Sunday 4 February 2018

Reflections on the Trump phenomenon

Do I support Donald Trump?
No I do NOT!


Seemorerocks


I thought that my position on Donald Trump might have been clear but after receiving the following comment I feel the need to lay it out more clearly.

I am not going to defend the Democratic Party. But do you honestly think Donald Trump is worth supporting in any way whatsoever?

I suspect that many Americans are still wedded to the two party system and only very slowly round to the realisation that they no longer live in a democracy and they cannot put their hopes in a magical candidate who is going to bring Delivery - even Bernie Sanders.

I have been watching this from afar for a number of years and my personal bias is that America is the one imperialist power and #1 terrorist state - and therefore a scourge on the rest of humanity.

Trump ran on the slogan of 'MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN'. There is no way that this is even possible (and subsequent events bear this out - every day) let alone being something that I could support.

During the election Trump's utterances that he would like to 'get along with Vladimir Putin' and to stop nation-building and endless wars offered some hope that the insane policies of Obama, Clinton and others might be put behind us.

Such realism was supported by many, including Prof. Stephen Cohen, Ron Paul and many others.

One would have to have been a fool or a warmonger to think otherwise.

Although he expressed himself with his characteristic lack of clarity he did also identify the malaise of the American economy and of the corrosive corruption that has taken over America.

Just about all these things have led to disappointment as he has either flipflopped on his previous positions or,more likely, been neutralised by the Deep State and the neocons that have ruled the roost since 9/11/2001.

Many of the things he has done or said make me shrug my shoulders.

His somewhat insane intention to build a wall on the border with Mexico is no different in essence, from positions on immigration expressed by previous presidents such as Bill Clinton or Obama.

Many of his heartless policies are little different from right-wing governments around the world. Look not further than our John Key or Theresa May! 

Whatever Trump is this is only exceeded by the hypocrisy of the neo-con, neo-liberal Democrats. 

For me these people are truly the low of the low (along with the corporate media they have spawned).

Leaving the Paris accord is somewhat irrelevant to me as we have well-and-truly passed the threshold for rapid and catastrophic climate change that will, at the very least, destroy industrial civilisation.

The things that Trump has done such as:


  • Cutting environmental protection
  • Removing reference to climate change on government websites
  • Cutting back funding for research while adopting coal
  • Increasing military spending and ramping up the move to global war,


are of course retrograde from the point-of-view of anyone who regards themselves as 'progressive'

But, as I have pointed out "progress" in a world that moving towards collapse and worse is preposterous.

Of course the straightforwardness of Trump ("what you see is what you've got") is offset by the lies, hypocrisy and double standards of the faux-Left in the Democrat Party and elsewhere.

My position is expressed by a Facebook comment I made after the SOTU.

"Trump represents perfectly what a leader of the world's biggest imperialist power and #1 terrorist state but he is also nothing like what his political foes in the Democrat Party say he is"

I have been following the stealing of the election by Hillaryites from Bernie Sanders, the assumption that Hillary was the only candidate who could win and the shock at losing that led to the insanity of Russiagate and to call any political opponent a "Putin crony" and now of course the reversal of this with #ReleaseTheMemo and all the revelations that have come out (and are still going to come out)

I cannot but applaud this process.

Certainly NOT because it is going to 'MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN'.

I have something to tell you. It is not going to. 

In fact it is a further sign (after economic collapse and geopolitical failures) that America is essentially finished as a world power (except in the negative sense of taking us to a worldwide nuclear conflagration).

America is on the way down and whatever the consequences for the rest of us I applaud it - although I strongly suspect it is going to end in tears for ALL of us (even the Russians and Chinese eventually).

If anything I believe that Trump is playing a role of catalyst in accelerating the 
whole process.

That doesn't sound like much of an endorsement to me!

We have a unique situation where we are dealing with the entirety of the international global elite opposing a sitting president supported by the whole of the corporate media - essentially a cabal trying to overthrow (or even kill) a sitting president of the United States.

If he was just like the rest of them they wouldn't be trying to mount a coup against him.

In talking about a new Council of Foreign Relations article advocating for a cold war (even a hot one) against Russia I can only concur with Prof. Stephen Cohen when he says the only hope is a a moderate Putin (if he can resist the hawks around him) and Trump as he was in the campaign.

Americans, I think,need to heed the words of the likes of Debbie, Sane Progressive when she says they need to rid themselves of dependence on the two parties (and even the independents)- look at Bernie Sanders - he has fully fallen in with the Cabal.

The best thing that Americans can do is to get informed, prepared for civil strife and keep out of the way while the Titans fight it out.

The situation is complex and there are many contradictions and to get to the truth I think we need to throw out our tendency to think in terms of our tribe and even embrace some of the truths uttered by voices of people we don't like.

In short, do I support Trump? Certainly not!  But that comes with some caveats.

I hope that clarifies my position a little.

In the meantime this video explains the situation surrounding the FISA memo for people that are not that political or into the details:


2 comments:

  1. Good to hear that you lean progressive and aren't afraid to admit it! Kudos to Robin! Bravo!

    We all need to never forget, "It is no sign of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

    And that sick society is about to be torpedoed by economic failure, followed quickly by another hit, in the form of crop failure due to abrupt climate change!

    And about that time, people will discover that their children are sick, and everything is dying because of the multi trillion dollar geoengineering BUSINESS!

    Maybe the people will "catch on" by then...I seriously doubt it!

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.