Written by Seth Ferris; Originally appeared at New Eastern Outlook
When countries are in trouble they always react the same way. If they have economic troubles their governments take ever greater control of the public finances, whether through austerity or centrally-dictated spending programmes. When there is civil strife the government calls out the army and restricts liberties to regain control of the situation. When wars are taking place elections are cancelled so the government of the day remains in power to deal with the conflict.
These measures have the effect of entrenching the “Establishment”, whoever that may be at a given time, and excluding others. People can only play a part in addressing the problems of the country at the whim of the Establishment, with appointments replacing elections in many such scenarios. Only when the Establishment is secure does it allow greater freedom of debate, action and participation, which are regarded as the hallmarks of stable countries.
Now Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States on an avowedly anti-Establishment platform. He tapped into those disaffected by the political system and found the issues on which he could make the most noise. That in itself was a virtue with the constituency he was trying to attract. Too many people have become disaffected with politics everywhere because someone has decreed certain views to be unacceptable, without giving a reason why, and Trump was only too happy to give voice to those who have been told that their views don’t entitle them to one.
But is Trump’s election the democratic revolution he claims? Does it actually give a voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless? In order to exercise any power President Trump will have to do all the things he accuses his opponents in the Establishment of, but worse. For a while he might get away with it, but he will never have the resources to win in the longer term. All we will have is the methods, with no returns: Establishment oppression on a scale beyond the worst nightmares of the enforced nobodies who now think they are somebody, but are in fact Donald Trump.
Who do you think you are?
As it turned out, Hillary Clinton failed to get past a problem she would not have had as a Republican. If you are on the conservative end of the political spectrum you are expected to act like you belong in power when you have it. People in more progressive parties claim to represent the interests of the broad mass of people who will never be rich and powerful. If they stay in power for too long, they create a distance between themselves and that mass which erodes their natural support.
Hillary Clinton has been a national figure in the US for a generation. Her accession to the Democratic nomination was seen as almost dynastic, a factor which harmed Senator Edward Kennedy when he ran for the Democratic nomination against Jimmy Carter in 1980. She was referred to as the “Establishment candidate” throughout the campaign, particularly by members of her own party who preferred socialist Bernie Sanders, who complained throughout the primary process that the voting was being rigged and that the media were falsely reporting that she had won the nomination before it was mathematically certain.
For a Republican, all this would play well, except in extreme circumstances such as Watergate. For a Democrat it was bound to depress enthusiasm in the party’s voter base, and either drive it to another candidate or persuade it to stay at home, particularly when enough scandal attaches to Clinton as it is due to her business and government dealings.
Clinton was about her nice office in Washington, not the problems of real Democrats. Keeping her there would have solved nothing. This was seen most clearly in Wisconsin, a traditional Democratic mainstay which voted for Trump despite the fact exit pollsters were showing that a large numbers of voters greatly disliked both he and Clinton. Many of those who disliked Trump still voted for him because they felt disliked themselves by politicians such as Clinton, who had let them down more than a newcomer had been able to do. He was “the-none-of-the-above” candidate from early on in the primary election period.
Poacher turns gamekeeper
Whether Trump would have got anywhere near the Republican nomination had there been a Republican president for the last eight years is unlikely. Only as an outsider could he gain any traction within a party which thinks of itself as the natural party of government, and would pick an insider every time to maintain its hold on power.
The Republican Party will remain largely embarrassed by Trump, despite his victory. He may be the voters’ idea of a president, but he isn’t what Republican politicians see as a Republican president. As the Huffington Post published underneath every article about Trump from January until election day, “Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims – 1.6 billion members of an entire religion – from entering the US.” Ask most Republican Congressmen, who control both houses, whether this describes a Republican President and you know what the answer will be, though Trump himself revels in such depictions.
Well before the end of his term Trump will have become the Establishment himself. So to achieve anything in the checks and balances system the US has he will either have to carry the party and the military-industrial establishment with him, and become more embedded than Clinton is to do it, or try and purge the very many who will oppose him.
Throughout his “business career”, if repeated bankruptcy, con, robbing of contractors and tax avoidance can be dignified with such a term, Trump has relied on bluster and a stubborn refusal to face reality to prosper. Whether he can get away with that with the military and intelligence staff who have ruined America’s global reputation with impunity is another matter. Presidents who spent lifetimes working the system have not been able to control the CIA or the industrial and media barons. If Trump tries, he will have to exert extreme control to do it, and become more exclusive than the Establishment itself.
Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976 as an antidote to a corrupt political establishment. Despite his long years of public service, he was discarded four years later for being exactly what he was elected to be – a good man out of his depth in murky Washington. Trump has never held any elected office. Is he going to take on those same forces and turn them into public servants?
