unelected deep state that wants to keep a
corrupt empire together.
Trump has the exact opposite effect. Sure, he also frequently says one thing and then does
another, but he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's
simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability
to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable
hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit.
------------
I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as
I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's
probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much
better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and
disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all.
My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg
But Trump himself was quickly neutered (in just three month) and now does not represents
"Trumpism" (rejection of neoliberal globalization, unrestricted immigration for suppression of
wages, rejection of elimination of jobs via outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing,
rejection of wars for enlargement and sustaining of neoliberal empire, especially NATO role as
global policemen and wars for Washington client Israel in Middle east, detente with Russia etc)
in any meaningful way. He is just an aging Narcissist in power.
Looks like Trump became a variant of Hillary minus sex change operation.
Notable quotes:
"... He supports same sex relations and marriage of the same. ..."
"... He is by nature a situational leader -- not typically a conservatives methodology of leadership ..."
"... . He mistakes support and loyalty for agreement. ..."
"... He seems too weak to stand his ground on key issues. Syria, (missile attack) ..."
"... His willingness to ignore -- Israel-US problematic relationship. ..."
"... I am leary of anyone who says tough things about immigration, but quietly backpedals or openly does the same -- DACA. ..."
it's easy to come away from CPAC energy and enthusiasm thinking your headline is an accurate
description of what is happening in the GOP. I am more conservative thankfully in my views
than most members at CPAC. And while I may not be the typical voter. I can say categorically,
that :trumoing" is not in my blood. Let's look what a consevative had to consider when
evaluating Pres Trump:
3. He supports same sex relations and marriage of the same.
... ... ...
5. He is by nature a situational leader -- not typically a conservatives methodology
of leadership
... ... ...
8 . He mistakes support and loyalty for agreement.
9. He seems too weak to stand his ground on key issues. Syria, (missile
attack)
10. His willingness to ignore -- Israel-US problematic relationship.
11. He thinks that Keynesian policy is a substitute for economic growth. monetary
policy.
12. I am leary of anyone who says tough things about immigration, but quietly
backpedals or openly does the same -- DACA.
"Note about Miss Mona Charin: the two agree on so many points on foreign policy, especially
Israel, it's hard to see her disdain. I think she rejects his troublesome demeanor and attitude.
Presidential decorum is a big deal to many."
Notable quotes:
"... The sixty plus millions of people who voted Trump are politically diverse. They have one thing in common. They were not persuaded by the loud, continuous and shameless lying of the corporate media. Rather they were motivated by it. ..."
Now his other supporters might say, considered against all the other candidates -- he's
better. Hmmmm, well, that's why I voted for him.
Thank you. My bullet points would differ from yours but in the end I also voted for Trump.
The sixty plus millions of people who voted Trump are politically diverse. They have one
thing in common. They were not persuaded by the loud, continuous and shameless lying of the
corporate media. Rather they were motivated by it.
The deplorables, having found one another, need to hang together until we find real
leadership. Trump, whatever he is, is not a leader.
"... Based on historical evidence, to believe that Trump (with his party - Republican control of House and Senate) will change our course is naive. By contrast, Obama D had both houses also - we got WAR, cash for clunkers, foreclosures, bank bailouts and health care by AHIP with runaway costs. ..."
In fifty years, very little has been done by US Federal Government which benefits the common citizen. A great deal has been done
to facilitate the degradation of the common citizen by the global one percent. We have a new world order as called for by GHW
Bush.
Based on historical evidence, to believe that Trump (with his party - Republican control of House and Senate) will change
our course is naive. By contrast, Obama D had both houses also - we got WAR, cash for clunkers, foreclosures, bank bailouts and
health care by AHIP with runaway costs.
Trump is and has been carrying out his own policies to enrich those that already have everything and to repeal any regulations
that were put into place to protect the people. Have you not noticed that he lined his cabinet with Goldman Sachs (which he blasted
HRC for associating her self with.
Like I said he and his gang are doing what they want to help enrich themselves on the backs of the rest of us. Wake up and
quit upholding these lying pieces of excrement they are no different than the ones before them.
Trump is a dirty businessman the things that he is doing are to benefit him and his family and to screw the rest of us and
tell us how great it is for us. You my man have drank from the Trump cup and think that anything that speaks against him is "fake
news" when in reality Trump and the likes of Breitbart are the "fake news" a little truth but a bunch of spin
At the core of Trumpism is the rejection of neoliberalism
Pat Buchanan does not understand neoliberalism well and mixes apples with oranges, but the key idea expressed here stands: " Consider
this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants, not one of whom ever built
a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I. Our cities have
been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic independence Hamilton sought and Republican
presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history."
Notable quotes:
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." ..."
"I walk through this world with greater courage and hope when I find myself in a relation of friendship and intimacy with this
great man, whose fame has gone out not only over all Russia, but the world. We regard Marshal Stalin's life as most precious to the
hopes and hearts of all of us."
Returning home, Churchill assured a skeptical Parliament, "I know of no Government which stands to its obligations, even in its
own despite, more solidly than the Russian Soviet Government."
George W. Bush, with the U.S. establishment united behind him, invaded Iraq with the goal of creating a Vermont in the Middle
East that would be a beacon of democracy to the Arab and Islamic world.
Ex-Director of the NSA Gen. William Odom correctly called the U.S. invasion the greatest strategic blunder in American history.
But Bush, un-chastened, went on to preach a crusade for democracy with the goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
... ... ...
After our victory in the Cold War, we not only plunged into the Middle East to remake it in our image, we issued war guarantees
to every ex-member state of the Warsaw Pact, and threatened Russia with war if she ever intervened again in the Baltic Republics.
No Cold War president would have dreamed of issuing such an in-your-face challenge to a great nuclear power like Russia. If Putin's
Russia does not become the pacifist nation it has never been, these guarantees will one day be called. And America will either back
down -- or face a nuclear confrontation. Why would we risk something like this?
Consider this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants, not one
of whom ever built a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits since
Bush I. Our cities have been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic independence
Hamilton sought and Republican presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history.
But the greatest risk we are taking, based on utopianism, is the annual importation of well over a million legal and illegal immigrants,
many from the failed states of the Third World, in the belief we can create a united, peaceful and harmonious land of 400 million,
composed of every race, religion, ethnicity, tribe, creed, culture and language on earth.
Where is the historic evidence for the success of this experiment, the failure of which could mean the end of America as one nation
and one people?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and
Divided America Forever."
Pat Buchanan does not understand neoliberalism well and mixes apples with oranges, but the key idea expressed here stands:
" Consider this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants,
not one of whom ever built a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits
since Bush I. Our cities have been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic
independence Hamilton sought and Republican presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history."
The truth is that now Trump does not represent "Trumpism" -- the movement that he created which includes the following:
– rejection of neoliberal globalization;
– rejection of unrestricted immigration;
– fight against suppression of wages by multinationals via cheap imported labor;
– fight against the elimination of meaningful, well-paying jobs via outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing;
– rejection of wars for enlargement and sustaining of neoliberal empire, especially NATO role as global policemen and wars for
Washington client Israel in the Middle East;
– détente with Russia;
– more pragmatic relations with Israel and suppression of Israeli agents of influence;
– revision of relations with China and addressing the problem of trade deficit.
– rejection of total surveillance on all citizens;
– the cut of military expenses to one third or less of the current level and concentrating on revival on national infrastructure,
education, and science.
– abandonment of maintenance of the "sole superpower" status and global neoliberal empire for more practical and less costly "semi-isolationist"
foreign policy; closing of unnecessary foreign military bases and cutting aid to the current clients.
Of course, the notion of "Trumpism" is fuzzy and different people might include some additional issues and disagree with some
listed here, but the core probably remains.
Of course, Trump is under relentless attack (coup d'état or, more precisely, a color revolution) of neoliberal fifth column,
which includes Clinton gang, fifth column elements within his administration (Rosenstein, etc) as well from remnants of Obama
administration (Brennan, Comey, Clapper) and associated elements within corresponding intelligence agencies. He probably was forced
into some compromises just to survive. He also has members of the neoliberal fifth column within his family (Ivanka and Kushner).
So the movement now is in deep need of a new leader.
That's a good summary of what the public voted for and didn't get.
And whether Trump has sold out, or was blackmailed or was a cynical manipulative liar for the beginning is really irrelevant.
The fact is that he is not doing it – so he is just blocking the way.
At some point the US public are going to have to forget about their "representatives" (Trump and Congress and the rest of
them) and get out onto the street to make themselves heard. The population of the US is 323 million people and if just 1/2
of 1% (1,6 million) of them decided to visit Congress directly the US administration might get the message.
pyrrhus, March 3, 2018 at 2:15 am GMT
@anon
Finally, Pat understands that the American [Neoliberal] Empire and habit of intervention all over the world is a disaster.
In this state the current war between factions of the US elite reminds Stalin fight against "globalists" like Trotsky, who were
hell-bent of the idea of world revolution.
Notable quotes:
"... I would define Trump_vs_deep_state as "bastard neoliberalism" which tries to combine domestic "100% pure" neoliberalism with the rejection of neoliberal globalization as well as partial rejection of expensive effort for expansion of US led neoliberal empire via color revolutions and military invasions, especially in the Middle East. ..."
"... That makes screams of "soft neoliberals" from Democratic Party at "hard neoliberals" at Republican Party really funny indeed. Both are essentially "latter-day Trotskyites", yet they scream at each other, especially Obama/Clinton supporters ;-) ..."
"... But in reality Democratic sheeple are just a different type of wolfs -- wolfs in sheep clothing. And Hillary was an old, worn "classic neoliberal" shoe, which nobody really wants to wear. ..."
"... Trump does not intend to change the neoliberal consensus of what government should do domestically, and what should be the relationship between US government and business community. ..."
I would define Trump_vs_deep_state as "bastard neoliberalism" which tries
to combine domestic "100% pure" neoliberalism with the rejection of neoliberal globalization as well
as partial rejection of expensive effort for expansion of US led neoliberal empire via color revolutions
and military invasions, especially in the Middle East.
That's what seems to be the key difference of Trump_vs_deep_state from "classic neoliberalism" or as Sklar
called it "corporate liberalism".
From Reagan to Obama all US governments pray to the altar of classic neoliberalism. Now we have
a slight deviation.
That makes screams of "soft neoliberals" from Democratic Party at "hard neoliberals" at Republican
Party really funny indeed. Both are essentially "latter-day Trotskyites", yet they scream at each
other, especially Obama/Clinton supporters ;-)
In this sense Krugman recent writings are really pathetic and signify his complete detachment
from reality, or more correctly attempt to create an "artificial reality" in which bad wolf Trump
is going to eat Democratic sheeple. And in which media, FBI, and Putin are responsible entirely for
Hillary's loss.
But in reality Democratic sheeple are just a different type of wolfs -- wolfs in sheep clothing.
And Hillary was an old, worn "classic neoliberal" shoe, which nobody really wants to wear.
Trump does not intend to change the neoliberal consensus of what government should do domestically,
and what should be the relationship between US government and business community.
But the far right movement that he created and led has different ideas.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon once told Ivanka Trump: "You're just
another staffer who doesn't know what you're doing," according to a new book.
Related: Ivanka Trump's "special place in hell" for child predators comment trolls Roy Moore
rally
Bannon, who has long critiqued and clashed with Ivanka's and her husband Jared Kushner's
roles in the White House, tried to put the president's daughter in her place in one instance
detailed in the book.
"My daughter loves me as a dad...You love your dad. I get that. But you're just another
staffer who doesn't know what you're doing," Bannon said, The Washington Post reported when it
published excerpts on Monday.
The revelation is part of the latest book about life inside the White House. Howard Kurtz, host
of the Fox News show Media Buzz, wrote the book Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press, And The
War Over The Truth, set to be released on January 29.
The new book, though perhaps not as sensational as the explosive tell-all Fire and Fury:
Inside the Trump White House, contains several new alleged revelations about the
administration. Along with reports of the turbulent relationship between Ivanka Trump and
Bannon, are claims that the president himself leaked information to journalists, that his aides
referred to his behavior as "defiance disorder" and that his staff was "blindsided" when he
accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping his phones.
A more interesting question is how those testimonies might affect Bannon -- he is in a very hot water now. If he thought that the
meeting was so incriminating why he did not contact FBI and just decided to feed juicy gossip to Wolff?
Also he was not present at the meeting and was not a member of Trump team until two months later. From who he got all this information
? Was is just a slander by disgruntled employee?
Notable quotes:
"... To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr. ..."
"... Bannon has denied that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the election ..."
"... Wolff also quotes the former White House strategist as saying, "This is all about money laundering. [Robert] Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner . . . It's as plain as a hair on your face." ..."
"... Bannon then zeroed in on Kushner specifically, adding that "[i]t goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me." ..."
"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the
conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon is quoted as saying in Fire and Fury.
"Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should
have called the F.B.I. immediately." Bannon reportedly speculated that the chance the eldest Trump son did not involve his father
in the meeting "is zero."
When Bannon's comments became public, Trump excoriated his former strategist, whom
he accused of having "lost his mind."
But while Bannon has since apologized for the remarks and sought to walk back a number of the quotes, he's stopped short of denying
that he viewed the Trump Tower meeting as treasonous. Instead, he's merely shifted the blame away from Trump Jr. and onto Manafort.
"My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate.
He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning, and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr.
," Bannon said in
a statement to Axios. ( Bannon has denied that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the election
.)
... ... ...
Though the Trump Tower meeting took place before Bannon joined the Trump campaign, Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House
panel, told
CNN last week that he plans to question Bannon about "why this meeting at Trump Tower represented his treason and certainly unpatriotic
at a minimum."
Jared Kushner's "greasy shit"
Wolff also quotes the former White House strategist as saying, "This is all about money laundering. [Robert] Mueller chose
[senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul
Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner . . . It's as plain as a hair on your face." (Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort have all
denied wrongdoing.) Bannon then zeroed in on Kushner specifically, adding that "[i]t goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner
shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me
or trade me."
He and Trump's son-in-law have never seen eye to eye; their White House feuds were a poorly kept secret, and following his ouster,
Bannon has given numerous interviews knocking Kushner, including one to my colleague Gabriel Sherman in which he
questioned Kushner's
maturity level. If Bannon has dirt on Kushner, he will likely get his chance to reveal it; Schiff also
declared
his intent to question Bannon on "the basis of his concern over money laundering."
Bannon backed candidate later lost. So much for this Bannon "success".
This idea of Trump playing 6 dimensional chess is a joke. It's the same explanation that was pushed for Obama disastrous neocon
foreign policy. Here is one very apt quote: "What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars
of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis, killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to
Afghanistan..." What 6-dimetional chess?
According to Occam razor principle the simplest explanation of Trump behaviour is probably the most correct. He does not control
foright policy, outsourcing it to "generals" and be does not pursue domestic policy of creating jobs as he promised his
electorate. In other words, both in foreign policy and domestic policy, he became a turncoat,
betraying his electorate, much like Obama. kind of Republican Obama.
And as time goes by, Trump looks more and more like Hillary II or Republican Obama. So he might have problems with the candidates he supports
in midterm elections. His isolationism, if it ever existed, is gone. Promise of jobs is gone. Detente with Russia is gone.
What's left?
Note the level disappointment of what used to be Trump base in this site comment section...
Notable quotes:
"... In a serious rebuke for President Trump (and perhaps moreso for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), ousted judge and alt-right favorite Roy Moore has won the Alabama Republican Primary by a landslide ..."
"... The Steve Bannon-backed candidate, who defied court orders to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom and refused to recognize gay marriage after the Supreme Court's June 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, is leading by 9.6 points with 92% of the votes counted... ..."
"... These attacks on Bannon were one of the most prominent news stories in the first week following Trump's election victory. It didn't take long, however, for a counter-attack to emerge - from the right-wing elements of the Jewish community. ..."
"... Bannon is a true fucking patriot trying to pull this once great country from the sinkhole. ..."
"... I think the reality is that this was a message to McConnell much more than Trump. That message is simple: I'm coming to kill your career. Bannon went out of his way to say he fully supports Trump (despite backing the opposite candidate). And, let's face it, if Bannon buries McConnell, he's doing everyone a service, Trump included. ..."
"... The echo chamber media "is so surprised" that in Germany and the US we are seeing a rising tide of pissed off people, well imagine fucking that? Leaving the echo chamber and not intellectually trying to understand the anger, but living the anger. ..."
"... Well, we can only hope that Trump gets the message. He was elected to be President of the USA, not Emperor of the World. Quote from that Monty Python film: "He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!" ..."
"... A cursory background reading on Roy Moore tells me that he is one of the worst types for public office. And he might just turn out to be like Trump -- act like an anti-swarm cowboy and promise a path to heaven, then show his real colors as an Establishment puppet once the braindead voters put him in office. ..."
"... When Trump won the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency it was because people were rebelling against the establishment rulers. There is considerable disgust with these big government rulers that are working for themselves and their corporate cronies, but not for the US population. ..."
"... Trump seems to have been compromised at this point, and his support of the establishment favourite, Luther Strange is evidence that he isn't really the outsider he claimed to be. Moore's victory in Alabama says the rebellion still has wheels, so there is some hope. ..."
"... In Missouri where I live, the anti-establishment Republican contender for the upcoming US Senatorial 2018 race is Austin Peterson. It will be interesting to see how he, and his counterparts in other states do in the primaries. Both of the current Missouri Senators are worthless. ..."
"... I remember well the last "3-Dimensional Chess master" Obama while he too was always out maneuvering his apponents, per the media reports... ..."
"... Every now and then Trump tends to make huge blunders, and sometimes betrayals without knowing what he is doing. "Champions"- (great leaders) do not do that. ..."
"... What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis, killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to Afghanistan... ..."
"... It is epitome of self-delusion to see people twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to justify/rationalize Trump's continuing display of disloyalty to America ..."
"... YOU CAN'T BE A ZIONIST AND AN AMERICAN FIRSTER, IT IS ONE OR THE OTHER. ..."
Congratulations to Roy Moore on his Republican Primary win in Alabama. Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race. Roy,
WIN in Dec!
In a serious rebuke for President Trump (and perhaps moreso for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), ousted judge and
alt-right favorite Roy Moore has won the Alabama Republican Primary by a landslide
The Steve Bannon-backed candidate, who defied court orders to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom and refused to
recognize gay marriage after the Supreme Court's June 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, is leading by 9.6 points with 92%
of the votes counted...
... ... ...
However, as Politco
reported this evening, President Donald Trump began distancing himself from a Luther Strange loss before ballots were even cast,
telling conservative activists Monday night the candidate he's backing in Alabama's GOP Senate primary was likely to lose ! and suggesting
he'd done everything he could do given the circumstances.
Trump told conservative activists who visited the White House for dinner on Monday night that he'd underestimated the political
power of Roy Moore, the firebrand populist and former judge who's supported by Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, according
to three people who were there.
And Trump gave a less-than full-throated endorsement during Friday's rally.
While he called Strange "a real fighter and a real good guy," he also mused on stage about whether he made a "mistake" by backing
Strange and committed to campaign "like hell" for Moore if he won.
Trump was encouraged to pick Strange before the August primary by son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner as well as other aides,
White House officials said. He was never going to endorse Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, who has at times opposed Trump's agenda,
and knew little about Moore, officials said.
... ... ...
Déjà view -> Sanity Bear •Sep 26, 2017 11:19 PM
AIPAC HAS ALL BASES COVERED...MIGA !
On Sept. 11, the Alabama Daughters for Zion organization circulated a statement on Israel by Moore, which started by saying
the U.S. and Israel "share not only a common Biblical heritage but also institutions of representative government and respect
for religious freedom." He traced Israel's origin to God's promise to Abram and the 1948 creation of modern Israel as "a fulfillment
of the Scriptures that foretold the regathering of the Jewish people to Israel."
Moore's statement includes five policy positions, including support for U.S. military assistance to Israel, protecting Israel
from "Iranian aggression," opposing boycotts of Israel, supporting Israel at the United Nations, and supporting direct Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations without outside pressure. He added, "as long as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority wrongly refuse to recognize Israel's
right to exist, such negotiations have scant chance of success."
While those views would give Moore common ground with much of the Jewish community regarding Israel, most of the state's Jewish
community has been at odds with Moore over church-state issues, such as his displays of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and
his outspoken stance against homosexuality, both of which led to him being ousted as chief justice.
moore misreads the Bible as most socalled christians do. they have been deceived, they have confused the Israel of God( those
who have been given belief in Christ) with israel of the flesh. They cant hear Christs own words, woe is unto them. they are living
in their own selfrighteousness, not good. they are going to have a big surprise for not following the Word of God instead following
the tradition of men.
They were warned over and over in the Bible but they cant hear.
I Claudius -> VinceFostersGhost •Sep 27, 2017 6:27 AM
Forgive? Maybe. Forget? NEVER!! He tried to sell "US" out on this one. We now need to focus on bringing "Moore" candidates
to the podium to run against the RINO's and take out McConnell and Ryan. It's time for Jared and Ivanka to go back to NYC so Jared
can shore up his family's failing empire. However, if his business acumen is as accurate as his political then it's no wonder
the family needed taxpayer funded visas to sell the property. Then on to ridding the White House of Gen Kelly and McMaster - two
holdover generals from the Obama administration - after Obama forced out the real ones.
Clashfan -> Mycroft Holmes IV •Sep 26, 2017 11:33 PM
Rump has hoodwinked his supoprt base and turned on them almost immediately. Some refuse to acknowledge this.
These attacks on Bannon were one of the most prominent news stories in the first week following Trump's election victory.
It didn't take long, however, for a counter-attack to emerge - from the right-wing elements of the Jewish community. The
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) came to Bannon's defense and accused the ADL of a "character assassination" against Bannon.
The Wizard -> Oh regional Indian •Sep 26, 2017 10:12 PM
Trump should figure out the Deep State elites he has surrounded himself with, don't have control of the states Trump won. Trump
thought he had to negotiate with these guys and his ego got the best of him. Bannon was trying to convince him he should have
stayed the course and not give in.
~"American politics gets moore strange by the day..."~
Technically speaking OhRI, with Moore's win politics became less Strange, or "Strange less", or "Sans Luther", depending on
how one chose to phrase it [SMIRK]
Adullam -> Gaius Frakkin' Baltar •Sep 26, 2017 11:05 PM
Trump needs to fire Jared! Some news outlets are saying that it was his son in law who advised him to back Strange. He has
to quit listening to those who want to destroy him or ... they will.
overbet -> Killtruck •Sep 26, 2017 9:41 PM
Bannon is a true fucking patriot trying to pull this once great country from the sinkhole.
Juggernaut x2 -> overbet •Sep 26, 2017 10:07 PM
Trump better pull his head out of his ass and quit being a wishy-washy populist on BS like Iran- the farther right he goes
the greater his odds of reelection because he has pissed off a lot of the far-righters that put him in- getting rid of Kushner,
Cohn and his daughter and negotiating w/Assad and distancing us from Israhell would be a huge help.
The whole Russiagate ploy was a diversion from (((them)))
NoDebt -> Killtruck •Sep 26, 2017 9:42 PM
I think the reality is that this was a message to McConnell much more than Trump. That message is simple: I'm coming to
kill your career. Bannon went out of his way to say he fully supports Trump (despite backing the opposite candidate). And, let's
face it, if Bannon buries McConnell, he's doing everyone a service, Trump included.
Oldwood -> NoDebt •Sep 26, 2017 10:08 PM
I think it was a setup.
Bannon would not oppose Trump that directly unless there was a wink and a nod involved.
Trump is still walking a tightrope, trying to appease his base AND keep as many establishment republicans at his side (even
for only optics). By Trump supporting Strange while knowing he was an underdog AND completely apposed by Bannon/his base he was
able to LOOK like he was supporting the establishment, while NOT really. Trump seldom backs losers which makes me think it was
deliberate. Strange never made sense anyway.
But what do I know?
Urahara -> NoDebt •Sep 27, 2017 12:20 AM
Bannon is hardcore Isreal first. Why are you supporting the zionist? It's an obvious play.
general ambivalent -> Urahara •Sep 27, 2017 2:23 AM
People are desperate to rationalise their failure into a victory. They cannot give up on Hope so they have to use hyperbole
in everything and pretend this is all leading to something great in 2020 or 2024.
None of these fools learned a damn thing and they are desperate to make the same mistake again. The swamp is full, so full
that it has breached the banks and taken over all of society. Trump is a swamp monster, and you simply cannot reform the swamp
when both sides are monsters. In other words, the inside is not an option, so it has to be done the hard way. But people would
prefer to keep voting in the swamp.
Al Gophilia -> NoDebt •Sep 27, 2017 3:58 AM
Bannon as president would really have those swamp creatures squirming. There wouldn't be this Trump crap about surrounding
himself with likeminded friends, such as Goldman Sachs turnstile workers and his good pals in the MIC.
Don't tell me he didn't choose them because if he didn't, then they were placed. That means he doesn't have the clout he pretends
to have or control of the agenda that the people asked him to deliver. His backing of Stange is telling.
Bobbyrib -> LindseyNarratesWordress •Sep 27, 2017 5:38 AM
He will not fire Kushner or Ivanka who have become part of the swamp. I'm so sick of these 'Trump is a genius and planned this
all along.'
To me Trump is a Mr. Bean type character that has been very fortunate and just goes with the flow. He has nearly no diplomacy,
or strategic skills.
NoWayJose •Sep 26, 2017 10:35 PM
Dear President Trump - if you like your job, listen to these voters. Borders, Walls, limited immigrants (including all those
that Ryan and McConnell are sneaking through under your very nose), trade agreements to keep American jobs, and respect for our
flag, our country, and the unborn!
I had hope for Trump, but as someone who reads ZH often, and does not suffer from amnesia (like much of America), I knew he
was way too good to be true.
We all know his back tracking, his flip flops...and while the media and many paid bloggers like to spin it as "not his fault",
it actually is.
His sending DACA to Congress was the last straw. Obama enacted DACA with a stroke of his pen, but Trump "needed to send it
to Congress so they could "get it right". The only thing Congress does with immigration is try and get amnesty passed.
Of course while Trump sends DACA to Congress, he does not mind using the military without Congress, which he actually should
do.
Why is it when it's something American's want, it has to go through the "correct channels", but when its something the Zionists
want, he does it with the wave of his pen? We saw the same bull shit games with Obama...
Dilluminati •Sep 26, 2017 11:02 PM
Anybody surprised by this is pretending the civility at the workplace isn't masking anger at corporate America and Government.
I'll go in and put in the 8 hours, I'm an adult that is part of the job. However I'm actually fed up with allot of the stupid
shit and want the establishment to work, problem is that we are witnessing failed nations, failed schools, failed healthcare,
even failed employment contracts, conditions, and wages.
The echo chamber media "is so surprised" that in Germany and the US we are seeing a rising tide of pissed off people, well
imagine fucking that? Leaving the echo chamber and not intellectually trying to understand the anger, but living the anger.
You haven't seen anything yet in Catalonia/Spain etc, Brexit, or so..
This is what failure looks like: That moment the Romanovs and Louis XVI looked around the room seeking an understanding eye,
there was none.
Pascal1967 •Sep 26, 2017 11:19 PM
Dear Trump:
Quit listening to your moron son-in-law, swamp creature, Goldman Sachs douchebag son-in-law Kushner. HE SUCKS!! If you truly
had BALLS, you would FIRE his fucking ass. HE is The Swamp, He Is Nepotism! THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HATE HIM.
MAGA! LISTEN TO BANNON, DONALD.
DO NOT FUCK THIS UP!
ROY MOORE, 100%!!!!
You lost, Trump ... get your shit together before it is too late!
ElTerco •Sep 26, 2017 11:28 PM
Bannon was always the smarts behind the whole operation. Now we are just left with a complete idiot in office.
Also, unlike Trump, Bannon actually gives a shit about what happens to the American people rather than the American tax system.
At the end of the day, all Trump really cares about is himself.
samsara •Sep 26, 2017 11:25 PM
I think most people get it backwards about Trump and the Deplorables.
I believed in pulling troops a from all the war zones and Trump said he felt the same
I believed in Legal immigration, sending people back if here illegal especially if involved in crime, Trump said he felt the
same.
I believed in America first in negotiating treaties, Trump said he felt the same.
I didn't 'vote' for Trump per se, he was the proxy.
We didn't leave Him, He left us.
BarnacleBill •Sep 26, 2017 11:31 PM
Well, we can only hope that Trump gets the message. He was elected to be President of the USA, not Emperor of the World.
Quote from that Monty Python film: "He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!" It's high time he turned back to the
job he promised to do, and drain that swamp.
napper •Sep 26, 2017 11:47 PM
A cursory background reading on Roy Moore tells me that he is one of the worst types for public office. And he might just
turn out to be like Trump -- act like an anti-swarm cowboy and promise a path to heaven, then show his real colors as an Establishment
puppet once the braindead voters put him in office.
America is doomed from top (the swarm) to bottom (the brainless voters).
Sid Davis •Sep 27, 2017 1:40 AM
When Trump won the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency it was because people were rebelling against the establishment
rulers. There is considerable disgust with these big government rulers that are working for themselves and their corporate cronies,
but not for the US population.
Trump seems to have been compromised at this point, and his support of the establishment favourite, Luther Strange is evidence
that he isn't really the outsider he claimed to be. Moore's victory in Alabama says the rebellion still has wheels, so there is some hope.
In Missouri where I live, the anti-establishment Republican contender for the upcoming US Senatorial 2018 race is Austin Peterson.
It will be interesting to see how he, and his counterparts in other states do in the primaries. Both of the current Missouri Senators
are worthless.
nevertheless -> pfwed •Sep 27, 2017 7:33 AM
I remember well the last "3-Dimensional Chess master" Obama while he too was always out maneuvering his apponents, per the
media reports...
LoveTruth •Sep 27, 2017 2:56 AM
Every now and then Trump tends to make huge blunders, and sometimes betrayals without knowing what he is doing. "Champions"-
(great leaders) do not do that.
nevertheless -> LoveTruth •Sep 27, 2017 7:16 AM
What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis,
killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to Afghanistan...
But most treasonous of all was his sending DACA to "get it right", really? Congress has only one goal with immigration, amnesty,
and Chump knows dam well they will send him legislation that will clearly or covertly grant amnesty for millions and millions
of illegals, dressed up as "security".
Obama enacted DACA with the stroke of a pen, and while TRUMP promised to end it, he did NOT. Why is it when it's something
Americans want, it has to be "Constitutional", but when it comes form his banker pals, like starting a war, he can do that unilaterally.
It is epitome of self-delusion to see people twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to justify/rationalize Trump's continuing
display of disloyalty to America, and loyalty to Zionism.
Trump should always have been seen as a likely Zionist shill. He comes form Jew York City, owes everything he is to Zionist
Jewish bankers, is a self proclaimed Zionist...
YOU CAN'T BE A ZIONIST AND AN AMERICAN FIRSTER, IT IS ONE OR THE OTHER.
Either Zero Hedge is over run with Zionist hasbara, giving cover to their boy Chump, or Americans on the "right" have become
as gullible as those who supported Obama on the "left".
"... As for Bannon himself, his downfall has been fast and unceremonious: trashed by the president after he gossiped to Michael Wolff, abandoned by his deep-pocketed Mercer family funders, sacked by Breitbart, and then forced to watch as Trump indicated in a meeting earlier this week that he could sign a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Marat's downfall saw him elevated into a revolutionary martyr; Bannon has been banished into exile. ..."
"... But revolutions don't die with their figureheads. Bannonism won't either because, unlike the ethereal ideas behind liberalism and conservatism, it's found visceral real-world resonance -- among blue collars who see economic nationalism as a glimmer of hope among boarded-up plants, service-members frustrated with fruitless wars, young men flummoxed by modern feminism, right-wing activists frustrated with their political party's perceived impotence. Taunt Bannon all you like, but the imprint he leaves behind will be far larger than one spurious tell-all. ..."
"... The last blast of paleconservatism was Perot and the strong late 1990s economy halted that movement. ..."
"... The biggest thing lacking of the Bannon/Trump movement is how push back against the economic elite. Trump is governing exactly like an establishment Republican. Look at Trump/Perry ideas on saving coal which was properly turned down. This plan was unbelievably awful and not the right way for a better electric system and was simply handing Murray and First Energy a bunch money. ..."
"... Conservatism stands for stability and community. The accretions of "limited government" and "lower taxes", charming they may be as mantras, are more libertarian (Classic Liberal) than they are conservative ..."
"... A bomb-throwing Bolshevik like Bannon truly belongs on The Left, but in these days of abysmal ignorance of civics, it doesn't matter. "Bannonism" may live on, but thanks to the crackpot nature of its cobbled-together ideology, will remain a niche religion much like hard-core anarcho-libertarianism. ..."
"... Given the current atmosphere of outrage porn, willful ignorance and gleeful brutality, I do not have much hope for a Burkean conservatism to thrive, at least until after the pending social collapse ..."
"... Bannon will likely fade into oblivion via the Bourbon barrel, and the name Trump may become synonymous with "traitor" (but not like the media elite would hope). These men did not create a movement nor inspire anything. They were both savvy enough to see the political reality in this country and to give it voice. They will go, but the reality will remain. Ironically, but predictably, both men will likely be laid low by their own egos. But, so it goes ..."
"... The reality that supersedes these egotistical, narcissistic men is the fact that the traditional core of the American people have "woke" to the fact of their betrayal by the elite class to whom they have entrusted the leadership of this country for decades. They have awakened to find decay and rot throughout every American institution and to discover that these elites have enriched themselves beyond measure with the wealth of the nation at the cost of the workers and taxpayers who make that wealth possible. They have awakened to their own replacement and now realize the disdain with which they are viewed by those who would be their "masters." ..."
"... These Deplorables, white, working, taxpaying, Bible-believing, gun-owning MEN(!), are not going back into the opioid sleep of blissed out suburbia. They are now aware of the ill-hidden hatred which the elite class has for them and the future of serfdom to which these elites have fated them and their children. Gentlemen, a beast is being born out here in the hinterlands. It will not be put back in the cage ..."
Bannon is an imperfect ideologue. He has a gargantuan ego that often leads him astray, perhaps lately towards the delusion that
he himself would be a better populist messenger than the man he helped elect. But he's also hit on a paradox at the core of today's
American conservatism. Conservatives, in theory at least, look with skepticism upon grand projects and giant leaps, which too often
end up rupturing with the societal traditions they hold dear. Yet much of what conservatives support today is actually quite radical:
banning all or most abortions, rolling back the regulatory state, rejecting decades of orthodoxy on the issue of climate change,
a massive downshift of power from the federal government to states and localities, a moral ethic rooted in Christianity rather than
identity politics -- and lately questioning the "liberal international order" in favor of something more nationalist and protectionist.
The enactment of such an agenda would cause a good deal of upheaval and uncertainty, exactly the sort of void conservatives' forebears
feared most.
Some have wrangled with this contradiction by scaling back their proposals, claiming great problems can be addressed with light-touch
solutions, like child tax credits to arrest sagging birth rates. Others, much of Conservative Inc. it seems, are fine pretending
this tension doesn't exist at all. Bannon's approach has been to gleefully embrace conservatism's radical side. Disagree with him
all you like (and I do), but his is a perfectly logical position. His ascent -- some would say his transformation -- is a predictable
consequence of conservatives yearning for something increasingly distant from the modern world, just as did young people in the quietly
simmering 1950s. Indeed, there are many stylistic similarities between the radicals of today and those half a century ago: the "for
the lulz" performance art of a Milo Yiannopoulos contains an echo of the prankster Yippies, for example. Those who lack cultural
power can sell out, they can evolve, they can retreat to the catacombs -- or they can take Bannon's approach, they can transgress
and pump their fists and try to burn it all down.
Bannon's digestible binaries -- establishment versus the people, globalists versus Americans -- are easily superimposed on an
electorate that's itself divided both economically and culturally. Red states and the Rust Belt have for decades been the victims
of bad federal policy; Bannonism gives them an abstract enemy to blame, a valve for their fury. The algorithmic and library-voiced
Mitt Romney and the earnest Paul Ryan seem woefully inadequate by comparison: have those praying they run for higher office again
learned nothing? In The Constitution of Liberty , F.A. Hayek critiques conservatism by defining it as "a brake on the vehicle
of progress" and observing that a mere decrease in speed "cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving." Likewise,
while conventional taxes-and-terrorism Republican rhetoric doesn't feel like much of a heave on the ship's wheel, Bannonism furnishes
a clear vision, a real change, swords to wield, dragons to slay. Guess which one has greater appeal right now?
The modern right has always had a whiff of radicalism about it, with origins in pushback against the 60s counterculture, a second
wind in Newt Gingrich's legislative reformation, and late-life vitality in the Saul Alinsky-invoking tea party. But it's with Bannon
that the odor has become most pungent. He is an unlikely revolutionary. An
early profile from Bloomberg Businessweek
in 2015 portrays him as more of an operative than anything, determined to professionalize a conservative movement that had made too
many unforced errors. Other pre-Trump appearances found Bannon worrying about the national debt and extolling his Catholic faith.
It's a windy road from there to storming the barricades under Donald Trump's sigil, but it's one many conservatives have traveled
in recent years. The challenge for more traditional Republicans will be fashioning a new politics that quenches voters' burning thirst
for change -- a position they've arrived at themselves, not been brainwashed into by Fox News -- while circumventing Bannonism's
conflagrations and The Camp of the Saints ugliness.
As for Bannon himself, his downfall has been fast and unceremonious: trashed by the president after he gossiped to Michael Wolff,
abandoned by his deep-pocketed Mercer family funders, sacked by Breitbart, and then forced to watch as Trump
indicated in
a meeting earlier this week that he could sign a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Marat's downfall saw him elevated into
a revolutionary martyr; Bannon has been banished into exile.
But revolutions don't die with their figureheads. Bannonism won't either
because, unlike the ethereal ideas behind liberalism and conservatism, it's found visceral real-world resonance -- among blue collars
who see economic nationalism as a glimmer of hope among boarded-up plants, service-members frustrated with fruitless wars, young
men flummoxed by modern feminism, right-wing activists frustrated with their political party's perceived impotence. Taunt Bannon
all you like, but the imprint he leaves behind will be far larger than one spurious tell-all.
Matt Purple is the managing editor of The American Conservative
There is always a level of Bannonism /Paleoconservatism in the US politics but who knows how impactful it will be.
Probably the biggest issue for Bannon was Trump was elected in 2016 and our nation did not want or need a Leninist. (It
wasn't 2008 anymore) Frankly most conservatives were satisfied that HRC and Obama were not President and did not want massive changes.
The whole the people and globalist division is too simplistic and there are a lot 'People' that support free trade or relatively
open borders. (For instance I don't see the economic benefit of steel tariffs at all.)
The last blast of paleconservatism was Perot and the strong late 1990s economy halted that movement.
We still don't know how much a pushback on Trump/Bannonism will be. Trump is not popular and the House is endangered.
5) The biggest thing lacking of the Bannon/Trump movement is how push back against the economic elite. Trump is governing
exactly like an establishment Republican. Look at Trump/Perry ideas on saving coal which was properly turned down. This plan was
unbelievably awful and not the right way for a better electric system and was simply handing Murray and First Energy a bunch money.
It is a cardinal error to confuse conservatism with The Right, as much as it is to conflate liberalism with The Left.
Conservatism stands for stability and community. The accretions of "limited government" and "lower taxes", charming they
may be as mantras, are more libertarian (Classic Liberal) than they are conservative. (Thanks loads, Frank Meyer.)
A bomb-throwing Bolshevik like Bannon truly belongs on The Left, but in these days of abysmal ignorance of civics, it doesn't
matter. "Bannonism" may live on, but thanks to the crackpot nature of its cobbled-together ideology, will remain a niche religion much
like hard-core anarcho-libertarianism.
