Yesterday I wrote about some of the reasons why Donald Trump was popular among a certain segment of the US-American population. (And having met Canadian Trump supporters personally, I can attest to this not being a specifically US-American phenomenon.) These people are ignorant. Ignorant of Trump's sleazy con-man past. Ignorant of the true nature of their country's (and the world') political-economic structure. Many of them are racist. Many of them are stupid. Many of them are gullible: "Hey! The famous rich white guy from the TV is saying he'll bring our jobs back!" They are impressed with the gaudy trappings of Trump's wealth and fame.
(I also started that post with a reference to our planet's place in the galaxy. The point of that was to eventually demonstrate that this single case of sentient life in the vastness of space-time might possibly be extinguished. We are too stupid a species to survive. We were able to build the capability to win the struggle for survival for several centuries, but in the end, we weren't wise enough to control our creations. Trump's election is a symptom of that fatal flaw.)
Now I'm going to write about another factor contributing to Trump's tepid victory. The low quality of his opposition. This began with his rivals in the Republican Party. It was a clown car, but I'll only deal with the few that I remember.
Marco Rubio - the boy senator from Florida.
Now listen; the Republican Party of the United States is a vast apparatus of creeps, crooks, closet-cases and cadavers. Racist too. They blatantly service the rich and base their appeals to the chumps in the grassroots by appealing to their bigotry and their religious and patriotic delusions. Such an institution is inherently incapable of producing anyone of talent or ability. "Rising stars" within the party (such as Rubio was) are inevitably going to be sleazy imbeciles. Which is what Rubio was. Lazy, entitled, stupid. Rubio wanted to talk about his memorized talking points about free trade and tax-cuts, but Trump managed to turn the conversation about how much Rubio sweated on stage and made allusions to Rubio having a small penis. When Rubio saw that Trump's buffoonery was helping Trump in the polls, he tried to respond in kind, but only embarrassed himself further.
(It should be noted that Trump was assailed on all sides for having relatively small hands. Some did this to imply that his penis was also relatively stunted, while others piled on only because the insult was known to infuriate him. Unlike most top-tier politicians, Trump was unashamed to stand on a national stage and confront the issue head-on ... so to speak ... by telling America and the world that he had, in fact, a big penis. And his supporters, hearing this, and perhaps recalling the string of beautiful trophy wives he has had, replacing them with younger versions as the years pass, probably thought to themselves: "I bet he's tellin' the truth 'bout having a big dick." ....... Such was and is the level of political debate in that wretched land.)
Ben Carson - At one time a talented neurosurgeon, Carson was either an idiot-savant or, more likely, some sort of affliction caused him to lose his fucking mind.
Carson is Black. So his candidacy gave the less-racist portion of the Repuglican base the opportunity to say: "See?!? We're not racist! If a Black fellah becomes a famous doctor and tells other Black people to smarten-up and work hard and praise Jesus, he's okay with us!"
For about a week, Carson was one of the front-runners. But a series of truly bizarre, idiotic statements about the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, crime, and other topics subjected him to increased scrutiny. Carson was clearly not used to explaining the strangely shaped turds that dropped out of his mouth and he soon grew tired of it all and retreated back into irrelevance.
Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz is, apparently a naturally unlikable guy. I mean, I don't like oily, capitalist shills with a hypocritical devotion to Christian delusions, so I don't like Ted Cruz. But apparently his own fellow travellers hate him. They can't stand him. A former college roommate described him as one of the most nasty people he'd ever met. Watching him during the primaries, you got a sense of this. Somehow, every word, every action, magically appeared to turn out the worse for him. His young daughter scowling and trying to avoid a kiss from him. Punching his wife in the face as he tried to raise their arms in a gesture of triumph. Knocking his chosen running-mate (former failed CEO and then failed primary candidate Carly Fiorina) off the stage in yet another attempt to portray campaign exuberance. Things just don't seem to go right for the guy. His physical actions back-fire. His spoken words grate. I'm surprised he's come as far in life as he has.