More than he can chew out
One of Trump’s selling points with poorer Americans is that he pledged to stop US involvement in costly foreign wars. In particular, he said he could work with Russia and saw no need for the continual war rhetoric coming out of every Western government.
Obviously this plays well with those who can’t afford to feed their families. The money will be spent on them, not bombs. But is it even possible to reduce the US military commitment, with so many bases, so many troops employed, so many weapons which will be manufactured and sold regardless?
Trump may well find that the best way to stop foreign wars is to buy up all the weapons so that potential enemies don’t get them. The War on Terror would greatly diminish if the US didn’t supply arms to its favourite terrorists whilst pretending to fight them. But there is a vast industry devoted to maintaining armament and troop levels, which can only be justified by fighting wars against enemies real or imagined. So how would Trump go about achieving such a goal?
Trump and his supporters are sons and daughters of the Bolsheviks. Convinced they are right, they think they can say what they like, do what they like and everyone else just has to put up with it because any opponent is part of the corrupt Establishment. It is no coincidence that Nigel Farage, former leader of UKIP and the main proponent of the UK leaving the European Union, has described Trump’s victory as a “Supersized Brexit. Farage’s supporters behave the same way: everyone they don’t like hasn’t got the right to an opinion anymore, because they lost, and were inherently bad to begin with.
Based on all we have seen so far, if someone stands in the way of Trump’s ambitions as president they will be told that they are holdovers from a corrupt system, serving masters who are now enemies of the people, and must therefore be removed. In order to get rid of them he would have to use extralegal measures in many cases, and deny them an opinion or another job. The “people” Trump would be referring to are the dispossessed whose votes he courted, who by definition don’t have levers of power of their own. It hardly gives those people more power to demonise certain individuals on presidential say-so, but that is all Trump has offered so far, or may ever be capable of offering.
Trump has enjoyed spreading hatred of various minority groups. As many commentators have pointed out, he has broken all the usual rules of presidential candidate conduct and got away with it. But this simply makes anyone a potential victim, and encourages such behaviour to go on unchecked.
A system which was there long before a here-today-gone-tomorrow politician has all the levers his supporters don’t to maintain itself. But if attacked, it will have no alternative but to fight fire with fire. A battle for control fought behind the scenes would empower Trump’s supporters even less, whilst not addressing the specific problems which made them see Trump as the solution.
Not beating them, only joining them
This presidential election campaign was the ugliest within living memory. This played into Trump’s hands: it brought those who were told they couldn’t behave like that into the mainstream, and Trump as the outsider reaped the benefit. But it also created the expectation that this will be followed through: if you start such a process, you are expected to finish it.
A poll taken just before Election Day showed that if Bernie Sanders had been running against Clinton and Trump he would have won by a landslide. Sanders supporters remain angry that he was denied the nomination by what they thought was an establishment fraud. Now Clinton has lost, they will make further efforts to ensure that anyone with Clinton credentials is neutralised so that they can present a more credible candidate in 2020, and will have much moral weight and grassroots sympathy behind this effort. As Clinton supporters will fight back in the same terms, the Democratic Party is likely to spend the next four years fighting itself rather than Trump, trying to exclude its own members in the same way Trump supporters want to get rid of everyone they don’t like.
The Republicans have the same problem. Trump was as offensive to his intra-party opponents as he was to Clinton. Those who think themselves “real” Republicans will be emboldened by the pro-Sanders Democrats to seek to reclaim the party and its voters from the Trump constituency in the same way. This will generate more exclusion and counter-exclusion, even through Republican Congress versus Republican President battles, with each trying to show themselves to the public as More Republican Than Thou.
Both Trump and Sanders supporters will now feel that they are the new “Establishment” because they have been backed by their respective publics to overthrow the old one. Though both Trump and Sanders were the none-of-the-above candidates, they will be the above from now on. To justify their initial behaviour, and satisfy their support, they will have to be even worse Establishments than the ones they have removed, more intolerant, more exclusive …more arbitrary. If the old guard is going to come back, they will have no choice but to adopt the same tactics.
The choice at the next election will be between groups of battle-hardened intolerants who are more interested in serving their friends and stuffing their enemies than in the disaffected people in their midst. Trump has not overthrown the failed political Establishment and methods which created the disaffection he has exploited, he has confirmed their validity. Trump may change the personnel, but the Establishment will be the same animal, all the more dangerous for its delusions to the contrary.
Trump is a man OF the establishment. The establishment is however divided in their approach to uphold the status quo. Clearly the last administration has failed in regards to that. It’s really a sign of dementia or mass hypnosis (or both) that people believe that Trump is something new.