Given the current atmosphere of outrage porn, willful ignorance and gleeful brutality, I do not have much hope for a Burkean
conservatism to thrive, at least until after the pending social collapse.
Bannon will likely fade into oblivion via the Bourbon barrel, and the name Trump may become synonymous with "traitor" (but
not like the media elite would hope). These men did not create a movement nor inspire anything. They were both savvy enough to
see the political reality in this country and to give it voice. They will go, but the reality will remain. Ironically, but predictably,
both men will likely be laid low by their own egos. But, so it goes.
The reality that supersedes these egotistical, narcissistic men is the fact that the traditional core of the American people
have "woke" to the fact of their betrayal by the elite class to whom they have entrusted the leadership of this country for decades.
They have awakened to find decay and rot throughout every American institution and to discover that these elites have enriched
themselves beyond measure with the wealth of the nation at the cost of the workers and taxpayers who make that wealth possible.
They have awakened to their own replacement and now realize the disdain with which they are viewed by those who would be their
"masters."
These Deplorables, white, working, taxpaying, Bible-believing, gun-owning MEN(!), are not going back into the opioid sleep
of blissed out suburbia. They are now aware of the ill-hidden hatred which the elite class has for them and the future of serfdom
to which these elites have fated them and their children. Gentlemen, a beast is being born out here in the hinterlands. It will
not be put back in the cage.
The writer's allusion to the French Revolution is somewhat telling. The history of the West is replete with moments of savagery
and destruction directed inwardly. It will be so again. When these Deplorables turn on their keepers, it will not be pretty. The
Progressive elites who believe that they can control and shape "narratives" to harness that power are fools. The cloistered intellectuals
who believe that they can "opt" out of the coming clash are dreaming.
The traditional core of the American people are no different than their ancestors. They just don't live as close to the edge
as those folks did. But when they are backed up to that edge, when betrayal has been made clear and the institutions are revealed
for the Oz that they have become, they will recall that old hatred that still courses in the Western man's veins and will react
in ways that will chill the blood. The imaginary "crimes" with which "privileged whites" are damned by the rioting Cultural Marxists
will escape imagination and leap into reality. God help us.
Re: The last blast of paleconservatism was Perot and the strong late 1990s economy halted that movement.
Perot, for whom I voted in 1992 but not 1996, was not a paleoconservative, but rather a pragmatic centrist. Compare his position
on social issues with Pat Buchanan's (Buchanan being Mr. Paleoconservative -- and who ran in 1992 too)
Looks like Bannon is really weak in political economy. He does not even use the term neoliberalism. Go
here to read the full transcript of his speech.
One very interesting quote is ""I believe we've come partly off-track in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we're
starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the
West, a crisis of capitalism."
Notable quotes:
"... That war triggered a century of barbaric -- unparalleled in mankind's history -- virtually 180 to 200 million people were killed in the 20th century, and I believe that, you know, hundreds of years from now when they look back, we're children of that: We're children of that barbarity. This will be looked at almost as a new Dark Age. ..."
"... I believe we've come partly offtrack in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we're starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism. ..."
"... I see that every day. I'm a very practical, pragmatic capitalist. I was trained at Goldman Sachs, I went to Harvard Business School, I was as hard-nosed a capitalist as you get. I specialized in media, in investing in media companies, and it's a very, very tough environment. And you've had a fairly good track record. So I don't want this to kinda sound namby-pamby, "Let's all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' around capitalism." ..."
"... One is state-sponsored capitalism. And that's the capitalism you see in China and Russia. I believe it's what Holy Father [Pope Francis] has seen for most of his life in places like Argentina, where you have this kind of crony capitalism of people that are involved with these military powers-that-be in the government, and it forms a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people. And it doesn't spread the tremendous value creation throughout broader distribution patterns that were seen really in the 20th century. ..."
"... The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing, is what I call the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism. And, look, I'm a big believer in a lot of libertarianism. I have many many friends that's a very big part of the conservative movement -- whether it's the UKIP movement in England, it's many of the underpinnings of the populist movement in Europe, and particularly in the United States. However, that form of capitalism is quite different when you really look at it to what I call the "enlightened capitalism" of the Judeo-Christian West. It is a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people, and to use them almost -- as many of the precepts of Marx -- and that is a form of capitalism, particularly to a younger generation [that] they're really finding quite attractive. And if they don't see another alternative, it's going to be an alternative that they gravitate to under this kind of rubric of "personal freedom." ..."
Buzzfeed has the remarks of Stephen Bannon, former CEO of Breitbart News ,
and currently appointed by President Elect Trump to be his chief advisor, at a conference at
the Vatican in the summer of 2014:
Steve Bannon:
Thank you very much Benjamin, and I appreciate you guys including us in
this. We're speaking from Los Angeles today, right across the street from our headquarters in
Los Angeles. Um. I want to talk about wealth creation and what wealth creation really can
achieve and maybe take it in a slightly different direction, because I believe the world, and
particularly the Judeo-Christian west, is in a crisis. And it's really the organizing principle
of how we built Breitbart News to really be a platform to bring news and information to people
throughout the world. Principally in the west, but we're expanding internationally to let
people understand the depths of this crisis, and it is a crisis both of capitalism but really
of the underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian west in our beliefs.
It's ironic, I think, that we're talking today at exactly, tomorrow, 100 years ago, at
the exact moment we're talking, the assassination took place in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand that led to the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of the bloodiest century
in mankind's history. Just to put it in perspective, with the assassination that took place 100
years ago tomorrow in Sarajevo, the world was at total peace. There was trade, there was
globalization, there was technological transfer, the High Church of England and the Catholic
Church and the Christian faith was predominant throughout Europe of practicing Christians.
Seven weeks later, I think there were 5 million men in uniform and within 30 days there were
over a million casualties.
That war triggered a century of barbaric -- unparalleled in mankind's history --
virtually 180 to 200 million people were killed in the 20th century, and I believe that, you
know, hundreds of years from now when they look back, we're children of that: We're children of
that barbarity. This will be looked at almost as a new Dark Age.
But the thing that got us out of it, the organizing principle that met this, was not
just the heroism of our people -- whether it was French resistance fighters, whether it was the
Polish resistance fighters, or it's the young men from Kansas City or the Midwest who stormed
the beaches of Normandy, commandos in England that fought with the Royal Air Force, that fought
this great war, really the Judeo-Christian West versus atheists, right? The underlying
principle is an enlightened form of capitalism, that capitalism really gave us the wherewithal.
It kind of organized and built the materials needed to support, whether it's the Soviet Union,
England, the United States, and eventually to take back continental Europe and to beat back a
barbaric empire in the Far East.
That capitalism really generated tremendous wealth. And that wealth was really
distributed among a middle class, a rising middle class, people who come from really
working-class environments and created what we really call a Pax Americana. It was many, many
years and decades of peace. And I believe we've come partly offtrack in the years since the
fall of the Soviet Union and we're starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly,
is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of
capitalism.
And we're at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if
the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I
feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs,
but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that's starting, that will completely
eradicate everything that we've been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.
Now, what I mean by that specifically: I think that you're seeing three kinds of
converging tendencies: One is a form of capitalism that is taken away from the underlying
spiritual and moral foundations of Christianity and, really, Judeo-Christian belief.
I see that every day. I'm a very practical, pragmatic capitalist. I was trained at
Goldman Sachs, I went to Harvard Business School, I was as hard-nosed a capitalist as you get.
I specialized in media, in investing in media companies, and it's a very, very tough
environment. And you've had a fairly good track record. So I don't want this to kinda sound
namby-pamby, "Let's all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' around capitalism."
But there's a strand of capitalism today -- two strands of it, that are very
disturbing.
One is state-sponsored capitalism. And that's the capitalism you see in China and
Russia. I believe it's what Holy Father [Pope Francis] has seen for most of his life in places
like Argentina, where you have this kind of crony capitalism of people that are involved with
these military powers-that-be in the government, and it forms a brutal form of capitalism that
is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people. And it
doesn't spread the tremendous value creation throughout broader distribution patterns that were
seen really in the 20th century.
The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing, is what I call the
Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism. And, look, I'm a big believer in
a lot of libertarianism. I have many many friends that's a very big part of the conservative
movement -- whether it's the UKIP movement in England, it's many of the underpinnings of the
populist movement in Europe, and particularly in the United States.
However, that form of capitalism is quite different when you really look at it to what I
call the "enlightened capitalism" of the Judeo-Christian West. It is a capitalism that really
looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people, and to use them almost -- as many of
the precepts of Marx -- and that is a form of capitalism, particularly to a younger generation
[that] they're really finding quite attractive. And if they don't see another alternative, it's
going to be an alternative that they gravitate to under this kind of rubric of "personal
freedom."
The other tendency is an immense secularization of the West. And I know we've talked
about secularization for a long time, but if you look at younger people, especially millennials
under 30, the overwhelming drive of popular culture is to absolutely secularize this rising
iteration.
"... "I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist," Bannon told the news outlet earlier this week. "The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f -- ed over." ..."
"... "Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe," Bannon told Mother Jones in August. "Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements." ..."
"... "It's everything related to jobs," Bannon said and seemingly bragged about how he was going to drive conservatives "crazy" with his "trillion-dollar infrastructure plan." ..."
"... "With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up," he proposed. "We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution -- conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement." ..."
"... Bannon, in the Reporter interview, also gave some insight into how he viewed his political foes (presumably, liberals and the media) -- and the "darkness" he touts in fighting against them. ..."
Steve Bannon, the chief strategist and right-hand man to President-elect Donald Trump,
denied in an interview that he was an advocate of white nationalism -- and gave hints instead
about how his brand of "economic" nationalism will shake up Washington.
In The Hollywood Reporter, Bannon, the controversial former head of Breitbart News who went
on to chair Mr. Trump's presidential campaign, discussed why he believed his candidate won the
election.
"I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist," Bannon told
the news outlet earlier this week. "The globalists gutted the American working class and
created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f -- ed
over."
Bannon's appointment to the White House has drawn criticism from Democrats and several civil
liberties groups, in part because of his (and Breitbart's) strong association with
the alt-right , a political movement with strains of white supremacy.
In the past, the former Breitbart CEO has admitted the alt-right's connections to racist and
anti-Semitic agendas.
"Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the
philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe,"
Bannon told Mother Jones in August. "Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are
attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes,
right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard
left that attract certain elements."
In the Reporter interview, Bannon challenged the notion that racialized overtones dominated
the Trump campaign on the trail. He predicted that if the administration delivered on its
election promises, "we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and
Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years."
"It's everything related to jobs," Bannon said and seemingly bragged about how he was going
to drive conservatives "crazy" with his "trillion-dollar infrastructure plan."
"With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild
everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up," he proposed. "We're just going to
throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater
than the Reagan revolution -- conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist
movement."
Bannon, in the Reporter interview, also gave some insight into how he viewed his political
foes (presumably, liberals and the media) -- and the "darkness" he touts in fighting against
them.
"Darkness is good," Bannon said. "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only
helps us when they...get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."
"... When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as a "blunt instrument for us," a man who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up twenty years." ..."
"... the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them: despite how powerful the Establishment may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and the people it rules -- for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many members of this Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have been more successful in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed, without much evidence, that undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump presidency was too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their candidate off to Arizona in the final days. ..."
"... Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading him to declare upon leaving the White House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." [ Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017] ..."
"... But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact that the current president is Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an election. Unlike GOP strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing. ..."
Throughout 2016, I would occasionally turn on the television to see how the punditocracy was
responding to the mounting
Trump tsunami . If you get most of your news online, watching cable news is frustrating.
The commentary is so dumbed down and
painfully
reflective of speaker's biases, you can always basically guess what's coming next. With a
few exceptions -- above all Ann Coulter 's famous June 19, 2015
prediction of a Trump victory on
Bill Maher -- these pundits again and again told us that Trump would eventually go away,
first after he made this or that gaffe, then after he "failed" in a debate, then after people
actually started voting in the primaries.
The most interesting cases to me: the "
Republican strategists ," brought on to CNN and MSNBC to give the audience the illusion
that they were hearing both sides: Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Ana Navarro, Rick Wilson,
Margaret Hoover, Todd Harris.
Mike Murphy even convinced donors to hand him over $100 million to make Jeb Bush the
next president -- [
Jeb's 2016 departure draws out Mike Murphy critics , By Maeve Reston, February 22,
2016]
With campaigns and donors throwing money at these people, and the Main Stream Media touting
them, it was easy to assume they must know what they were talking about. Significantly, each of
these pundits was a national security hawk, center-right on economic issues, and just as
horrified by "
racism " and " sexism
" as their
Leftist counterparts . By a remarkable coincidence, the "
strategic " advice that they gave to Republican candidates lined up perfectly with these
positions. Their prominence was a mirage created by the fact that the MSM
handed this token opposition the Megaphone
because they did not challenge the core prejudices of the
bipartisan Ruling Class.
And of course they were all humiliated in a spectacular fashion, November 8 being only the
climax.
Joshua Green begins his book Devil's
Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by giving us a
view inside the Trump campaign on election night, before tracing Steve Bannon's path up to that
point. Reliving the journey is one of the joys of Green's work, which is mostly an intellectual
biography of Steve Bannon,
with a special focus on his relationship with Trump and the election.
Bannon
joined the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016 without any previous experience in
electoral politics. But like the candidate himself, the Breitbart editor showed that he
understood the nature of American politics and the GOP base
better than Establishment Republicans. The "strategists'" supposed "expertise," "strategic
advice," and "analysis" was in reality built on a house of cards. (In fact, the
Bannon-Trump view of the electorate is closer to the consensus
among political scientists that, unlike more nationalist and populist policies,
Republican Establishment positions have relatively little popular support. [ Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyon d | Tensions Between and Within the Two
Parties, Voter Study Group, June 2017]).
Bannon at Breitbart.com gave the Republican base what it wanted. Moral: in a democracy, you
always have a chance at winning when public opinion (or at least intraparty opinion) is on your
side.
Green traces Bannon's journey from his Irish-Catholic
working-class roots and traditionalist upbringing, to his time in the Navy, at Harvard
Business School and Goldman Sachs, and finally Breitbart.com and the pinnacle of American
politics. The picture
that emerges is of a man with principles and vigor, refusing to submit to the inertia that
is part of the human condition, with enough confidence to realize that life is too short to not
make major changes when staying on the current path is not going to allow him to accomplish his
goals.
For example, Bannon originally wanted a career in defense policy, and took a job in the
Pentagon during the Reagan administration. Yet he was off to Harvard Business School when he
realized that the rigid bureaucracy
that he was a part of would not let him move up to a high-level position until he was
middle-aged. Decades later, after taking over his website upon the unexpected death of Andrew Breitbart in
2012, it would have been easy to go low-risk -- sticking to Establishment scripts, making life
comfortable for Republican elites, implicitly submitting to the taboos of the Left.
Instead , he helped turn Breitbart News into a major voice of the populist tide that has
been remaking center-right politics across the globe.
When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as
a "blunt instrument for us," a man who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up
twenty years."
From Green, we learn much about Bannon's intellectual influences. Surprisingly, although he
was raised as a Roman Catholic and maintains that faith today, we find out that Bannon briefly
practiced Zen Buddhism while in the Navy. There are other unusual influences that make
appearances in the book, including Rightist philosopher Julius
Evola and
René Guénon, a French occultist who eventually became a Sufi Muslim. Although
not exactly my cup of tea, such eccentric intellectual interests reflect a curious mind that
refuses to restrict itself to fashionable influences.
It's incorrect to call Devil's Bargain a biography. There is practically no mention
of Bannon's personal life -- wives, children. I had to Google to find out that he has three
daughters. His childhood is only discussed in the context of how it may have influenced his
beliefs and political development.
Rather, we get information on Bannon's intellectual and career pursuits and his
relationships with consequential figures such as mega-donor Robert Mercer, Andrew Breitbart and
Donald Trump.
As Bannon exits the White House and returns to Breitbart, we must hope that Bannon and the
movement he's helped to create accomplish enough in the future to inspire more complete
biographies.
But the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them:
despite how powerful the Establishment may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and
the people it rules -- for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many members of this
Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have
been more successful in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of
effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed, without much evidence, that
undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump
presidency was too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing
a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their candidate off to Arizona in the final
days.
Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading
him to declare upon leaving the White House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and
won, is over." [
Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017]
But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact
that the current president is Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it
has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an election. Unlike GOP
strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing.
In his memoir Nixon's White House Wars , Pat Buchanan writes about how, despite
playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our
movement had exhibited real power in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping
Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and though we were
playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our
movement had exhibited real power in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping
Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and though we were veterans
of a victorious presidential campaign, few of us had served in the executive branch. We
lacked titles, resumes, credentials Our pool of experienced public servants who could
seamlessly move into top positions was miniscule compared to that of the liberal Democrats
who had dominated the capital's politics since FDR arrived in 1933.
History repeated itself in 2016, when Donald Trump would win the presidency on a nationalist
platform but find few qualified individuals who could reliably implement his agenda.
If nationalists want to ensure that their next generation of leaders is able to effectively
implement the policies they run on, they are going to have to engage in the slow and tedious
project of working their way up through powerful institutions.
Bannon may have been and remains an "outsider" to the political Establishment. But
nonetheless, throughout his life he has leveraged elite institutions such as Harvard, Goldman
Sachs, the Republican Party, and even Hollywood in order to become financially independent and
free to pursue his political goals.
If enough of those on the Dissident Right forge a similar path, we can be sure that future
nationalist political victories will be less hollow. Jeremy Cooper is a specialist in
international politics and an observer of global trends. Follow him at @NeoNeoLiberal .
@Clyde
Wilson Is there any evidence that Trump even tried to find the right people to fill the
offices? Having dabbled ever so slightly in this process in the spring, my impression is that
there is a mechanism run largely by lawyers from the big DC law firms (presumably one for
each party) who are the gatekeepers for applicants. The result of this system, which I have
little doubt that the "Trump Team" did not try to take on (after all, they had only a couple
of months to put together the beginnings of a team, and that left little or no time replacing
The Swamp Machine ) is that the key positions throughout the administration are largely
filled with lawyers from connected law firms. After all, who better to administer the
government than lawyers -- ? -- ?
At any rate, my experience with the process was: on your marks, get set, nothing. 30 years
experience in and around federal government, but not a lawyer. Don't call us, we don't want
to talk to you. (I also made clear in my cover letter that the key motivator for my
application -- and first ever political contributions -- was Trump and his agenda. In
retrospect, this "admission" was probably a kiss of death. I was a Trumpite. Eeeewww -- -- --
(I may well not have been qualified for anything, but I'm SURE I was disqualified by my
support for Trump )
Too little, too late. Also Bannon by demonizing Russians has shown that his is a dangerous warmonger. And a weak
politician.
Notable quotes:
"... Bannon added that his comments to Wolff were "aimed at Paul Manafort," the former Trump campaign manager who has been charged as part of an investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and members of Trump's team. Manafort was also at the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Manafort, Bannon said, "should have known how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. ..."
"... Bannon released the statement after a three-day barrage of criticism from Trump and his allies. The president dubbed Bannon "Sloppy Steve." Bannon's statement also followed a CNN appearance on Sunday by Stephen Miller, the president's senior policy adviser and former Bannon ally, who eviscerated his comments to Wolff as "grotesque." ..."
The former White House aide said Donald Trump Jr. is a "patriot and a good man."
Steve Bannon backpedaled on comments to journalist Michael Wolff, whose explosive new book
sparked
a backlash against the former top Donald Trump aide over his remarks about a meeting at
Trump Tower in June 2016. According to the book, released a week early due to high demand, the
former White House strategist called the infamous meeting in New York between Donald Trump Jr.
and Russian operatives at Trump Tower "treasonous."
In a
statement to Axios on Sunday, Bannon heaped praise on Trump and his agenda, and called Don
Jr. a "patriot and a good man." "My comments about the meeting with Russian nationals came from
my life experiences as a Naval officer stationed aboard a destroyer whose main mission was to
hunt Soviet submarines to my time at the Pentagon during the Reagan years when our focus was
the defeat of 'the evil empire' and to making films about Reagan's war against the Soviets and
Hillary Clinton's involvement in selling uranium to them, " Bannon said in the statement.
Bannon
added that his comments to Wolff were "aimed at Paul Manafort," the former Trump campaign
manager who has been charged as part of an investigation into possible collusion between the
Russian government and members of Trump's team. Manafort was also at the 2016 Trump Tower
meeting. Manafort, Bannon said, "should have known how the Russians operate. He should have
known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends.
To reiterate, those comments (about
the meeting with the Russians) were not aimed at Don Jr." In the statement, Bannon again denied
that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. And though he did not deny any of the remarks
that were attributed to him in the book, Bannon said he regretted "that my delay in responding
to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president's
historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency."
Bannon released the statement
after a three-day barrage of criticism from Trump and his allies. The president dubbed Bannon
"Sloppy Steve." Bannon's statement also followed a CNN appearance on Sunday by Stephen Miller,
the president's senior policy adviser and former Bannon ally, who eviscerated his comments to
Wolff as "grotesque."
Earlier Sunday, Trump railed about what he called Wolff's "Fake Book" on
Twitter:
"Once there was a collection of Judeo-Christian nation-states, Bannon argued, that practiced a humane form of biblical capitalism
and fostered culturally coherent communities."
The history of 18th and 19th century capitalism is rife with open Anti-Semitism. Jews were tolerated (barely) and periodically
subjected to everything from mild prejudicial social-shunning to exclusion from certain fields of endeavor to ...progroms.
"Judeo-Christian"
is mythological revisionism that is currently advantageous politically to the Right Wing since it features a pro-Israel, anti-Muslim,
and radical Christian "End-of-Days" cultism that relies on the "rise of Israel" fulfillment of prophecy.
As for the "humane form of biblical capitalism" that relied on slavery as an economic engine, famine as an expedient solution
(India during WW II) and other depredations such as intolerable working conditions and starvation wages--how is that better than
Davos-style Globalism?
Bannon is a proto-fascist opportunist -- dangerous, big-league. The day he gets Trump distracted from Meryl Streep and has
Trumps attention for that minute will be the first of many disasters. You can pine for the boiler-plate Paul Ryan version of predictable
and consistent management of Capitalism.
Judeo-Christian forces vs Islamofascism -- there's a faint whiff of Crusade in that juxtaposition, but don't be naive-
the real Crusade has already begun, besieging the fundamental values of honesty, decency, and humanism.
Dugin's contempt for human rights is consistent with his belief in a social order based on religion (likeiwse Bannon). Trump
could hardly care less about that, he's more of a libertine.
What Trump, Bannon, Dugin, and Putin can all agree on is consolidation of national government and corporate interests, a kind
of corporatism, similar to Fascism under Mussolini. Which had also a strong element of "Make Italy Great Again", with the Roman
Empire as its nostalgic anchor.
The uncertain economic and social times we are in make some people yearn for a strong leader. A large minority of Americans
seems to see that in Trump. What I see coming forward is not at all chaos, but rather the systematic and organized looting of
our economy under a government that puts corporate interests above all else.
A very perceptive column. This makes the mission of the Christian left very clear. Globalism at its best is the attempt to
harness the creative energy of humanity to build a world which is just, in harmony with itself, and advancing its understanding
of the natural world and human behavior for the benefit of all. The Christian left must provide the spiritual vision to energize
this effort, covering all of our efforts with compassion. Otherwise, Bannon's perception of a vacuum at the heart of what we are
doing will be proved true.
The suggestion that once in office, Trump and his acolytes will simply abandon their closely held philosophical and actual
prejudices and fall lovingly into the arms of more traditional, establishment advisors is ridiculous. There is nothing in the
history of either Trump or his fire-breathing true believers to indicate that compromise is a notion that comes easily, if at
all, to them. More likely, the gridlock disease that has long plagued Congress may be transmitted to the White House, where we'll
then find that an emotional and experientially ill-equipped president reaches into his resentment-filled gut to make a decision
that reflects not considered judgment, but his very own biases that can be communicated in a 140 character tweet.
Where we agree we can move forward where we disagree is the work we need to do. To move forward with disagreement leads to
anger, violence and ultimately war.
What's important to remember about Trump, as Brooks points out here, is that he is "basically uninterested in anything but
his own status at the moment." In 10 days, Trump's status at the moment will be subject to the opinions of all Americans. If things
turn south--and most times in a presidency things eventually turn south--who will Trump listen to in order to improve his "status
at the moment'? Remember, it was Steve Bannon who he turned to when his campaign was on the rocks, not General Mattis.
A problem for Trump the campaigner (though it may in fact have been a strength among his most ardent supporters) was his willingness
to say/do seemingly anything in order to get elected, i.e. jail his opponent, extra-constitutional surveillance of Muslims, mock
a disabled reporter, retweet white supremacists, etc.
To me, the question is, once in power, will Trump be willing to do anything in order to maintain or improve his "status at
the moment." For thin-skinned, needy leaders like Trump, when people at home turn on him, finding enemies abroad is usually the
answer. It's troubling to imagine who will have his ear then.
Bannon mentioning Christianity makes me wonder what he really thinks about Christ and his teachings. The same goes with his
boss, Donald Trump. I fail to see anything at all in their behavior that reflects what Jesus taught. All this makes me question
what supposedly Christian conservative Trump supporters think about their faith and how it matches up with the behavior of Bannon
and Trump.
How is globalism de-spiritualized? What about loving your neighbor as yourself? That is a fundamental teaching of Christianity,
and it doesn't stop at our borders.
I don't know how Mr. Bannon considers historical capitalism to have been humane. Child labor? Oppression of local workers across
the globe? Extreme pollution to the point of rivers burning (Cuyahoga River in Cincinnati) or choking smog (London, Los Angeles,
Mexico City, Delhi)? His version is history written by the victors.
"... Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of protecting domestic consumption, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods and capital. It is in opposition to Globalisation in many cases, or at least on questions the unrestricted good of Free trade. It would include such doctrines as Protectionism, Import substitution, Mercantilism and planned economies. ..."
"... Examples of economic nationalism include Japan's use of MITI to "pick winners and losers", Malaysia's imposition of currency controls in the wake of the 1997 currency crisis, China's controlled exchange of the Yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs and devaluation in the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to protect domestic steel production. ..."
"... Think about what a trade war with China would do. It would crash the world economy as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US likely defaulting......just one possible scenario. ..."
"... Here is Bannon's latest: Bannon dismissed the far-right as irrelevant: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more." "These guys are a collection of clowns," he added. Bannon is no friend of White Nationalists. ..."
"... I think Bannon is an authentic economic nationalist, and one that Trump feels is good counsel on those matters. If this is so, then Bannon cannot be trying to provoke a trade war with China, since that would be an economic catastrophe for the US (and China and the rest of the world). I'm hoping he's playing bad cop and eventually Trump will play good cop in negotiations for more investment by China in the US and other goodies in exchange for 'well, not much' from the US. Similar to what the US dragged out of Japan in the 80s nd 90s. ..."
"... Bannon (and most of his followers) have no trust in the corporate sector as they are to a large degree Globalists - they used the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would even call them traitors. So you could call him a Nationalist. ..."
"... Bannon does not seem himself as an "ethno-nationalist". Yet his slanderous contempt for the liberal ethos/values of many Americans would tend to make one question if he can be called a Nationalist. ..."
"... If Bannon was a Zionist, he would never make the comments he does against the financial sector ..."
"... Isn't exceptionalism the same as narcissism? ..."
"... At least the concern for 10 million in Seoul (mostly missing in the discussion of other leaders) show he is not a psychopath ..."
So lets start parsing this economic nationalism that Bannon is making happen with Trump.
Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of protecting domestic consumption, labor
and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods
and capital. It is in opposition to Globalisation in many cases, or at least on questions the unrestricted good of Free trade.
It would include such doctrines as Protectionism, Import substitution, Mercantilism and planned economies.
Examples of economic nationalism include Japan's use of MITI to "pick winners and losers", Malaysia's imposition of currency
controls in the wake of the 1997 currency crisis, China's controlled exchange of the Yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs
and devaluation in the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to protect domestic steel production.
Think about what a trade war with China would do. It would crash the world economy as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury
holdings with the US likely defaulting......just one possible scenario.
At least now, IMO, the battle for a multi-polar (finance) world is out in the open.....let the side taking by nations begin.
I hope Bannon is wrong about the timing of potential global power shifting and the US loses its empire status.
Here is Bannon's latest: Bannon dismissed the far-right as irrelevant: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element.
I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more." "These guys are a collection
of clowns," he added. Bannon is no friend of White Nationalists.
Bannon can be perfectly mature, adult and realist on some points and be totally blinded by biases on others - him wanting total
economic war against China is proof enough. So I don't rule out that he has a blind spot over Iran and wants to get rid of the
regime. I mean, even Trump is realist and adult in a few issues, yet is an oblivious fool on others.
Kind of hard to find someone who's always adult and realist, actually. You can only hope to pick someone who's more realist
than most people. Or build a positronic robot and vote for him.
I think Bannon is an authentic economic nationalist, and one that Trump feels is good counsel on those matters. If this is so,
then Bannon cannot be trying to provoke a trade war with China, since that would be an economic catastrophe for the US (and China
and the rest of the world). I'm hoping he's playing bad cop and eventually Trump will play good cop in negotiations for more investment
by China in the US and other goodies in exchange for 'well, not much' from the US. Similar to what the US dragged out of Japan
in the 80s nd 90s.
@ Everybody who bought into the MSM Steve Bannon promoted white supremacy and through Breitbart. Suggested you read his world
view expressed in remarks at Human Dignity Institute, Vatican Conference 2014
Progressives and Steve Bannon have something surprising in common: hating Wall Street
Pop quiz! Which major American political figure said the following:
"The 2008 crisis is really driven I believe by the greed, much of it driven by the greed of the investment banks."
"I think the bailouts in 2008 were wrong."
"[N]ot one criminal charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis."
"The Republican Party "is really a collection of crony capitalists that feel that they have a different set of rules"
and are "the reason that the United States' financial situation is so dire."
In the Vatican talk, Bannon described in length and detail how he views the biggest issues of the day:
He wants to tear down "crony capitalism": "a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and
creating value for a very small subset of people.[.]
He is against Ayn Rand's version of libertarianism: "The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing,
is what I call the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism.[.]
He believes the West needs to wage "a global war against Islamic fascism": "They have a Twitter account up today,
ISIS does, about turning the United States into a "river of blood" if it comes in and tries to defend the city of Baghdad.
And trust me, that is going to come to Europe.[.]
He believes the capitalism of the "Judeo Christian West" is in crisis: "If you look at the leaders of capitalism
at that time, when capitalism was I believe at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost
all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo-Christian West.[.]
He believes the racists that are attracted to Trump will become increasingly irrelevant: [.]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
this recent Bannon interview with The American Prospect will now go viral. Drudgereport headlines the WAPO spin.
Except for the selective Zion-flavored warmongering, Bannon appears to be an intelligent and thoughtful person. Also crafty. Is
he not "Trump's Brain" in the way that Rove was Bush's Brain?
Agree. I think Bannon's quite bright and very very clever and crafty.
However, if anyone believes the lies he spewed yesterday about white supremacists, let me enlighten you that that's what's
called "good PR" or something. Bannon is someone whom I hold quite responsible for contributing to the rise of White Supremacy
in the USA, which I consider a clear and present danger. Bannon's dismissive hand waving yesterday is meant to dissemble. Guess
some are willing to buy what he was selling yesterday. Not me.
The first group to call themselves Progressives were the 19th century Populists. Their mantle was adopted by T. Roosevelt and
other like-minded Republicans. Lafollette and Wallace are perhaps the best remembered Progressives--yes, FDR is portrayed as one,
but when examined really isn't: Eleanor was far more Progressive and since she was people also thought he was too. Once Wallace
was ousted from government, Democrats reverted to their old ways, although Truman did order the military to desegregate--perhaps
his only Progressive act. JFK was in the process of becoming a Progressive in the months prior to his murder. LBJ very reluctantly
made some Progressive noises in his War on Poverty that he was essentially forced into thanks to massive ethnic strife and related
riots during the 60s. But essentially since the beginning of WW2, Progressives and their goals vanished from the political landscape.
Nader brought it back to the fringe from the wilderness, but the so-called Progressive Caucus really isn't Progressive thanks
to its war promotion.
Admittedly, I don't know much about Steve Bannon; he certainly isn't a Progressive, but he doesn't seem to be a Regressive
either. The points he made at the Vatican Talk supplied by likklemore @28 are rather encouraging in an anti-Deep State manner.
So, his interaction with The American Prospect I don't see as surprising--he's seeking allies: "'It's a great honor to
finally track you [Robert Kuttner] down. I've followed your writing for years and I think you and I are in the same boat when
it comes to China. You absolutely nailed it.'... Bannon explained that his strategy is to battle the trade doves inside the administration
while building an outside coalition of trade hawks that includes left as well as right. Hence the phone call to me." I think Kuttner
will discover Bannon will "still [be] there" after Labor Day, so he might as well make his travel plans.
I won't give you a pass. Your bias and lack of intelligence is on great display.
Read and understand as Bannon is proven right on events.
The $28 - trillion (US dollar) global bailouts in 2008 is proven to have failed. A handful on Wall Street became trillionaires
instead of being suited in special stripes.
Negative interest rates steal the retirement savings of seniors. Pensions and Insurance companies cannot meet promised payouts.
And all is fine. Corruption flourishes. Judeo-Christian moral values are not in crisis.
@12... "Bannon is a fascist" I'm not so sure. Mussolini defined fascism as being an alliance of corporate and state powers...
but Bannon (and most of his followers) have no trust in the corporate sector as they are to a large degree Globalists - they used
the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would even call them traitors. So you could call him
a Nationalist.
@ 8 as you say... Bannon does not seem himself as an "ethno-nationalist". Yet his slanderous contempt for the liberal ethos/values
of many Americans would tend to make one question if he can be called a Nationalist.
@ 9 If Bannon was a Zionist, he would never make the comments he does against the financial sector (see @28).
@28 Bannon would never call himself a Socialist, but the most logical expression of his individualist views when applied to
the business world are expressed by none other than Ayn Rand. The financial world simply got legal cover to act on the views that
he rails against. Bannon does not like what he sees when the rules he claims for himself are given to the rest of the world. Which
makes him an "Exceptionalist"??
Isn't exceptionalism the same as narcissism?
At least the concern for 10 million in Seoul (mostly missing in the discussion of other leaders) show he is not a psychopath.
"... Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked and ridiculed them. ..."
"... The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words. ..."
"... Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director, Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least. ..."
"... Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week, MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should be "investigated." ..."
"... I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in that during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill , in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything. . . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past." ..."
"... five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter . . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks. ..."
"... I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with that sentiment. ..."
Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the
CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked
and ridiculed them.
The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media
should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition
party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words.
Joel Simon, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told CNN that "this kind of speech not [only] undermines the work of the
media in this country, it emboldens autocratic leaders around the world." Jacob Weisberg, the head of the Slate Group, tweeted that
Bannon's comment was terrifying and "tyrannical."
Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director,
Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat
an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least.
Ever since Bannon's outburst, you can hear the media gears meshing in the effort to undermine him. In TV green rooms and at Washington
parties, I've heard journalists say outright that it's time to get him. Time magazine put a sinister-looking Bannon on its
cover, describing him as "The Great Manipulator." Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time , boasted to MSNBC that
the image was in keeping with a tradition of controversial covers that put leaders in their place. "Likewise, putting [former White
House aide] Mike Deaver on the cover, the brains behind Ronald Reagan, that ended up bringing down Reagan," he told the hosts of
Morning Joe . "So you've got to have these checks and balances, whether it's the judiciary or the press."
Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week,
MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in
the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should
be "investigated."
I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in
that during the Obama administration.
It wasn't until four years after the passage of Obamacare that a journalist reported on just how powerful White House counselor
Valerie Jarrett had been in its flawed implementation. Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill
, in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group
of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much
of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly
with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything.
. . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett
inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At
this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past."
Brill then bluntly told the president that five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter
. . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position
by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment
of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received
as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks.
I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that
if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with
that sentiment.
But the media's effort to turn Bannon into an enemy of the people is veering into hysterical character assassination. The Sunday
print edition of the New York Times ran an astonishing 1,500-word story headlined: "Fascists Too Lax for a Philosopher Cited
by Bannon." (The online headline now reads, "Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists.") The Times based this
headline on what it admits was "a passing reference" in
a speech by Bannon at a Vatican conference in 2014 . In that speech, Bannon made a single mention of Julius Evola, an obscure
Italian philosopher who opposed modernity and cozied up to Mussolini's Italian Fascists.
Economic nationalism in key ideas is close to Mussolini version of corporatism. It is about
the alliance of state with large corporation but of less favorable to large corporations terms
then under neoliberalism, which is a flavor of corporatism as well, but extremely favorable to
the interests of transactionals.
So grossly simplifying, this is Mussolini version of corporatism (Make Italy Great Again),
minus foreign wars, minus ethnic component (replacing it with more modern "cultural nationalism"
agenda).
Bannon is definitely overrated. It is jobs that matter and he has no real plan. Relying on
tax cutting and deregulation is not a plan. In this sense, yes, he is a paper tiger. And not a
real nationalist, but some kind of castrated variety.
One thing that plays into Bannon hands in the DemoRats (neoliberal Democrats led by
Hillary Clinton) were completely discredited during the last elections.
Notable quotes:
"... But his statements show that it's all bluster and no real strategy. Democrats seem poised to take back Congress precisely because of Republican extremism, not because institutional Republicans are inadequately racist and nationalist. ..."
"... Like Karl Rove before him, Steven Bannon is a paper tiger. ..."
There is a tendency on the left to overestimate the abilities of conservative campaign gurus
and spinmeisters after a bitter defeat. In the aughts, Karl Rove was seen as the Svengali
mastermind of Republican politics, a nefarious force smarter and more cunning than all the
left's braintrust put together. It turned out not to be true. Karl Rove didn't have "the math"
and never really did: Rove mostly got lucky by a combination of butterfly ballots in Florida,
and happening to hold power during a terrorist attack that saw Democrats cowed into submission
rather than holding the president and his team accountable for their failure to protect the
country.
Steve Bannon is taking on a similar mystique for some. But Bannon is no more special than
Rove...
... ... ...
Bannon is
going
to war " with the GOP establishment, even going so far as to countermand Trump's own
endorsement in the Alabama Senate race and force the president to back a loser.
But his statements show that it's all bluster and no real strategy. Democrats seem
poised to take back Congress precisely because of Republican extremism, not because
institutional Republicans are inadequately racist and nationalist.
And his prediction to the Values Voter Summit that Trump will
win 400 electoral votes in 2020 is simply preposterous on its face. It's no better than
even odds that Trump will even finish out his term, much less sweep to a Reaganesque landslide
in three years. During the same speech, Bannon quipped a line destined to be fodder for the
inevitable 2018 campaign commercials accusing Trump of actively blowing up the ACA
exchanges and driving up premiums in a bid to kill the program.
Like Karl Rove before him, Steven Bannon is a paper tiger. Democrats need only
muster courage, conviction and hard work to teach him the same lesson they taught Rove in 2006.
David Atkins is a writer, activist and
research professional living in Santa Barbara. He is a contributor to the Washington Monthly's
Political Animal and president of The Pollux Group, a qualitative research firm.
Bastard neoliberalism by Trump (and Bannon) are inconsistent. You can't be half pregnant -- to be
a neoliberal (promote deregulation, regressive taxes) and be anti-immigration and anti-globalist. In
this sense words Trump is doomed: neoliberal are determined to get rid of him.
Reagan was a former governor of California before becoming the President. hardly a complete outsider.
Trump was an outsider more similar to Barak Obama in a sense that he has no political record and can
ride on backlash against neoliberal globalization, especially outsourcing and offshoring and unlimited
immigration, as well as ride anti-globalism sentiments and popular protest against foreign wars. Only
quickly betraying those promised afterward. Much like king of "bait and switch" Obama .