But Cruz, like Carson, Rubio, Rick (butt-splooge) Santorum, Chris Christie, Fiorina, ... the whole stable of Trump's repug opponents, had the problem of campaigning on an extremist version of the neo-liberal snake-oil that both they and the Democrats had imposed on the US electorate and which had become toxic. Semi-veiled appeals to racist bigotry, hatred of the poor and unemployed, homophobia and "Christian" values were having less and less effect as more and more voters were abandoning racism, homophobia and religion, and more and more of them were struggling in the face of job losses, wage stagnation and the systemic criminality of the US economy.
In the face of Trump's decades of celebrity, his flaunting of opulence and sex (of his trophy wives and his public appearances with beautiful women), and, most importantly, his populist calls for forcing capitalists to bring the jobs back to America, get tough with the pharmaceutical industry, ... they had no chance. But they couldn't even keep the racist vote because, unlike Trump, they often tried to veil their racism. Trump embraced it full on, allowing him to get both the votes of ordinary right-wing US-Americans and the racists (including actual self-described fascists). This came easy for Trump because he is a bona-fide racist. He was one of the biggest brain-farts of the whole "birther" conspiracy, saying that Barack Obama could not be President because he wasBlack born outside the USA in Kenya.
Well, that's all the time I've got now. Part III to come. Eventually.
(I also started that post with a reference to our planet's place in the galaxy. The point of that was to eventually demonstrate that this single case of sentient life in the vastness of space-time might possibly be extinguished. We are too stupid a species to survive. We were able to build the capability to win the struggle for survival for several centuries, but in the end, we weren't wise enough to control our creations. Trump's election is a symptom of that fatal flaw.)
Now I'm going to write about another factor contributing to Trump's tepid victory. The low quality of his opposition. This began with his rivals in the Republican Party. It was a clown car, but I'll only deal with the few that I remember.
Marco Rubio - the boy senator from Florida.
Now listen; the Republican Party of the United States is a vast apparatus of creeps, crooks, closet-cases and cadavers. Racist too. They blatantly service the rich and base their appeals to the chumps in the grassroots by appealing to their bigotry and their religious and patriotic delusions. Such an institution is inherently incapable of producing anyone of talent or ability. "Rising stars" within the party (such as Rubio was) are inevitably going to be sleazy imbeciles. Which is what Rubio was. Lazy, entitled, stupid. Rubio wanted to talk about his memorized talking points about free trade and tax-cuts, but Trump managed to turn the conversation about how much Rubio sweated on stage and made allusions to Rubio having a small penis. When Rubio saw that Trump's buffoonery was helping Trump in the polls, he tried to respond in kind, but only embarrassed himself further.
(It should be noted that Trump was assailed on all sides for having relatively small hands. Some did this to imply that his penis was also relatively stunted, while others piled on only because the insult was known to infuriate him. Unlike most top-tier politicians, Trump was unashamed to stand on a national stage and confront the issue head-on ... so to speak ... by telling America and the world that he had, in fact, a big penis. And his supporters, hearing this, and perhaps recalling the string of beautiful trophy wives he has had, replacing them with younger versions as the years pass, probably thought to themselves: "I bet he's tellin' the truth 'bout having a big dick." ....... Such was and is the level of political debate in that wretched land.)
Ben Carson - At one time a talented neurosurgeon, Carson was either an idiot-savant or, more likely, some sort of affliction caused him to lose his fucking mind.
Carson is Black. So his candidacy gave the less-racist portion of the Repuglican base the opportunity to say: "See?!? We're not racist! If a Black fellah becomes a famous doctor and tells other Black people to smarten-up and work hard and praise Jesus, he's okay with us!"
For about a week, Carson was one of the front-runners. But a series of truly bizarre, idiotic statements about the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, crime, and other topics subjected him to increased scrutiny. Carson was clearly not used to explaining the strangely shaped turds that dropped out of his mouth and he soon grew tired of it all and retreated back into irrelevance.
Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz is, apparently a naturally unlikable guy. I mean, I don't like oily, capitalist shills with a hypocritical devotion to Christian delusions, so I don't like Ted Cruz. But apparently his own fellow travellers hate him. They can't stand him. A former college roommate described him as one of the most nasty people he'd ever met. Watching him during the primaries, you got a sense of this. Somehow, every word, every action, magically appeared to turn out the worse for him. His young daughter scowling and trying to avoid a kiss from him. Punching his wife in the face as he tried to raise their arms in a gesture of triumph. Knocking his chosen running-mate (former failed CEO and then failed primary candidate Carly Fiorina) off the stage in yet another attempt to portray campaign exuberance. Things just don't seem to go right for the guy. His physical actions back-fire. His spoken words grate. I'm surprised he's come as far in life as he has.