For me the question is does he want to have a fighting chance? It could be that the only satisfaction in the last election was that Clinton was defeated. I am aware that my opinions are shaped by my own nature and disposition which decidedly tends to the negative. That said I find it a struggle to hope for very much from Trump.
The answer is NO. If he is selected by the oligarchy as president his approach will be different but he will serve the same system (which is weakened at the moment because of internal power struggles).
Steven Mnuchin, has worked for the Soros-backed SFM Capital Management and for Soros Fund Management LLC. He also worked for GS for 17 years. Change?
Fronts are either changing or they remain stable. It’s like this in war.
and you ‘z a man known to pose as a russian bear soldier but actually are a Soros paid keyboard warrior.
Says the dumbf**k who uses Disney comic figures as his avatar.
at least i’m not a double-faced snake.
To me the post election antics…demonstrations, riots, etc. are all part of the show. Although Soros is backing the BLM and Trump demonstrations, people forget that Trump are not only past business partners, they are also friends. Just google Trump and Soros. This is just red meat for Trump followers and false propaganda for the Clintonites, in other words, high theatre to further divison. Trump was backed openly by Adelson, a bigger crook and Zionist does not exist, who is also the money man behind Bebe. Is there a bigger enemy of the US and the world than Bebe? Wait until Trump has his final admin picks made, then we will see what is what. As Obama was GW in blackface, Trump will be Obama in whiteface. Trump is a businessman in tune with the system, playing by his own version of ethics. His anti-Muslim tirades fall right in place for Israel, guaranteeing the false narrative of Muslim extremism, which will continue the Zionist agenda. He has to know by now that the whole ISIS thing is a fraud, yet continues his Muslim witch hunt. So, yes, Trump is toeing the ‘establishment’ line so far. I might change my mind if he goes after dual citizenship swamp critters.
The deep state is fractured. If trump picks the right deep state chess pieces he can out maneuvere what is left of the neocons.
I have to say this, while I have watched the news just this last days, and what I am going to tell you may not be what you think, despite what even I thought, Trump is an false flag. Pity, really, really pity, but He isnt anything else an an hoax, whatever He said before is gone down the drain, and I am certain, that the war is coming.
Why, because it have to, Trump will not alter anything, He will blame Obamalama for it, and then when the day comes He is Dha Persidente, he will continue this wars and blame Obama for everything but He will not do anything what so ever to reverse this if you think that, I did but now I know we are been fooled, and fooled hard.
And what really is staggering is that I am not supriced, since I hope the Clintonites would loose, we replaced them with an much, much worse fake scumbag, the Trump. An neoCONs and warmongering wackos wet dream have comed thrue, the show we are witnessing this days, is just that, an show, but just remind my word and watch He will do nothing other than fuel this war, to save the sinking ship, the Imperial banana republic UssA.
Oh boy we where fooled. hummm….
peace
so many assumption so little evidence
Unfortunately, the same can be said for believing Trump is the messiah. He was bankrolled by Adelson. We all know who he is don’t we? Adelsons other puppet is Bebe. Did you notice his about face on the Palestinians after his $50m contribution from Zionists? How many rant over the contributors to Clinton(Soros), stating what her policy would have been with such backing. Turn about is fair play. Take a good look at Pence and his record. Nothing there to be proud of. Should Trump have an accident, where would we be then? On the other hand, thank god the initial reports of those he was allegedly considering for his administration proved false. What remains to be seen is if Trump the mouth can resist the neocon infiltration of his cabinet. I fear that when he gets ‘the word’ that he will fold up like a cardboard box.
Even though as I wrote in another post that I am not optimistic, my more considered opinion is that it is much too early to say what will happen. Most of what we are told is coming from the same msm sources which distorted everything about him before the election. Since the election the msm have gone into overdrive trying denigrate and undermine Trump. They are trying to succeed by shear weight of propaganda what they failed to achieve in the election.
I do think Trump will need to be kept on track. Indeed this I concede may not be possible, but it is far too soon to give up hope.
How many of you live in the US? The crux of the matter is, the elites have different political orientations, most of them are globalists because that is how they became elite, short changing US middle class, and enriching themselves at their expense. Most of the establishment was behind Clinton, with Clinton out the establishment is without representation. The globalists and the neocons that were content to plunder the country, pushing it into deep debt, diluting the national character of the country though illegal immigration and idiotic immigration, are out for the time being. The Trump administration is going to implement a new set of policies of America first, if successful they are going to define the political landscape for many decades. If America first is successful the neocons and an army of parasites have to retire or find something else to do.