Notable quotes:
"... Among the signature issues of Trumpian populism is economic nationalism, a new trade policy designed to prosper Americans first. ..."
"... Reagan preached free trade, but when Harley-Davidson was in danger of going under because of Japanese dumping of big bikes, he slammed a 50 percent tariff on Japanese motorcycles. Though a free trader by philosophy, Reagan was at heart an economic patriot. ..."
"... He accepted an amnesty written by Congress for 3 million people in the country illegally, but Reagan also warned prophetically that a country that can't control its borders isn't really a country any more. ..."
"... Reagan and Trump both embraced the Eisenhower doctrine of "peace through strength." And, like Ike, both built up the military. ..."
"... Both also believed in cutting tax rates to stimulate the economy and balance the federal budget through rising revenues rather than cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security. ..."
"... Both believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in Reagan's day, Russia and China in Trump's time. ..."
"... As Ingraham writes, Trump_vs_deep_state is rooted as much in the populist-nationalist campaigns of the 1990s, and post-Cold War issues as economic patriotism, border security, immigration control and "America First," as it is in the Reaganite issues of the 1980s. ..."
"... Coming up on one year since his election, Trump is besieged by a hostile press and united Democratic Party. This city hates him. While his executive actions are impressive, his legislative accomplishments are not. His approval ratings have lingered in the mid-30s. He has lost half a dozen senior members of his original White House staff, clashed openly with his own Cabinet and is at war with GOP leaders on the Hill. ..."
"... And both are fans of the tinkle-down theory of economics, where the govt cuts taxes on the rich and increases them on the poor and middle class, since the rich will do a better job of spreading around the extra money they get to keep, thereby stoking the economy, supposedly. Or as 'Poppy' Bush called it, "voodoo economics." ..."
"... It's a failed regressive tax program that only creates more billionaires while the number of poor swells, due to an influx of the steadily declining middle-class. ..."
"... Bizarrely, comically ignorant of reality. Though the really bizarre thing is the degree to which the same obtusely ignorant world-view permeates the establishment media and the political establishment. ..."
"... There is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in the grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism. Reagan's opposition to the Soviet Union was very much bound up in resistance to that ideology, even if that resistance was often as much a pretext as a real motive. ..."
"... Today neither Russia nor China subscribes to any such universalist ideology. It is the US, today, that seeks to impose its liberal democratic political correctness ideologies and its manufactured taboos upon the world and which harasses and menaces any country that tries to live differently. ..."
"... As for Trump supposedly being wrapped up in "America First", that's particularly comical this week as he demonstrates that his idea of "America First" is acting as Israel's bitch, and as he makes ever louder noises about undermining the Iran deal – a policy as clearly counterproductive to any interest plausibly attributable to the American nation (as opposed to the identity lobbies that run the US government politics and media) as it is self-evidently in the self-perceived interests of the Israel Lobby and the foreign country that lobby serves. ..."
"... Trump is an egotistical jackass, nothing else. A liar from the git-go, and a completely ineffective leader, ideologue and President. He's not going to last much longer. I will take note that he did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety. But, he has molted into a complete fuckup. ..."
"... Goodbye, good riddance. Let's get ready to deal with the next wacko -- Pence. ..."
"... you're forgetting that Trump wasn't a war monger while on the campaign trail, far from it. Which is the only reason he won the election. In other words he fooled just enough people (like you and me) long enough to get elected. Same thing happened with peace candidate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Hussein Obama. It's clearly a rigged process. ..."
Both men were outsiders, and neither a career politician. Raised Democratic, Reagan had been a
Hollywood actor, union leader and voice of GE, before running for governor of California.
Trump is out of Queens, a builder-businessman in a Democratic city whose Republican credentials
were suspect at best when he rode down that elevator at Trump Tower. Both took on the Republican
establishment of their day, and humiliated it.
Among the signature issues of Trumpian populism is economic nationalism, a new trade policy
designed to prosper Americans first.
Reagan preached free trade, but when Harley-Davidson was in danger of going under because
of Japanese dumping of big bikes, he slammed a 50 percent tariff on Japanese motorcycles. Though
a free trader by philosophy, Reagan was at heart an economic patriot.
He accepted an amnesty written by Congress for 3 million people in the country illegally,
but Reagan also warned prophetically that a country that can't control its borders isn't really a
country any more.
Reagan and Trump both embraced the Eisenhower doctrine of "peace through strength." And, like
Ike, both built up the military.
Both also believed in cutting tax rates to stimulate the economy and balance the federal budget
through rising revenues rather than cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Both believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in Reagan's
day, Russia and China in Trump's time.
And both were regarded in this capital city with a cosmopolitan condescension bordering on contempt.
"An amiable dunce" said a Great Society Democrat of Reagan.
The awesome victories Reagan rolled up, a 44-state landslide in 1980 and a 49-state landslide
in 1984, induced some second thoughts among Beltway elites about whether they truly spoke for America.
Trump's sweep of the primaries and startling triumph in the Electoral College caused the same consternation.
However, as the Great Depression, New Deal and World War II represented a continental divide in
history between what came before and what came after, so, too, did the end of the Cold War and the
Reagan era.
As Ingraham writes, Trump_vs_deep_state is rooted as much in the populist-nationalist campaigns of the
1990s, and post-Cold War issues as economic patriotism, border security, immigration control and
"America First," as it is in the Reaganite issues of the 1980s.
Which bring us to the present, with our billionaire president, indeed, at the barricades.
The differences between Trump in his first year and Reagan in 1981 are stark. Reagan had won a
landslide. The attempt on his life in April and the grace with which he conducted himself had earned
him a place in the hearts of his countrymen. He not only showed spine in giving the air traffic controllers
48 hours to get back to work, and then discharging them when they defied him, he enacted the largest
tax cut in U.S. history with the aid of boll weevil Democrats in the House.
Coming up on one year since his election, Trump is besieged by a hostile press and united
Democratic Party. This city hates him. While his executive actions are impressive, his legislative
accomplishments are not. His approval ratings have lingered in the mid-30s. He has lost half a dozen
senior members of his original White House staff, clashed openly with his own Cabinet and is at war
with GOP leaders on the Hill.
And both are fans of the tinkle-down theory of economics, where the govt cuts taxes
on the rich and increases them on the poor and middle class, since the rich will do a better job
of spreading around the extra money they get to keep, thereby stoking the economy, supposedly.
Or as 'Poppy' Bush called it, "voodoo economics."
It's a failed regressive tax program that only creates more billionaires while the number
of poor swells, due to an influx of the steadily declining middle-class.
The only parts of the economy it helps are the builders of luxury mansions, antique and pricey
art dealers, and the makers of luxury autos and private jets.
when the US Government is trying to prevent alien forces from interfering in our electoral
process
Bizarrely, comically ignorant of reality. Though the really bizarre thing is the degree
to which the same obtusely ignorant world-view permeates the establishment media and the political
establishment.
Two pieces here at Unz you ought to read, and fully take on board the implications of, if you
want to even begin the process of grasping reality, rather than living in the manufactured fantasy
you appear to inhabit at the moment:
Both believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in
Reagan's day, Russia and China in Trump's time.
There is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear
ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in the
grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism. Reagan's opposition to
the Soviet Union was very much bound up in resistance to that ideology, even if that resistance
was often as much a pretext as a real motive.
Today neither Russia nor China subscribes to any such universalist ideology. It is the
US, today, that seeks to impose its liberal democratic political correctness ideologies and its
manufactured taboos upon the world and which harasses and menaces any country that tries to live
differently.
As for Trump supposedly being wrapped up in "America First", that's particularly comical
this week as he demonstrates that his idea of "America First" is acting as Israel's bitch, and
as he makes ever louder noises about undermining the Iran deal – a policy as clearly counterproductive
to any interest plausibly attributable to the American nation (as opposed to the identity lobbies
that run the US government politics and media) as it is self-evidently in the self-perceived interests
of the Israel Lobby and the foreign country that lobby serves.
Here's the German government being unusually blunt yesterday about the stupidity of the Trump
regime's seeming plans in this regard:
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Thursday said that any move by US President Donald
Trump's administration to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal would drive a wedge between Europe
and the US.
"It's imperative that Europe sticks together on this issue," Gabriel told Germany's RND
newspaper group. "We also have to tell the Americans that their behavior on the Iran issue
will drive us Europeans into a common position with Russia and China against the USA."
It's difficult to know whether the likes of Gabriel actually believe all the boilerplate nonsense
they talk about a supposed Iranian nuclear program – the real reason the European nations want
the deal to continue is that it stopped them having to pretend to believe all the outright lies
the US told about Iran, and having to kowtow t0 costly and counterproductive sanctions against
Iran that did immense general harm for the benefit only of Israel and Saudi Arabia and their US
stooges.
The US pulling out of the deal would at least bring that issue of US dishonesty on Iran and
past European appeasement of it to a head, I suppose.
Trump is an egotistical jackass, nothing else. A liar from the git-go, and a completely ineffective
leader, ideologue and President. He's not going to last much longer. I will take note that he
did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety. But, he has molted into a complete
fuckup.
Goodbye, good riddance. Let's get ready to deal with the next wacko -- Pence.
Assuming they won't kill Pence with the same bomb.
I will take note that he did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety.
Often I feel like it'd be better if Hillary did the same insane policies. It's always worse
when our guy does something wrong, and better when the hated enemy does it.
Hillary was a danger that she would start WW3 in Syria, but I don't think we can be certain
she'd have started it. Given how risk-averse women are in general, I think the only issue was
whether the Russians could've made it clear that shooting at Russian soldiers would mean war with
Russia. And I think even Hillary's advisers would've blinked.
On the other hand, I don't think Hillary would be nearly as insane on North Korea or Iran.
As a bonus, she would be accelerating the demise of the US, by introducing ever more insane domestic
policies, things like gay, transsexual and female quotas in US Special Forces. This would ultimately
be a good thing, destroying or weakening US power which is currently only used to evil ends in
the world.
Unfortunately I can see Orbán and the Poles torpedoing a common EU stance. I'm sure that will
be the price for Netanyahu's meeting with the V4 leaders a few months ago.
I think one good thing would be if US conservatives stopped their Reagan worship. He was certainly
not a bad person, but he allowed the amnesty to happen, couldn't stop the sanctions on Apartheid
South Africa, didn't (or couldn't?) do anything against the MLK cult becoming a state religion,
and started the free trade and tax cuts cults, he's also responsible for promoting the neocons
to positions of power. So overall he was a mixed bag from a nationalist conservative viewpoint.
Private citizens are forbidden to ask for help from a foreign country, when the US Government
is trying to prevent alien forces from interfering in our electoral process.
You forgot the Clintons, Bush, McCain, Romney, and Obama. China and Israel worked on behalf
of all five of them, even though three of them lost
Yes, that's quite possible, but a common EU stance is not really all that important. What really
matters is how far the Germans, and to a lesser extent the less relevant but still big European
nations such as France and Italy and the more subservient US tool, the UK, are prepared to continue
to kowtow to US and Israeli dishonesty on Iran.
All the signs seem to be that repudiating the deal and trying to return to the days of the
aggressive and counter-productive US-imposed sanctions will be a step too far for many of those
players.
As a bonus, she would be accelerating the demise of the US, by introducing ever more insane
domestic policies, things like gay, transsexual and female quotas in US Special Forces. This
would ultimately be a good thing, destroying or weakening US power which is currently only
used to evil ends in the world.
Actually I suspect that repudiating the JCPOA, whether openly or by de facto breach, will go
immensely farther, and much faster, towards destroying practical US influence and therefore power
globally than any of those domestic policies, at least in the short run.
You can see that Trump is at least dimly aware of that likelihood from the way he keeps bottling
and postponing the decision, despite his clearly evident and desperate desire to please his pro-Israeli
and anti-Iranian advisers and instincts.
On the other hand, I don't think Hillary would be nearly as insane on North Korea or Iran.
An election of Hillary meant open borders. That is official, rapid and deliberate national
suicide. All foreign policy issues pale before such a horror.
1) There's a chance foreign policy insanity starts a nuclear war, in which case all domestic
policy issues will pale before such horror.
2) The US already has de facto open borders. Why does it matter if it becomes majority nonwhite
in 30 or just 20 years?
3) For non-American whites, it's better the earlier the US sphere disintegrates. I bet you
it's better for American whites as well. As long as this political/cultural center holds, the
rot cannot be stopped.
I watched the movie Independence Day last night: Can we have that guy for President after
Trump, or do we have to have an obligatory Democrat (Chelsea Clinton?) President for the next
8 years?
An election of Hillary meant open borders. That is official, rapid and deliberate national
suicide. All foreign policy issues pale before such a horror.
That's understandable, but obviously the calculation must be somewhat different from a non-US
perspective. Given how strongly many white Americans are in favor of pro-war policies and mindless
Israel worship (how many US blacks or Hispanics care about Israel or confronting Iran?), I'm not
even sure nationalists in Europe should really lament the Hispanicization of the US. It might
at least have a positive effect in restricting US interventionism and eroding US power. The sooner
the US is unable to continue with its self-appointed role as a global redeemer nation, the better.
History repeats first as tragedy (crushing the spoiled unionized mostly white air traffic controllers),
then as farce (crushing the spoiled unionized mostly afro NFL jocks). Reagan was at least an American
Firster. Trumpenstein is an obvious traitorous Izzie Firster, with little concern for the so-called
deplorables except to convert them into deployables at the service of his jooie sponsors. Maybe
Paddy should have titled his screed "Heir to Begin, not Reagan"?
Pat Buchanan points out that " it is far more likely that a major war would do for the Trump presidency
and his place in history what it did for Presidents Wilson, Truman, LBJ and George W. Bush."
As for President Trump; Let us hope that war DOES NOT BECOME "The Last Refuge Of This Scoundrel"!
Rubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority non-White
jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
If only non-White votes were counted, Hillary Clinton would have been elected unanimously by
the electoral college, and Hillary is more of a war-monger than Trump is.
The few reliable voices for foreign policy sanity in congress, such as Senator Rand Paul and
Congressmen Walter Jones, John Duncan, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash, represent overwhelmingly
White, Protestant, old-stock American districts.
Rubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority
non-White jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
Maybe, but is there any data indicating many blacks in Washington DC actually voted in the
Republican primaries? Why would they when most of them are a solid Democrat voting block? I'd
guess Rubio got his votes from white elites in DC.
As for Puerto Rico, I didn't know they actually have primaries, seems odd given they don't vote
in US presidential elections.
Hillary is more of a war-monger than Trump is.
Hillary was horrible all around, and I agree she might well have been disastrous as president
given her dangerous proposals for no-fly zones in Syria, and the potential of conflict with Russia
this entailed. But I'm no longer sure Trump is really better regarding foreign policy. His behaviour
on the North Korea issue is irresponsible imo, and his willingness to wreck the nuclear deal with
Iran at the behest of neoconservatives and Zionist donors like Sheldon Adelson is a big fat minus
in my view. Sorry, but I think you guys who hoped for something different have all been (neo-)conned.
Reagan said: My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation
that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.
Trump said: We will totally destroy North Korea if the United States is forced to defend
itself or its allies.
The only similarities I see between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump is that both live (lived) in
a sort of la-la land, totally out of touch with reality. The only difference between them is that
Reagan had sensible people around him (like Pat Buchannan) who wrote good speeches and make good
decisions which he took full credit for. Trump, on the other hand delivers abbreviated, one-sentence
speeches via Twitter while surrounded by mental midgets with military minds.
There is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear
ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in
the grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism
Not really Randal. The Cold War was an invented war like the War on Terror that replaced just
in the nick of time, and for the same purpose, which is to justify unlimited defense budgets necessary
to sustain a bloated MIC that would not otherwise exist.
Rubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority
non-White jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
but you're forgetting that Trump wasn't a war monger while on the campaign trail, far from
it. Which is the only reason he won the election. In other words he fooled just enough people
(like you and me) long enough to get elected. Same thing happened with peace candidate, and Nobel
Peace Prize winner, Hussein Obama. It's clearly a rigged process.
Not really Randal. The Cold War was an invented war like the War on Terror that replaced
just in the nick of time, and for the same purpose, which is to justify unlimited defense budgets
necessary to sustain a bloated MIC that would not otherwise exist.
Well, yes and no. In both cases. It really is more complicated than that.
Reagan didn't undo Arab Israel Camp David Peace Treaty He didn't keep the Israeli side and undo
the Egyptian side of the American obligation . He kept both.
Trump is dangerous malevolent anti-American and anti- anything that hurts his ego or pocket
. He has malcontent displaced sycophants as inner circle supporters who want a piece in the pie
denied to them by the establishment .
Here is a quote from antiwar -"In other words, it's all about the war that Trump and his still-loyal
lieutenant Steve Bannon, assisted by UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have declared on the "deep state."
Also, Trump and Bannon aren't really interested in draining the foreign policy swamp in DC.
They simply want to install their own cronies who will ensure that war and globalization benefit
them rather than Kissinger and his ilk. It's a shell game designed to fool Trump's base, but the
rest of the world has kept its eye on the ball."
http://original.antiwar.com/feffer/2017/10/13/trump-signaling-unprecedented-right-turn-foreign-policy/
This war between elites have been predicted by a CT professor in an article in 2016 , to get
more serious and dangerous by 2020 . The fights among elites are not new but another pathway an
empire takes additionally to the final fate of the destruction from within
"A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable,
has been denied access to elite positions."
Another visible sign of increasing intra-elite competition and political polarization is the
fragmentation of political parties
cliodynamic research on past societies demonstrates that elite overproduction is by far the
most important of the three main historical drivers of social instability and political violence
(see Secular Cycles for this analysis).
But the other two factors in the model, popular immiseration (the stagnation and decline of
living standards) and declining fiscal health of the state (resulting from falling state revenues
and rising expenses) are also important contributors.
Ideally Europe would be strong together, without US and more sane policies on morals and immigration.
Yes v4 is connected to CC, Neocon, Zios.
While Polands stance on immigration, and trying to hold on to old values is good, problem is
depending on US too much, and being stuck between Russia and Germany which would isolate it from
Europe in some ways. Obviously Poles are not uniform, views on US, Russia, Germany, Ukraine are
all over the place. I wish Poland was just European (in politics) but the US-EU connection is
still strong.
Commenting on US presidents. Presidents are puppets. All of them. Modern leaders in Western world
are unlikable. Reagan at least had some balance, had some Catholic and Paleocon involvement. It
wasnt all Neocons and Zios. Im quite sure Reagan (and his dad), people like Buchanan had connections
to groups like Knights Malta or Knights Colombus. Cant prove it though. Kennedy was KC.
Today
Neocon/Zionist influence is even stronger. Trump policies on NK and Iran are nuts. At best a war
is avoided.
On the other side you have Clintons, Obamas. They would destroy the US, and have similar policies
because again they are puppets. Clinton would likely be involved in Syria, just like Obama was.
While Polands stance on immigration, and trying to hold on to old values is good, problem
is depending on US too much
Yes, that's a problem, and I think Polish national conservatives are somewhat in denial about
what the modern US stands for the "values" pushed by the US establishment today are incompatible
with the Polish right's vision for Poland (e.g. conservative values in sexual morality – no homo-lobbyism
and transgender nonsense -, strong public role of Catholicism, restrictive and selective immigration
policies that keep out Muslims).
I can understand to some degree why the Polish right is so pro-US, given history and apprehensions
about Germany and Russia, but they should at least be aware that alliance with the US could have
a rather pernicious influence on Poland itself.
"... Bardella said Bannon had helped villainise McConnell, making him a toxic symbol of the Republican establishment and an albatross around the necks of vulnerable Republicans such as Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada. A seat in Tennessee following Senator Bob Corker's announcement that he would not seek re-election in 2018 could also be a target. ..."
"... Among the "establishment" donors likely to oppose Bannon in a series of running battles are the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Bannon himself has admitted there is not "a deep bench" of viable candidates to represent his agenda. ..."
"... "The floodgates are open. You'll see a lot of this, one after another, and Steve Bannon's going to be at the centre of it. He's one for one. It'll be a civil war; it has been for quite some time." ..."
"... Andrew Surabian, a political strategist who worked under Bannon at the White House, told USA Today: "Bannon is plotting a strategy to launch an all-out assault on the Republican establishment. I think it's fair to say that if you're tied to Mitch McConnell, any of his henchmen in the consulting class, or were a Never-Trumper during the campaign, you're not safe from a primary challenge." ..."
"... Additional reporting by Lauren Gambino and Ben Jacobs ..."
Already Bannon is touring the country and meeting with candidates who will carry forward such
an agenda. He told the Bloomberg agency: "The populist-nationalist movement proved in Alabama that
a candidate with the right ideas and a grassroots organization can win big. Now, our focus is on
recruiting candidates to take over the Republican party."
The election eve rally in Alabama was a reunion of sorts of those in Bannon's political orbit.
Two potential candidates, Chris McDaniel of Mississippi and Mark Green of Tennessee, attended along
with Paul Nehlen, a primary challenger last year to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, whose campaign
was heavily promoted by Breitbart.
McDaniel described Moore's win as "incredibly inspiring" for his own challenge to Senator Roger
Wicker in 2018. "We know Mitch McConnell was rejected tonight and Roger Wicker is just another part
of Mitch McConnell's leadership apparatus," McDaniel told the Associated Press.
"We supported Donald
Trump because he was an agent of change, and he's still an agent of change. In this instance,
he must have been given bad advice to retain this particular swamp creature."
On Thursday, Bannon
spent two hours with Tom Tancredo, who worked on Nehlan's behalf and is considering a run for
Colorado governor next year. Tancredo, a former congressman, told the Guardian: "He was encouraged
by what happened in Alabama and was certainly hoping he can replicate it.
"He's trying to establish an awareness of the fact the Republican party should be standing for
the values he and others have tried to articulate over the years. It's a hugely difficult undertaking
when you consider the power of the establishment and the swamp. He just kept reiterating: 'I need
to try to save the country.'"
Asked about the prospect of a Republican civil war, Tancredo replied: "A good philosophic blood
letting is not necessarily a bad thing."
... ... ...
Bardella said Bannon had helped villainise McConnell, making him a toxic symbol of the Republican
establishment and an albatross around the necks of vulnerable Republicans such as Jeff Flake of Arizona
and Dean Heller of Nevada. A seat in Tennessee following Senator Bob Corker's announcement that he
would not seek re-election in 2018 could also be a target.
"Every dollar that is spent on a candidate by Mitch McConnell and the Republican party is a dollar
spent against them," Bardella added. "And that's because it plays right into the theme that they're
bought and paid for by the establishment."
Among the "establishment" donors likely to oppose Bannon in a series of running battles are
the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Bannon himself has admitted there is not "a deep
bench" of viable candidates to represent his agenda.
But he can expect at least tacit backing from Trump, who was said to be furious about having backed
the wrong horse in Alabama: the president even deleted three tweets that endorsed Strange. Bannon
also has powerful benefactors in the shape of the billionaire hedge fund investor Robert Mercer and
his daughter Rebekah Mercer.
The New York Times reported that Bannon and Robert Mercer began working out a rough outline for
a "shadow party" that would advance Trump's nationalist agenda during a
five-hour meeting last month at the family's Long Island estate.
Bannon has also been consulting with Henry Kissinger and other foreign policy veterans, Bloomberg
reported, and is preparing make the threat posed by China a central cause. "If we don't get our situation
sorted with China, we'll be destroyed economically," he said.
Rick Tyler, a political analyst and former campaign spokesman for the Texas senator Ted Cruz,
said: "Roy Moore has demonstrated that the establishment and all its money can be beaten. You can
only spend so much money in Alabama before it becomes irritating: you can only stuff so much in people's
mailboxes or run so many ads on TV.
"The floodgates are open. You'll see a lot of this, one after another, and Steve Bannon's
going to be at the centre of it. He's one for one. It'll be a civil war; it has been for quite
some time."
Republican memories are still raw from 2014, when the House majority leader,
Eric Cantor, was beaten in a primary contest by Dave Brat, a little-known professor backed by
the Tea Party. But Bannon could make the establishment versus Tea Party battle look like a mere skirmish.
Andrew Surabian, a political strategist who worked under Bannon at the White House,
told USA Today: "Bannon is plotting a strategy to launch an all-out assault on the Republican
establishment. I think it's fair to say that if you're tied to Mitch McConnell, any of his henchmen
in the consulting class, or were a Never-Trumper during the campaign, you're not safe from a primary
challenge."
Additional reporting by Lauren Gambino and Ben Jacobs
"... The Tea Party recognizes that "one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is the kind of one plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires." The rise of illegal immigration represents a new form of capitalism, as opposed to the old "meritorious" capitalism of the post-war period. When right-wing ideologues attack "communism," the argument goes, they are actually conceptualizing neoliberalism. ..."
"... Michaels concedes that the Tea Party is a disproportionately upper middle class movement, but argues that even segments of the top twenty percentile of Americans by income have been hit hard in recent decades. ..."
"... The top one percent have been the big winners of the neoliberal era, while the other 19 percent in that bracket anxiously see their position falter in comparison. ..."
"... people in the Tea Party movement have a problem that is realer than "White male status anxiety," that the economic shifts that are taking place, the more and more extreme inequality, the more and more going to the top, no doubt some people may be unhappy because of loss of status, but many millions more are going to be unhappy because of the loss of actual money. ..."
Ideas spread in all sorts of directions. I've heard Christian right "intellectuals"
haphazardly invoke Gramsci and counter-hegemony and I myself have spent more of my youth than
I'm willing to admit reading back issues of National Review . It's probably less
of a stretch that some Tea Partiers have favorably nodded toward the ideas on their movement
that our friend Walter Benn Michaels expresses in his interview in the inaugural
Jacobin .
Here's my summary of Michaels's argument on the Tea Party and immigration, which brings up
the question, a question that shouldn't really be a question at all, about the left and open
borders. (My thoughts on the over-hyped and over-exposed Tea Party can be found over at
New Politics .)
Michaels identifies the Tea Party as a reaction against neoliberalism. He doesn't view the
challenge as a serious one, but also stresses that the movement, "is not simply a reaction
against neoliberalism from the old racist right." Michaels contests the American left's desire
to summarily reduce the Tea Party to racists: "They're thrilled when some Nazis come out and
say 'Yeah, we support the Tea Party' or some member of the Tea Party says something racist,
which is frequently enough." Michaels finds the subversive content of their political program
in an opposition to illegal immigration.
The Tea Party recognizes that "one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of
neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal
immigration is the kind of one plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires."
The rise of illegal immigration represents a new form of capitalism, as opposed to the old
"meritorious" capitalism of the post-war period. When right-wing ideologues attack "communism,"
the argument goes, they are actually conceptualizing neoliberalism.
Michaels concedes that the Tea Party is a disproportionately upper middle class movement,
but argues that even segments of the top twenty percentile of Americans by income have been hit
hard in recent decades.
The top one percent have been the big winners of the neoliberal era,
while the other 19 percent in that bracket anxiously see their position falter in comparison.
Responding to those who place the roots of this angst in the growing diversification of the
elite, Michaels says:
. . . people in the Tea Party movement have a problem that is realer than "White male
status anxiety," that the economic shifts that are taking place, the more and more extreme
inequality, the more and more going to the top, no doubt some people may be unhappy because
of loss of status, but many millions more are going to be unhappy because of the loss of
actual money. So my point isn't really to deny the phenomenon of status anxiety, it's just to
point out the extraordinary eagerness of American liberals to identify racism as the problem,
so that anti-racism (rather than anti-capitalism) can be the solution.
Michaels's conclusion is, in sum, that students of Friedrich Hayek and exalters of Ayn Rand
are the most visible source of resistance to neoliberalism on the American scene. Such a view,
I believe, is as contradictory as it appears...
Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin .
"... If Only The God-Emperor Knew: Using Trump_vs_deep_state Against The Trump Administration" ..."
"... Republican Sen. Corker announces he won't seek re-election ..."
"... Associated Press, ..."
"... Corker's departure is widely being interpreted as a sign of the Establishment's inability to control the GOP base, as the election of President Trump, the rise of nationalism and the emergence of alternative media outlets (such as Breitbart and VDARE.com) make it harder for cuckservatives to Republican primary voters in line [ Sen. Bob Corker's retirement is notable for when it's happening ..."
"... Washington Post, ..."
"... And now, we have the ultimate proof in Alabama. Judge Roy Moore, one of the most persistent targets of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is now the Republican nominee for the Senate. And he defeated incumbent Senator Luther Strange despite Strange being endorsed by President Donald J. Trump himself. ..."
"... Of course, Strange didn't just have Trump in his corner. He also had Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell using his PAC to run negative ads against Moore, ads which conservative websites called "defamatory" and which cost many millions of dollars [ McConnell's Super PAC accused of 'defaming ' Roy Moore ..."
"... McConnell's mortal enemy might soon be in his caucus ..."
"... Alabama rally: Trump campaigns in last-ditch effort for Senate candidate Luther Strange ..."
"... President Trump admits he doesn't 'know that much' about Alabama Senate contender Roy Moore, gets his name wrong in interview ..."
"... New York Daily News, ..."
"... During a debate with Strange, Moore suggested President Trump was being "redirected" by Mitch McConnell and others who "will not support his [Trump's] agenda" [ Alabama Senate debate erupts over whether McConnell is manipulating Trump ..."
"... Brexit Hero Farage in Alabama: Judge Roy Moore 'Not Going To Be Sucked Into The Swamp' ..."
"... Sarah Palin endorses Judge Roy Moore for US Senate ..."
"... Western Journalism, ..."
"... Ben Carson Splits With Trump, Basically Endorses Roy Moore in Alabama ..."
"... Talking Points Memo, ..."
"... Gorka: Trump Was Pressured to Endorse 'Swamp Dweller' Strange ..."
"... , Fox News, ..."
"... The Breitbart Universe Unites For Roy Moore ..."
"... The Atlantic, ..."
"... Trump's advisors seem to know this. In the Fox News ..."
"... Roy Moore Wins Senate G.O.P. Runoff in Alabama ..."
"... How Alabama Senate Election Results Could Trigger Trump's Impeachment ..."
"... Trump supports Strange, but says it may be "mistake," ..."
"... Washington Post, ..."
"... Roy Moore: 'I can't wait' for Trump to 'campaign like hell' for me ..."
"... Washington Examiner, ..."
"... Chamber of Commerce: 'Shut Down' Roy Moore & 'Remind Bannon Who's In Charge' ..."
"... Trump should seize on the narrative of his supposed opponents. He is unquestionably being given objectively poor political counsel by his aides!not surprising how utterly incompetent the Republican Establishment is when it comes to political strategy. [ Steve Bannon: We Need A Review After This Alabama Race To See How Trump Came To Endorse Someone Like Luther Strange ..."
"... Trump's N.F.L. Critique a Calculated Attempt to Shore Up His Base ..."
"... New York Times, ..."
"... Today, those who defeated Trump in the Republican army are still proclaiming their loyalty to their Commander-in-Chief. But Donald Trump, memes aside, is not a sovereign or just a symbol. He is a man who created a political movement!and that movement expects results. The movement he created, and which put him in office, is desperate for him to lead on an America First agenda. ..."
"... If Trump does not give it results, the movement will eventually find a new leader. Roy Moore is almost certainly not that leader on a national scale. But in Alabama tonight, Moore proved he is stronger than the president himself. ..."
"... James Kirkpatrick [ Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. ..."
He must have known what was coming. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a pillar of the cowardly
GOP Establishment , announced he would not be running for re-election on Tuesday [
Republican Sen. Corker announces he won't seek re-election, by Richard
Lardner and Erik Schelzig, Associated Press, September 26, 2017]. Corker's
departure is widely being interpreted as a sign of the Establishment's inability to control the
GOP base, as the election of President Trump, the rise of nationalism and the emergence of
alternative media outlets (such as Breitbart and VDARE.com) make it harder for cuckservatives
to Republican primary voters in line [ Sen. Bob Corker's retirement is notable for when it's happening, by
Amber Phillips, Washington Post, September 26, 2017]
And now, we have the ultimate proof in Alabama.
Judge Roy Moore, one of the most
persistent
targets of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is now the Republican nominee for the Senate.
And he defeated incumbent Senator Luther Strange despite Strange being
endorsed by President Donald J. Trump himself.
Of course, Strange didn't just have Trump in his corner. He also had Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell using his PAC to run negative ads against Moore, ads which conservative
websites called "defamatory" and which cost many millions of dollars [ McConnell's
Super PAC accused of 'defaming ' Roy Moore, by Bob Unruh, WND,
August 3, 2017] As a result, Judge Moore openly campaigned against his party's own Senate
leader during the primary, claiming a victory for him would mean the end of McConnell's hapless
leadership. [ McConnell's
mortal enemy might soon be in his caucus, by Burgess Everett and Seung Min
Kim, Politico, September 18, 2017]
And yet, revealingly, Moore and his allies framed their insurgency against Trump's wishes as
an act of loyalty.
During a debate with Strange, Moore suggested President Trump was being "redirected" by
Mitch McConnell and others who "will not support his [Trump's] agenda" [ Alabama Senate debate erupts over whether McConnell is manipulating Trump, by Alex Isenstadt and Daniel Strauss, Politico, September 21,
2017]
And most importantly, it shows how the populist and nationalist movement is larger than
Trump himself.
Trump's advisors seem to know this. In the Fox News interview referenced above,
Dr. Gorka claimed "no one voted for Trump, we voted for his agenda." And during his speech in support of Moore,
Bannon referenced Jeff Sessions, not Trump, as
the "spiritual father of the populist and nationalist movement."
But does Trump himself know this? Already, the Main Stream Media is trying to present this
as a devastating defeat for the president personally. The New York Times kvetched
about Moore's social views and sneered that his victory "demonstrated in stark terms the limits
of Mr. Trump's clout" [ Roy Moore Wins Senate G.O.P. Runoff in Alabama, by Jonathan Martin and
Alexander Burns, September 26, 2017]. Jason Le Miere at Newsweek suggested Trump had
suffered his first major political defeat at the ballot box and hinted his political weakness
could trigger his impeachment. [ How
Alabama Senate Election Results Could Trigger Trump's Impeachment, September
26, 2017]
It's hardly a devastating defeat for President Trump when his supposed enemies are
fanatically loyal to him and his "allies" can't wait to stab him in the back.
Tellingly, Trump in his messy intuitive way is already embarking on a movement to shore up
his base by taking on the pro-Black Lives Matter and anti-American antics of the National
Football League [ Trump's
N.F.L. Critique a Calculated Attempt to Shore Up His Base, by Glenn Thrush
and Maggie Haberman, New York Times, September 25, 2017]. But such symbolic fights are
meaningless unless they are coupled with real action on trade and immigration policy.
Today, those who defeated Trump in the Republican army are still proclaiming their
loyalty to their Commander-in-Chief. But Donald Trump, memes aside, is not a sovereign or just
a symbol. He is a man who created a political movement!and that movement expects results. The
movement he created, and which put him in office, is desperate for him to lead on an America
First agenda.
If Trump does not give it results, the movement will eventually find a new leader. Roy
Moore is almost certainly not that leader on a national scale. But in Alabama tonight, Moore
proved he is stronger than the president himself.
Trump has given the Establishment Republicans their chance and they have failed him. It's
time for him to return to the people who have supported him from the very beginning.
James Kirkpatrick [ Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from
Conservatism Inc.
Look people, it's time to grasp some basic politics. The heart might have said Roy Moore
but a leader can not think with his heart alone. Whatever happened in the GOP primary, Luther
Strange was going to remain in the Senate until January. There are big, important votes
coming up in Congress and Trump's margin of error in the Senate is virtually non-existent.
What sense does it make to alienate, even slight, a sitting Senator that has always voted
your way and has never trashed you in public?
It's hardly a devastating defeat for President Trump when his supposed enemies are
fanatically loyal to him and his "allies" can't wait to stab him in the back.
As a man who supposedly highly values personal loyalty, does Trump really not understand
that the men who pushed him to support Strange are also the men who will be first in line to
vote for impeachment the moment it looks as though the leftist establishment has found a
pretext that will succeed?
The movement better start paying attention to the thoughtcrime laws being passed right now
under the banner of "hatespeech". The first amendment isn't just a nice concept. People in
other countries are jailed for speaking their mind in the way Americans take for granted.
"... We should not be entangled in foreign wars merely at the whim and caprice of a President, Moore writes on his site. We must treat sovereign nations as we would want to be treated. ..."
"... It's too early to tell whether the nationalist hawks will be more or less interventionist overall than the internationalist, neocon hawks were, Daniel McCarthy, editor-at-large at the American Conservative ..."
...Steve Bannon told me Wednesday afternoon that he and Moore, who defeated Sen. Luther
Strange (whom President Trump had backed) for the Republican primary nomination in Alabama on
Tuesday, see eye to eye on global affairs, as well, and that, yes, he is every bit the
Bannonite on foreign policy.
Moore, the twice-ousted Alabama Chief Justice, is likely headed to the United States Senate.
Bannon and the Trump movement have often been depicted as essentially non-interventionist. My
recent
reportingindicates
a
caveat to that, however. While Bannon and his cohort might differ with the
blob on confronting Kim Jong Un in North Korea or Bashar al-Assad in Syria or Vladimir
Putin in Russia, they are much more suspicious of the government of Iran. ...
... ... ...
The judges website, Roymoore.org, features such language. We should not be entangled in
foreign wars merely at the whim and caprice of a President, Moore writes on his site. We must
treat sovereign nations as we would want to be treated.
But there are notable divergences from the paleocons. Like Bannon, Moore is a hawk for
Israel. We should pass the
Taylor Force Act and move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. His writing that the U.S. should
not rely on nuclear reduction treaties which leave us vulnerable to foreign powers and that it
should reject agreements or policies that undermine Israel's security clearly alludes to the
Iran deal. The pair would part company with Buchanan on that.
And like President Trump, Moore, a graduate of West Point, wants a bigger military. More
funding should be available to develop a missile defense system and to provide our Navy, Air
Force, Army, Marines, and Coast Guard with the most modern technology including weapon systems.
Respect for our strength is the best defense. Walk softly and carry a big stick is and should
be our guide.
... ... ...
It's too early to tell whether the nationalist hawks will be more or less
interventionist overall than the internationalist, neocon hawks were, Daniel McCarthy,
editor-at-large at the American Conservative , tells me. My guess is that while the
nationalists will speak more provocatively, abort diplomatic agreements, and ramp up `political
warfare, they'll engage in fewer large-scale, nation-building interventions. McCarthy adds
that religion is important here, as well. Moore and Bannon are both on record as deeply
religious. Neoconservative foreign policy is sold as a scheme for secular salvation, bringing
the blessings of liberalism and democracy and human rights to a world that eagerly awaits them,
says McCarthy. Moore's religious convictions might help to immunize him against a belief in
worldly salvation through American arms and advisers...
Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest. Follow him on
Twitter: @CurtMills.
"... Jeb's 2016 departure draws out Mike Murphy critics , ..."
"... Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency ..."
"... Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyon ..."
"... Tensions Between and Within the Two Parties, ..."
"... When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as a "blunt instrument for us," a man who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up twenty years." ..."
"... Devil's Bargain ..."
"... the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them: despite how powerful the Establishment may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and the people it rules!for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many members of this Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have been more successful in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed, without much evidence, that undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump presidency was too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their candidate off to Arizona in the final days. ..."
"... Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading him to declare upon leaving the White House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." [ Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017] ..."
"... But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact that the current president is Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an election. Unlike GOP strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing. ..."