But Cruz, like Carson, Rubio, Rick (butt-splooge) Santorum, Chris Christie, Fiorina, ... the whole stable of Trump's repug opponents, had the problem of campaigning on an extremist version of the neo-liberal snake-oil that both they and the Democrats had imposed on the US electorate and which had become toxic. Semi-veiled appeals to racist bigotry, hatred of the poor and unemployed, homophobia and "Christian" values were having less and less effect as more and more voters were abandoning racism, homophobia and religion, and more and more of them were struggling in the face of job losses, wage stagnation and the systemic criminality of the US economy.
In the face of Trump's decades of celebrity, his flaunting of opulence and sex (of his trophy wives and his public appearances with beautiful women), and, most importantly, his populist calls for forcing capitalists to bring the jobs back to America, get tough with the pharmaceutical industry, ... they had no chance. But they couldn't even keep the racist vote because, unlike Trump, they often tried to veil their racism. Trump embraced it full on, allowing him to get both the votes of ordinary right-wing US-Americans and the racists (including actual self-described fascists). This came easy for Trump because he is a bona-fide racist. He was one of the biggest brain-farts of the whole "birther" conspiracy, saying that Barack Obama could not be President because he was
Well, that's all the time I've got now. Part III to come. Eventually.
11 comments:
I seriously thought and kinda hoped it would be Jeb!
If only for the gentility (and because Mama & Papa Bush are easy on the ears while indulging in my liberal TV).
Also too- Ana Navarro rocks. She brought our word right back home where it belongs- because the dumpster-fire IS nothing but a deviant "Pussy-Grabbing Pervert". Among other equally horrendous things.
lali!
Further to my earlier comment on part one, was another comment. Why is it not posted before you jump to the next part?
lali.
LALI,
Blogger has eaten the occasional comment in the past. Although it seems you're saying that you've submitted two that haven't been posted. Blogger isn't usually so ravenous as to eat 2 comments in such a short period of time.
I would have found Jeb vs Hillary too depressing. Twice as depressing as just Hillary vs Trump. Because it would have signified that the status quo was alive and well in the minds of too many US-Americans.
The fact of the matter is that the status-quo was and is noxious.
I wish Trump and Hillary had lost.
What did Ana Navarro do that rocked so much you forgive her being a Repugnican strategist?
I didn't mention anything about forgiving her politics, but when a sister calls it what it is, or a brother too, for that matter - it rocks.
Other than that, I keep my forgivenesses and my politics somewhat separate, although there is a grey area of nuance that I can't explain. I generally go by results. By their fruit ye shall know them?
Speaking up. Boycotting. Divesting. Sanctioning. Honouring The Treaties.
So if they had both 'lost' where would we be? Anarchist America? C'mon thwap. We fight with the candidates we have - not the ones we want to have...
cheers,
lali.
thwap:
I need a huge favour - could you possibly do a piece on the South American troubles- murders, pillage and plunderings, and genocidal misdeeds towards the Indigenous Peoples, that are once again being relegated to a blip- while in the other hemisphere the Grift Brigade wanders.
The women were marching yesterday.
Much appreciated,
lali.
LALI,
As I said during the election itself, since both candidates were unacceptable, the thing to do is to reject the system that produced them.
"Progressives" should not be resigning themselves to supporting a Wall Street shill/imperialist mass murdering/criminal/incompetent scumbag like Hillary Clinton.
When your choices are down to a piece of shit like her, you have to start thinking about alternatives.
I could write about South America. Maybe in a bit. Also, Honduras in Central America. Suffering under the coup-regime orchestrated by the heroine of some "progressives" Hillary Clinton.
All partisan hackery aside, I see. I read your latest and I see.
I'm still a 'liberal' in the freedom sense of the word- truth & facts do exist and new information will change my mind- and loving it, but I really do see now.
I'm sorry I jumped ugly at you (and others), thwap...can you please forgive me?
lali.