Throughout 2016, I would occasionally turn on the television to see how the punditocracy was responding to the mounting
Trump tsunami . If you get most of your news online, watching cable news is frustrating. The commentary is so
dumbed down and painfully
reflective of speaker's biases, you can always basically guess what's coming next. With a few exceptions!above all
Ann Coulter 's famous
June 19, 2015 prediction
of a Trump victory on
Bill Maher !these pundits again and again told us that Trump would eventually go away, first after he made this or that gaffe,
then after he "failed" in a debate, then after people actually started voting in the primaries.
The most interesting cases to me: the "
Republican
strategists ," brought on to CNN and MSNBC to give the audience the illusion that they were hearing both sides: Nicole Wallace,
Steve Schmidt, Ana Navarro, Rick Wilson, Margaret Hoover, Todd Harris.
Mike Murphy even convinced donors to hand him over $100 million to make Jeb Bush the next president! [ Jeb's 2016
departure draws out Mike Murphy critics , By Maeve Reston, February 22, 2016]
With campaigns and donors throwing money at these people, and the Main Stream Media touting them, it was easy to assume they must
know what they were talking about. Significantly, each of these pundits was a national security hawk, center-right on economic issues,
and just as horrified by "
racism " and "
sexism
" as their
Leftist counterparts . By a remarkable coincidence, the "
strategic
" advice that they gave to Republican candidates lined up perfectly with these positions. Their prominence was a mirage created
by the fact that the
MSM handed this
token opposition the
Megaphone
because they did not challenge the core prejudices of the
bipartisan Ruling Class.
And of course they were all humiliated in a spectacular fashion, November 8 being only the climax.
Joshua Green begins his book Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon,
Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by giving us a view inside the Trump campaign on election night, before
tracing Steve Bannon's path up to that point. Reliving the journey is one of the joys of Green's work, which is mostly an intellectual
biography of Steve Bannon,
with a special focus on his relationship with Trump and the election.
Bannon
joined the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016 without any previous experience in electoral politics. But like the candidate
himself, the Breitbart editor showed that he understood the nature of American politics and the GOP base
better than Establishment Republicans. The "strategists'" supposed "expertise," "strategic advice," and "analysis" was in reality
built on a house of cards. (In fact, the
Bannon-Trump
view of the electorate is closer to the
consensus among
political scientists that, unlike more nationalist and populist policies,
Republican Establishment positions have relatively little popular support. [
Political
Divisions in 2016 and Beyon d | Tensions Between and Within the Two Parties, Voter Study Group, June 2017]).
Bannon at Breitbart.com gave the Republican base what it wanted. Moral: in a democracy, you always have a chance at winning when
public opinion (or at least intraparty opinion) is on your side.
Green traces Bannon's journey from his
Irish-Catholic working-class
roots and traditionalist upbringing, to his time in the Navy, at Harvard Business School and Goldman Sachs, and finally Breitbart.com
and the pinnacle of American politics. The picture that
emerges is of a man with principles and vigor, refusing to submit to the inertia that is part of the human condition, with enough
confidence to realize that life is too short to not make major changes when staying on the current path is not going to allow him
to accomplish his goals.
For example, Bannon originally wanted a career in defense policy, and took a job in the Pentagon during the Reagan administration.
Yet he was off to Harvard Business School when he realized that the rigid
bureaucracy that he was a part of would not let him move up to a high-level position until he was middle-aged. Decades later,
after taking over his website upon the unexpected death
of Andrew Breitbart in 2012, it would have been easy to go low-risk!sticking to Establishment scripts, making life comfortable
for Republican elites, implicitly submitting to the taboos of the Left.
Instead , he helped turn Breitbart News into a major voice of the populist tide that has been remaking center-right politics
across the globe.
When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as a "blunt instrument for us," a man
who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up twenty years."
From Green, we learn much about Bannon's intellectual influences. Surprisingly, although he was raised as a Roman Catholic and
maintains that faith today, we find out that Bannon briefly practiced Zen Buddhism while in the Navy. There are other unusual influences
that make appearances in the book, including Rightist philosopher
Julius Evola and
René Guénon,
a French occultist who eventually became a Sufi Muslim. Although not exactly my cup of tea, such eccentric intellectual interests
reflect a curious mind that refuses to restrict itself to fashionable influences.
It's incorrect to call Devil's Bargain a biography. There is practically no mention of Bannon's personal life!wives,
children. I had to Google to find out that he has three daughters. His childhood is only discussed in the context of how it may have
influenced his beliefs and political development.
Rather, we get information on Bannon's intellectual and career pursuits and his relationships with consequential figures such
as mega-donor Robert Mercer, Andrew Breitbart and Donald Trump.
As Bannon exits the White House and returns to Breitbart, we must hope that Bannon and the movement he's helped to create accomplish
enough in the future to inspire more complete biographies.
But the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them: despite how powerful the Establishment
may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and the people it rules!for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many
members of this Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have been more successful
in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed,
without much evidence, that undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump presidency was
too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their
candidate off to Arizona in the final days.
Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading him to declare upon leaving the White
House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." [
Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017]
But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact that the current president is Donald
Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an
election. Unlike GOP strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing.
In his memoir Nixon's White House Wars , Pat
Buchanan writes about how, despite playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out
of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our movement had exhibited real power
in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and
though we were
playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out
of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our movement had exhibited real power
in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and
though we were veterans of a victorious presidential campaign, few of us had served in the executive branch. We lacked titles,
resumes, credentials Our pool of experienced public servants who could seamlessly move into top positions was miniscule compared
to that of the liberal Democrats who had dominated the capital's politics since FDR arrived in 1933.
History repeated itself in 2016, when Donald Trump would win the presidency on a nationalist platform but find few qualified individuals
who could reliably implement his agenda.
If nationalists want to ensure that their next generation of leaders is able to effectively implement the policies they run on,
they are going to have to engage in the slow and tedious project of working their way up through powerful institutions.
Bannon may have been and remains an "outsider" to the political Establishment. But nonetheless, throughout his life he has leveraged
elite institutions such as Harvard, Goldman Sachs, the Republican Party, and even Hollywood in order to become financially independent
and free to pursue his political goals.
If enough of those on the Dissident Right forge a similar path, we can be sure that future nationalist political victories will
be less hollow. Jeremy Cooper is a specialist in international politics and an observer of global trends. Follow him at
@NeoNeoLiberal .
@Clyde Wilson
Is there any evidence that Trump even tried to find the right people to fill the offices? Having dabbled ever so slightly
in this process in the spring, my impression is that there is a mechanism run largely by lawyers from the big DC law firms (presumably
one for each party) who are the gatekeepers for applicants. The result of this system, which I have little doubt that the "Trump
Team" did not try to take on (after all, they had only a couple of months to put together the beginnings of a team, and that left
little or no time replacing The Swamp Machine ) is that the key positions throughout the administration are largely filled with
lawyers from connected law firms. After all, who better to administer the government than lawyers!?!?
At any rate, my experience with the process was: on your marks, get set, nothing. 30 years experience in and around federal
government, but not a lawyer. Don't call us, we don't want to talk to you. (I also made clear in my cover letter that the key
motivator for my application -- and first ever political contributions -- was Trump and his agenda. In retrospect, this "admission"
was probably a kiss of death. I was a Trumpite. Eeeewww!!! (I may well not have been qualified for anything, but I'm SURE I was
disqualified by my support for Trump )
In its aftermath, commentators warned of a resurgence of economic nationalism, that is,
protectionism. Some states did increase tariff levels but this has not led to a generalised
increase in barriers to trade in the pursuit of national economies for interrelated reasons:
(1) the integration and therefore interdependency of economies; (2) the complexity of the
global economy, making it all but impossible to separate by nationality; (3) the greater
extensity of world markets compared to the mid-20th century; (4) the redundancy of the various
models of economic nationalism.
Policy Implications
Economic nationalism should be understood as a set of practices to create, bolster and
protect national economies in the context of world markets. The rise and institutionalisation
of economic nationalism in the 20th century was a product of economic crisis, nationalist
movements and enlarged states.
There has been no 'return of economic nationalism' as in a generalised rise in protective
barriers to trade since the financial crash of 2011. Unlike the 1930s, sovereign debt has not
motivated states to withdraw from global markets.
The integration, complexity and extensity of the world's economy mean that a reversal of
trade as great as during the interwar period would entail an economic Armageddon. Whatever
future ructions the world's economy experiences due, above all, to chronic levels of
sovereign debt, policy makers should be mindful of this reality.
Simultaneously, they should be aware that ongoing instability may entail greater economic
nationalism. The key lesson from the period after the Second World War is relevant now at a
more overtly global level: the importance of planning, regulation and respect for models of
economic diversity to further global trade.
"... neocons are not Alt Right. National Socialists are not Alt Right. ..."
"... The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals or globalist objectives. ..."
"... The Alt Right is opposed to the rule or domination of any native ethnic group by another, particularly in the sovereign homelands of the dominated peoples. The Alt Right is opposed to any non-native ethnic group obtaining excessive influence in any society through nepotism, tribalism, or any other means. ..."
"... The Alt Right does not believe in the general supremacy of any race, nation, people, or sub-species. Every race, nation, people, and human sub-species has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native culture it prefers. ..."
"... The Alt Right is a philosophy that values peace among the various nations of the world and opposes wars to impose the values of one nation upon another ..."
The Alt Right is of the political right in both the American and the European sense of
the term. Socialists are not Alt Right. Progressives are not Alt Right. Liberals are not Alt
Right. Communists, Marxists, Marxians, cultural Marxists, and
neocons are not Alt Right.
National Socialists are not Alt Right.
The Alt Right is an ALTERNATIVE to the mainstream conservative movement in the USA that
is nominally encapsulated by Russel Kirk's
10 Conservative
Principles
, but in reality has devolved towards progressivism. It is also an alternative
to libertarianism.
The Alt Right is not a defensive attitude and rejects the concept of noble and principled
defeat. It is a forward-thinking philosophy of offense, in every sense of that term. The Alt
Right believes in victory through persistence and remaining in harmony with science, reality,
cultural tradition, and the lessons of history.
The Alt Right believes Western civilization is the pinnacle of human achievement and
supports its three foundational pillars: Christianity, the European nations, and the
Graeco-Roman legacy.
The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the
right of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and
immigration.
The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals
or globalist objectives.
The Alt Right is anti-equalitarian. It rejects the idea of equality for the same reason
it rejects the ideas of unicorns and leprechauns, noting that human equality does not exist
in any observable scientific, legal, material, intellectual, sexual, or spiritual form.
The Alt Right is scientodific. It presumptively accepts the current conclusions of the
scientific method (scientody), while understanding a) these conclusions are liable to future
revision, b) that scientistry is susceptible to corruption, and c) that the so-called
scientific consensus is not based on scientody, but democracy, and is therefore intrinsically
unscientific.
The Alt Right believes identity > culture > politics.
The Alt Right is opposed to the rule or domination of any native ethnic group by
another, particularly in the sovereign homelands of the dominated peoples. The Alt Right is
opposed to any non-native ethnic group obtaining excessive influence in any society through
nepotism, tribalism, or any other means.
The Alt Right understands that diversity + proximity = war.
The Alt Right doesn't care what you think of it.
The Alt Right rejects international free trade and the free movement of peoples that free
trade requires. The benefits of intranational free trade is not evidence for the benefits of
international free trade.
The Alt Right believes we must secure the existence of white people and a future for
white children.
The Alt Right does not believe in the general supremacy of any race, nation, people,
or sub-species. Every race, nation, people, and human sub-species has its own unique
strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native
culture it prefers.
The Alt Right is a philosophy that values peace among the various nations of the
world and opposes wars to impose the values of one nation upon another
as well as
efforts to exterminate individual nations through war, genocide, immigration, or genetic
assimilation.
TL;DR: The Alt Right is a Western ideology that believes in science, history, reality, and
the right of a genetic nation to exist and govern itself in its own interests.
The patron saint of conservatives, Russell Kirk, wrote:
"The great line of demarcation in
modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one
side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women
who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only
needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that
line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant
human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal."
This is no longer true, assuming it ever was. The great line of demarcation in modern
politics is now a division between men and women who believe that they are ultimately defined
by their momentary opinions and those who believe they are ultimately defined by their genetic
heritage. The Alt Right understands that the former will always lose to the latter in the end,
because the former is subject to change.
Rejection of globalization by alt-right is very important. that's why make them economic nationalists.
And that's why they are hated neocon and those forces of neoliberalism which are behind Neocon/Neolib
Cultural Revolution -- promotion of LGBT, uni-gender bathrooms, transsexuals, etc, identity wedge in
politics demonstrated by Hillary, etc. (modeled on Mao's cultural revolution, which also what launched
when Mao started to lose his grip on political power).
In my experience with the alt-right, I encountered a surprisingly common narrative: Alt-right supporters
did not, for the most part, come from overtly racist families. Alt-right media platforms have actually
been pushing this meme aggressively in recent months. Far from defending the ideas and institutions
they inherited, the alt-right!which is overwhelmingly a movement of white millennials!forcefully
condemns their parents' generation. They do so because they do not believe their parents are racist
enough
In an inverse of the left-wing protest movements of the 1960s, the youthful alt-right bitterly
lambast the "boomers" for their lack of explicit ethnocentrism, their rejection of patriarchy, and
their failure to maintain America's old demographic characteristics and racial hierarchy. In the
alt-right's vision, even older conservatives are useless "cucks" who focus on tax policies and forcefully
deny that they are driven by racial animus.
... ... ...
To complicate matters further, many people in the alt-right were radicalized while in college. Not
only that, but the efforts to inoculate the next generation of America's social and economic leaders
against racism were, in some cases, a catalyst for racist radicalization. Although academic seminars
that explain the reality of white privilege may reduce feelings of prejudice among most young whites
exposed to them, they have the opposite effect on other young whites. At this point we do not know
what percentage of white college students react in such a way, but the number is high enough to warrant
additional study.
A final problem with contemporary discussions about racism is that they often remain rooted in
outdated stereotypes. Our popular culture tends to define the racist as a toothless illiterate Klansman
in rural Appalachia, or a bitter, angry urban skinhead reacting to limited social prospects. Thus,
when a white nationalist movement arises that exhibits neither of these characteristics, people are
taken by surprise.
It boggles my mind that the left, who were so effective at dominating the culture wars basically
from the late 60s, cannot see the type of counter-culture they are creating. Your point about
alt-righters opposing their parents drives this home.
People have been left to drift in a sea of postmodernism without an anchor for far too long
now, and they are grasping onto whatever seems sturdy. The alt-right, for its many faults, provides
something compelling and firm to grab.
The left's big failure when all the dust settles will be seen as its inability to provide a
coherent view of human nature and a positive, constructive, unifying message. They are now the
side against everything – against reason, against tradition, against truth, against shared institutions
and heritage and nationalism It's no wonder people are looking to be for something these days.
People are sick of being atomized into smaller and smaller units, fostered by the left's new and
now permanent quest to find new victim groups.
I'm disappointed to read an article at The American Conservative that fails to address the reality
behind these numbers. Liberal identity politics creates an inherently adversarial arena, wherein
white people are depicted as the enemy. That young whites should respond by gravitating toward
identity politics themselves in not surprising, and it's a bit offensive to attribute this trend
to the eternal mysteries of inexplicable "racist" hate.
The young can see through the fake dynamic being depicted in the mainstream media, and unless
The American Conservative wants to completely lose relevance, a light should be shone on the elephant
in the room. For young white kids, The Culture Wars often present an existential threat, as Colin
Flaherty shows in Don't Make the Black Kids Angry–endorsed and heralded as a troubling and important
work by Thomas Sowell.
From the 16 Points of the Alt-Right:
5. The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the right
of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and immigration.
6. The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals or globalist
objectives.
It is important to remember that nations are people, not geography. The current American Union,
enforced by imperial conquest, is a Multi-National empire. It has been held together by force
and more recently by common, though not equal, material prosperity.
With the imposition of Globalism's exotic perversions and eroding economic prospects the American
Union is heading for the same fate as all Multi-National empires before it.
Mysteriously absent from the scholarly discussion seems to be the pioneer of sociology, Ludwig
Gumplowicz. Incredibly so, as the same factors that led to the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire abound in contemporary America.
I have two teenage sons – we live in Canada – and they tell that, no matter what they say, who
they hang out with, what music they listen to, no matter how many times they demonstrate they
are not racist, they are repeatedly called racist. They are automatically guilty because they
are white. They are beaten over the head with this message in school and in the press and are
sick and tired of it.
What might also be considered is the cultural effect upon a generation which has now matured through
what the government calls "perpetual war," with the concomitant constant celebration of "warriors,"
hyper-patriotism as demanded of all public events such as shown in the fanaticism of baseball
players engaged in "National Anthem standouts," such as were popular a couple years ago in MLB,
the constant references in political campaigns to the "enemy," to include Russia as well now,
and the "stab in the back" legend created to accuse anyone opposed to more war and occupation
of "treason." We've "radicalized" our own youth, with Trump coming along with his links to Israel's
ultra militarist, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli "Right," and created a cultural condition
much like this:
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/04/conservative-revolutionaries-fascism/
Odd, you write "How did the youngest white Americans respond to the most racially polarizing election
in recent memory?" In reality it was less racially polarized than 2012, when 93 % of African Americans
and 71% of Hispanics voted for Obama while in 2016 88% of Blacks and 65% of Hispanics voted from
Hillary. So Trump won a higher percentage of African American votes and Hispanic votes than Mitt
Romney. In 2008 Obama won 95% of Blacks and 67% of Hispanics, in 2004 the numbers were 88 and
53 for Kerry so the three elections between 2004 and and 2016 were all more polarizing than the
2016 race.
Yes, you make many important points, Mr. Hawley, but that you feel the need to join the chorus
of those who see our president's reaction to Charlottesville as somehow inappropriate or even
itself racist–that is sad. I don't see what else you may be implying in your opening paragraphs,
since you move directly from the number of "likes" Obama's bromide received to this: "[Obama's
reaction] also offered a stark contrast to that of President Trump."
In spite of many liberals' frantic desire to read whatever they want into President Trump's
words, he very clearly condemned the neo-Nazis and the evil of Heather Heyer's murderer. That
he also condemned the violence coming from Antifa ranks does not lessen his condemnation
of that coming from the alt right side. Rather, condemning the rising illiberalism on both sides
of this growing conflict was both commendable and necessary.
Many Americans see these recent events in a context stretching back years. Myself, at fifty,
having watched especially the steady empowerment of a demagogic left on our campuses, I'm not
much surprised that a racist "white nationalist" movement should burst into flame at just this
point. The kindling is right there in the anti-white, misandrous virulence of our SJW left.
Sane conservatives have strongly condemned the new alt-right racism. The problem is that we
are not seeing anything similar from the left. Our left seems incapable of condemning, let alone
even seeing , its own racist excesses. Which are everywhere in its discourse, especially
in our humanities departments.
I would say that in the recent decades the American left has grown much more deeply invested
in identity politics than the right has ever been during my lifetime. In my view, our left has
grown more enamored of identity issues precisely because it has abandoned the bread and butter
issues that really matter to most Americans.
I have many left-liberal friends and regularly read the left press. Surveying the reactions
to Charlottesville and the rising conflict between alt-right extremists and a radicalized Antifa
left, I see nowhere a step toward acknowledging the obvious: our rabid identity politics is by
no means just a problem of the right.
Racial identity politics is a curse. Sadly, it seems we've been cursed by it well and and good.
The poison's reaching down to the bone. Unless both smart moderates and people on the left start
to recognize just how badly poisoned our left has been by this curse, no progress will be made.
Identity politics needs to be condemned on both sides of this growing national street brawl,
and it should start NOW.
But I'm afraid it's not going to happen. I see my friends on the left, and they're nowhere
near acknowledging the problem. And I'm sad to see our president's attempt to call out both sides
has gotten such negative reactions. I'm afraid this isn't going to end well.
Liberal identity politics creates an inherently adversarial arena, wherein white people are
depicted as the enemy. That young whites should respond by gravitating toward identity politics
themselves in not surprising
One of many good reasons for rejecting "identity" politics generally.
A white friend attended a Cal State graduate program for counseling a couple of years ago; he
left very bitter after all his classes told him that white men were the proximate cause of the
world's misery. Then a mutual Latina friend from church invited him to coffee and told him that
he was the white devil, the cause of her oppression. You can conclude how he felt.
The liberal universities' curricula has caused a storm of madness; they have unleashed their
own form of oppressive thought on a significant portion on American society:white men. There is
now an adverse reaction. Of course, even more opprobrium will be heaped upon on men who might
question the illogicality of feminism and the left. How can all of this end well if the humanity
of white men is denied in universities, public schools and universities?
The Alt Right simply believes that Western nations have a right to preserve their culture and
heritage. Every normal man in these United States agreed with that premise prior to the Marxist
takeover of our institutions in the 1960's. And you know it's true.
Maybe at the bottom of it is not racism as in they are the wrong colour, but about cultural traits
and patterns of behaviour that are stirring resentment. Plus maybe the inclusion towards more
social benefits not available before (Obamacare?).
The current rap music, as opposed to the initial one, that emphasized social injustice is such
that one feels emptying his own stomach like sharks do.
The macho culture that black gangs, latin american gangs manifest is a bit antagonistic to
white supremacists gangs and attitudes towards women. After all, vikings going raiding used to
have shield maidens joining, and Celtic culture is full of women warriors. Northern European culture,
harking back to pre-Christian times was more kinder to women than what women from southern Europe
(Greece, Rome) experienced (total ownership by husbands, the veil, etc., all imported from the
Middle East: but one must not judge too harshly, the book "Debt, the first 5000 years" could be
an eye opener of the root causes of such attitudes).
Also, the lack of respect for human life expressed in these cultures is not that palatable,
even for white supremacists (while one can point to Nazi Germany as an outlier – but there it
was the state that promoted such attitudes, while in Japan the foreigner that is persecuted and
ostracized could be the refugee from another village around Fukushima – see the Economist on that).
So I think there are many avenues to explore in identifying the rise in Alt right and white
supremacists in the U.S. But colour is definitely not it.
Come now. There were the same types around me years ago at school, work, society. They just did
not march around like Nazis in public, probably because the Greatest Generation would have kicked
their butts.
Now, with the miracle of modern technology, a few hundred of them can get together and raise
hell in one place. Plus they now get lots of encouraging internet press (and some discouraging).
This article says virtually nothing.
The author fails to define his terms, beginning with Alt-Right.
And he seems to operate from a dislike of Trump underneath it all. This dislike is common among
pundits, left and right, who consider themselves to be refined and cultured. So it was that the
NYT's early condemnation of Trump led with complaints about his bearing and manners – "vulgar"
was the word often used if memory serves.
This gets us nowhere. Many in the US are disturbed by the decline in their prospects with a decrease
in share of wages in the national income ongoing since the 1970's – before Reagan who is blamed
for it all. Add to that the 16 years of wars which have taken the lives of Trump supporters disproportionately
and you have a real basis for grievances.
Racism seems to be a side show as does AntiFa.
"The accusation of being racist because you are white is a misunderstanding of structural racism."
I agree, but I notice that Jews have the same misunderstanding when you mention structural
"Zionist Occupied Government" or "Jewish Privilege".
Perhaps because they are both conspiracy theories rooted in hatred and ignorance, which is
where we descend when the concept of a statistical distribution or empirical data become "controversial",
or "feelings" overtake "facts".
And progressives still refer to KKK when they seek an example of a white supremacist group. Amazing.
They are too lazy even to learn that the Klan lost its relevance long ago, and the most powerful
white supremacist organization of today consists of entirely different people, who are very far
from being illiterate.
***
Todd Pierce,
Israel's ultra militarist, Benjamin Netanyahu
I won't deny that Bibi is a controversial figure, but calling him an ultra militarist is quite
a bit of a stretch.
Elite sports. After reading this article and it's underlying thesis, it occurs to me that the
way sports have evolved in this country is very likely to be the experience that millennial whites
have had that fosters their "out group" belief systems. It is very common, using soccer as my
frame of reference, for wealthy suburban families to spend a fortune getting their children all
the best training and access to all the best clubs. Their children are usually the best players
in their community of origin and usually the top players all the way through the preadolescent
years only to find all of that money and prestige gone to waste once their kids get to around
sixteen at which point their children are invariably replaced on the roster by a recent immigrant -- mainly from Africa or south of our border and usually at a cut rate compared to the one they
are bleeding the suburban families with. I'm assuming this is becoming more common across all
sports as they move toward a pay to play corporate model. In soccer, the white kids are, seriously,
the paying customers who fill out the roster that supports the truly talented kids (from countries
who know how to develop soccer talent.)
The thing is when blacks begin to feel power and a secure place in America then their true colors
show-at least among many. Left unchecked they would become the biggest racists of all. You can
see that now. So what it comes down to are white people going to give away their country? Until
blacks become cooperative and productive things need to stay as they are. Sad maybe but that's
just the way it has to be.
There have always been fringe, rightwing groups in the US. Nothing new there. But the so-called
alt-right, comprised of Nazi wannabes and assorted peckerwoods, is truly the spawn of the looney
left, whose obsession with race has created the toxic environment we find ourselves in.
"... Bannon openly acknowledged his animus for the "Party of Davos" editorial positions of The Economist ..."
"... For Mr Bannon, who went from a working-class Virginian family to careers in Wall Street and Hollywood, those agreements epitomised the folly of globalisation, which he considers disastrous for American workers and avoidable. He hardened this critique after returning to America from a spell in Hong Kong; China, whose gaming of WTO rules Mr Bannon considers tantamount to an "economic war" against America, remains at the heart of it. ..."
"... When some of Mr Bannon's early schemes failed -- including the shabbily planned travel ban, now snarled up in the courts -- Mr Trump turned increasingly to his more conventional advisers, including Mr Kushner and Mr McMaster. ..."
President Trump's former chief strategist and current Breitbart
News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon invited the editors of
The Economist
to his
home for a candid discussion about the future of the populist economic nationalist movement and
the civilizational challenges that will pit "the Judeo-Christian liberal West" against
globalist "mercantilist" forces from China to Silicon Valley.
Bannon openly acknowledged his animus for the "Party of Davos" editorial positions of
The Economist
, referring to them as "the enemy" of economic nationalism for their
"radical" obsession with free trade at all costs.
He also affirmed his loyalty to Trump and his desire to help him. Breitbart "will never turn
on [Trump]," Bannon said, "But we are never going to let him take a decision that hurts
him."
Bannon acknowledged that in the White House he had "influence," but outside at Breitbart he
has "power." He said he intends to use that power to "rally the base" and "have [Trump's] back.
The harder he pushes, the more we will be there for him."
The discussion soon turned to what Bannon sees as the inevitable civilizational struggle
between the Judeo-Christian classical liberalism of the West -- which affirms human rights,
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and self-governance -- versus the "mercantilist,
Confucian system" of an ascendant China.
Among the particular opponents he has in his sights, said Mr Bannon, seated in a
dining-room decorated with Christian iconography and political mementos, are congressional
Republicans ("Mitch McConnell, I'm going to light him up"), China ("Let's go screw up One
Belt One Road") and "the elites in Silicon Valley and Wall Street -- they're a bunch of
globalists who have forgotten their fellow Americans." Despite his departure -- voluntarily, he
insists, though his resignation is reported to have been demanded of him -- Mr Bannon says he
will never attack his former boss. Yet Breitbart will caution Mr Trump to stick to the
populist nationalist course Mr Bannon charted. "We will never turn on him. But we are never
going to let him take a decision that hurts him." The website offered an early taste of this
in its disparaging coverage of Mr Trump's "flip-flop" decision to send more American troops
to Afghanistan, which was announced on August 21st and Mr Bannon strongly opposes (see
article
).
As Mr Trump's campaign chief (his third in two months, the campaign having been roiled by
scandals) Mr Bannon urged him to redouble that effort [to campaign on as a populist economic
nationalist taking on the politically correct establishment]. "The American people understood
his foibles and understood his character flaws and they didn't care," he says. "The country
was thirsting for change and [Barack] Obama didn't give them enough. I said, we are going for
a nationalist message, we are going to go barbarian, and we will win."
For Mr Bannon, who went from a working-class Virginian family to careers in Wall Street
and Hollywood, those agreements epitomised the folly of globalisation, which he considers
disastrous for American workers and avoidable. He hardened this critique after returning to
America from a spell in Hong Kong; China, whose gaming of WTO rules Mr Bannon considers
tantamount to an "economic war" against America, remains at the heart of it.
A zealous
Catholic who believes in the inevitability of civilizational conflict, he considers China's
growth to be an additional, overarching threat to America, which it must therefore dial back.
"I want the world to look back in 100 years and say, their mercantilist, Confucian system
lost. The Judeo-Christian liberal West won."
The president has, if not fixed intellectual differences with Mr Bannon, different
predilections, including his slavish regard for the military and business elites now stocking
his cabinet, whom his former adviser derides. ("What did the elites do?" asks Mr Bannon.
"These are the guys who gave us happy talk on Iraq, who let China into the WTO and said it
would sign up to the rules-based order.")
When some of Mr Bannon's early schemes
failed -- including the shabbily planned travel ban, now snarled up in the courts -- Mr Trump
turned increasingly to his more conventional advisers, including Mr Kushner and Mr McMaster.
On trade and security in particular, they have edged him towards the mainstream. Whereas Mr
Bannon urged the president to withdraw from NAFTA and Afghanistan, for example, he has
launched a modest-looking review of the former and will send more troops to the latter.
Increasingly isolated, Mr Bannon's departure from the White House was predicted.
'I'm not going to breathe the same air as
that terrorist'
Bannon boycotted Trump meet with 'terrorist' Abbas --
report
Days after his ouster from the White House, the extent of the animosity
between divisive strategist Steve Bannon and the president's son-in-law
Jared Kushner is steadily emerging in US media reports, with an article in
Vanity Fair detailing their disputes and asserting that Bannon is now
planning his "revenge."
Bannon, a hero of the so-called "alt right" whose presence in the West
Wing was controversial from the start, had become the nucleus of one of
several competing power centers in a chaotic White House. During his
six-month tenure as Trump's chief strategist, Bannon and Kushner reportedly
clashed on numerous policy issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
... ... ...
Hours after he was fired, Bannon
returned to his previous job as editor of the ultra-conservative
Breitbart News, where he declared war on Ivanka, Kushner and
fellow "globalist" Gary Cohn.
The Vanity Fair article was headlined:
"Steve Bannon readies his revenge: The war on Jared Kushner is
about to go nuclear."
... ... ...
"Jared and Ivanka helped push him out. They were concerned about how they
were being viewed by the Jewish community," The Mail reported on Sunday.
Jossef Perl
·
Nahariyah, Hazafon, Israel
Yes, this time it is Tamar
Pileggi who gives us Time of Israel's typical Trump's
blasting story quoting "Vanity Fair detailing their (i.e.
Kushner vs. Bannon) disputes and asserting that Bannon is
now planning his 'revenge."" If it comes from Vanity Fair
that Bannon is planning a revenge (albeit without a single
named source) it must be true right? But this is what the
US fake news media has decended to, while the Israeli fake
news media goes one step lower, just quoting the US fake
media. Any 7 years old can see the that intent here
continues to be to creat an impression that the Trump
white is out of control and everything around Trum is
falling apart. How can this kind of media continue to
think the public believes a word from them? Tamar Pileggi,
if all you do is quoting Vanity Fair, which is typical to
the rest of the staff at TOI, why don't you all just
include a link to the original articles in your TOI
webpage? Who need all of you filling your paper by quoting
other publications without any due diligence? How can you
call yourselves journalists when all you do is cut and
paste?
Audrey Travis
·
Works at
Music Teacher - Retired
Perhaps, but 90% of
the world knows nothing about the
extreme violence of the ultra left
Antifa and the fact the y brought and
used weapons in Charlottesville. What
Trump should have done was be explicit
in the detailsof why he was condemning
both side. His broadsided condemnation
of both sides was the problem.
Albert Reingewirtz
·
Works at
Happily Retired
He did not do any
equivalence between two despicable gangs
of mobsters. He talked about BOTH of
their VIOLENCE. You listen too much to
propaganda. The more they repeat the
more people believe their lies.
Steve Klein
·
Works at
Self-Employed
Albert Reingewirtz,
do you believe there were "some very
fine" people marching with the Nazis in
Charlottesville?
Like
·
Reply
·
2
·
Aug 21, 2017 5:17am
Steve Klein
·
Works at
Self-Employed
'Bannon: Mahmoud Abbas is a terrorist,
I'd never meet with him'
Ousted WH strategist Steve Bannon reportedly lobbied hard
for Jerusalem embassy move, tougher line against PA - but
was opposed by Kushner.
David Rosenberg, 21/08/17 11:23 (Israel National News)
"... The "West Wing Democrats" in the White House are eager to sacrifice President Donald Trump's top campaign promise in exchange for Democratic approval of the tax cuts sought by wealthy donors and business interests, according to an article in Politico. In an August 23 article about Trump's push to get funding for an extended border wall, Politico described the lack of support for the wall among his business-affiliated aides: Few staff members in the West Wing are as concerned about it [as the President], senior administration officials said. Some in the White House have urged Trump not to focus as much on the wall, try to pass a clean debt-ceiling bill and move to tax reform. "You have barely anyone here saying, 'Wall, wall, we have to get the wall at all costs,'" one White House official said. Two people who have spoken to Trump said he sees not building the wall as a personal embarrassment -- and that he has shown more interest in building the wall than in other issues, like the upcoming budget negotiations. "You don't want a government shutdown," the White House official said. "He is told that. He says, 'I want money for the wall.'" The same emphasis on tax cuts for the elite before immigration reform for voters was also cited by Axios on August 20, in an article which claimed to explain why top staff chose to stay in the White House amid elite hatred of his populist, wage-boosting, pro-American priorities. Axios reported : We talked to a half dozen senior administration officials, who range from dismayed but certain to stay, to disgusted and likely soon to leave. They all work closely with Trump and his senior team so, of course, wouldn't talk on the record. Instead, they agreed to let us distill their thinking/rationale: "You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill": The most common response centers on the urgent importance of having smart, sane people around Trump to fight his worst impulses. If they weren't there, they say, we would have a trade war with China, massive deportations, and a government shutdown to force construction of a Southern wall. "General Mattis needs us": Many talk about their reluctance to bolt on their friends and colleagues who are fighting the good fight to force better Trump behavior/decisions. They rightly point out that together, they have learned how to ignore Trump's rhetoric and, at times, collectively steer him to more conventional policy responses. This situation leaves Trump dependent on a few aides -- such as immigration reformer Steve Miller -- and his supporters at his rallies to help fend off the insistent demands by his globalist aides for a back-room surrender of his presidential goals. ..."
"... the pro-American immigration reformers who backed Trump in the election fear his globalist aides will push Trump to accept and establish former President Barack Obama's DACA amnesty in exchange for minor concessions, such as a modest amount of funds to build a short distance of border wall. ..."
The "West Wing Democrats" in the White House are eager to sacrifice President Donald Trump's
top campaign promise in exchange for Democratic approval of the tax cuts sought by wealthy donors
and business interests, according to an article in Politico.
In an August 23 article about Trump's push to get funding for an extended border wall, Politico
described the lack of support for the wall among his business-affiliated aides:
Few staff members in the West Wing are as concerned about it [as the President], senior administration
officials said.
Some in the White House have urged Trump not to focus as much on the wall, try to pass a clean
debt-ceiling bill and move to tax reform. "You have barely anyone here saying, 'Wall, wall, we
have to get the wall at all costs,'" one White House official said.
Two people who have spoken to Trump said he sees not building the wall as a personal embarrassment
-- and that he has shown more interest in building the wall than in other issues, like the
upcoming budget negotiations. "You don't want a government shutdown," the White House official
said. "He is told that. He says, 'I want money for the wall.'"
The same emphasis on tax cuts for the elite before immigration reform for voters was also cited
by Axios on August 20, in an article which claimed to explain why top staff chose to stay in the
White House amid elite hatred of his populist, wage-boosting, pro-American priorities. Axios
reported :
We talked to a half dozen senior administration officials, who range from dismayed but certain
to stay, to disgusted and likely soon to leave. They all work closely with Trump and his senior
team so, of course, wouldn't talk on the record. Instead, they agreed to let us distill their
thinking/rationale:
"You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill": The most common response centers on the urgent
importance of having smart, sane people around Trump to fight his worst impulses. If they weren't
there, they say, we would have a trade war with China, massive deportations, and a government
shutdown to force construction of a Southern wall.
"General Mattis needs us": Many talk about their reluctance to bolt on their friends and colleagues
who are fighting the good fight to force better Trump behavior/decisions. They rightly point out
that together, they have learned how to ignore Trump's rhetoric and, at times, collectively steer
him to more conventional policy responses.
This situation leaves Trump dependent on a few aides -- such as immigration reformer
Steve Miller -- and his supporters at his rallies to help fend off the insistent demands
by his globalist aides for a back-room surrender of his presidential goals.
That surrender would help his aides win Democratic support for their goals -- but
it would leave Trump with few friends heading into the 2018 midterm elections and the crucial 2020
reelection, says D.C. insiders. For example, the pro-American immigration reformers who backed
Trump in the election fear his
globalist aides will push Trump to accept and establish former President Barack Obama's DACA
amnesty in exchange for minor concessions, such as a modest amount of funds to build a short distance
of border wall.
"If [Trump's aides] are left to their own devices, they would exchange this for a few trinkets,"
so violating Trump's campaign promise before the 2018 and 2020 elections, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman
for FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
The suggested deal was outlined in a Tuesday
article by Anita Kumar, a reporter for the McClatchy news service. She uses the Democrats' term
-- 'dreamers' – to describe the 800,000 DACA illegals as she wrote:
White House officials want Trump to strike an ambitious deal with Congress that offers Dreamers
protection in exchange for legislation that pays for a border wall and more detention facilities,
curbs legal immigration and implements E-verify, an online system that allows businesses to
check immigration status, according to a half-dozen people familiar with situation, most involved
with the negotiations.
The group includes former and current White House chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus and
John Kelly , the president's daughter,
Ivanka Trump , and her husband,
Jared Kushner , who both serve as presidential advisers, they said. Others who have not been
as vocal publicly about their stance but are thought to agree include Vice President
Mike Pence , who as a congressman worked on a failed immigration deal that called for citizenship,
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, a Democrat who serves as director of the
National Economic Council.
There is no evidence that Democrats will accept that ambitious deal before the 2018 election,
and much evidence that Trump's aides will quickly give up wall funding and the popular RAISE Act
to win Democratic support for tax cuts. So far, top Democrats have responded that they would
not offer anything as they demand a permanent DACA amnesty.
However, Trump's determination to resist his aides is likely boosted by the cheering he gets at
rallies when he promises to build the wall.
"We are building a wall on the southern border, which is absolutely necessary," he told roughly
30,000 cheering supporters at an August 22 rally in Phoenix, Ariz. "The obstructionist Democrats
would like us not to do it, believe me, [but] if we have to close down our government, we are building
that wall We're going to have our wall. We're going to get our wall."
There you have it, @realDonaldTrump
-- Your own 30k focus-group. LIKE: deportations, a wall, jobs; DON'T LIKE: Media,
Afghan War & tax cuts.
Read the Axios article
here , and the Politico article
here .
Under current immigration policy, the federal government accepts 1 million legal immigrants each
year, even though 4 million young Americans enter the workforce to look for decent jobs. Each year,
the government also hands out
almost 3 million short-term work permits to foreign workers. These permits include
roughly 330,000 one-year OPT permits for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges, roughly
200,000 three-year H-1B visas for foreign white-collar professionals, and 400,000 two-year permits
to DACA illegals.
Many
polls show that Americans are very generous, they do welcome individual immigrants, and they
do want to like the idea of immigration. But the polls also show that most Americans
are increasingly worried that large-scale legal immigration will
change their country and disadvantage themselves and their children. Trump's "Buy American, Hire
American" policies are also
extremely popular , including among Democratic-leaning voters.
The country is better off with him out of the West Wing, but now Trump has to step up.
After departing his post as White House chief strategist last week, Steve Bannon told the Weekly Standard that "the Trump presidency
that we fought for, and won, is over." The clear suggestion is that Mr. Trump's chance at success had followed Mr. Bannon out the
door.
Trying to recast his ouster as a personal choice, Mr. Bannon bragged "I can fight better on the outside." He promised "to crush
the opposition," saying "I built a f! machine at Breitbart."
The former adviser also told a Bloomberg reporter he would be "going to war for Trump against his opponents!on Capitol Hill, in
the media, and in corporate America."...
"... Stephen Bannon may have been a political adviser to President Donald Trump, but his firing Friday could have an impact on U.S. foreign policy from Europe to the Middle East and Asia. Bannon's exit clears an obstacle for backers of an active U.S. foreign policy in line with recent presidencies -- and is a resounding win for Bannon's internal rival, national security adviser H.R. McMaster. ..."
"... More generally, it will remove an internal brake on U.S. military action abroad. Bannon has argued greater U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria and was among the few White House officials to oppose President Donald Trump's early-April missile strike in Syria. ..."
"... Tonight if Trump order more troops to Afghanistan, he'd put the last and hardest nail on his own coffin. I do not understand, how long Americans will let the Deep State win, making them sacrificial animals at the mercy of a perpetual power. ..."
His exit is a win for backers of a more traditional -- and interventionist -- U.S. foreign policy.
Stephen Bannon may have been a political adviser to President Donald Trump,
but his firing Friday could have an impact on U.S. foreign policy from Europe to the Middle East
and Asia. Bannon's exit clears an obstacle for backers of an active U.S. foreign policy in line with recent
presidencies -- and is a resounding win for Bannon's internal rival, national security adviser H.R.
McMaster.
Bannon was a regular participant in national security debates, often as an opponent of military
action and a harsh critic of international bodies like the United Nations and the European Union.
He has also been a withering critic of diplomatic, military and intelligence professionals -- "globalists"
he says have repeatedly shown bad judgment, particularly when it comes to U.S. military interventions
abroad. That put him at loggerheads with Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, as well as McMaster.
"If you look at the balance of power of isolationists versus internationalists in the White House
now, it seems safe to say that the pendulum has swung towards the internationalists," said Danielle
Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Though Bannon has not described himself as an "isolationist," he has proudly adopted Trump's "America
First" motto, which he says argues for spending less blood and treasure overseas for anything less
than America's most vital interests.
He has also alarmed European leaders with his criticism of the E.U. and his expressed support
for some European nationalist movements. Bannon actively backed Great Britain's 2016 "Brexit" from
the E.U. and introduced Trump to its chief political advocate, the populist British politician Nigel
Farage.
"Our European allies are happy about Bannon's departure," said Jorge Benitez, a senior fellow
with the Atlantic Council.
In the immediate term, foreign policy insiders agreed, Bannon's departure also could increase
the chances of a U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan -- a plan championed by McMaster but strongly opposed
by Bannon, who managed to draw out debate on the issue with direct appeals to Trump.
More generally, it will remove an internal brake on U.S. military action abroad. Bannon has argued
greater U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria and was among the few White House officials to oppose
President Donald Trump's early-April missile strike in Syria.
Bannon is not totally conflict averse: He calls for a far stronger U.S. posture against China
and has warned that war with Beijing could be inevitable. But he pressed Trump to take economic,
not military action against Beijing.
And on Wednesday, Bannon told the American Prospect magazine that there is "no military solution"
to Trump's standoff with North Korea -- undermining the president's recent military threats against
that country, and echoing China's view of the situation.
Beyond the policy realm, Bannon's exit is a clear victory for national security adviser H.R. McMaster,
who at times seemed to be in zero-sum struggle with the Trump adviser for power and influence in
the White House.
Foreign policy veterans were startled when, in early February, Trump designated Bannon as a member
of the National Security Council's elite principals committee -- calling it unprecedented for a White
House political adviser to have a reserved seat at the table for life-and-death debates.
McMaster stripped Bannon of his official NSC position in April, after succeeding the ousted Michael
Flynn -- a Bannon ally -- as national security adviser. Bannon continued to attend NSC meetings and debates
about foreign policy in the Oval Office. But Bannon resented McMaster for demoting him, and for purging
several Flynn allies from the NSC.
Bannon and McMaster also sharply differed on how Trump should discuss terrorist groups like ISIS
and al Qaeda. Bannon favors using the phrase "radical Islamic extremism," but McMaster has largely
prevented Trump from saying it in public on the grounds that it could alienate moderate Muslims who
hear it as an attack on their religion.
McMaster's defenders have accused Bannon of spearheading a campaign of leaks meant to undermine
the top national security aide.
"The campaign to get him out was clearly coming from Bannon or his allies," said Brian McKeon,
a former NSC chief of staff and senior Pentagon policy official in the Obama administration. "The
national security adviser's job is hard enough without having to always look over your shoulder to
see who's trying to knife you.
"This will make McMaster's days a little easier," he added.
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media
Likely to share McMaster's satisfaction at Bannon's ouster is Tillerson, who chafed at Bannon's
role in State Department personnel decisions. Speaking to the American Prospect this week, Bannon
boasted that he was working to remove Tillerson's top official for China and East Asia.
"I'm getting Susan Thornton out at State," Bannon said in the interview.
In a pointed show of support the next morning, Tillerson shook Thornton's hand in front of television
cameras.
And when Tillerson recommended in February that Trump nominate former Reagan and George W. Bush
administration official Elliott Abrams to be his deputy, Bannon intervened to block the choice, according
to Abrams.
"Bannon's departure probably means a return to normalcy, where the State and Defense Departments
will have greater influence on foreign policy," Abrams said.
Bannon also told the Prospect that he was "changing out people" on the Pentagon's China desk.
Mattis, too, has had personnel disputes with the White House.
"Anything that Tillerson and Mattis really push for will now have a better chance of winning out
-- for
better and for worse," Abrams added.
Abrams and others said that Bannon's exit makes it more likely that McMaster and Mattis will convince
Trump to send more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the subject of a meeting among Trump and his national
security team at Camp David today.
Some sources downplayed the significance of Bannon's departure, however -- noting that, on military
and diplomatic issues, Bannon was more dissenter than policy maker.
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security aide to former President Barack Obama, said Bannon's
main contributions was his backing for Trump's early executive orders restricting travel from several
Muslim-majority countries. Bannon was also a defender of his friend and ally Sebastian Gorka, a controversial
White House adviser who often appears on television.
"On national security, it was hard to see Bannon's influence anywhere other than the Muslim ban
and Gorka doing cable hits, so I don't think it changes that much," Rhodes said, adding: "It does
suggest a greater likelihood of a troop increase in Afghanistan."
And several sources cautioned that while Bannon may not longer occupy the White House, his worldview
is still frequently reflected in the words of the most powerful policymaker of all: President Trump.
European allies "will not be popping champagne corks because their main source of worry remains
in the White House, Donald Trump," Benitez said. "Most Europeans blame Trump personally rather than
Bannon or other subordinates for damaging transatlantic relations."
"The president gets the last vote," McKeon added. "And he has a different approach to foreign
policy than all his predecessors."
As long as there is disagreement there is hope for compromise and moderation. If everyone in the
Executive branch were in agreement, there would be no hope for moderation..
Our 'dear' leaders are NOT in control.
North Korea ia a distraction as is Trump. Examine the military buildup by Nsto against Russia. Time for Germany, Russia and China to work together militarily for harmony/peace in our world.
330 million people and a bunch of nutbars in charge of the place, very few of whom have ever had
a vote cast for them in any election, Trump being the exception. Some guy like Bannon sits around
formulating a wanker worldview and somehow gains power for seven months. I don't suppose the EU
gives a tinker's damn that he dislikes it, it's none of his business. Fulminating on it just exposes
his acceptance of Imperial America, muttering threats because in his blinkered mind that's not
the way the US would have organized Europe - I am unaware that anyone with a brain regards Bannon
as an intellectual, merely a weirdo. Then you have all these generals running around thinking
they're political geniuses or something, all unelected bozos with little exposure to real life.
Giving and taking orders and salutes all around, living a regimented life - just the thing for
running the civilian part of the USA.
Why is it that in the US you vote for dogcatchers, sheriffs and judges which no other country
bothers with, yet all these high cabinet posts are filled from unelected dorks out there who somehow
got noticed, picked by the president, nominated and agreed to by the Senate? The argument has
been, well because they're specialists. So what - they're not responsible to the electorate in
any direct manner. There's a fat chance that they are managerial competents if they are from the
military, a big chance they have developed some warped theory about the world, and few of them
are in the slightest bit interested in domestic politics as it relates to the average citizen.
50% of the budget goes to running the armed forces, by nature always measuring foreign "threats"
as if diplomacy was a competition or something. The business types picked as cabinet secretaries
are invariably from the big business side of the ledger and find foreigners annoying when they
don't hand over their natural resources for next to nothing royalties, leading to the government
bashing these foreigners over the head until they put someone in charge who sees the "light" and
becomes a US ally.
It's a formula for bad government for the domestic population from beginning to end. So up
ramps the patriotism to make the people keep the faith which many are happy to do, and then they
crap all over the way other countries are organized, their food, customs and "only in America
can a hobo be elected President" and there's no opportunity anywhere but in the USA memes. Mesmerized
by their own propaganda into thinking the US is the best there is. Cough.
Tonight if Trump order more troops to Afghanistan, he'd put the last and hardest nail on his own
coffin.
I do not understand, how long Americans will let the Deep State win, making them sacrificial
animals at the mercy of a perpetual power.
"... Before his death in May, Roger Ailes had sent word to Bannon that he wanted to start a channel together. Bannon loved the idea: He believes Fox is heading in a squishy, globalist direction as the Murdoch sons assume more power. ..."
"... "That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying." ..."
"... The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over I feel jacked up Now I'm free. I've got my hands back on my weapons ..."
Axios:
that part of that war effort might include a brand new cable news network to the right of Fox
News.
Axios' Jonathan Swan hears Bannon has told friends he sees a massive opening to the right of
Fox News , raising the possibility that he's going to start a network. Bannon's friends are speculating about whether it will be a standalone TV network, or online
streaming only.
Before his death in May, Roger Ailes had sent word to Bannon that he wanted to start a
channel together. Bannon loved the idea: He believes Fox is heading in a squishy, globalist
direction as the Murdoch sons assume more power.
Now he has the means, motive and opportunity: His chief financial backer, Long Island hedge
fund billionaire Bob Mercer, is ready to invest big in what's coming next, including a huge
overseas expansion of Breitbart News. Of course, this new speculation comes after Bannon declared last Friday that he was "
going to war" for
Trump ...
" If there's any confusion out there, let me clear it up. I'm leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents... on Capitol
Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,
Meanwhile, with regard his internal adversaries , at the departments of State and Defense,
who think the United States can enlist Beijing's aid on the North Korean standoff, and at
Treasury and the National Economic Council who don't want to mess with the trading system,
Bannon was ever harsher...
"Oh, they're wetting themselves," he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which
was put on hold when the war of threats with North Korea broke out, was shelved only
temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon has
big plans to marginalize their influence.
"That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury
and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying."
Finally, perhaps no one can summarize what Bannon has planned for the future than Bannon
himself:
"The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over I feel jacked up Now I'm free.
I've got my hands back on my weapons.
I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There's no
doubt. I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart. And now we're about to rev that machine up."
"... For the record, Mr. Bannon gave notice on 8/7 to POTUS. As well, Mr. Bannon, when appointed to Trump's cabinet, stated for any who bothered to read/listen that he would accept under one condition, which was he'd be leaving the WH in eight months. Eight months brings us to 8/7. No one fired him. He is back at Breitbart as its Chairman. ..."
"... Bannon's interview with the American Prospect last week was his shot across the proverbial bow aimed directly at the globalists who are determined to keep their march toward raping the world from all her resources aka the NWO/neocon/neolib mafia while fomenting more war(s). ..."
"... If you are unaware of the current round of NAFTA negotiations, now in its fourth day, w/Canada and Mexico OR if you are unaware that on Friday the Trump administration formally launched a Section 301 Trade investigation into China's trading practices, then you are not paying attention to what the right hand is doing. ..."
"... Oh, and btw, it was Kushner and his data operation who carried Trump over the finish line not Bannon and his policy positions. ..."
Francis @68 - Refreshing to read a comment by someone who obviously has made it her/his
business to understand Trump and Team from the conservative perspective. Great comment and spot
on IMHO.
For the record, Mr. Bannon gave notice on 8/7 to POTUS. As well, Mr. Bannon, when appointed
to Trump's cabinet, stated for any who bothered to read/listen that he would accept under one
condition, which was he'd be leaving the WH in eight months. Eight months brings us to 8/7. No
one fired him. He is back at Breitbart as its Chairman.
Bannon's interview with the American Prospect last week was his shot across the proverbial
bow aimed directly at the globalists who are determined to keep their march toward raping the
world from all her resources aka the NWO/neocon/neolib mafia while fomenting more war(s).
Bannon with Mercer and et al backing (and I can make a pretty solid educated guess that
there are others) have been developing a new media platform of some kind which will be launched
in weeks not months (another educated guess). Sinclair broadcasting has been mentioned on other
conservative platforms as getting ready to make a move of some kind as well.
As Breitbart's editor wrote on Friday following the Bannon announcement - "WAR" - is
unequivocally that sites way of saying the Swamp in DC is going to be drained. Indeed, Trump
and Team have already begun to roll out their 2018 election strategy.
Any who hold the belief that Trump is stupid, naive, or whatever derogatory statement
conjured up is just plain wrong and shouldn't be taken seriously by any here who know
better.
Trump is a businessman. Trump is not a politician. And he certainly wasn't elected to serve
as America's grandpa-he ain't gonna hold your hand...ever.
If you are unaware of the current round of NAFTA negotiations, now in its fourth day,
w/Canada and Mexico OR if you are unaware that on Friday the Trump administration formally
launched a Section 301 Trade investigation into China's trading practices, then you are not
paying attention to what the right hand is doing.
There is always much going on behind all of the noise the insufferable Left makes on a daily
basis. Apparently, they don't want you to know about any of the plethora of Executive Orders
signed, the roll back of regulations zero and czars put in place, the trade negotiations and
so, so much more.
On the other hand, conservative sites are all over the blogosphere report daily what this
administration is doing and how it is succeeding. Bannon remains a phone call away.
Oh, and btw, it was Kushner and his data operation who carried Trump over the finish line
not Bannon and his policy positions.
"... The war veteran has never quite clicked with the president, but other West Wing staff members recoiled at a series of smears against General McMaster by internet allies of Mr. Bannon. ..."
Mr. Bannon's disdain for General McMaster also accelerated his demise.
The war veteran
has never quite clicked with the president, but other West Wing staff members recoiled at a
series of smears against General McMaster by internet allies of Mr. Bannon.
The strategist denied involvement, but he also did not speak out against them.
By the time Charlottesville erupted, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump had a powerful ally in Mr.
Kelly, who shared their belief that Mr. Trump's first statement blaming "many sides" for the
deadly violence needed to be amended.
Mr. Bannon vigorously objected. He told Mr. Kelly that if Mr. Trump delivered a second, more
contrite statement it would do him no good, with either the public or the Washington press
corps, which he denigrated as a "Pretorian guard" protecting the Democrats' consensus that Mr.
Trump is a race-baiting demagogue. Mr. Trump could grovel, beg for forgiveness, even get down
on his knees; it would never work, Mr. Bannon maintained.
"They're going to say two things: It's too late and it's not enough," Mr. Bannon told Mr.
Kelly.
Later in the day, the lead story on the site was "
McMaster Of Disguise: Nat'l Security Adviser Endorsed Book That Advocates Quran-Kissing Apology Ceremonies
." This piece from frequent McMaster critic Aaron Klein said that McMaster endorsed a book that "calls
on the U.S. military to respond to any 'desecrations' of the Quran by service members with an apology
ceremony, and advocates kissing a new copy of the Quran before presenting the Islamic text to the
local Muslim public."
The article went on to say that McMaster has "troubling views" on Islamic terrorism.
The site also published two articles Sunday critical of Ivanka. One of them is an
aggregate of a Daily Mail report that claimed Ivanka helped push Bannon out of the White House.
Shortly after the story was published, the article received an update that said a White House senior
aide stated the Daily Mail report is "totally false."
Breitbart also wrote a
piece that highlighted six times Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner's displeasure with President
Trump had been leaked to the media.
Bannon said in interviews after his departure from the White House that he will use Breitbart
to fight for the president's agenda.
"In many ways, I think I can be more effective fighting from the outside for the agenda President
Trump ran on," Bannon told
The New York Times . "And anyone who stands in our way, we will go to war with."
"... Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country, regardless of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class. ..."
"... There's more to it than that. Its true that the white working class in America are the only group that the media feels it is acceptable to insult/denigrate. What was it Obama said - People in small towns clinging on to their religion & guns. ..."
"... The white middle class has to walk the walk with respect of social justice. Due to the economics of it, multiculturalism has affected the working classes far more than the middle classes. As I say, I'm prepared for the consequences personally, but I wonder how many others would be. ..."
"... People may underestimate the populist element in Bannon's make up. As Scaramucci tells it, both he and Bannon had white middle class fathers who had played with a straight bat and had their retirement savings wiped out in 2008 and all that, while the fat cats were saved by Uncle Sam. Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there. ..."
"... "In Bannon's view, we are in the midst of an existential war, and everything is a part of that conflict. Treaties must be torn up, enemies named, culture changed. Global conflagration, should it occur, would only prove the theory correct. For Bannon, the Fourth Turning has arrived. The Grey Champion, a messianic strongman figure, may have already emerged. The apocalypse is now. ..."
"... I got the strong sense that Trump was hunkered down defensively and baring his teeth like a feral dog trapped in a corner. ..."
"... Trump is not Mussolini or Franco in that he is not a true believer ..."
"... With the exception of the military which at this point is a state unto itself the government is a paradox of being both omnipresent and nowhere and thus truly Kafkaesque...utterly opaque and completely visible at all times... ..."
"... The left's focus on identity politics is the reason this Bannon chump is relevant at all. The switch in focus from class to race and gender has segmented the working class from the common struggle. A people divided. This is about the only strategic fact Bannon understands. But it is an important one. ..."
"... Identity politics at its core is mostly untenable and while it might treat the symptoms of disease in the short run it will always collapse under the weight of its internal inconsistencies. The blind squirrel Bannon has found his nut. Continuing to assert that poor white men have it made is demonstrably false and offensive. And gives the alt-right plenty of tools to recruit. ..."
Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country, regardless
of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class.
So a billionaire like Trump, with Bannon's aid, does whatever he can to focus the disatisfaction of the population on people
who have a different skin colour, rather than the vastly rich elites who have grabbed such a massive share of US wealth and power
- and demand yet more
There's more to it than that. Its true that the white working class in America are the only group that the media feels
it is acceptable to insult/denigrate. What was it Obama said - People in small towns clinging on to their religion & guns.
Must have gone down really well in those rustbelt towns where everyone is on oxycontin out of sheer despair. But hey, they're
only rednecks so who cares right ?
Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country,
regardless of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class.
Exactly, it's all about creating a group you can point to and say "at least you're not as bad off as them!"
When your entire existence is predicated on 'at least I'm not the worst off' it becomes frightening when those who were previously
'worse off' start improving. But instead of improving themselves they try and bring the others down again.
That's what I don't get about the Nazis who turned up in Charlottsville: they chanted "Jews will not replace us" and also "we're
going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump". How can Nazis believe Trump is on their side when his daughter is married to a
Jew? There are so many contradictions in this situation that I can't get my head around it.
Someone has to lose out in a redistribution of anything, be it political power or wealth. I mention the white middle classes
because they tend to the the keyboard warriors refusing to tackle the insecurities and concerns of the white working class, and
simply resorting to calling them racist.
The white middle class has to walk the walk with respect of social justice. Due to the economics of it, multiculturalism
has affected the working classes far more than the middle classes. As I say, I'm prepared for the consequences personally, but
I wonder how many others would be.
Agree with your latter point and I'm sensitive to the fact that within class groups, minorities and women remain disadvantaged;
I'm not saying we don't continue to look at that. But realistically, on an economic level, you're not going to get white working
class men accepting that middle class minorities or women are disadvantaged compared to them, are you? The only reason this distinction
doesn't seem to happen (class lines) is because most of the SJW contingent suddenly have to check an aspect of privilege they're
unkeen to pay attention to.
People may underestimate the populist element in Bannon's make up. As Scaramucci tells it, both he and Bannon had white
middle class fathers who had played with a straight bat and had their retirement savings wiped out in 2008 and all that, while
the fat cats were saved by Uncle Sam. Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there.
As to Bannon still in the job, I think LBJ's story about tents and which way the piss goes applies.
Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there.
As others have noted, given that both of them worked in finance/had some background in finance, it's odd that their fathers
lost savings which could have been avoided (Bannon's father, for instance, only lost out because he sold his stock but it regained
its value shortly afterwards, i.e. it was a bad financial decision). But as you say, its out there.
Indeed. If you held on through the crash you now have double the money you had in 2007.
There are some pretty basic retirement rules (60/40 equity to bonds or less, keep 2 years in cash) which if anyone followed
would have resulted in no pain from the crash, just some anxiety.
If he got greedy, had 100% in equities and sold at the bottom of the market because he had not kept a cash cushion - well he
cannot blame the Chinese for that.
Of course he was bitter before his son became a billionaire, but to still be bitter is more about character than the economy.
"In Bannon's view, we are in the midst of an existential war, and everything is a part of that conflict. Treaties must
be torn up, enemies named, culture changed. Global conflagration, should it occur, would only prove the theory correct. For Bannon,
the Fourth Turning has arrived. The Grey Champion, a messianic strongman figure, may have already emerged. The apocalypse is now.
"What we are witnessing," Bannon told The Washington Post last month, "is the birth of a new political order.""
An interesting interpretation of his behavior. I got the strong sense that Trump was hunkered down defensively and baring
his teeth like a feral dog trapped in a corner.
" and it has forged an indefatigable core of support that will stay with Trump through the next general election and
beyond."
Except that atavistic and uneducated people can and will change their sense of allegiance on a dime or a whim and given the
fact that Trump is not an ideologue but rather an unstable pathological narcissist and a bigot (versus espousing a coherent racist
plan of action because he has a particular ideological agenda) there is no way to effectively predict what his actions will echo
in that part of his base and therefore no way to predict what his base will do if Trump is untethered from Bannon. Trump is as
likely to make a boneheaded deal with China that pleases Wall Street as he is to accidentally start a war. He is as likely to
break his support as he is to cement it.
As Christopher Hitchens said:
"A feature, not just of the age of the end of ideology, but of the age immediately preceding the age of the end of ideology,
is that of the dictator who has no ideology at all."
Trump is not Mussolini or Franco in that he is not a true believer though he is a bigot and clearly dictatorial. Trump
is all expediency first and faith second even if he has consistently been a racist.
The second problematic issue is that if you assert that Axelrod and Rove "achieved" anything of lasting consequence then Axelrod
could not have followed Rove and Bannon could not have followed Axelrod.
Unlike in France where the president serves far longer the reelection cycle here with its utterly corrupt need to raise massive
amounts of cash which then forces candidates to constantly be in race mode (and effectively reduces the period of actual governance
to around 18 months) has created a perpetually unstable and ineffective bureaucracy that has more in common with late Ottoman
inefficiency than it does with a contemporary "modern" state.
With the exception of the military which at this point is a state unto itself the government is a paradox of being both
omnipresent and nowhere and thus truly Kafkaesque...utterly opaque and completely visible at all times...
Further, there is this: "There's another reason why firing Bannon wouldn't be a huge loss: his work is largely done."
In fact, Trump has achieved nothing and done nothing of lasting change to the bureaucracy. In a sense it is analogous to the
situation with North Korea where, despite Trump's pale Strangelove imitation it was noted in the media that the military had made
no changes to its posture.
The only time I have ever agreed with Bannon is that his analysis of the potential for N Korea to destroy S Korea with an artillery
barrage. With about 12,000 artillery prices the North could launch somewhere around 50,000 shells per minute into Soul. Do the
arithmetic for a 10 minute shelling. Any grandstanding by the US military is simply folly.
The left's focus on identity politics is the reason this Bannon chump is relevant at all. The switch in focus from class
to race and gender has segmented the working class from the common struggle. A people divided. This is about the only strategic
fact Bannon understands. But it is an important one.
Identity politics at its core is mostly untenable and while it might treat the symptoms of disease in the short run it
will always collapse under the weight of its internal inconsistencies. The blind squirrel Bannon has found his nut. Continuing
to assert that poor white men have it made is demonstrably false and offensive. And gives the alt-right plenty of tools to recruit.
"... Contrary to Trump's threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." ..."
"... "To me," Bannon said, "the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover." ..."
"... Bannon's plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. "We're going to run the tables on these guys. We've come to the conclusion that they're in an economic war and they're crushing us." ..."
"... "The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats." ..."
"... For ideas on how to counter the far-right agenda in the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville, click here . ..."
You might think from recent press accounts that Steve Bannon is on the ropes and therefore behaving prudently. In the aftermath of
events in Charlottesville, he is widely blamed for his boss's continuing indulgence of white supremacists. Allies of National Security
Adviser H.R. McMaster hold Bannon responsible for a campaign by Breitbart News, which Bannon once led, to vilify the security chief.
Trump's defense of Bannon, at his Tuesday press conference, was tepid.
But Bannon was in high spirits when he phoned me Tuesday afternoon to discuss the politics of taking a harder line with China,
and minced no words describing his efforts to neutralize his rivals at the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury. "They're
wetting themselves," he said, proceeding to detail how he would oust some of his opponents at State and Defense.
Needless to say, I was a little stunned to get an email from Bannon's assistant midday Tuesday, just as all hell was breaking loose
once again about Charlottesville, saying that Bannon wished to meet with me.
Needless to say, I was a little stunned to get an email from Bannon's assistant midday Tuesday, just as all hell was breaking
loose once again about Charlottesville, saying that Bannon wished to meet with me. I'd
just published a column on how China was
profiting from the U.S.-North Korea nuclear brinkmanship, and it included some choice words about Bannon's boss.
"In Kim, Trump has met his match," I wrote. "The risk of two arrogant fools blundering into a nuclear exchange is more serious
than at any time since October 1962." Maybe Bannon wanted to scream at me?
I told the assistant that I was on vacation, but I would be happy to speak by phone. Bannon promptly called.
Far from dressing me down for comparing Trump to Kim, he began, "It's a great honor to finally track you down. I've followed your
writing for years and I think you and I are in the same boat when it comes to China. You absolutely nailed it."
"We're at economic war with China," he added. "It's in all their literature. They're not shy about saying what they're doing.
One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it's gonna be them if we go down this path. On Korea, they're just tapping
us along. It's just a sideshow."
Bannon said he might consider a deal in which China got North Korea to freeze its nuclear buildup with verifiable inspections
and the United States removed its troops from the peninsula, but such a deal seemed remote. Given that China is not likely to do
much more on North Korea, and that the logic of mutually assured destruction was its own source of restraint, Bannon saw no reason
not to proceed with tough trade sanctions against China.
Contrary to Trump's threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget
it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes
from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." Bannon went on
to describe his battle inside the administration to take a harder line on China trade, and not to fall into a trap of wishful thinking
in which complaints against China's trade practices now had to take a backseat to the hope that China, as honest broker, would help
restrain Kim.
"To me," Bannon said, "the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue
to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able
to recover."
Bannon's plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology
transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. "We're going
to run the tables on these guys. We've come to the conclusion that they're in an economic war and they're crushing us."
But what about his internal adversaries, at the departments of State and Defense, who think the United States can enlist Beijing's
aid on the North Korean standoff, and at Treasury and the National Economic Council who don't want to mess with the trading system?
"Oh, they're wetting themselves," he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which was put on hold when the war of threats
with North Korea broke out, was shelved only temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon
has big plans to marginalize their influence.
"I'm changing out people at East Asian Defense; I'm getting hawks in. I'm getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and
Pacific Affairs] out at State."
But can Bannon really win that fight internally?
"That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury and [National Economic Council chair]
Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying."
"We gotta do this. The president's default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy. Don't get me wrong. It's like,
every day."
Bannon explained that his strategy is to battle the trade doves inside the administration while building an outside coalition
of trade hawks that includes left as well as right. Hence the phone call to me.
There are a couple of things that are startling about this premise. First, to the extent that most of the opponents of Bannon's
China trade strategy are other Trump administration officials, it's not clear how reaching out to the left helps him. If anything,
it gives his adversaries ammunition to characterize Bannon as unreliable or disloyal.
More puzzling is the fact that Bannon would phone a writer and editor of a progressive publication (the cover lines on whose first
two issues after Trump's election were "Resisting Trump" and "Containing Trump") and assume that a possible convergence of views
on China trade might somehow paper over the political and moral chasm on white nationalism.
The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up. This is also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not
exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the press. He's probably the most media-savvy person in America.
I asked Bannon about the connection between his program of economic nationalism and the ugly white nationalism epitomized by the
racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump's reluctance to condemn it. Bannon, after all, was the architect of the strategy of
using Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump's base.
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's
a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
From his lips to Trump's ear.
"The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every
day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
I had never before spoken with Bannon. I came away from the conversation with a sense both of his savvy and his recklessness.
The waters around him are rising, but he is going about his business of infighting, and attempting to cultivate improbable outside
allies, to promote his China strategy. His enemies will do what they do.
Either the reports of the threats to Bannon's job are grossly exaggerated and leaked by his rivals, or he has decided not to change
his routine and to go down fighting. Given Trump's impulsivity, neither Bannon nor Trump really has any idea from day to day whether
Bannon is staying or going. He has survived earlier threats. So what the hell, damn the torpedoes.
The conversation ended with Bannon inviting me to the White House after Labor Day to continue the discussion of China and trade.
We'll see if he's still there.
For ideas on how to counter the far-right agenda in the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville,
click here .
"... Lots of dunces, but chief strategist Steve Bannon, sadly, isn't one of them. The intellectual leader of the alt-right movement is no genius – nobody with his political views could be – but neither is he an idiot. He's one of the few people in that White House with even a primitive grasp of long-term strategy, which makes his impulsive-seeming decision to call The American Prospect this week curious. ..."
"... In the interview, Bannon said there was "no military solution" to North Korea's posturing. He stressed his efforts to fight economic war with China, adding, in a Scaramuccian touch, that his intramural foes on that front were "wetting themselves." ..."
"... "The longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," he said. "I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats." ..."
The Trump administration's stubbly race warrior reminds us why he's so dangerous
By Matt Taibbi
21 hours ago
The list of nitwits in the Trump administration is long. Betsy DeVos, in charge of education
issues, seems capable of losing at tic-tac-toe. Ben Carson thought the great pyramids of Egypt
were grain warehouses. Rick Perry, merely in charge of the nation's nuclear arsenal, probably
has post-it notes all over his office to remind him what things are: telephone, family photo,
souvenir atomic-reactor paperweight, etc.
Lots of dunces, but chief strategist Steve Bannon, sadly, isn't one of them. The
intellectual leader of the alt-right movement is no genius – nobody with his political
views could be – but neither is he an idiot. He's one of the few people in that White
House with even a primitive grasp of long-term strategy, which makes his impulsive-seeming
decision to call The American Prospect this week curious.
In the interview, Bannon said there was "no military solution" to North Korea's
posturing. He stressed his efforts to fight economic war with China, adding, in a Scaramuccian
touch, that his intramural foes on that front were "wetting themselves."
When asked about the Charlottesville tragedy, Bannon called the neo-Nazi marchers "a
collection of clowns." He also called them "losers" and a "fringe element."
This theoretically should be a dark time for Bannon, since Charlottesville reminded the
whole world of his inexplicable and indefensible presence in the White House. The story has
even the National Review howling for his dismissal.
But Prospect writer Robert Kuttner noted with surprise in his piece that Bannon seemed
upbeat. He essentially told Kuttner he believed the Charlottesville mess and stories like it
were a long-term political windfall for people like himself.
"The longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," he said. "I want them to talk
about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic
nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
President Trump has told senior aides that he has decided to remove Stephen K. Bannon, the
embattled White House chief strategist who helped Mr. Trump win the 2016 election, according to
two administration officials briefed on the discussion.
The president and senior White House officials were debating when and how to dismiss Mr.
Bannon. The two administration officials cautioned that Mr. Trump is known to be averse to
confrontation within his inner circle, and could decide to keep on Mr. Bannon for some
time.
As of Friday morning, the two men were still discussing Mr. Bannon's future, the officials
said. A person close to Mr. Bannon insisted the parting of ways was his idea, and that he had
submitted his resignation to the president on Aug. 7, to be announced at the start of this
week, but the move was delayed after the racial unrest in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Bannon had clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers and members of the
president's family.
But the loss of Mr. Bannon, the right-wing nationalist who helped propel some of Mr. Trump's
campaign promises into policy reality, raises the potential for the president to face criticism
from the conservative news media base that supported him over the past year.
Mr. Bannon's many critics bore down after the violence in Charlottesville. Outraged over Mr.
Trump's insistence that "both sides" were to blame for the violence that erupted at a white
nationalist rally, leaving one woman dead, human rights activists demanded that the president
fire so-called nationalists working in the West Wing. That group of hard-right populists in the
White House is led by Mr. Bannon.
On Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York, Mr. Trump refused to guarantee Mr. Bannon's job
security but defended him as "not a racist" and "a friend."
"We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon," Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Bannon's dismissal followed an Aug. 16 interview he initiated with a writer with whom he
had never spoken, with the progressive publication The American Prospect. In it, Mr. Bannon
mockingly played down the American military threat to North Korea as nonsensical: "Until
somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don't
die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about,
there's no military solution here, they got us." ...
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:37 AM
Trump on North Korea
https://nyti.ms/2vI6smj
NYT - MARK LANDLER - August 17
WASHINGTON -- For all his fire-breathing nationalism -- the demands to ban Muslims, build a
wall on the Mexican border and honor statues of Confederate heroes -- Stephen K. Bannon has
played another improbable role in the Trump White House: resident dove.
From Afghanistan and North Korea to Syria and Venezuela, Mr. Bannon, the president's chief
strategist, has argued against making military threats or deploying American troops into
foreign conflicts.
His views, delivered in a characteristically bomb-throwing style, have antagonized people
across the administration, leaving Mr. Bannon isolated and in danger of losing his job. But
they are thoroughly in keeping with his nationalist credo, and they have occasionally resonated
with the person who matters most: President Trump.
Mr. Bannon's dovish tendencies spilled into view this week in unguarded comments he made
about North Korea to a liberal publication, The American Prospect. Days after Mr. Trump
threatened to rain "fire and fury" on the North Korean government if it did not curb its
belligerent behavior, Mr. Bannon said, "There's no military solution here; they got us."
...
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:43 AM
The casualties are not worth the little chance of blunting Kim.
Beside look: with all that money and training and so forth....DDG 62, an Aegis destroyer
could not stay safe in peaceful water!
US can't poke ISIS out of Raqqa in 3 years, what would happen with 2 million soldier tough
as VC?
"When asked about the Charlottesville tragedy, Bannon called the neo-Nazi marchers "a
collection of clowns." He also called them "losers" and a "fringe element.""
Maybe that was it? Why would he call the Prospect? Did he think he was calling the American
Conservative and it was off the record? Did he know he was out?
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:45 AM
Stephen K. Bannon's exit was described in a White House statement as a mutual decision
between Mr. Bannon and Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Critics of Mr. Bannon, a right-wing nationalist, bore down after the violence in
Charlottesville.
Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled chief strategist who helped President Trump win the 2016
election but clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers, is leaving his post, a
White House spokeswoman announced Friday.
"White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be
Steve's last day," the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a
statement. "We are grateful for his service and wish him the best." ...
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 11:31 AM
What kind of talk doesn't threaten the money and power of the 0.1%?
"The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime
bill."
by Jake Johnson, staff writer
....................
"The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill,"
Warren said. "We're not going back to the days of being lukewarm on choice. We're not going
back to the days when universal healthcare was something Democrats talked about on the campaign
trail but were too chicken to fight for after they got elected."
"And," Warren concluded, "we're not going back to the days when a Democrat who wanted to run
for a seat in Washington first had to grovel on Wall Street."
To a certain extent Bannon symbolized backlash against neoliberal globalization, that is mounting in the USA. With him gone Trump
is a really emasculated and become a puppet of generals, who are the only allies left capable to run the show. Some of them are real
neocons. What a betrayal of voters who are sick and tired of wars for expansion and protection of global neoliberal empire.
Notable quotes:
"... What Bannon's exit might mean, however, is the end of even the pretense that Trumpist economic policy is anything different from standard Republicanism -- and I think giving up the pretense matters, at least a bit. ..."
"... The basics of the U.S. economic debate are really very simple. The federal government, as often noted, is an insurance company with an army: aside from defense, its spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (plus some ACA subsidies). ..."
"... Conservatives always claim that they want to make government smaller. But that means cutting these programs -- and what we know now, after the repeal debacle, is that people like all these programs, even the means-tested programs like Medicaid. Obama paid a large temporary price for making Medicaid/ACA bigger, paid for with taxes on the wealthy, but now that it's in place, voters hate the idea of taking it away. ..."
"... So if Bannon is out, what's left? It's just reverse Robin Hood with extra racism. On real policy, in other words, Trump is now bankrupt. ..."
"... with Bannon and economic nationalism gone, he will eventually double down on that part even more. If anything, Trump_vs_deep_state is going to get even uglier, and Trump even less presidential (if such a thing is possible) now that he has fewer people pushing for trade wars. ..."
Everyone seems to be reporting that Steve Bannon is out. I have no insights about the palace intrigue; and anyone who thinks
Trump will become "presidential" now is an idiot. In particular, I very much doubt that the influence of white supremacists and
neo-Nazis will wane.
What Bannon's exit might mean, however, is the end of even the pretense that Trumpist economic policy is anything different
from standard Republicanism -- and I think giving up the pretense matters, at least a bit.
The basics of the U.S. economic debate are really very simple. The federal government, as often noted, is an insurance
company with an army: aside from defense, its spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (plus some ACA subsidies).
Conservatives always claim that they want to make government smaller. But that means cutting these programs -- and what
we know now, after the repeal debacle, is that people like all these programs, even the means-tested programs like Medicaid. Obama
paid a large temporary price for making Medicaid/ACA bigger, paid for with taxes on the wealthy, but now that it's in place, voters
hate the idea of taking it away.
So what's a tax-cutter to do? His agenda is fundamentally unpopular; how can it be sold?
One long-standing answer is to muddy the waters, and make elections about white resentment. That's been the strategy since
Nixon, and Trump turned the dial up to 11. And they've won a lot of elections -- but never had the political capital to reverse
the welfare state.
Another strategy is to invoke voodoo: to claim that taxes can be cut without spending cuts, because miracles will happen. That
has sometimes worked as a political strategy, but overall it seems to have lost its punch. Kansas is a cautionary tale; and under
Obama federal taxes on the top 1 percent basically went back up to pre-Reagan levels.
So what did Trump seem to offer that was new? First, during the campaign he combined racist appeals with claims that he wouldn't
cut the safety net. This sounded as if he was offering a kind of herrenvolk welfare state: all the benefits you expect, but only
for your kind of people.
Second, he offered economic nationalism: we were going to beat up on the Chinese, the Mexicans, somebody, make the Europeans
pay tribute for defense, and that would provide the money for so much winning, you'd get tired of winning. Economic nonsense,
but some voters believed it.
Where are we now? The herrenvolk welfare state never materialized, in part because Trump is too lazy to understand policy at
all, and outsourced health care to the usual suspects. So Trumpcare turned out to be the same old Republican thing: slash benefits
for the vulnerable to cut taxes for the rich. And it was desperately unpopular.