LALI,
I assume you're referring to my post on Bob Cesca in your last comment?
I admire liberals like John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes, and many of the values of liberalism are still valid. As an anarchist, I like the Susan Brown variant which takes many liberal values to their utmost.
But liberalism today seems vapid because it requires intelligent people to deny reality and pretend that imperialism is humanitarianism, that white male privilege isn't a thing, and that neoliberal economics has been a success.
(Conservatism, in contrast has this muscular stupidity about it. Even their hypocrisy and their godawful whining when they're challenged, ... the shrieking and the wailing, ... it's titanic stupidity.)
I don't recall you "jumping ugly" at me, although I was disappointed with your take on Linda McQuaig (a talented investigative journalist with decades of writing on social justice under her belt) and Bill Morneau (a putz who got a permanent job in his daddy's firm wherein he perfected the policy of subjecting everyone else unable to benefit from white male and class privilege and nepotism, to the insecurities and uncertainties of neoliberal labour practices).
Trump is disgusting. But he's a product of his society. A society that liberals like Obama and the Clintons have done much to create. Besides traumatising millions of people in the Middle East, we can thank those three for helping Trump win by neutralizing his most potent rival, Bernie Sanders.
I was referring to all of your writing, when I said "I see".
Do you remember Eugene Forsey Liberal?
You're right about the 'pretending' part. Although, I would say in my defence- I had sincerely hoped that liberalism would provide justice, food and shelter for the least among us. Including myself. Quaint, eh? (Believe me, I know WMP is a 'thing'.)
My take on Ms McQuaig was born from the fact that she was in contention for a seat and is now critiquing the winner of said seat. Objectivity, in a word. I am certain, because I believe people like Owen and yourself who told me that she is a very fine journalist, that she is, in fact, a very fine journalist.
I wonder what Stone & Co. (Roger) would have destroyed Mr Sanders with.
Saying "Trump is a product of his society" is the Charles Manson defence, no?
I mean, there are family dynamics, self-determination, and dark forces at work 24/7 so I guess my point is if he is that product- why aren't we all like him?
Thanks,
lali.
P.S.
Do you read Ian Welsh?
LALI,
I remember Eugene Forsey Liberal very well. He was quite good until he went nuts on something. I blogged about our break. (He blocked me from his site so I don't know if it's still up anywhere.)
Given that there are idiots on the right-wing who scream about how Canadian Liberals and US-Americans are socialists and totalitarians, I don't blame you for thinking there might be something beyond rhetoric with them.
I'm thinking of another Civilization is Doomed post about the "Left" wherein I'll repeat all of my tirades about their uselessness as well.
I have truly given up hope for humanity, and myself.
I don't mean that Trump isn't responsible for his crimes. By saying that he's a product of his society, I mean that there are benefits to being white, male and rich. Certain attitudes about women and minorities are fostered, have been fostered, are perpetuated. Not everyman is so boorish as to sit there with a combover, a huge gut, a bloated orange face, and spew that a beautiful young woman with 5-10 extra pounds on her is a pig who has let herself go.
If he really has raped adolescent sex slaves and threatened them with death if they resist or report him, ... well, I'd say that our society, has certain conditions that allow wealthy men to do these things and get away with them.
There should have been gate-keepers to have prevented Trump from even being a contender. His ignorance, racism, stupidity, etc., ... but enough people in our society believe in the same shitty values, either out of malice or cretinism. That's what I mean by Trump being a product of our society.
Since I didn't say it last time, I forgive you for anything you want to be forgiven for. Pardon my arrogance.
I don't know what else to say at this point.
Oh yeah. I read Ian Welsh. One of the few places I can still turn to for "solace." (For want of a better word right now.)
I do believe, by connecting certain dots, that he and many other highly-placed individuals are human traffickers. And then some.
The gatekeepers? Ya, right. Sold to the highest bidder. The Secretary of Health for crying out loud is an insider-trading, dark-money-backed doctor. Remember what they did to Martha?
thwap, just keep on writing. As for hope? I have enough for both of us, until your's returns. You're precious to me for sure, and many others no doubt. I don't think our hope is to be found in politics anyway, but that is where the fight is.
later,
lali.
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