Meanwhile, things have moved very slowly on the economic nationalism front -- partly because a bit of reality struck, as export
industries realized what was at stake and retailers and others balked at the notion of new import taxes. But also, there were
very few actual voices for that policy with Trump's ear -- mainly Bannon, as far as I can tell.
So if Bannon is out, what's left? It's just reverse Robin Hood with extra racism. On real policy, in other words, Trump
is now bankrupt.
But he does have the racism thing. And my prediction is that with Bannon and economic nationalism gone, he will eventually
double down on that part even more. If anything, Trump_vs_deep_state is going to get even uglier, and Trump even less presidential (if such
a thing is possible) now that he has fewer people pushing for trade wars.
"... He was then moved quickly to contain the influence of chief strategist Steve Bannon, who McMaster removed from the National Security Council. If you recall, he was appointed to contain other Trump loyalists such as Michael Flynn, as well. ..."
"... Recently, a campaign accusing him of being anti-Israel has been waged with the support of billionaire Sheldon Adelson by a coalition of alt-right nationalists that includes Steve Bannon ..."
Remember Lieutenant-General Herbert Raymond McMaster? He was appointed as President Trump's national
security adviser back in February. He was then moved quickly to contain the influence of chief
strategist Steve Bannon, who McMaster removed from the National Security Council. If you recall,
he was appointed to contain other Trump loyalists such as Michael Flynn, as well.
Recently, a campaign accusing him of being anti-Israel has been waged with the support of
billionaire Sheldon Adelson by a coalition of alt-right nationalists that includes Steve Bannon
and extreme right-wing Zionists such as the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton
Klein, as well as by Israeli journalist Caroline Glick from the Jerusalem Post. President Trump,
in response to all of this, called McMaster "a good man, very pro-Israel," and Israeli officials
have also come forward calling McMaster a friend of Israel.
On to talk about these connections and tensions is Shir Hever. Shir is a Real News correspondent
in Heidelberg, Germany. Of course, he covers Israel and Palestine for us extensively. I thank you
so much for joining us, Shir.
SHIR HEVER: Thanks for having me, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Shir, President Trump is now six months into his office as president. He initially
has appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to take up the Israel file, but there are these allegations
flying against General McMaster. Explain to us what's going on. Why are these individuals like Sheldon
Adelson even concerned about how Trump is responding in terms of Israel and Israel policy?
SHIR HEVER: I think there's very little that General McMaster can actually do about Israel or
against Israel. It really doesn't matter much. The only issue that has come up was the Iran nuclear
deal, and I think this is going to be a decision taken directly by President Trump and not by McMaster.
Also, what exactly is the Israel interest regarding the Iran nuclear deal? It is not so clear. Obviously,
Prime Minister Netanyahu has a certain opinion, but other Israeli politicians have other opinions.
I think this is really a symbolic issue. There are people in the alt-right and also the extreme Zionism
who are using this old worn-out accusation that somebody is anti-Israel in order to get their own
people into the National Security Council, in order to exert influence on the Trump administration.
This coalition between extreme right nationalists, white nationalists in the United States, and Jewish
Zionists, which traditionally were on opposing sides, are now working together because of this very
strange rise of this alt-right.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Now, give us a greater sense of the connection or the tensions between
these alt-right organizations and McMaster and Bannon. Map this for us.
SHIR HEVER: Yeah. I've been looking through these accusations that Caroline Glick, deputy editor
of the Jerusalem Post, and Steve Bannon himself, and also Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization
of America. What problem do they have with McMaster? They make very vague things about some statements
that he made, but they couldn't put them in context. He said that Israel is an occupying power. Of
course, Israel is an occupying power, but they couldn't place that statement. The only thing that
their criticism boils down to is they say McMaster is a remnant of the Obama administration. He continues
the Obama policies, and therefore he's not loyal to Trump.
I think this is the crux of the matter, because actually, for people like Caroline Glick and I
think also for Sheldon Adelson, their relation to Trump borders on religious. They consider Trump
to be some kind of messiah or savior that will allow Israel once and for all to annex the occupied
territory, expand its borders, and then the land will be redeemed. They talk about this in religious
terminology.
Here's the problem. Trump has been president for six months now, and Israel did not annex the territory.
It did not expand its borders. In fact, it has gone from one crisis to the next, and the Israeli
government is not able to cement its power over the Palestinians. Palestinian resistance is not tied
down. They're looking for an explanation. The explanation is that something is not pure in the Trump
administration, and they're pointing the finger at McMaster saying, "Because of people like him who
are sabotaging Trump's own policies from the inside, then this is preventing the Trump administration
from reaching its full potential."
SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Obviously, Netanyahu and the Israeli government doesn't agree with this
assessment. In fact, they have come out supporting McMaster as being a good supporter of Israel.
How does this play out here?
SHIR HEVER: Absolutely. Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing real politics. He knows that there's nothing
that President Trump can do that will actually make Israel suddenly conquer more territory. That's
not the point. Netanyahu is trying to balance a very complicated system with pressure from different
points, and he is a populist, and he's only in power because of his populism. Now, his administration
is under threat because of corruption allegations, so this is a problem for him. When people expect
that the Trump administration will free his hands to do whatever he wants, Netanyahu suddenly has
a problem because he needs to come up with a new excuse. Why doesn't he annex all the occupied territory?
Of course, for him, it's not a good time to get into a fight with the Trump administration. He
wants to create the impression that things are happening under the surface, that he is in the know,
that his friends are involved in this, but I think the fact that Sheldon Adelson, the big financial
supporter of Netanyahu, is now switching to support extreme right groups that have nothing to do
with the interests of the Israeli current administration, but are actually trying to push the Israeli
administration to move further to the extreme right and to annex territory, that puts Netanyahu in
trouble. I think it also spells some clouds over the warm relationship between Netanyahu and Adelson.
SHARMINI PERIES: Coming back to this side of things here in the United States, in light of the events
of Charlottesville, Shir, showing a direct link between the alt-right and hardcore racists and neo-Nazis,
why would extreme right-wing Zionist Jewish organizations and individuals like Glick and Klein agree
to cooperate with the alt-right in this way?
SHIR HEVER: I think people on the left tend to forget that, just like the left considers itself
to be a kind of universalist movement, and that leftists around the world should have solidarity
with each other, the right also has a kind of solidarity, especially the extreme right. Extreme right
movements in different countries consider the extreme right in other countries to be their allies.
One of the things we saw in Charlottesville is that some of these neo-Nazi groups and white nationalist
groups are big supporters of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, because they see him as the kind of strong
leader they would like to see in the United States as well.
For people who see Donald Trump talking about America first, then they're saying, "Okay, that's exactly
the kind of administration we want to see in Israel, somebody taking about Israel first." For Caroline
Gluck or for a Morton Klein, they are willing to accept a very heavy load of racism and even anti-semitism
against Jews from the Trump administration and from its supporters in exchange for being allowed
to copy that same kind of racism and that same kind of right-wing policy towards their minorities.
Just like the American administration has its minorities, Muslims, Mexicans which are being targeted,
Israel also has its minorities, Palestinians and asylum-seekers, and they want those people to be
targeted in the same harsh language and the same harsh policies, so that we can [inaudible] a great
compromise.
I have to say, the events in Charlottesville had a profound impact on Israeli public opinion.
In fact, there are a lot of Israelis who are very concerned about this kind of coalition. They are
saying, "No, there's not that much that we're willing to take in order to keep the relations with
the Trump administration on good footing." Because of that, the president of Israel, President Rivlin,
and also the education minister Naftali Bennett issued statements condemning white nationalists and
neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. I think Naftali Bennett, who is the head of the Jewish Nationalist
Party in Israel, and he's actually of the same political camp as Caroline Glick, as Morton Klein,
when he makes that statement, that shows that even he thinks that they have gone too far.
SHARMINI PERIES: Interesting analysis, Shir. I thank you so much for joining us today. I guess the
situation in Charlottesville is evolving, and it would be interesting to continue to keep an eye
on what's developing here against what's happening in Israel as well. Thank you so much.
SHIR HEVER: Thank you, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Thank you for joining us here on the Real News Network.
Confusing, at least to me, in any case I believe that the Zionists learned a lot from the Nazis
and there is very little difference between the two groups. I would say that the main difference
lies in the fact that the Zionists are sneakier and know how to play with popular opinion. That's
why it doesn't surprise me that they are making a common cause with the white supremacists groups.
The only surprise here is that they are doing it openly now. They have become brave and have
decided to take the backlash. Perhaps they are doing so because they know they have the support
of Trump.
Divide and conquer. Soon we will be fighting on our own streets against each other. It will
be the death of the US...
"For Caroline Gluck or for a Morton Klein, they are willing to accept a very heavy load of
racism and even anti-semitism against Jews from the Trump administration and from its supporters
in exchange for being allowed to copy that same kind of racism and that same kind of right-wing
policy towards their minorities."
I have great respect for Shir Hever, he has great insight into Israel society and politics.
However, his statement that Klein and Glick (and maybe Adelson) want to be "allowed" to copy Trump's
supporter's racism and right-wing policies towards minorities in Israel is beyond hilarious. Minorities
in Israel have been and continue to be subjected to racist and supremacist policies (much worse
than anything Trump supporters can even imagine) by the Zionists since the theft of Palestinian's
land in 1948. The Israelis are not just pursuing racist policies but as Israeli historian Ilan
Pappe said, they are committing slow motion genocide against the Palestinians.
Ethnic nationalism rises when the state and the nation experience economic difficulties. Weimar
republic is a classic example here.
Notable quotes:
"... That's exactly nationalism, for sure. The work of that wealth creation by the way is done by the all the classes below the rentier class, from working to middle class. The funneling upwards thing is actually theft. ..."
"... The middle class is shrinking and being pushed down closer to rage because the wealth-stealing mechanisms have become bigger and better, and saturated the entire national system, including its electoral politics. This real face of capitalism has driven out the iconic American Dream, which was the essence of upward mobility. ..."
"... Nationalism is an ugly word, but it's easily reached for when there aren't any better words around. In Russia, they already went through what faces the US, and they figured it out. ..."
"... "In our view, faster growth is necessary but not sufficient to restore higher intergenerational income mobility," they wrote. "Evidence suggests that, to increase income mobility, policymakers should focus on raising middle-class and lower-income household incomes." ..."
"... Advocating smoothed-out relations with Russia (for commercial perso reasons, Tillerson, etc. and a need to grade adversaries and accept some into the fold, like Russia, instead of Iran ), a more level playing field, multi-polar world, to actually become more dominant in trade (China etc.) and waste less treasure on supporting enemies, aka proxy stooges, to no purpose (e.g. Muslim brotherhood, Al Q kooks, ISIS) and possibly even Israel -- hmmm. ..."
"... The old guard will do much to get rid of the upstart and his backers (who they are exactly I'd quite like to know?) as all their positions and revenues are at risk ..."
"... The Trump crowd seems at the same time both vulnerable and determined and thus navigating à vue as the F say, by sight and without a plan An underground internal war which is stalemated, leading to instrumentalising the ppl and creating chaos, scandals, etc. ..."
The US has no problem generating wealth, and has no need to force conflict with China. The
US's problem is that that wealth is funneled upwards. Wealth inequality is not a meme. "Shrinking
middle class" is a euphemism for downward-mobility of the middle class, an historical incubator
for Reaction. And that's what we have here, reactionaries from a middle class background who now
are earning less than their parents at menial jobs, or who are unemployed, becoming goons; aping
the klan, appropriating nazi icons, blaming the foreigner, the negro, the Jew, the Muslim, for
their circumstances. A "trade war" will not help them one iota, it will make their lives worse,
and Bannon will go out and say it's the fault of the foreigner and the immigrant, their numbers
wool swell. More terror, depper culture wars. I suppose that's nationalism to some people.
That's exactly nationalism, for sure. The work of that wealth creation by the way is done
by the all the classes below the rentier class, from working to middle class. The funneling
upwards thing is actually theft.
The middle class is shrinking and being pushed down closer to rage because the wealth-stealing
mechanisms have become bigger and better, and saturated the entire national system, including
its electoral politics. This real face of capitalism has driven out the iconic American Dream,
which was the essence of upward mobility.
Nationalism is an ugly word, but it's easily reached for when there aren't any better words
around. In Russia, they already went through what faces the US, and they figured it out.
Since we're looking for the grown-ups, let's turn to Vladimir Putin, always reliable for sanity
when direction is lost.
Putin recalled the words of outstanding Soviet Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev that patriotism
drastically differs from nationalism. "Nationalism is hatred of other peoples, while patriotism
is love for your motherland," Putin cited his words.
"In our view, faster growth is necessary but not sufficient to restore higher intergenerational
income mobility," they wrote. "Evidence suggests that, to increase income mobility, policymakers
should focus on raising middle-class and lower-income household incomes."
Interventions worth considering include universal preschool and greater access to public
universities, increasing the minimum wage, and offering vouchers to help families with kids
move from poor neighborhoods into areas with better schools and more resources, they said.
Is there any political party or group in the US that suggests this?
The Corporate "fascist" - with grains of salt - USA. The 'democracy' part is fiction, camouflaged
via a fools theatre two-party system and ginormous social re-distribution, amongst others..
the Core (PTB) found itself through miscalculation and loss of power subject to a challenger
who broke thru the \organised/ fake elections, to attempt some kind of re-adjustement - renewal
- re-set - review...
Advocating smoothed-out relations with Russia (for commercial perso reasons, Tillerson,
etc. and a need to grade adversaries and accept some into the fold, like Russia, instead of Iran
), a more level playing field, multi-polar world, to actually become more dominant in trade (China
etc.) and waste less treasure on supporting enemies, aka proxy stooges, to no purpose (e.g. Muslim
brotherhood, Al Q kooks, ISIS) and possibly even Israel -- hmmm.
Heh, the profits of domination are to be organised, extracted and distributed, differently.
One Mafia-type tribe taking over from another! Ivanka will be The Sweet First Woman Prezzie! Style,
Heart, Love, Looks! Go!
The old guard will do much to get rid of the upstart and his backers (who they are exactly
I'd quite like to know?) as all their positions and revenues are at risk, so they are activating
all - anything to attack. The Trump crowd seems at the same time both vulnerable and determined
and thus navigating à vue as the F say, by sight and without a plan An underground internal
war which is stalemated, leading to instrumentalising the ppl and creating chaos, scandals, etc.
"... McMaster's was spewing nonsense. The same was said about the Soviet Union and China when they became nuclear weapons states. North Korea just became one . Conventional deterrence of both sides has worked with North Korea for decades. Nuclear deterrence with North Korea will work just as well as it did with the Soviet and Chinese communists. If North Korea were really not deterrable the U.S. should have nuked it yesterday to minimize the overall risk and damage. It is the McMaster position that is ideological and not rational or "grown up" at all. ..."
"... Compare that to Steve Bannon's take on the issue: ..."
"... "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." ..."
"... But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained from an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China), perhaps a leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US. Third generation at war with the US and his seen his father was fucked over when trying to make a deal with the US. NK's nuke and missile tech have come a long way in the few short years Kim Jong Un has been in power. ..."
"... "Deterrence is a strategy intended to dissuade an adversary from taking an action not yet started, or to prevent them from doing something that another state desires." ..."
"... Classic deterrence strategy IS working for NK perfectly. ..."
"... All one has to do to know what Bannon's position on Iran is to read Breitbart on any given day. Unless we are supposed to believe that Bannon's opinions are not reflected by the website he ran for four years. Bannon is for war against Islam in general, there is nothing "realist" about his foreign policy. ..."
"... @12... "Bannon is a fascist" I'm not so sure. Mussolini defined fascism as being an alliance of corporate and state powers... but Bannon (and most of his followers) have no trust in the corporate sector as they [the corporate sector] are to a large degree Globalists - they used the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would even call them traitors. So you could call him a Nationalist. ..."
"... Bannon makes sense. That must be why many want him gone especially the neocons. As to North Korea, the US should have admitted "facts on the ground" long ago and worked to sign the official end of the war and work to get the two Koreas talking and working together. ..."
The Democrats and the media
love
the Pentagon generals in the White House. They are the "grown ups":
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had words of praise for Donald Trump's new pick for national
security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster -- calling the respected military officer a
"certified, card-carrying grown-up,"
Who is really the sane person on, say, North Korea?
The "grown-up" General McMaster, Trump's National Security Advisor, is not one of them. He
claims North Korea is not deterrable from doing something insane.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But your predecessor Susan Rice wrote this week that the U.S. could tolerate
nuclear weapons in North Korea the same way we tolerated nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union
far more during the Cold War. Is she right?
MCMASTER: No, she's not right. And I think the reason she's not right is that the
classical deterrence theory, how does that apply to a regime like the regime in North Korea?
A regime that engages in unspeakable brutality against its own people? A regime that poses a
continuous threat to the its neighbors in the region and now may pose a threat, direct
threat, to the United States with weapons of mass destruction?
McMaster's was spewing nonsense. The same was said about the Soviet Union and China when
they became nuclear weapons states. North Korea just
became one
. Conventional deterrence of both sides has worked with North Korea for decades.
Nuclear deterrence with North Korea will work just as well as it did with the Soviet and
Chinese communists. If North Korea were really not deterrable the U.S. should have nuked it
yesterday to minimize the overall risk and damage. It is the McMaster position that is
ideological and not rational or "grown up" at all.
"There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody
solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in
the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about,
there's no military solution here, they got us."
It was indeed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which "got" the United States and
stopped the U.S. escalation game. It is
wrong
to think
that North Korea
"backed off"
in the recent upheaval about a missile test targeted next to Guam. It was the U.S. that pulled
back from threatening behavior.
Since the
end
of May
the U.S. military trained extensively for decapitation and "preemptive" strikes on
North Korea:
Two senior military officials -- and two senior retired officers -- told NBC News that key to
the plan would be a B-1B heavy bomber attack originating from Andersen Air Force Base in
Guam.
...
Of the 11 B-1 practice runs since the end of May, four have also involved practice bombing at
military ranges in South Korea and Australia.
In response to the B-1B flights North Korea published plans to launch a missile salvo next
to the U.S. island of Guam from where those planes started. The announcement
included a hidden
offer
to stop the test if the U.S. would refrain from further B-1B flights. A deal was made
during
secret negotiations
. Since then no more B-1B flights took place and North Korea
suspended
its Guam test plans. McMaster lost and the sane people, including Steve Bannon,
won.
But what about Bannon's "ethno-nationalist" ideology?
Isn't he responsible
for the
right-wing nutters of Charlottesville conflict? Isn't he one of them?
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it:
"Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too
much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
Bannon sees China as an economic enemy and wants to escalate an economic conflict with it.
He is said to be against the nuclear deal with Iran. The generals in Trump's cabinet are all
anti-Iran hawks. As Bannon now turns out to be a realist on North Korea, I am not sure what
real position on Iran is.
Domestically Bannon is pulling the Democrats into the very trap I had several times warned
against:
"The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want
them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go
with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
This worked well during the presidential election and might continue to work for Trump. As
long as the Democrats do not come up with, and fight for, sane economic polices they will
continue to lose elections. The people are not interested in LGBT access to this or that
bathroom. They are interested in universal healthcare, in personal and economic security. They
are unlikely to get such under Bannon and Trump. But, unlike the Democrats, the current White
House crew at least claim to have plans to achieve it.
Posted by b on August 16, 2017 at 11:51 PM |
Permalink
A couple of very interesting links from the last thread were the one to the Bannon article,
and also the link to the Carter/NK article.
Kim Jong Un, 3rd generation like his father and grandfather leader of NK. From what I have
read this is a cultural thing t hat predates communism and the Japanese occupation prior. Many pictures of Kim show an overweight youngster amongst gaunt hungry looking
generals.
Gave the impression of a spoilt kid simply handed power. Not going to the May 9 parade in
Russia when invited also gave the impression he was paranoid.
But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained from
an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China), perhaps a
leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US. Third generation at
war with the US and his seen his father was fucked over when trying to make a deal with the US. NK's nuke and missile tech have come a long way in the few short years Kim Jong Un has been
in power.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Kim Jong Un and Trump have a meet one day.
b said: "The people are not interested in LGBT access to this or that bathroom. They are
interested in universal healthcare, in personal and economic security. They are unlikely to
get such under Bannon and Trump. But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at
least claim to have plans to achieve it."
"There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody
solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in
the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about,
there's no military solution here, they got us."
Doesn't that at least show Bannon as the adult in the room?
I would say so.
So lets start parsing this economic nationalism that Bannon is making happen with Trump.
Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of
protecting domestic consumption, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the
imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods and capital. It
is in opposition to Globalisation in many cases, or at least on questions the unrestricted
good of Free trade. It would include such doctrines as Protectionism, Import substitution,
Mercantilism and planned economies.
Examples of economic nationalism include Japan's use of MITI to "pick winners and losers",
Malaysia's imposition of currency controls in the wake of the 1997 currency crisis, China's
controlled exchange of the Yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs and devaluation in
the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to protect
domestic steel production.
Think about what a trade war with China would do. It would crash the world economy as
China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US likely defaulting......just one
possible scenario.
At least now, IMO, the battle for a multi-polar (finance) world is out in the open.....let
the side taking by nations begin. I hope Bannon is wrong about the timing of potential global
power shifting and the US loses its empire status.
Bannon thinks the bombast on display between the Kim and Trump has been "a sideshow". The
real show, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the dramatic sparring between the two
leaders. The Mother Of All Policies, according to Bannon, is an all-bets-on trade war with
China, whose endgame admits to only one outcome,--that is to say-- that only one hegemon will
remain standing at the end of this struggle.
There can be only one King-of-the-Hill. But where is the Greek Chorus?--the prophetic
warning that goes by the name of necessity?-- that tries to ward off hubris? "One must never
subscribe to absurdities" (it was Camus who aptly said that).
I had read this before; interesting to say the least.
Truth be told, I'd never heard of Bannon prior to Trumps election and still know little about
him.
Politics aside Bannon seems a straight shooter; I certainly can't argue his statement re:
what would happen if we attacked NK. His statement is echo'd by many long before today.
I do plan to start paying attention from this point forward.
Oh, and I did read that Trump is afraid of Bannon, but don't remember the reason stated.
"Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too
much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
No, whoever planned that "United Right" rally walked Trump into the trap.
As Trump was incapable to disassociate himself clearly from people who protest against the
take down of a statue of General Lee. Trump now owns the race issue.
Steve Bannon is
a
fascist
. That does not mean he is stupid.
The generals are clearly dangerous. They have the power to walk everybody to world war
III. Trump has pledged to spend even more on the US military, the military already has the
highest spending world wide. The generals don't want to admit that they cannot solve
anythings by military power.
Trump going off script in that press conference into a stream of consciousness was bad. He
reminded everybody of their rambling demented great-grandfather. He tried to get the
discussion to economic issues, he did not succeed.
In stepped more lies and garbage, this time more fake than the other, with chaos theory and
psychological warfare organizations drowning in capabilities from the overfunded phony war
on terror and too much time on their hands now lending their useless talents toward
disinforming the general public.
The result has been a divided US where "alternative facts" fabricated for a vulnerable
demographic now competes with the "mainstream" now termed, and I believe rightly so, "fake
news" to support different versions of a fictional narrative that resembles reality only in
the most rarified and oblique manner.
...
America has left itself open to dictatorship. It long since gave up its ability to
govern itself, perhaps it was the central bank, the Federal Reserve in 1913 or more recent
erosions of individual power such as the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2005.
Whatever milestone one chooses, the remains of democratic institutions in the US are now
difficult to find.
What we are left with is what increasingly seems to be factions, mistakenly defined as
"right" or "far right" jockeying for control over America's military, and with that,
control over the planet itself.
You see, whoever controls the American military controls the world, unless a power bloc
appears that can challenge, well, challenge what? If the Pentagon controls America's
military and the Pentagon is controlled by a cabal of religious extremists as many claim or
corporate lackeys as most believe, then where does the world stand?
Then again, if Trump and his own Republican congress are at war over impeachment, and I
assure you, little else is discussed in Washington, two sides of the same coin, servants of
different masters, has all oversite of the newfound military power over American policy
disappeared?
Bannon can be perfectly mature, adult and realist on some points and be totally blinded by
biases on others - him wanting total economic war against China is proof enough. So I don't
rule out that he has a blind spot over Iran and wants to get rid of the regime. I mean, even
Trump is realist and adult in a few issues, yet is an oblivious fool on others.
Kind of hard to find someone who's always adult and realist, actually. You can only hope to
pick someone who's more realist than most people. Or build a positronic robot and vote for
him.
More puzzling is the fact that Bannon would phone a writer and editor of a progressive
publication (the cover lines on whose first two issues after Trump's election were
"Resisting Trump" and "Containing Trump") and assume that a possible convergence of views
on China trade might somehow paper over the political and moral chasm on white nationalism.
The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up. This is
also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the
press. He's probably the most media-savvy person in America.
I asked Bannon about the connection between his program of economic nationalism and the
ugly white nationalism epitomized by the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump's
reluctance to condemn it. Bannon, after all, was the architect of the strategy of using
Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump's
base.
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it:
"Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too
much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
Explanation a) He wants to explain the climbdown of his boss on North Korea.
Not really helpful to Trump.
b) He wants to save his reputation as the association with the KKK and White Suprematists
has become toxic.
I think Bannon is an authentic economic nationalist, and one that Trump feels is good counsel
on those matters. If this is so, then Bannon cannot be trying to provoke a trade war with
China, since that would be an economic catastrophe for the US (and China and the rest of the
world). I'm hoping he's playing bad cop and eventually Trump will play good cop in
negotiations for more investment by China in the US and other goodies in exchange for 'well,
not much' from the US. Similar to what the US dragged out of Japan in the 80s nd 90s.
psychohistorian at 4: 'as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US
likely defaulting...'
as a sovereign currency issuer of that size the usa can not run out of dollars
to default on their obligations would be a voluntary mistake the federal reserve will
avoid
meanwhile the chinese are investing in africa and other countries securing their position in
the world
c | Aug 17, 2017 6:59:32 AM | 17
as a sovereign currency issuer of that size the usa can not run out of dollars
to default on their obligations would be a voluntary mistake the federal reserve will
avoid
meanwhile the chinese are investing in africa and other countries securing their position in
the world
Very good; and I agree with your POV; the usa can not run out of dollars.
And therein lies its power; a very dangerous situation that I do not think the world is
equipped to deal with in toto...
Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead of the
Electoral College, including Steve Bannon. It is the Republican Party, not Trump and his
Trumpery who holds majorities in the House, the Senate and the nation's statehouses. Anybody
who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has forgotten that
Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
It appears that as a purely nominal Republican, an owner in a hostile takeover, Trump has
no qualms about trashing the system. Practically speaking, this is the very opposite of
draining the swamp, which requires effective leadership.
Kim Jong Un, 3rd generation like his father and grandfather leader of NK. From what I have
read this is a cultural thing that predates communism and the Japanese occupation prior.
But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained
from an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China),
perhaps a leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Aug 17, 2017 1:05:52 AM | 1
OR, looked at another way:
Perhaps the gurning wunderkind Kim's ascent to the North Korean Throne was completely
predictable and was predicted a long time ago, and plans were set in motion to ensure that he
was co-opted as a kid, and now works with the US to help counter the rising Chinese
power.
Perhaps the alleged face-off Trump, Kim and the western MSM treated the world to over the
past while, was merely nothing but a pre-scripted choreographic display, a piece of theater
agreed upon beforehand by all participants except China
I wouldn't be surprised to see Kim Jong Un and Trump have a meet one day.
I wouldn't be surprised if Kim Jong Un and Trump actually play for the same side.
Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead of
the Electoral College, i
Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 17, 2017 8:18:55 AM | 19
Actually as far as I can tell the real political swindlers are the ones who refuse to
acknowledge that a US Presidential election is, (and has been for nearly whole time the US
has been in existence, which is more than 200 years for those who have problems keeping track
of such simple matters) decided NOT by the popular vote but by the results of the Electoral
College voting.
Anybody who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has
forgotten that Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
Again, just to repeat the actual reality regarding US Presidential elections: They are
decided on the basis of Electoral Collage voting and NOT on the basis of the popular vote, as
political swindlers would now like everyone to believe.
He is doubling down now defending General Lee statues as beautiful. He is doing the same
strategy as he did in his duel with Hillary Clinton when everybody thought he was insane,
playing to his core Republican base to make sure Republicans have to stay in line or face a
primary challenge.
Breitbart is doing the same threatening "Republican traitors".
The problem with this strategy is that Trump won because Hillary Clinton was so unpopular,
because their pollsters outsmarted Nate Silver and Co. and possibly because she was a
woman.
But Republicans who have to pretend they are religious right wing nuts in the primaries,
then have to appeal to independents to win the actual election.
So they cannot go against Trump but cannot defend him. They are paralysed.
That what it comes down to. That the main aim of the president of the United States is to
paralyze the party he hijacked.
They are decided on the basis of Electoral Collage voting and NOT on the basis of the
popular vote, as political swindlers would now like everyone to believe
indeed, though, speaking of political swindlers,
there's
mucho
evidence
that Trump may have won the popular vote as well.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 17, 2017 8:18:55 AM | 19
Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead
of the Electoral College, including Steve Bannon. It is the Republican Party, not Trump and
his Trumpery who holds majorities in the House, the Senate and the nation's statehouses.
Anybody who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has forgotten
that Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
Have you read the Constitution of the USA? The Electoral College elects the President by
the rank and file voters electing the Electors to the College on November election day.
That's how the system works.
Ask Al Gore; he won the popular vote.
Oh and btw, the Hillary won the popular 2016 vote meme. Take a look at Detroit, MI heavy
Democrats' precints - more votes than voters - and the millions of illegal aliens' vote in
California who voted after the invite of Obama.
Trump won the election. Period. End of story. Done. Finished. Get over it and get on with
your life. He didn't compete to win the popular vote. He competed and campaigned to win the
election. Advice to Democrats - nominate a candidate beside a senile old neocon woman who is
corrupt to her ugly core, and then maybe you can beat a former reality show star.
The problem with this strategy is that Trump won because Hillary Clinton was so unpopular,
because their pollsters outsmarted Nate Silver and Co. and possibly because she was a
woman.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 17, 2017 9:45:00 AM | 23
Nope - first part of the sentence is correct but the rest of is just you, as usual, repeating
crap you found on the Internet and then repeating it here pretending it is profound and that
you actually understand what you are talking about, which you clearly don't as evidenced by
the fact that you then go on to reference Nate Silver whose fame was never anything but media
created hype with little or nothing to back it up.
Silver's feet of clay were evident long before the latest Prez election. It became obvious
that his alleged electoral statistical prowess rested as much on luck as anything else. Lucky
in prediction when it came to the 2008 election but by 2010 things started to go wrong but
the media ignored his feet of clay and kept hyping him as a stats genius.
By the time 2016 rolled round Silver was exposed for the lucky fraud he is.
The real truth of Hillarys inability to win lies not in her being female as you and many
others disingenuously (at best) try to claim, but simply lies in the fact that she is a
thoroughly unpleasant person with a complete lack of charisma and a massive sense of
entitlement.
Blacks and others, minorities generally and independents, who came out in droves for the
Obama elections simply refused to go and vote for her.
The Republican vote however changed very little - pretty much the exact same demographic
voted republican as voted for Romney.
Trump won partly because of Clintons massive hubris in refusing to campaign in several key
states. Cambridge analytical were not required to give him the win, no matter what you read,
without analysing it, elsewhere on the web and are now repeating here in an effort to pretend
you know what you are talking about.
CA probably helped somewhat but it unlikely that they were central to the win. Clintons
hubris and her complete lack of charisma, ensured low black/minority/independent for her in
key states, especially those where she had refused to even bother to campaign, which was
enough to seal the win for Trump
You simply repeating crap you heard on the net and pretending that if you say it in an
authoritative fashion it will magically become true, just ends up making you look completely
clueless, as usual. (or dishonest)
@ Everybody who bought into the MSM Steve Bannon promoted white supremacy and through
Breitbart. Suggested you read his world view expressed in remarks at Human Dignity Institute,
Vatican Conference 2014
Posted by: likklemore | Aug 17, 2017 10:51:54 AM | 28
Anyone with any intelligence would be wise to treat with great caution anything Bannon
claims in public interviews about himself or his alleged political beliefs,
US politics is a great big clusterfeck - worse than ever, which is hard to believe. Bannon's big liar. He did heaps to create this very situation with the White
Supremacists. Of course the Democrats are worse than useless. All they're doing is presenting themselves
as "We're not Trump" and whining about Putin. All of them are clowns. Every last one. Including the so-called "Generals." Worthless.
"Since then no more B-1B flights took place and North Korea suspended its Guam test
plans."
but: "Yesterday (...) two US B-1 strategic bombers, operating with Japanese fighter jets,
conducted exercises to the southwest of the Korean Peninsula." says WSWS. ?
everything about the usa today is divisive... i can't imagine the usa being happy if this
didn't continue until it's demise..the 2 party system hasn't worked out very well as i see
it.. failed experiment basically.. oh well..
If I remember correctly, wasn't it both the President Elect and the Republican Congressmen
who won clear majorities in nearly 80 percent of congressional districts? Presuming an issue
like the gerrymandering of districts wasn't significant, that's a far more legitimate victory
than an extra million Democrats voting in California (determining the future of national
policy). I'm not a fan of the Republicans, but denying the short term efficiency of 'populist
rhetoric' isn't helping the left win any substantial electoral victories in the future.
Good Lord. Can't people read anymore? The election is all about the EC. Keep talking and
running for the popular vote, and Trump will keep winning the Electoral College. You either
want to win or you don't. I hope you keep preaching the popular vote personally.
Keep the proles spilt in their little "identity groups", their micro-tribes, and continue
building the Kleoptocracy/Prison/Military State while the dumbed down demos are busy hunting
micro-aggressions/fighting gender & race wars etc etc
During the last 5 Prez Election cycles the population spilt on utterly retarded lines such
as Gay-marriage, Gender-free toilets etc. All this while the US fought or financed numerous
very expensive wars in the Middle East ukraine etc, resulting hundreds of thousands of lives
lost.
The 2008 elections had one of the highest ever voter turnout rates for the Democrats and
the 2016 elections had one of the lowest ever. The turnout rates (abysmal if ever compared to
voter turnout rates in Germany and Japan) easily explain the initial victory and the eventual
defeat, not 'Detroit fraud' or 'the millions of illegals' voting in your head. Racial
gerrymandering against black voters in the Southern States is a far more real issue.
somwbody @ 12: Good link thanks..Interesting read about "The Forth Turning"
psycho @ 5: good link also..
WJ @ 27 said:" Advice to Democrats - nominate a candidate beside a senile old neocon woman
who is corrupt to her ugly core, and then maybe you can beat a former reality show star."
Yep, so-called "Russian hacking" wasn't the problem, HRC was the problem...
Just Sayin' @ 41 said:"It should by now be clear to anyone paying attention that while both
Bannon & Trump certainly TALK a lot, they seem to actually do very little."
Kinda' waitin' myself to see all those "accomplishments"....
I understand and respect your point, but I was responding to the initial comment's
implicit argument on public opinion: "a common argument is the
lower-middle-to-upper-middle-class social base of the Republicans is less receptive to the
short term effects of Protectionist policy and this would reduce political morale, as well as
grassroots and voting organization. However, the Democrats 'won the popular vote.' So, it's
'obvious' in saying the classless definition of 'the American people' oppose this Republican
policy, and naturally, the social base of the Republican Party isn't especially relevant to
consider when organizing voters and grassroots movements for a renewed Democratic Party."
To be fair, I think like the early Unionist and Communist circles, and presume public
opinion translates to expressions of grassroots politics between conflicting classes (more so
than it actually happens in American class society).
If one proceeds on the assumption that politics in the United States closely follows themes,
scripts and production values pioneered by WWF, then all becomes clear. It's simply
pro-wrestling on a global scale with nuclear weapons and trillions of dollars in prize money.
@42 just sayin'.. yes to all you say - it is quite sad actually.. not sure of the way out at
this point, short of complete rebellion in the streets which looks like a longs ways off at
this point..
not sure of the way out at this point, short of complete rebellion in the streets which
looks like a longs ways off at this point..
Posted by: james | Aug 17, 2017 2:58:51 PM | 49
Most of the younger generation seem to be much to busy, obsessing over non-existent things
like "Micro-agressions" or "hetero-normative cis-gender oppression", to pay attention to, let
alone acknowledge, the enormous global macro-aggressions their own country is engaged in on a
world-wide scale.
But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at least claim to have plans to
achieve it.
Is there a "don't" missing from that sentence?
I must disagree that DPRK nuclear missiles are a qualitatively similar threat to those
possessed by the Soviet Union and China. DPRK's guiding
Suche
ideology is a literal
cult that goes far beyond the cult-of-personality that held sway over the Soviet Union and
China when Stalin and Mao ruled. And by the time the Soviets developed delivery capabilities
Stalin was dead and his cult was done. By the time the Chinese developed delivery
capabilities Mao was declining into figurehead status and Zhou Enlai, who as commander of the
PLA realized how weak China really was militarily, had no illusions about what would happen
in a military confrontation with the US. But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the
Kims are ordained with supernatural powers that allowed them to drive the Japanese off the
peninsula then fight off an American "invasion." They truly don't mention the role of the
Soviets and the Chinese in saving their bacon. In terms of face-saving, the Kims have set the
bar pretty high for themselves by fostering their cult. Their legitimacy would be threatened
if their statecraft as rational actors undermined their Suche cult.
DPRK have been rogue actors against ROK and Japan out of sheer spitefulness, fully
exploiting the umbrella provided by the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Assistance
with China. They have done extraterritorial kidnappings and murders not for perceived
strategic reasons but merely to intimidate. DPRK has pointedly refused to enter talks for a
formal peace between them and the ROK. Those kinds of motives do not bespeak of someone who
can be trusted with nukes.
Bannon is someone whom I hold quite responsible for contributing to the rise of White
Supremacy in the USA, which I consider a clear and present danger. Bannon's dismissive hand
waving yesterday is meant to dissemble. Guess some are willing to buy what he was selling
yesterday. Not me.
What are your reasons for believing this about Bannon? What counts as contributing, and
how did you come to your decision?
It's not that I don't believe you. It's rather important to establish in what way his
words (whether the ones you found or the recent ones in
American Prospect
) are lies
or misdirection, so that I, and anyone interested, can evaluate this for ourselves and come
to similar or different conclusions.
I don't think Bannon wants a "trade" war with China but he is right that there is an economic
war going on. The "silk roads" and the various new organisations that the Chinese-Russians
have set up, (Major Banks, "Swift" equivalent, Glossnass satellites, card payment systems,
industrial independence, and food self-sufficiency etc), plus the use of currencies other
than the dollar - are all examples of a break-away from a US-EU domination.
However, they have not suddenly introduced everything at once to "bring the US house
down". Why? One possible reason could be that they are expecting the US to collapse anyway.
Another is that viable alternatives also take time to set up.
b has mentioned the "grown ups" v the Idealogues". The impact of the military on the
economic war seems to be underestimated. How much longer can the US afford the more than
trillion dollars per year of the "visible" arms? This does not include hidden costs
("Intelligence agencies and pork). Nor does it include costs borne by other countries. ie.
Italy has about 80 US bases (the most in the EU) and about 77 nuclear warheads on its soil.
Italy PAYS for those bases, and even that does not include infrastucture (roads, increased
airport capacity, sewage, water mains, etc) which are paid for by the Italians themselves.
Other countries will have similar systems. Some like Kuwait are "paying" back the amounts
spent on arms for example.
The total cost is astronomical.
A brief reminder the USSR collapsed because of massive overspending on arms and military
projects - leaving the rest of the economy in the lurch. Presumably the Chinese and Russians
are expecting the same thing to happen again.
(Aside - yes, you can print dollars as a sovereign state, but printing roubles didn't help
the soviets either)
So McMasters and the others are in fact just spoilt brats who think that the good times are
forever.
----
One example of the new "bluff-calling" cheaper method of economic warfare (*NK is the
another) were the recent NATO/US manoeuvres in Georgia (country) on the anniversary of the
Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. The number of troops and means involved would have been
enough to carry out a "surprise" attack this time too. The Russians - sent in Putin, who
declared that the Russians supported S.Ossetia and were ready to deal with any threat -
exactly as they did "last" time. Cost? One plane trip.
(*The NK threat by the US would have seen about 40'000 men from S. Korea and Japan sent
against about 700'000 motivated local troops and massive artillery arrays. It was a
non-starter, even with nukes)
You are forgetting to mention the main sticking point to talks is our refusal to halt our
annual̶d̶e̶f̶e̶n̶s̶i̶v̶e̶
̶d̶r̶i̶l̶l̶s̶ invasion practice before they will come to
the table. At least from what I read.
Even with China's international financial position growing more robust with SWIFT
independence, AIDB, the New Silk Road and such, they still have an interest in the
Dollar-based western financial system as long as they can make money off of it. They are not
going to shoot themselves in the foot by deliberately causing it to collapse. They might even
prop it up in a crisis, but I suspect they would drive a hard bargain.
Thirdeye says, "But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the Kims are ordained with
supernatural powers." What is American Exceptionalism?
MCMASTER: Says classic deterrence strategy won't work with NK.
"Deterrence is a strategy intended to dissuade an adversary from taking an action not yet
started, or to prevent them from doing something that another state desires."
Classic deterrence strategy IS working for NK perfectly.
What I base my analysis of Bannon is his leadership at Bretibart which may or may not be
continuing right now. Just read Breitbart if you think Bannon isn't fully behind the White
Supremacists rising up right now.
The idea that people (a people) have to suffer a big war in order to cleanse themselves
from moral depravity is fascism pure and simple as who should force people to do this but a
dictator.
All one has to do to know what Bannon's position on Iran is to read Breitbart on any given
day. Unless we are supposed to believe that Bannon's opinions are not reflected by the
website he ran for four years. Bannon is for war against Islam in general, there is nothing
"realist" about his foreign policy.
That's a different issue from entering talks for a formal peace with with ROK. DPRK has
been refusing that for years. Did you ever consider that DPRK's constant saber rattling
against ROK was what lent impetus to US exercises in the region in the first place? The US
knows that China would not tolerate a US invasion of DPRK. Why take the risk of invading
across great defensive terrain when you can simply destroy?
57 Madhatter67
Thirdeye says, "But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the Kims are ordained
with supernatural powers." What is American Exceptionalism?
That's a dumb analogy and a pathetic attempt at deflection. Criticize American
Exceptionalism all you want, but don't compare it to a supernaturalist cult. That's just
stupid.
DPRK has a history of doing whatever they think they can get away with, exploiting their
treaty with China. If their delusional
Suche
ideology leads them to miscalculate or
paints them into a corner trying to prop it up, it could lead to war.
If there's any bright spot in the whole picture it's China's chilly stance towards DPRK
after recent events. The excesses of DPRK's ruling cult have occurred largely because they
figured China had their back. But China's regional interests have changed dramatically over
the past 30 years. ROK is no longer a competitive threat to China and is economically more
important to China than DPRK ever was. DPRK's military power is of much less benefit to China
than it was in the past. It might even be considered a liability.
61 Stonebird
It wouldn't be cash, it would be be assets and/or the means of controlling them. Big
Chinese money is already coming into the west coast of the US and Canada. Oh well, we fucked
things up here; maybe the Chinese will do a better job.
Bannon is against the nuclear deal, and is one of the top people in the administration
arguing for Trump to move the Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Bannon has been
cited as promoting Sheldon Adelson's Israel policy in meetings with Trump.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-abbas-lauder-hawkish-adelson-battling-to-influence-trump-on-mideast/
If anything Bannon/Breitbart push an even harder line on Israel than most politicians and
media do.
First of all, I will now declare that I am 99% confused! So please let me review the 1% that
comes through my little keyhole. What has been said?
/~~~~~~~~~~
<< = Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 11:01:18 AM | 30
Anyone with any intelligence would be wise to treat with great caution anything Bannon
claims in public interviews about himself or his alleged political beliefs,
\~~~~~~~~~~
Well sure! The guy's a political operative -- One does not get to be a political operative
by being some kind of a Dudly Do-Right. Damn.
@12... "Bannon is a fascist" I'm not so sure. Mussolini defined fascism as being an
alliance of corporate and state powers... but Bannon (and most of his followers) have no
trust in the corporate sector as they [the corporate sector] are to a large degree Globalists
- they used the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would
even call them traitors. So you could call him a Nationalist.
\~~~~~~~~~~
Well since we can't believe anything from Bannon... And aside from that I am sick of
hearing Mussolini's definition of fascism -- After all, he was a psycho-villain -- so why
believe it?!
UNTIL WE HAVE STRATEGIC HEDGE SIMPLE SCORE VOTING WE WILL BE SADDLED WITH THE TWO-PARTY
"SYSTEM" (really only one party). Who cares if we really have no choice whatsoever. We are
held hostage to the false alternatives of the vast legion of the election methods
cognoscenti.
@35, please refer to post 69. If Bannon was not a Zionist, he would not have ran a site which
brags of being conceived in Israel and which pushes a harder line on Israel than almost any
other, and he would not be promoting Adelson's Israel policy within the administration.
Bannon makes sense. That must be why many want him gone especially the neocons. As to North
Korea, the US should have admitted "facts on the ground" long ago and worked to sign the
official end of the war and work to get the two Koreas talking and working together.
"That's a different issue from entering talks for a formal peace with with ROK. DPRK has been
refusing that for years."
I doubt any substantial transcripts from early talks will ever be released, so whoever had
diplomats offering the 'fairest' compromises for terms of an early framework (resulting in a
later settlement) cannot be known (regarding specifics).
If I remember correctly, there has been at least three Chinese-sponsored peace conferences
(on Korea) since 2007, where the general position of the U.S. was: North Korea had to freeze
total nuclear production, accept existing and additional (U.N.) verification missions, and
dismantle all warheads PRIOR to the signing of any peace treaty. How is demanding
unconditional surrender not intransigence? Are we going to just pretend the United States
hadn't sponsored military coups in Venezuela and Honduras and hadn't invaded Iraq and Libya
(in a similar time frame)?
During peace talks, any terms are argued, refused, and eventually compromised (usually
over years and sometimes over decades). Why presume the United States and South Korea had the
fairest offers and general settlements in a handful of conferences (especially when we have
no transcripts)?
"Did you ever consider that DPRK's constant saber rattling against ROK was what lent
impetus to US exercises in the region in the first place?"
You're presuming your case and not giving specific information on what you might know.
Personally, I don't know who 'started it' (I would guess Japan 'started it' by forcing
through the Protectorate Treaty of 1905, or the United States 'started it' by forcing through
the Amity and Commerce Treaty of 1858), but if North Korea isn't testing missiles near Guam
and the United States isn't flying specific planes over South Korea, a compromise WAS made
this last week, and more can be made to ensure peace.
Blonde hair blue eyed Waffen SS soldiers .I assume
baptized Christian .being wasted by beautiful blonde haired Conservative Orthodox Christian Women
Russian Snipers. This is what you will always get when you fall for the lies of the worshippers
of Franco.
Hitler and Franco .enablers of the Mohammadan Gang Rape Army .Hitler's Waffen SS-Werhrmacht
gang rape Army
Short tiny Andrew Anglin doesn't realize how much he has in common with the Jewish Antifas on
a fundamental Level ..
History offers up important lessons for the Alt Right
There is a historic
precedent for the Alt Right in US History:look no further than the late
19th-early 2oth Century US Labor Movement it was racially
xenophobic .isolationist and economically progressive .The late 19th-early 2oth
century Labor Movement gave us such wonderfull things such as The Chinese Legal
Immigrant Exclusion Act and the Sihk Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act .not bad!!!
And let's honest The Alt Right kiddie brigade that worships
Hitler Franco Pinochet .also swims in the sewage of JFK and Ronnie Reagan
worship two scoundrels who unleashed race-replacement immigration policy on The
Historic Native Born White American Working Class..
This four seasons theory looks to me like some king of amateur dialectics...
80 years is close to Kondratiev cycles length.
Notable quotes:
"... Stephen K. Bannon has great admiration for a provocative but disputed theory of history that argues that the United States is nearing a crisis that could be just as disruptive and catastrophic as the most seminal global turning points of the last 250 years. ..."
"... This prophecy, which is laid out in a 1997 book, "The Fourth Turning," by two amateur historians, makes the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each that can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter. ..."
"... In an interview with The Times, Mr. Bannon said, "Everything President Trump is doing - all of it - is to get ahead of or stop any potential crisis." But the magnitude of this crisis - and who is ultimately responsible for it - is an unknown that Mr. Trump can use to his political advantage. This helps explain Mr. Trump's tendency to emphasize crime rates, terrorist attacks and weak border control. ..."
"... We should shed and simplify the federal government in advance of the Crisis by cutting back sharply on its size and scope but without imperiling its core infrastructure. ..."
"... One of the authors' major arguments is that Western society - particularly American culture - has denied the significance of cyclical patterns in history in favor of the more palatable and self-serving belief that humans are on an inexorable march toward improvement. They say this allows us to gloss over the flaws in human nature that allow for bad judgment - and bad leaders that drive societies into decline. ..."
"... The authors envision a return to a more traditional, conservative social order as one outcome of a crisis. They also see the possibility of retribution and punishment for those who resist or refuse to comply with the new expectations for conformity. Mr. Trump's "with us or against us" attitude raises questions about what kind of leader he would be in such a crisis - and what kind of loyalty his administration might demand. ..."
Stephen K. Bannon has great admiration for a provocative but disputed theory of history that argues
that the United States is nearing a crisis that could be just as disruptive and catastrophic as the
most seminal global turning points of the last 250 years.
This prophecy, which is laid out in a 1997 book, "The Fourth Turning," by two amateur historians,
makes the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each that can be
divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies
have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary
as spring, summer, fall and winter.
Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to
see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.
But what does the book tell us about how Mr. Bannon is approaching his job as President Trump's
chief strategist and what he sees in the country's future? Here are some excerpts from the book,
with explanations from The New York Times.
'Winter Is Coming,' and We'd Better Be Prepared
History is seasonal, and winter is coming. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake.
Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, one commensurate
with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World
War II. The risk of catastrophe will be high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil
violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule.
The "Fourth Turning" authors, William Strauss and Neil Howe, started using that phrase before
it became a pop culture buzzword courtesy of HBO's "Game of Thrones." But, as the authors point out,
some winters are mild. And sometimes they arrive late. The best thing to do, they say, is to prepare
for what they wrote will be "America's next rendezvous with destiny."
In an interview with The Times, Mr. Bannon said, "Everything President Trump is doing - all of
it - is to get ahead of or stop any potential crisis." But the magnitude of this crisis - and who
is ultimately responsible for it - is an unknown that Mr. Trump can use to his political advantage.
This helps explain Mr. Trump's tendency to emphasize crime rates, terrorist attacks and weak border
control.
The 'Deconstruction of the Administrative State,' and Much More, Is Inevitable
The Fourth Turning will trigger a political upheaval beyond anything Americans could today imagine.
New civic authority will have to take root, quickly and firmly - which won't be easy if the discredited
rules and rituals of the old regime remain fully in place. We should shed and simplify the federal
government in advance of the Crisis by cutting back sharply on its size and scope but without imperiling
its core infrastructure.
The rhythmic, seasonal nature of history that the authors identify foresees an inevitable period
of decay and destruction that will tear down existing social and political institutions. Mr. Bannon
has famously argued that the overreaching and ineffective federal government - "the administrative
state," as he calls it - needs to be dismantled. And Mr. Trump, he said, has just begun the process.
As Mr. Howe said in an interview with The Times: "There has to be a period in which we tear down
everything that is no longer functional. And if we don't do that, it's hard to ever renew anything.
Forests need fires, and rivers need floods. These happen for a reason."
'The American Dream Is Dead'
James Truslow Adams (wrote) of an 'American Dream' to refer to this civic faith in linear advancement.
Time, they suggested, was the natural ally of each successive generation. Thus arose the dogma of
an American exceptionalism, the belief that this nation and its people had somehow broken loose from
any risk of cyclical regress . Yet the great weakness of linear time is that it obliterates time's
recurrence and thus cuts people off from the eternal - whether in nature, in each other, or in ourselves.
One of the authors' major arguments is that Western society - particularly American culture -
has denied the significance of cyclical patterns in history in favor of the more palatable and self-serving
belief that humans are on an inexorable march toward improvement. They say this allows us to gloss
over the flaws in human nature that allow for bad judgment - and bad leaders that drive societies
into decline.
Though he probably did not intentionally invoke Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe, Mr. Trump was channeling
their thesis when he often said during his campaign, "The American dream is dead." One of the scenarios
the book puts forward is one in which leaders who emerge during a crisis can revive and rebuild dead
institutions. Mr. Trump clearly saw himself as one of these when he said his goal would be to bring
back the American dream.
Conform, or Else
In a Fourth Turning, the nation's core will matter more than its diversity. Team, brand, and standard
will be new catchwords. Anyone and anything not describable in those terms could be shunted aside
- or worse. Do not isolate yourself from community affairs . If you don't want to be misjudged,
don't act in a way that might provoke Crisis-era authority to deem you guilty. If you belong to a
racial or ethnic minority, brace for a nativist backlash from an assertive (and possibly authoritarian)
majority.
The authors envision a return to a more traditional, conservative social order as one outcome
of a crisis. They also see the possibility of retribution and punishment for those who resist or
refuse to comply with the new expectations for conformity. Mr. Trump's "with us or against us" attitude
raises questions about what kind of leader he would be in such a crisis - and what kind of loyalty
his administration might demand.
"... The two thinkers, recently in the news thanks to Steve Bannon, had different views on human nature. ..."
"... if human nature is universal, cultural convergence seems to be the logical outcome of a globalized world. ..."
"... Spengler's views can be seen in the context of a movement known as historicism, the idea that human societies were the products of historical and material circumstances, which arose as a result of the universalism propagated by the Enlightenment and spread by the French Revolution. While Spengler makes some valid points, particularly in arguing against the idea that history is goal-oriented and directional, his view denies the very concept of empathy, that one can look at, say, Caesar, and see things through his eyes. ..."
"... In other words, Evola believed that there was a common core to human beings, a set of higher principles and heroic "traditional" values that lay at the root of every successful civilization. Even when eclipsed, these values remained in a dormant form, waiting to be reactivated. It is not surprising, then, that Evola is popular among nationalists and reactionaries today, because his framework allows for a shared nationalistic struggle that is simultaneously individualistic and universal in the chivalric sense that true warriors always recognize and respect each other even when serving different causes. ..."
"... The problem is that the mere existence of human nature is no guarantee of its consummation. Human beings may live pathetic or ignoble or fragmentary lives. Evola's concern (whatever one might think of it) was with encouraging the perfection of human nature through political means. That perfection may have little to do with the commonest "material, psychological, and emotional factors"; indeed, it most certainly requires their overcoming. ..."
"... This is important, because it forms one of the strongest critiques that the far right brings against democratic republics: namely, that they are materialistic and emotionally hollow; that they provide no transcendental or ennobling vision of the life of human beings and the destiny of societies. ..."
The two thinkers, recently in the news thanks to Steve Bannon, had different views on human
nature.
The apocalyptic worldview promoted by prominent political figures such as Steve Bannon in the United
States and Aleksandr Dugin in Russia is premised on the notion that ordinary political and legislative
battles are more than just quibbles over contemporary issues. Rather, political debates are
fronts in a greater battle of ideas , and everything is a struggle for the meaning of civilization
and human nature. Bannon's worldview is preceded by the thought of two early-20th-century thinkers,
Oswald Spengler and Julius Evola-and his passing mention of the latter in a 2014 speech has caused
some controversy in recent weeks, including a New York Times article entitled
"Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists."
These thinkers wrote at a time when the Western narrative of progress and improvement was shattered
after World War I. Interest in both Spengler and Evola has recently revived, though Spengler was
always fairly well-known for his thesis that civilizations grew and declined in a cyclical fashion.
Although both Spengler and Evola shared a pessimism over the direction of modern Western civilization,
they differed on human nature. Is there a way to reconcile two vastly different observations?
The first is that people in different eras and locales display a remarkable degree of behavioral
similarity; id est , human nature is universal and constant. However, on the other hand, the
peculiarities and differences between some cultures are so great that it is hard to see how these
are derived from a common source. This question is really what lies at the root of the current argument
between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. For if human nature is universal, cultural convergence
seems to be the logical outcome of a globalized world.
Are there alternatives? Building off of ideas introduced in the early 19th century by Hegel, Spengler
argued that the very framework of human experience was limited by the time and the civilization
in which the person lived:
"Mankind" has no aim, no idea, no plan [and] is a zoological expression, or an empty word.
But conjure away the phantom, break the magic circle, and at once there emerges an astonishing
wealth of actual forms. I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can
be kept up only by shutting one's eyes to the overwhelming multitier of facts, the drama of a
number of mighty Cultures. There is not one sculpture, one painting, one mathematics, one physics,
but many, each in its deepest essence different from the others, each limited in duration and
self-contained.
Spengler's views can be seen in the context of a movement known as historicism, the idea that
human societies were the products of historical and material circumstances, which arose as a result
of the universalism propagated by the Enlightenment and spread by the French Revolution. While Spengler
makes some valid points, particularly in arguing against the idea that history is goal-oriented and
directional, his view denies the very concept of empathy, that one can look at, say, Caesar, and
see things through his eyes.
Age after age, people look back on history for inspiration, and it is hard to accept this lack
of commonality with historical figures: the idea of a common human nature is a compelling concept.
It also has the weight of historical, literary, and anthropological evidence behind it. But it does
not follow that the idea of a fixed human nature leads to a form of neoliberal universalism.
One alternative was provided by Evola, who sought to reclaim the idea of human nature from the
Enlightenment and reconcile it with the observations described by Spengler and Hegel. Instead of
the liberal, convergent universalism championed by the Enlightenment, Evola advocated a traditionalist
universalism, because "there is no form of traditional organization that does not hide a higher
principle." In an
argument that echoes Plato's Theory of Forms, he wrote:
The supreme values and the foundational principles of every healthy and normal institution
are not liable to change. In the domain of these values there is no "history" and to think about
them in historical terms is absurd even where these principles are objectified in a historical
reality, they are not at all conditioned by it; they always point to a higher, meta-historical
plane, which is their natural domain and where there is no change.
In other words, Evola believed that there was a common core to human beings, a set of higher
principles and heroic "traditional" values that lay at the root of every successful civilization.
Even when eclipsed, these values remained in a dormant form, waiting to be reactivated. It is not
surprising, then, that Evola is popular among nationalists and reactionaries today, because his framework
allows for a shared nationalistic struggle that is simultaneously individualistic and universal in
the chivalric sense that true warriors always recognize and respect each other even when serving
different causes.
... ... ...
Akhilesh Pillalamarri is an editorial assistant at The American Conservative . He also
writes for The National Interest and The Diplomat .
"But the truth is probably a lot simpler: people are motivated by similar and fixed material,
psychological, and emotional factors across time and space, not by any liberal or 'meta-historical'
purposes."
Yet it seems to me that everything depends on just who the "people" in question are,
and what their relation is to the wellsprings of power. The motivations of the American electorate
are not those of a Napoleon; and these motivations in turn are not identical to those those of,
say, the Venetian Doge in the Renaissance. The character of the very social order changes dramatically
on the basis of the motivations of its rulers.
The problem is that the mere existence of human nature is no guarantee of its consummation.
Human beings may live pathetic or ignoble or fragmentary lives. Evola's concern (whatever one
might think of it) was with encouraging the perfection of human nature through political means.
That perfection may have little to do with the commonest "material, psychological, and emotional
factors"; indeed, it most certainly requires their overcoming.
This is important, because it forms one of the strongest critiques that the far right brings
against democratic republics: namely, that they are materialistic and emotionally hollow; that
they provide no transcendental or ennobling vision of the life of human beings and the destiny
of societies.
Until democratic republics can answer that charge, which is a poetic, a spiritual, a philosophical
charge, they will remain vulnerable to the peril of "fascist revolt."
"... When Mr. Bannon spoke on Thursday of "deconstructing the administrative state," it may have sounded like gobbledygook outside the hall, but it was an electrifying profession of faith for the attendees. It is through Mr. Bannon that Trump_vs_deep_state can be converted from a set of nostalgic laments and complaints into a program for overhauling the government. ..."
"... Mr. Bannon's film features predictable interviews with think-tank supply siders and free marketers fretting about big government. But new, less orthodox voices creep in, too, from the protectionist newscaster Lou Dobbs to the investment manager Barry Ritholtz. They question whether the free market is altogether free. Mr. Ritholtz says that the outcome of the financial crisis has been "socialism for the wealthy but capitalism for everybody else." ..."
"... By 2014, Mr. Bannon's own ideology had become centered on this distrust. He was saying such things about capitalism himself. "Think about it," he said in a talk hosted by the Institute for Human Dignity. "Not one criminal charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis." He warned against "the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism," by which he meant "a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people." Capitalism, he said, ought to rest on a "Judeo-Christian" foundation. ..."
"... If so, this was bad news for the Republican Party. By the time Mr. Bannon spoke, Ayn Rand-style capitalism was all that remained of its Reagan-era agenda. Free-market thinking had swallowed the party whole, and its Judeo-Christian preoccupations - "a nation with a culture" and "a reason for being" - along with it. A business orientation was what donors wanted. ..."
Weekly Standard senior editor Christoper Caldwell writes at the
New York Times
:
President Trump presents a problem to those who look at politics in terms of
systematic ideologies. He is either disinclined or unable to lay out his agenda
in that way. So perhaps it was inevitable that Mr. Trump's chief strategist,
Stephen K. Bannon, who does have a gift for thinking systematically, would be
so often invoked by Mr. Trump's opponents. They need him not just as a hate
object but as a heuristic, too. There may never be a "Trump_vs_deep_state," and unless one
emerges, the closest we may come to understanding this administration is as an
expression of "Bannonism."
Mr. Bannon, 63, has won a reputation for abrasive brilliance at almost every
stop in his unorthodox career - as a naval officer, Goldman Sachs mergers
specialist, entertainment-industry financier, documentary screenwriter and
director, Breitbart News cyber-agitprop impresario and chief executive of Mr.
Trump's presidential campaign. One Harvard Business School classmate described
him to The Boston Globe as "top three in intellectual horsepower in our class -
perhaps the smartest." Benjamin Harnwell of the Institute for Human Dignity, a
Catholic organization in Rome, calls him a "walking bibliography." Perhaps
because Mr. Bannon came late to conservatism, turning his full-time energy to
political matters only after the Sept. 11 attacks, he radiates an excitement
about it that most of his conservative contemporaries long ago lost.
Many accounts of Mr. Bannon paint him as a cartoon villain or internet troll
come to life, as a bigot, an anti-Semite, a misogynist, a crypto-fascist. The
former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat
of New York, have even called him a "white nationalist." While he is certainly
a hard-line conservative of some kind, the evidence that he is an extremist of
a more troubling sort has generally been either massaged, misread or hyped up.
There may be good reasons to worry about Mr. Bannon, but they are not the
ones everyone is giving. It does not make Mr. Bannon a fascist that he happens
to know who the 20th-century Italian extremist Julius Evola is. It does not
make Mr. Bannon a racist that he described Breitbart as "the platform for the
alt-right" - a broad and imprecise term that applies to a wide array of
radicals, not just certain white supremacist groups.
Where Mr. Bannon does veer sharply from recent
mainstream Republicanism is in his all-embracing nationalism. He speaks of
sovereignty, economic nationalism, opposition to globalization and finding
common ground with Brexit supporters and other groups hostile to the
transnational European Union. On Thursday, at this year's Conservative
Political Action Conference, he described the "center core" of Trump
administration philosophy as the belief that the United States is more than an
economic unit in a borderless word. It is "a nation with a culture
"
and
"
a reason for being."
...
When Mr. Bannon spoke on Thursday of "deconstructing the administrative
state," it may have sounded like gobbledygook outside the hall, but it was an
electrifying profession of faith for the attendees. It is through Mr. Bannon
that Trump_vs_deep_state can be converted from a set of nostalgic laments and complaints
into a program for overhauling the government.
...
Mr. Bannon adds something personal and idiosyncratic to this Tea Party mix.
He has a theory of historical cycles that can be considered elegantly simple or
dangerously simplistic. It is a model laid out by William Strauss and Neil Howe
in two books from the 1990s. Their argument assumes an 80- to 100-year cycle
divided into roughly 20-year "highs," "awakenings," "unravelings" and "crises."
The American Revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal, World War II - Mr. Bannon
has said for years that we're due for another crisis about now. His documentary
about the 2008 financial collapse, "Generation Zero," released in 2010, uses
the Strauss-Howe model to explain what happened, and concludes with Mr. Howe
himself saying, "History is seasonal, and winter is coming."
Mr. Bannon's views reflect a transformation of conservatism over the past
decade or so. You can trace this transformation in the films he has made. His
2004 documentary, "In the Face of Evil," is an orthodox tribute to the
Republican Party hero Ronald Reagan. But "Generation Zero," half a decade
later, is a strange hybrid. The financial crash has intervened.
Mr.
Bannon's film features predictable interviews with think-tank supply siders and
free marketers fretting about big government. But new, less orthodox voices
creep in, too, from the protectionist newscaster Lou Dobbs to the investment
manager Barry Ritholtz. They question whether the free market is altogether
free. Mr. Ritholtz says that the outcome of the financial crisis has been
"socialism for the wealthy but capitalism for everybody else."
By 2014, Mr. Bannon's own ideology had become centered on this distrust. He
was saying such things about capitalism himself. "Think about it," he said in a
talk hosted by the Institute for Human Dignity. "Not one criminal charge has
ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis." He warned
against "the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism," by
which he meant "a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and
to objectify people." Capitalism, he said, ought to rest on a "Judeo-Christian"
foundation.
If so, this was bad news for the Republican Party. By the time Mr.
Bannon spoke, Ayn Rand-style capitalism was all that remained of its Reagan-era
agenda. Free-market thinking had swallowed the party whole, and its
Judeo-Christian preoccupations - "a nation with a culture" and "a reason for
being" - along with it. A business orientation was what donors wanted.
But voters never more than tolerated it. It was Pat Buchanan who in his 1992
run for president first called on Republicans to value jobs and communities
over profits. An argument consumed the party over whether this was a
better-rounded vision of society or just the grousing of a reactionary. After a
generation, Mr. Buchanan has won that argument. By 2016 his views on trade and
migration, once dismissed as crackpot, were spreading so fast that everyone in
the party had embraced them - except its elected officials and its
establishment presidential candidates.
Mr. Bannon does not often go into detail about what Judeo-Christian culture is,
but he knows one thing it is not: Islam. Like most Americans, he believes that
Islamism - the extremist political movement - is a dangerous adversary. More
controversially he holds that, since this political movement is generated
within the sphere of Islam, the growth of Islam - the religion - is itself a
problem with which American authorities should occupy themselves. This is a
view that was emphatically repudiated by Presidents Obama and George W. Bush.
Mr. Bannon has apparently drawn his own views on the subject from intensive, if
not necessarily varied, reading. The thinkers he has engaged with in this area
tend to be hot and polemical rather than cool and detached. They include the
provocateur Pamela Geller, a campaigner against the "Ground Zero Mosque" who
once suggested the State Department was "essentially being run by Islamic
supremacists"; her sometime collaborator Robert Spencer, the director of the
website Jihad Watch, with whom she heads an organization called Stop
Islamization of America; and the former Department of Homeland Security
official Philip Haney, who has argued that officials in the Obama
administration had compromised "the security of citizens for the ideological
rigidity of political correctness."
He approves definition of neoliberalism as "socialism for the wealthy but capitalism for everybody
else."
Looks like his views are not very comparable with Republican Party platform (or Clinton wing
of Democratic Party platform, being "small republicans" in disguise)
== quote ==
"Think about it," he said in a talk hosted by the Institute for Human Dignity. "Not one criminal
charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis." He warned against
"the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism," by which he meant "a capitalism
that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people." Capitalism, he said, ought
to rest on a "Judeo-Christian" foundation.
== quote ==
If so, this was bad news for the Republican Party. By the time Mr. Bannon spoke, Ayn Rand-style
capitalism was all that remained of its Reagan-era agenda. Free-market thinking had swallowed
the party whole, and its Judeo-Christian preoccupations - "a nation with a culture" and "a reason
for being" - along with it. A business orientation was what donors wanted.
"... Yet, a return to protectionism is not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost ground due to globalisation without appropriate compensation of its 'losers', and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies. The world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation. ..."
"... From an energy point of view globalisation is a disaster. The insane level of fossil fuels that this current world requires for transportation of necessities (food and clothing) is making this world an unstable world. Ipso Facto. ..."
"... Those who believe that globalisation is bringing value to the world should reconsider their views. The current globalisation has created both monopolies on a geopolitical ground, ie TV make or shipbuilding in Asia. ..."
"... Do you seriously believe that these new geographical and corporate monopolies does not create the kind bad outcomes that traditional – country-centric ones – monopolies have in the past? ..."
"... Then there is the practical issue of workers having next to no bargaining power under globalization. Do people really suppose that Mexican workers would be willing to strike so that their US counterparts, already making ficew times as much money, would get a raise? ..."
"... Basically our elite sold us a bill of goods is why we lost manufacturing. Greed. Nothing else. ..."
"... So proof is required to rollback globalization, but no proof was required to launch it or continue dishing it out? It's good to be the King, eh? ..."
"... America hasn't just gotten rid of the low level jobs. It has also gotten rid of supervisors and factory managers. Those are skills you can't get back overnight. For US plants in Mexico, you might have US managers there or be able to get special visas to let those managers come to the US. But US companies have shifted a ton, and I meant a ton, to foreign subcontractors. Some would put operations in the US to preserve access to US customers, but their managers won't speak English. How do you make this work? ..."
"... The real issue is commitment. Very little manufacturing will be re-shored unless companies are convinced that it is in their longterm interest to do so. ..."
"... There is also what I've heard referred to as the "next bench" phenomenon, in which products arise because someone designs a new product/process to solve a manufacturing problem. Unless one has great foresight, the designer of the new product must be aware there is a problem to solve. ..."
"... When a country is involved in manufacturing, the citizens employed will have exposure to production problems and issues. ..."
"... After his speech he took questions. I asked "Would Toyota ever separate design from manufacturing?" as HP had done, shipping all manufacturing to Asia. "No" was his answer. ..."
"... In my experience, it is way too useful to have the line be able to easily call the designer in question and have him come take a look at what his design is doing. HP tried to get around that by sending part of the design team to Asia to watch the startup. Didn't work as well. And when problems emerged later, it was always difficult to debug by remote control. ..."
"... How about mass imports of cheap workers into western countries in the guise of emigrants to push down worker's pay and gut things like unions. That factor played a decisive factor in both the Brexit referendum and the US 2016 elections. Or the subsidized exportation of western countries industrial equipment to third world countries, leaving local workers swinging in the wind. ..."
"... The data sets do not capture some of the most important factors in what they are saying. It is like putting together a paper on how and why white men voted in the 2016 US elections as they did – and forgetting to mention the effect of the rest of the voters involved. ..."
"... I had a similar reaction. This research was reinforcing info about everyone's resentment over really bad distribution of wealth, as far as it went, but it was so unsatisfying ..."
"... "Right to work" is nothing other than a way to undercut quality of work for "run-to-the-bottom competitive pay." ..."
"... I've noticed that the only people in favor of globalization are those whose jobs are not under threat from it. ..."
"... First off, economic nationalism is not necessarily right wing. I would certainly classify Bernie Sanders as an economic nationalist (against open borders and against "free" trade). Syriza and Podemos could arguably be called rather ineffective economic nationalist parties. I would say the whole ideology of social democracy is based on the Swedish nationalist concept of a "folkhem", where the nation is the home and the citizens are the folk. ..."
"... So China is Turmpism on steroids. Israel obviously is as well. Why do some nations get to be blatantly Trumpist while for others these policies are strictly forbidden? ..."
"... One way to look at Globalization is as an updated version of the post WW1 Versailles Treaty which imposed reparations on a defeated Germany for all the harm they caused during the Great War. The Globalized Versailles Treaty is aimed at the American and European working classes for the crimes of colonialism, racism, slavery and any other bad things the 1st world has done to the 3rd in the past. ..."
"... And yes, this applies to Bernie Sanders as well. During that iconic interview where Sanders denounced open borders and pushed economic nationalism, the Neoliberal interviewer immediately played the global guilt card in response. ..."
"... During colonialism the 3rd world had a form of open borders imposed on it by the colonial powers, where the 3rd world lost control of who what crossed their borders while the 1st world themselves maintained a closed border mercantilist regime of strict filters. So the anti-colonialist movement was a form of Trumpist economic nationalism where the evil foreigners were given the boot and the nascent nations applied filters to their borders. ..."
"... Nationalism (my opinion) can do this – economic nationalism. And of course other people think oh gawd, not that again – it's so inefficient for my investments- I can't get fast returns that way but that's just the point. ..."
"... China was not a significant exporter until the 2001 inclusion in WTO: it cannot possibly have caused populist uprisings in Italy and Belgium in the 1990s. It was probably too early even for Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, who was killed in 2002, Le Pen's electoral success in the same year, Austria's FPOE in 1999, and so on. ..."
"... In the 1930s Keynes realized, income was just as important as profit as this produced a sustainable system that does not rely on debt to maintain demand. ..."
"... "Although commercial banks create money through lending, they cannot do so freely without limit. Banks are limited in how much they can lend if they are to remain profitable in a competitive banking system." ..."
"... The Romans are the basis. Patricians, Equites and Plebs. Most of us here are clearly plebeian. Time to go place some bets, watch the chariot races and gladiatorial fights, and get my bread subsidy. Ciao. ..."
"... 80-90% of Bonds and Equities ( at least in USA) are owned by top 10 %. 0.7% own 45% of global wealth. 8 billionaires own more than 50% of wealth than that of bottom 50% in our Country! ..."
"... Globalisation has caused a surge in support for nationalist and radical right political platforms. ..."
"... Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership seems to be a move in that direction. ..."
"... Yet, a return to protectionism is not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost ground due to globalisation without appropriate compensation of its 'losers' ..."
"... and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies. ..."
"... The world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation. ..."
Definitely a pleasant read but IMHO wrong conclusion: Yet, a return to protectionism is
not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost ground due to globalisation without appropriate
compensation of its 'losers', and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies. The
world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation.
From an energy point of view globalisation is a disaster. The insane level of fossil fuels
that this current world requires for transportation of necessities (food and clothing) is making
this world an unstable world. Ipso Facto.
We need a world where goods move little as possible (yep!) when smart ideas and technology
(medical, science, industry, yep that's essential) move as much as possible. Internet makes this
possible. This is no dream but a XXIth century reality.
Work – the big one – is required and done where and when it occurs. That is on all continents
if not in every country. Not in an insanely remote suburbs of Asia.
Those who believe that globalisation is bringing value to the world should reconsider their
views. The current globalisation has created both monopolies on a geopolitical ground, ie TV make
or shipbuilding in Asia.
Do you seriously believe that these new geographical and corporate monopolies does not
create the kind bad outcomes that traditional – country-centric ones – monopolies have in the
past?
Yves Smith can have nasty words when it comes to discussing massive trade surplus and policies
that supports them. That's my single most important motivation for reading this challenging blog,
by the way.
Another thing is that reliance on complex supply chains is risky. The book 1177 B.C.: The Year
Civilization Collapsed describes how the ancient Mediterranian civilization collapsed when the
supply chains stopped working.
Then there is the practical issue of workers having next to no bargaining power under globalization.
Do people really suppose that Mexican workers would be willing to strike so that their US counterparts,
already making ficew times as much money, would get a raise?
Is Finland somehow supposed to force the US and China to adopt similar worker rights and environmental
protections? No, globalization, no matter how you slice it,is a race to the bottom.
I do not agree with the article's conclusion either.
Reshoring would have 1 of 2 outcomes:
Lots of manufacturing jobs and a solid middle class. We may be looking at more than 20
percent total employment in manufacturing and more than 30 percent of our GDP in manufacturing.
If the robots take over, we still have a lot of manufacturing jobs. Japan for example has
the most robots per capita, yet they still maintain very large amounts of manufacturing employment.
It does not mean the end of manufacturing at all, having worked in manufacturing before.
Basically our elite sold us a bill of goods is why we lost manufacturing. Greed. Nothing
else.
The conclusion is the least important thing. Conclusions are just interpretations, afterthoughts,
divagations (which btw are often just sneaky ways to get your work published by TPTB, surreptitiously
inserting radical stuff under the noses of the guardians of orthodoxy).
The value of these reports is in providing hardcore statistical evidence and quantification
for something for which so many people have a gut feeling but just cann't prove it (although many
seem to think that just having a strong opinion is sufficient).
Yes, correct. Intuition is great for coming up with hypotheses, but it is important to test
them. And while a correlation isn't causation, it at least says the hypothesis isn't nuts on its
face.
In addition, studies like this are helpful in challenging the oft-made claim, particularly
in the US, that people who vote for nationalist policies are bigots of some stripe.
You are missing the transition costs, which will take ten years, maybe a generation.
America hasn't just gotten rid of the low level jobs. It has also gotten rid of supervisors
and factory managers. Those are skills you can't get back overnight. For US plants in Mexico,
you might have US managers there or be able to get special visas to let those managers come to
the US. But US companies have shifted a ton, and I meant a ton, to foreign subcontractors. Some
would put operations in the US to preserve access to US customers, but their managers won't speak
English. How do you make this work?
The only culture with demonstrated success in working with supposedly hopeless US workers is
the Japanese, who proved that with the NUMMI joint venture with GM in one of its very worst factories
(in terms of the alleged caliber of the workforce, as in many would show up for work drunk). Toyota
got the plant to function at better than average (as in lower) defect levels and comparable productivity
to its plants in Japan, which was light years better than Big Three norms.
I'm not sure any other foreign managers are as sensitive to detail and the fine points of working
conditions as the Japanese (having worked with them extensively, the Japanese hear frequencies
of power dynamics that are lost on Westerners. And the Chinese do not even begin to have that
capability, as much as they have other valuable cultural attributes).
That is really interesting about the Japanese sensitivity to detail and power dynamics. If
anyone has managed to describe this in any detail, I would love to read more, though I suppose
if their ability is alien to most Westerners the task of describing it might also be too much
to handle.
I lean more to ten years than a generation. And in the grand scheme of things, 10 years is
nothing.
The real issue is commitment. Very little manufacturing will be re-shored unless companies
are convinced that it is in their longterm interest to do so. Which means having a sense
that the US government is serious, and will continue to be serious, about penalizing off-shoring.
Regardless of Trump's bluster, which has so far only resulted in a handful of companies halting
future offshoring decisions (all to the good), we are nowhere close to that yet.
There is also what I've heard referred to as the "next bench" phenomenon, in which products
arise because someone designs a new product/process to solve a manufacturing problem. Unless one
has great foresight, the designer of the new product must be aware there is a problem to solve.
When a country is involved in manufacturing, the citizens employed will have exposure to
production problems and issues.
Sometimes the solution to these problems can lead to new products outside of one's main
business, for example the USA's Kingsford Charcoal arose from a scrap wood disposal problem that
Henry Ford had.
If one googles for "patent applications by countries" one gets these numbers, which could be
an indirect indication of some of the manufacturing shift from the USA to Asia.
Patent applications for the top 10 offices, 2014
1. China 928,177
2. US 578,802
3. Japan 325,989
4. South Korea 210,292
What is not captured in these numbers are manufacturing processes known as "trade secrets"
that are not disclosed in a patent. The idea that the USA can move move much of its manufacturing
overseas without long term harming its workforce and economy seems implausible to me.
While a design EE at HP, they brought in an author who had written about Toyota's lean design
method, which was currently the management hot button du jour. After his speech he took questions.
I asked "Would Toyota ever separate design from manufacturing?" as HP had done, shipping all manufacturing
to Asia. "No" was his answer.
In my experience, it is way too useful to have the line be able to easily call the designer
in question and have him come take a look at what his design is doing. HP tried to get around
that by sending part of the design team to Asia to watch the startup. Didn't work as well. And
when problems emerged later, it was always difficult to debug by remote control.
And BTW, after manufacturing went overseas, management told us for costing to assume "Labor
is free". Some level playing field.
Oh gawd! The man talks about the effects of globalization and says that the solution is a "a
more inclusive model of globalization"? Seriously? Furthermore he singles out Chinese imports
as the cause of people being pushed to the right. Yeah, right.
How about mass imports of cheap workers into western countries in the guise of emigrants
to push down worker's pay and gut things like unions. That factor played a decisive factor in
both the Brexit referendum and the US 2016 elections. Or the subsidized exportation of western
countries industrial equipment to third world countries, leaving local workers swinging in the
wind.
This study is so incomplete it is almost useless. The only thing that comes to mind to say
about this study is the phrase "Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" And what form
of appropriate compensation of its 'losers' would they suggest? Training for non-existent jobs?
Free moving fees to the east or west coast for Americans in flyover country? Subsidized emigration
fees to third world countries where life is cheaper for workers with no future where they are?
Nice try fellas but time to redo your work again until it is fit for a passing grade.
Aw jeez, mate – you've just hurt my feelings here. Take a look at the actual article again.
The data sets do not capture some of the most important factors in what they are saying. It
is like putting together a paper on how and why white men voted in the 2016 US elections as they
did – and forgetting to mention the effect of the rest of the voters involved.
Hey, here is an interesting thought experiment for you. How about we apply the scientific method
to the past 40 years of economic theory since models with actual data strike your fancy. If we
find that the empirical data does not support a theory such as the theory of economic neoliberalism,
we can junk it then and replace it with something that actually works then. So far as I know,
modern economics seems to be immune to scientific rigour in their methods unlike the real sciences.
Not all relevant factors need to be included for a statistical analysis to be valid, as long
as relevant ignored factors are randomized amongst the sampling units, but you know that of course.
Thanks for you kind words about the real sciences, we work hard to keep it real, but once again,
in all fairness, between you and me mate, is not all rigour, it is a lot more Feyerabend than
Popper.
What you say is entirely true. The trouble has always been to make sure that that statistical
analysis actually reflects the real world enough to make it valid. An example of where it all
falls apart can be seen in the political world when the pundits, media and all the pollsters assured
America that Clinton had it in the bag. It was only after the dust had settled that it was revealed
how bodgy the methodology used had been.
By the way, Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend sound very interesting so thanks for the heads
up. Have you heard of some of the material of another bloke called Mark Blyth at all? He has some
interesting observations to make on modern economic practices.
I had a similar reaction. This research was reinforcing info about everyone's resentment
over really bad distribution of wealth, as far as it went, but it was so unsatisfying and
I immediately thought of Blyth who laments the whole phylogeny of economics as more or less serving
the rich.
The one solution he offered up a while ago was (paraphrasing) 'don't sweat the deficit spending
because it is all 6s in the end' which is true if distribution doesn't stagnate. So as it stands
now, offshoring arms, legs and firstborns is like 'nothing to see here, please move on'. The suggestion
that we need a more inclusive form of global trade kind of begs the question. Made me uneasy too.
"Gut things like unions." How so? In my recent interaction with my apartment agency's preferred
contractors, random contractors not unionized, I experienced a 6 month-long disaster.
These construction workers bragged that in 2 weeks they would have the complete job done -
a reconstructed deck and sunroom. Verbatim quote: "Union workers complete the job and tear it
down to keep everyone paying." Ha Ha! What a laugh!
Only to have these same dudes keep saying "next week", "next week", "next week", "next week".
The work began in August and only was finished (not completely!) in late January. Sloppy crap!
Even the apartment agency head maintenance guy who I finally bitched at said "I guess good work
is hard to come by these days."
Of the non-union guys he hired.
My state just elected a republican governor who promised "right to work." This was just signed
into law.
Immigrants and Mexicans had nothing to do with it. They're not an impact in my city. "Right
to work" is nothing other than a way to undercut quality of work for "run-to-the-bottom competitive
pay."
Now I await whether my rent goes up to pay for this nonsense.
They look at the labor cost, assume someone can do it cheaper. They don't think it's that difficult.
Maybe it's not. The hard part of any and all construction work is getting it finished. Getting
started is easy. Getting it finished on time? Nah, you can't afford that.
I've noticed that the only people in favor of globalization are those whose jobs are not
under threat from it. Beyond that, I think the flood of cheap Chinese goods is actually helping
suppress populist anger by allowing workers whose wages are dropping in real value terms to maintain
the illusion of prosperity. To me, a more "inclusive" form of globalization would include replacing
every economist with a Chinese immigrant earning minimum wage. That way they'd get to "experience"
how awesome it is and the value of future economic analysis would be just as good.
I'm going to question a few of the author's assumptions.
First off, economic nationalism is not necessarily right wing. I would certainly classify
Bernie Sanders as an economic nationalist (against open borders and against "free" trade). Syriza
and Podemos could arguably be called rather ineffective economic nationalist parties. I would
say the whole ideology of social democracy is based on the Swedish nationalist concept of a "folkhem",
where the nation is the home and the citizens are the folk.
Secondly, when discussing the concept of economic nationalism and the nation of China, it would
be interesting to discuss how these two things go together. China has more billionaires than refugees
accepted in the past 20 years. Also it is practically impossible for a non Han Chinese person
to become a naturalized Chinese citizen. And when China buys Boeing aircraft, they wisely insist
on the production being done in China. A close look at Japan would yield similar results.
So China is Turmpism on steroids. Israel obviously is as well. Why do some nations get
to be blatantly Trumpist while for others these policies are strictly forbidden?
One way to look at Globalization is as an updated version of the post WW1 Versailles Treaty
which imposed reparations on a defeated Germany for all the harm they caused during the Great
War. The Globalized Versailles Treaty is aimed at the American and European working classes for
the crimes of colonialism, racism, slavery and any other bad things the 1st world has done to
the 3rd in the past.
Of course during colonialism the costs were socialized within colonizing states and so it was
the people of the colonial power who paid those costs that weren't borne by the colonial subjects
themselves, who of course paid dearly, and it was the oligarchic class that privatized the colonial
profits. But the 1st world oligarchs and their urban bourgeoisie are in strong agreement that
the deplorable working classes are to blame for systems that hurt working classes but powerfully
enriched the wealthy!
And so with the recent rebellions against Globalization, the 1st and 3rd world oligarchs are
convinced these are nothing more than the 1st world working classes attempting to shirk their
historic guilt debt by refusing to pay the rightful reparations in terms of standard of living
that workers deserve to pay for the crimes committed in the past by their wealthy co-nationals.
And yes, this applies to Bernie Sanders as well. During that iconic interview where Sanders
denounced open borders and pushed economic nationalism, the Neoliberal interviewer immediately
played the global guilt card in response.
Interesting. Another way to look at it is from the point of view of entropy and closed vs open
systems. Before globalisation the 1st world working classes enjoyed a high standard of living
which was possible because their system was relatively closed to the rest of the world. It was
a high entropy, strongly structured socio-economic arrangement, with a large difference in standard
of living between 1st world and 3rd world working classes. Once their system became more open
by virtue (or vice) of globalisation, entropy increased as commanded by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
so the 1st world and 3rd world working classes became more equalised. The socio-economic arrangements
became less structured. This means for the Trumpening kind of politicians it is a steep uphill
battle, to increase entropy again.
Yes, I agree, but if we step back in history a bit we can see the colonial period as a sort
of reverse globalization which perhaps portends a bit of optimism for the Trumpening.
I use the term open and closed borders but these are not precise. What I am really saying is
that open borders does not allow a country to filter out negative flows across their border. Closed
borders does allow a nation to impose a filter. So currently the US has more open borders (filters
are frowned upon) and China has closed borders (they can filter out what they don't want) despite
the fact that obviously China has plenty of things crossing its border.
During colonialism the 3rd world had a form of open borders imposed on it by the colonial
powers, where the 3rd world lost control of who what crossed their borders while the 1st world
themselves maintained a closed border mercantilist regime of strict filters. So the anti-colonialist
movement was a form of Trumpist economic nationalism where the evil foreigners were given the
boot and the nascent nations applied filters to their borders.
So the 3rd world to some extent (certainly in China at least) was able to overcome entropy
and regain control of their borders. You are correct in that it will be an uphill struggle for
the 1st world to repeat this trick. In the ideal world both forms of globalization (colonialism
and the current form) would be sidelined and all nations would be allowed to use the border filters
they think would best protect the prosperity of their citizens.
Another good option would be a version of the current globalization but where the losers are
the wealthy oligarchs themselves and the winners are the working classes. It's hard to imagine
it's easy if you try!
What's interesting about the concept of entropy is that it stands in contradiction to the concept
of perpetual progress. I'm sure there is some sort of thesis, antithesis, synthesis solution to
these conflicting concepts.
To overcome an entropy current requires superb skill commanding a large magnitude of work applied
densely on a small substratum (think of the evolution of the DNA, the internal combustion engine).
I believe the Trumpening laudable effort and persuasion would have a chance of success in a country
the size of The Netherlands, or even France, but the USA, the largest State machinery in the world,
hardly. When the entropy current flooded the Soviet system the solution came firstly in the form
of shrinkage.
We need to think more about it, a lot more, in order to succeed in this 1st world uphill struggle
to repeat the trick. I am pretty sure that as Pierre de Fermat famously claimed about his alleged
proof, the solution "is too large to fit in the margins of this book".
My little entropy epiphany goes like this: it's like boxes – containers, if you will, of energy
or money, or trade goods, the flow of which is best slowed down so everybody can grab some. Break
it all down, decentralize it and force it into containers which slow the pace and share the wealth.
Nationalism (my opinion) can do this – economic nationalism. And of course other
people think oh gawd, not that again – it's so inefficient for my investments- I can't get fast
returns that way but that's just the point.
Don't you mean "It was a LOWER entropy (as in "more ordered"), strongly structured socio-economic
arrangement, with a large difference in standard of living between 1st world"?
The entropy increased as a consequence of human guided globalization.
Of course, from a thermodynamic standpoint, the earth is not a closed system as it is continually
flooded with new energy in the form of solar radiation.
The Globalized Versailles Treaty -- Permit me a short laughter . The terms of the crippling
treaty were dictated by the victors largely on insecurities of France.
The crimes of the 1st against the 3rd go on even now- the only difference is that some of the
South like China and India are major nuclear powers now.
The racist crimes in the US are even more flagrant- the Blacks whose labour as slaves allowed
for cotton revolution enabling US capitalists to ride the industrial horse are yet to be rehabilitated
, Obama or no Obama. It is a matter of profound shame.
The benefits of Globalization have gone only to the cartel of 1st and 3rd World Capitalists.
And they are very happy as the lower classes keep fighting. Very happy indeed.
The gorgon cry of the past is all over the present , including in " unsuspecting" paying folks
of today! Blacks being brought to US as slave agricultural labour was Globalisation. Their energy
vibrated the machinery of Economics subsequently. What Nationalism and where is it hiding pray?
Bogus analysis here , yes.
The reigning social democratic parties in Europe today are not the Swedish traditional parties
of yesteryear they have morphed into neoliberal austerians committed to globalization and export
driven economic models at any cost (CETA vote recently) and most responsible for the economic
collapse in the EU
I wonder they chose Chinese imports as the cause of the right-wing shift, when they themselves
admit that the shift started in the 1990s. At that time, there were few Chinese imports and China
was not even part of the WHO.
If they are thinking of movements like the Lega Nord and Vlaams Blok, the reasons are clearly
not to be found in imports, but in immigration, the welfare state and lack of national homogeneity,
perceived or not.
And the beginnings of the precariat.
So it is not really the globalization of commerce that did it, but the loss of relevance of
national and local identities.
Correlation does not imply causation, but lack of correlation definitely excludes it.
The Lega was formed in the 1980s, Vlaams Blok at the end of the '70s. They both had their best
days in the 1990s. Chinese imports at the time were insignificant.
I cannot find the breakdown of Chinese imports per EU country, but here are the total Chinese
exports since 1983:
China was not a significant exporter until the 2001 inclusion in WTO: it cannot possibly
have caused populist uprisings in Italy and Belgium in the 1990s. It was probably too early even
for Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, who was killed in 2002, Le Pen's electoral success in the
same year, Austria's FPOE in 1999, and so on.
The timescales just do not match. Whatever was causing "populism", it was not Chinese imports,
and I can think of half a dozen other, more likely causes.
Furthermore, the 1980s and 1990s were something of an industrial renaissance for Lombardy and
Flanders: hardly the time to worry about Chinese imports.
And if you look at the map. the country least affected by the import shock (France) is the
one with the strongest populist movement (Le Pen).
People try to conflate Trump_vs_deep_state and Brexit with each other, then try to conflate this "anglo-saxon"
populism with previous populisms in Europe, and try to deduce something from the whole exercise.
That "something" is just not there and the exercise is pointless. IMHO at least.
European regionalism is often the result of the rise of the EU as a new, alternative national
government in the eyes of the disgruntled regions. Typically there are three levels of government,
local, regional (states) and national. With the rise of the EU we have a fourth level, supra-national.
But to the Flemish, Scottish, Catalans, etc, they see the EU as a potential replacement for the
National-level governments they currently are unhappy being under the authority of.
Capitalism should be evolving but it went backwards. Keynesian capitalism evolved from the
free market capitalism that preceded it. The absolute faith in markets had been laid low by 1929
and the Great Depression.
After the Keynesian era we went back to the old free market capitalism of neoclassical economics.
Instead of evolving, capitalism went backwards. We had another Wall Street Crash that has laid
low the once vibrant global economy and we have entered into the new normal of secular stagnation.
In the 1930s, Irving Fisher studied the debt deflation caused by debt saturated economies. Today
only a few economists outside the mainstream realise this is the problem today.
In the 1930s, Keynes realized only fiscal stimulus would pull the US out of the Great Depression,
eventually the US implemented the New Deal and it started to recover. Today we use monetary policy
that keeps asset prices up but cannot overcome the drag of all that debt in the system and its
associated repayments.
In the 1920s, they relied on debt based consumption, not realizing how consumers will eventually
become saturated with debt and demand will fail. Today we rely on debt based consumption again,
Greece consumed on debt. until it maxed out on debt and collapsed.
In the 1930s Keynes realized, income was just as important as profit as this produced a
sustainable system that does not rely on debt to maintain demand. Keynes was involved with
the Bretton-Woods agreement after the Second World War and recycled the US surplus to Europe to
restore trade when Europe lay in ruins. Europe could rebuild itself and consume US products, everyone
benefitted.
Today there are no direct fiscal transfers within the Euro-zone and it is polarizing. No one
can see the benefits of rebuilding Greece, to allow it to carry on consuming the goods from surplus
nations and it just sinks further and further into the mire. There is a lot to be said for capitalism
going forwards rather than backwards and making the same old mistakes a second time.
The ECB didn't listen and killed Greece with austerity and is laying low the Club-Med nations.
Someone who knows what they are doing, after studying the Great Depression and Japan after 1989.
Let's keep him out of the limelight; he has no place on the ship of fools running the show.
DEBT on Debt with QEs+ ZRP ( borrowing from future) was the 'solution' by Bernanke to mask
the 2008 crisis and NOT address the underlying structural reforms in the Banking and the Financial
industry. He was part of the problem for housing problem and occurred under his watch! He just
kicked the can with explosive credit growth ( but no corresponding growth in the productive Economy!)and
easy money!
We have a 'Mother of all bubbles' at our door step. Just matter of time when it will BLOW and
NOT if! There is record levels of DEBT ( both sovereign, public and private) in the history of
mankind, all over the World.
DEBT has been used as a panacea for all the financial problems by CBers including Bernanke!
Fed's balance sheet was than less 1 Trillion in 2008 ( for all the years of existence of our Country!)
but now over 3.5 Trillions and climbing!
Kicking the can down the road is like passing the buck to some one (future generations!). And
you call that solution by Mr. Bernanke? Wow!
Will they say again " No one saw this coming'? when next one descends?
The independent Central Banks that don't know what they are doing as can be seen from their
track record.
The FED presided over the dot.com bust and 2008, unaware that they were happening and of their
consequences. Alan Greenspan spots irrational exuberance in the markets in 1996 and passes comment.
As the subsequent dot.com boom and housing booms run away with themselves he says nothing.
The money supply is flat in the recession of the early 1990s.
Then it really starts to take off as the dot.com boom gets going which rapidly morphs into
the US housing boom, courtesy of Alan Greenspan's loose monetary policy.
When M3 gets closer to the vertical, the black swan is coming and you have an out of control
credit bubble on your hands (money = debt).
We can only presume the FED wasn't looking at the US money supply, what on earth were they
doing?
The BoE is aware of how money is created from debt and destroyed by repayments of that debt.
"Although commercial banks create money through lending, they cannot do so freely without
limit. Banks are limited in how much they can lend if they are to remain profitable in a competitive
banking system."
The BoE's statement was true, but is not true now as banks can securitize bad loans and get
them off their books. Before 2008, banks were securitising all the garbage sub-prime mortgages,
e.g. NINJA mortgages, and getting them off their books. Money is being created freely and without
limit, M3 is going exponential before 2008.
Bad debt is entering the system and no one is taking any responsibility for it. The credit
bubble is reflected in the money supply that should be obvious to anyone that cares to look.
Ben Bernanke studied the Great Depression and doesn't appear to have learnt very much.
Irving Fisher studied the Great Depression in the 1930s and comes up with a theory of debt
deflation. A debt inflated asset bubble collapses and the debt saturated economy sinks into debt
deflation. 2008 is the same as 1929 except a different asset class is involved.
1929 – Margin lending into US stocks
2008 – Mortgage lending into US housing
Hyman Minsky carried on with his work and came up with the "Financial Instability Hypothesis"
in 1974.
Steve Keen carried on with their work and spotted 2008 coming in 2005. We can see what Steve
Keen saw in 2005 in the US money supply graph above.
The independent Central Banks that don't know what they are doing as can be seen from their
track record.
Good to see studies confirming what was already known.
This apparently surprised:
On the contrary, as globalisation threatens the success and survival of entire industrial
districts, the affected communities seem to have voted in a homogeneous way, regardless of
each voter's personal situation.
It is only surprising for people not part of communities, those who are part of communities
see how it affects people around them and solidarity with the so called 'losers' is then shown.
Seems like radical right is the preferred term, it does make it more difficult to sympathize
with someone branded as radical right . The difference seems to be between the radical liberals
vs the conservative. The radical liberals are too cowardly to propose the laws they want, they
prefer to selectively apply the laws as they see fit. Either enforce the laws or change the laws,
anything else is plain wrong.
Socialism for the upper classes, capitalism for the lower classes? That will turn out well.
Debt slaves and wage slaves will revolt. That is all the analysis the OP requires. The upper class
will respond with suppression, not policy reversal every time. Socialism = making everyone equally
poor (obviously not for the upper classes who benefit from the arrangement).
Regrettably today we have socialism for the wealthy, with all the benefits of gov regulations,
sympathetic courts and legislatures etc. etc.
Workers are supposed to take care for themselves and the devil take the hind most. How many
workers get fired vs the 1%, when there is a failure in the company plan?
The Romans are the basis. Patricians, Equites and Plebs. Most of us here are clearly plebeian.
Time to go place some bets, watch the chariot races and gladiatorial fights, and get my bread
subsidy. Ciao.
Globalization created winners and losers throughout the world. The winners liked it, the losers
didn't. Democracy is based on the support of the majority.
The majority in the East were winners. The majority in the West were losers.
The Left has maintained its support of neoliberal globalisation in the West. The Right has
moved on. There has been a shift to the Right. Democracy is all about winners and losers and whether
the majority are winning or losing. It hasn't changed.
Globalization( along with communication -internet and transportation) made the Labor wage arbitration,
easy in favor of capital ( Multi-Nationals). Most of the jobs gone overseas will NEVER come back.
Robotic revolution will render the remaining jobs, less and less!
The 'new' Economy by passed the majority of lower 80-90% and favored the top 10%. The Losers
and the Winners!
80-90% of Bonds and Equities ( at least in USA) are owned by top 10 %. 0.7% own 45% of
global wealth. 8 billionaires own more than 50% of wealth than that of bottom 50% in our Country!
The Rich became richer!
The tension between Have and Have -Nots has just begun, as Marx predicted!
I think it's about time that we stopped referring to opposition to globalization as a product
or policy of the "extreme right". It would be truer to say that globalization represents a temporary,
and now fading, triumph of certain ideas about trade and movement of people and capital which
have always existed, but were not dominant in the past. Fifty years ago, most mainstream political
parties were "protectionist" in the sense the word is used today. Thirty years ago, protectionism
was often seen as a left)wing idea, to preserve standards of living and conditions of employment
(Wynne Godley and co). Today, all establishment political parties in the West have swallowed neoliberal
dogma, so the voters turn elsewhere, to parties outside the mainstream. Often, it's convenient
politically to label them "extreme right", although in Europe some left-wing parties take basically
the same position. If you ignore peoples' interests, they won't vote for you. Quelle surprise!
as Yves would say.
Yes, there are many reasons to be skeptical of too much globalization such as energy considerations.
I think another interesting one is exchange rates.
One of the important concepts of MMT is the importance of having a flexible exchange rate to
have full power over your currency. This is fine as far as it goes but tends to put hard currencies
against soft currencies where a hard currency can be defined as one that has international authority/acceptance.
Having flexible exchange rates also opens up massive amounts of financial speculation relative
to fluctuations of these currencies against each other and trying to protect against these fluctuations.
""Keynes' proposal of the bancor was to put a barrier between national currencies, that is
to have a currency of account at the global level. Keynes warned that free trade, flexible exchange
rates and free movement of capital globally were incompatible with maintaining full employment
at the local level""
""Sufficiency provisioning also means that trade would be discouraged rather than encouraged.""
Local currencies can work very well locally to promote employment but can have trouble when
they reach out to get resources outside of their currency space especially if they have a soft
currency. Global sustainability programs need to take a closer look at how to overcome this sort
of social injustice. (Debt or Democracy)
As has already been pointed out so eloquently here in the comments section, economic nationalism
is not necessarily the preserve of the right, nor is it necessarily the same thing as nationalism.
In the UK the original, most vociferous objectors to EEC membership in the 70s (now the EU)
were traditionally the Left, on the basis that it would gradually erode labour rights and devalue
the cost of labour in the longer term. Got that completely wrong obviously .
In the same way that global trade has become synonymous with globalisation, the immigration
debate has been hijacked and cynically conflated with free movement of (mainly low cost, unskilled)
labour and race when they are all VERY different divisive issues.
The other point alluded to in the comments above is the nature of free trade generally. The
accepted (neoliberal) wisdom being that 'collateral damage' is unfortunate but inevitable, but
it is pretty much an unstoppable or uncontrollable force for the greater global good, and the
false dichotomy persists that you either embrace it fully or pull up all the drawbridges with
nothing in between.
One of the primary reasons that some competing sectors of some Western economies have done
so badly out of globalisation is that they have adhered to 'free market principles' whilst other
countries, particularly China, clearly have not with currency controls, domestic barriers to trade,
massive state subsidies, wage suppression etc
The China aspect is also fascinating when developed nations look at the uncomfortable 'morality
of global wealth distribution' often cited by proponents of globalisation as one of their wider
philanthropic goals. Bless 'em. What is clear is that highly populated China and most of its people,
from the bottom to the top, has been the primary beneficiaries of this global wealth redistribution,
but the rest of the developing world's poor clearly not quite so much.
The map on it's own, in terms of the English one time industrial Midlands & North West being
shown as an almost black hole, is in itself a kind of " Nuff Said ".
It is also apart from London, where the vast bulk of immigrants have settled.
The upcoming bye-election in Stoke, which could lead to U-Kip taking a once traditionally always
strong Labour seat, is right in the middle of that dark cloud.
The problem from the UK 's position, I suggest, is that autarky is not a viable proposition
so economic nationalism becomes a two-edged sword. Yes, of course, the UK can place restrictions
on imports and immigration but there will inevitably be retaliation and they will enter a game
of beggar my neighbour. The current government talks of becoming a beacon for free trade. If we
are heading to a more protectionist world, that can only end badly IMHO.
Unless we get some meaningful change in thinking on a global scale, I think we are heading
somewhere very dark whatever the relative tinkering with an essentially broken system.
The horse is long gone, leaving a huge pile of shit in it's stable.
As for what might happen, I do not know, but I have the impression that we are at the end of
a cycle.
This is quite interesting, but only part of the story. Interestingly the districts/provinces
suffering the most from the chinese import shock are usually densely populated industrial regions
of Europe. The electoral systems in Europe (I think all, but I did not check) usually do not weight
equally each district, favouring those less populated, more rural (which by the way tend to be
very conservative but not so nationalistic). These differences in vote weigthing may have somehow
masked the effect seen in this study if radical nationalistic rigth wing votes concentrate in
areas with lower weigthed value of votes. For instance, in Spain, the province of Soria is mostly
rural and certainly less impacted by chinese imports compared with, for instance, Madrid. But
1 vote in Soria weigths the same as 4 votes in Madrid in number of representatives in the congress.
This migth, in part, explain why in Spain, the radical rigth does not have the same power as in
Austria or the Netherlands. It intuitively fits the hypothesis of this study.
Nevertheless, similar processes can occur in rural areas. For instance, when Spain entered
the EU, french rural areas turned nationalistic against what they thougth could be a wave of agricultural
imports from Spain. Ok, agricultural globalization may have less impact in terms of vote numbers
in a given country but it still can be politically very influential. In fact spanish entry more
that 30 years ago could still be one of the forces behind Le Penism.
All this statistical math and yada yada to explain a rise in vote for radical right from 3%
in 1985 to 5% now on average? And only a 0.7% marginal boost if your the place really getting
hammmered by imports from China? If I'm reading it right, that is, while focusing on Figure 2.
The real "shock" no pun intended, is the vote totals arent a lot higher everywhere.
Then the Post concludes with reference to a "surge in support" - 3% to 5% or so over 30 years
is a surge? The line looks like a pretty steady rise over 3 decades.
Maybe I'm missing sommething here.
Also what is this thing they're callling an "Open World" of the past 30 years? And why is that
in danger from more balanced trade? It makes no sense. Even back in the 60s and 70s people could
go alll over the world for vacations. Or at least most places they coould go. If theh spent their
money they'd make friends. Greece even used to be a goood place people went and had fun on a beach.
I think this one is a situation of math runing amuck. Math running like a thousand horses over
a hill trampling every blade of grass into mud.
I bet the China factor is just a referent for an entire constellatio of forces that probably
don't lend themselves (no pun intended) partiicularly well to social science and principal component
analysis - as interesting as that is for those who are interested in that kind of thing (which
I am acctually).
Also, I wouldn't call this "free trade". Not that the authors do either, but trade means reciprocity
not having your livelihood smashed the like a pinata at Christmas with all your candy eaten by
your "fellow countrymen". I wouldn't call that "trade". It's something else.
Regarding your first point, it is a small effect but it is all due to the China imports impact,
you have to add the growth of these parties due to other reasons such as immigration to get the
full picture of their growth. Also I think the recent USA election was decided by smaller percentage
advantages in three States?
Globalisation is nothing but free trade extended to the entire world. Free trade is a tool
used to prevent competition. By flooding countries with our cheaper exports, they do not develop
the capacity to compete with us by making their own widgets. So, why are we shocked when those
other countries return the favor and when they get the upper hand, we respond in a protectionist
way? It looks to me that those countries who are now competing with us in electronics, automobiles,
etc. only got to develop those industries in their countries because of protectionism.
Refugees in great numbers are a symptom of globalization, especially economic refugees but
also political and environmental ones. This has strained the social order in many countries that
have accepted them in and it's one of the central issues that the so-called "right" is highlighting.
It is no surprise there has been an uproar over immigration policy in the US which is an issue
of class as much as foreign policy because of the disenfranchisement of large numbers of workers
on both sides of the equation - those who lost their jobs to outsourcing and those who emigrated
due to the lack of decent employment opportunities in their own countries.
We're seeing the tip of the iceberg. What will happen when the coming multiple environmental
calamities cause mass starvation and dislocation of coastal populations? Walls and military forces
can't deter hungry, desperate, and angry people.
The total reliance and gorging on fossil energy by western countries, especially the US, has
mandated military aggression to force compliance in many areas of the world. This has brought
a backlash of perpetual terrorism. We are living under a dysfunctional system ruled by sociopaths
whose extreme greed is leading to world war and environmental collapse.
Who created the REFUGEE PROBLEMS in the ME – WEST including USA,UK++
Obama's DRONE program kept BOMBING in SEVEN Countries killing innocents – children and women!
All in the name of fighting Terrorism. Billions of arms to sale Saudi Arabia! Wow!
Where were the Democrats and the Resistance and Women's march? Hypocrites!
Globalisation has caused a surge in support for nationalist and radical right political
platforms.
Just a reminder that nationalism doesn't have to be associated with the radical right. The left
is not required to reject it, especially when it can be understood as basically patriotism, expressed
as solidarity with all of your fellow citizens.
Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership seems to be a move in that direction.
Well, that may be true as far as Trump's motivations are concerned, but a major component (the
most important?) of the TPP was strong restraint of trade, a protectionist measure, by intellectual
property owners.
Yet, a return to protectionism is not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost
ground due to globalisation without appropriate compensation of its 'losers'
Japan has long been 'smart' protectionist, and this has helped prevent the 'loser' problem, in
part because Japan, being nationalist, makes it a very high priority to create/maintain a society
in which almost all Japanese are more or less middle class. So, it is a fact that protectionism
has been and can be associated with more egalitarian societies, in which there are few 'losers'
like we see in the West. But the U.S. and most Western countries have a long way to go if they
decide to make the effort to be more egalitarian. And, of course, protectionism alone is not enough
to make most of the losers into winners again. You'll need smart skills training, better education
all around, fewer low-skill immigrants, time, and, most of all strong and long-term commitment
to making full employment at good wages national priority number one.
and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies.
Growth has been week since the 2008, even though markets are as free as they've ever been. Growth
requires a lot more consumers with willingness and cash to spend on expensive, high-value-added
goods. So, besides the world finally escaping the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, exporting
countries need prosperous consumers either at home or abroad, and greater economic security. And
if a little bit of protectionism generates more consumer prosperity and economic stability, exporting
countries might benefit overall.
The world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation.
Well, yes, the world needs more inclusivity, but globalization doesn't need to be part of the
picture. Keep your eyes on the prize: inclusivity/equality, whether latched onto nationally, regionally,
'internationally' or globally, any which way is fine! But prioritization of globalization over
those two is likely a victory for more inequality, for more shoveling of our wealth up to the
ruling top 1%.
"... The revival of nationalism in western Europe, which began in the 1990s, has been associated
with increasing support for radical right parties. This column uses trade and election data to show
that the radical right gets its biggest electoral boost in regions most exposed to Chinese exports.
Within these regions communities vote homogenously, whether individuals work in affected industries
or not. ..."
"... "Chinese imports" is only an expression, or correlate, of something else - the neoliberal YOYO
principle and breakdown/deliberate destruction of social cohesion ..."
"... As a side effect, this removes the collective identity, and increased tribalism is the compensation
- a large part it is an attempt to find/associate with a group identity, which of course gives a large
boost to readily available old identities, which were in the past (ab)used by nationalist movements,
largely for the same reasons. ..."
The revival of nationalism in western Europe, which began in the 1990s, has been associated
with increasing support for radical right parties. This column uses trade and election data to
show that the radical right gets its biggest electoral boost in regions most exposed to Chinese
exports. Within these regions communities vote homogenously, whether individuals work in affected
industries or not.
"Chinese imports" is only an expression, or correlate, of something else - the neoliberal
YOYO principle and breakdown/deliberate destruction of social cohesion.
As a side effect, this removes the collective identity, and increased tribalism is the
compensation - a large part it is an attempt to find/associate with a group identity, which of
course gives a large boost to readily available old identities, which were in the past (ab)used
by nationalist movements, largely for the same reasons.
It seems to be quite apparent to me that the loss of national/local identity has not (initially?)
promoted nationalist movements advocating a stronger national identity narrative, but a "rediscovery"
of regional identities - often based on or similar to the geography of former kingdoms or principalities
prior to national unification, or more local municipal structures (e.g. local administrations,
business, or interest groups promoting a historical narrative of a municipal district as the village
or small town that it descended from, etc. - with the associated idyllic elements).
In many cases these historical identity narratives had always been undercurrents, even when
the nation state was strong.
And I mean strong not in the military or executive strength sense, but accepted as legitimate
and representing the population and its interests.
In these days, national goverments and institutions (state/parties) have been largely discredited,
not least due to right wing/elite propaganda (and of course due to observed corruption promoted
from the same side).
I'm not aware that either have discredited any deep state (BTW which Clinton?). The first thing
I would ask for is clarification what you mean by "deep state" - can you provide a usable definition?
Obama has rejected calls for going after US torturers ("we want to move past this").
And if you don't know where the 6 months of innuendo about the Russians comes from since Aug
16 you are reading the treasonous agitprop from the democrat wind machine centered in NY, Boston
and LA.
I'm not sure this answers my question, and it seems to accuse me of something I have not said
or implied (taking treason lightly) - or perhaps cautioning me against such?
Are you willing to define the terms you are discussing? (Redirecting me to a google search
etc. will not address my question. How exactly do you define "deep state"? You can quote from
the internet of course.)
From a previous life I know a concept of "a state within the state" (concretely referring to
the East German Stasi and similar services in other "communist" countries in concept but only
vaguely in the details). That is probably related to this, but I don't want to base any of this
on speculation and unclear terms.
The frightening common ground between a Trump adviser and white nationalism's favorite philosopher
Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, sees Dugin's ideology as an ally against liberalism.
A few days after securing the nomination to be the 45th President of the United States, Trump
announced Steve Bannon, a man Politico
labeled "an insurgent firebrand," would be his chief strategist.
Prior to accepting the role in Trump's administration Bannon was his campaign CEO. And before
that, he ran Breitbart, a news platform that he once
called the "platform for the alt-right."
The term "alt-right" was popularized by Richard Spencer, head of the racist National Policy Institute,
and an avowed fan of both
Dugin and
Trump .
While Bannon may have no direct ties to Dugin, he is acutely aware of the Russian's ideology.
Bannon referred to Dugin while
answering questions at a talk hosted by the religious right wing Human Dignity Institute in the
summer of 2014.
"When Vladimir Putin, when you really look at some of the underpinnings of some of his beliefs
today, a lot of those come from what I call Eurasianism," said Bannon. "He's got an adviser [Dugin]
who harkens back to Julius Evola and different writers of the early 20th century who are really the
supporters of what's called the traditionalist movement, which really eventually metastasized into
Italian fascism. A lot of people that are traditionalists are attracted to that."
Bannon is referring to Dugin here. Dugin is a proponent of traditionalism - a philosophy in which
all moral and religious truths come from divine revelation and are perpetuated by tradition - and
counts Evola, an influential Italian fascist, as one of his influences. This speech took place in
2014, when Dugin's support
for the annexation of Crimea had him prominently in the news.
Bannon may have little love for Putin. In his speech, Bannon calls Putin a kleptocrat; and when
he oversaw Breitbart, coverage of Putin and Russia was
largely negative . But
just because he disagrees with some of Putin's goals, it doesn't mean he disputes all of Putin's
methods, as he made clear during the Human Dignity Institute event.
"[W]e the Judeo-Christian West really have to look at what [Putin] he's talking about as far as
traditionalism goes - particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of nationalism - and
I happen to think that the individual sovereignty of a country is a good thing and a strong thing,"
said Bannon. "I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong
neighbors, and that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States,
and I think it's what can see us forward."
For Bannon, Putin's form of traditionalism can be used as a bulwark against what he believes to
be America's gravest threats - liberalism and "radical Islam." Bannon said:
You know, Putin's been quite an interesting character. He's also very, very, very intelligent.
I can see this in the United States where he's playing very strongly to social conservatives about
his message about more traditional values, so I think it's something that we have to be very much
on guard of. Because at the end of the day, I think that Putin and his cronies are really a kleptocracy,
that are really an imperialist power that want to expand. However, I really believe that in this
current environment, where you're facing a potential new caliphate that is very aggressive that
is really a situation - I'm not saying we can put it on a back burner - but I think we have to
deal with first things first.
Despite the shared ideology, Bannon clearly doesn't lionize Putin or Dugin on the same level as
others in the racist alt-right circles. Putin and Dugin recognize parts of Islamic culture as closer
to Russian than Western culture, whereas Bannon's view of traditionalism has no place for Islam - as
evidenced by his
frequent references of a "Judeo-Christian west."
"Mr Dugin and his ideological camp, by contrast, see parts of the Islamic world as a potential
ally against the liberal-humanist demon," according to a November
report in the Economist, "and this, in turn, influences Mr Putin, who
once said
that in the view of 'certain thinkers' Russian Orthodoxy stood closer to Islam than to Western
Christianity."
Bannon seems to be ambivalent when it comes to Putin. On the one hand, he sees Putin as fighting
jihadists in Syria (
though the reality is more complicated ), while on the other, Putin is clearly not a proponent
of Bannon's vision of a powerful "Judeo-Christian West."
But that doesn't mean Bannon isn't above forming a partnership to fight liberalism, something
held in equal contempt by Dugin
. As the Economist
reported , "whatever the differences [between Dugin, Putin, and Bannon, they] do want to be in
vanguard of a fight against certain common enemies, including secularism, multi-culturalism, egalitarianism
and modernity."
Strands of Bannon's ideology resembles Dugin's. That being said, it may not be a coincidence that
many online pro-Trump supporters also posts pro-Putin messaging.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Dugin's name also makes frequent appearances in these
messages.
"In one example, anonymous pro-Russia Twitter
account holder @Ricky_Vaughn99 , who has been
acknowledged as one of the most influential tweeters for Trump, was interviewed on Radix Journal
, edited by racist 'alt-right' figure Richard Spencer, which itself hosts numerous articles
by and about Dugin ," the
Herald reported in June. "The Ricky Vaughn 99 account has even
retweeted videos in Russian . It's like one
big happy family generating social media buzz for Trump, Dugin and the cause of white identity."
This is part of a series focusing on the links between white nationalists in Russia and the
West. Read part one here and part two here .
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
FAIR USE NOTICEThis site contains
copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available
to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social
issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which
such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free)
site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should
be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...
You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors
of this site
Disclaimer:
The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or
referenced source) and are
not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society.We do not warrant the correctness
of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be
tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without
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Matthew Walther The failure and delusions of the adults in the room
Matthew Walther The 2020 Democratic frontrunner is a Republican
The passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has refuted any notion that Trump's ascension to the White House would mark an end to neoliberalism. Poor whites who supported Trump expected him to offer America a new version of conservativism that would break with neoliberalism. Instead, furthering neoliberal policies has become a critical objective that works in tandem with Trump's xenophobic rhetoric
