Civilization is Doomed: Part I

 
It's the joke of the galaxy, if not the universe! There's a planet halfway outside one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, where intelligent life arose. The turn of events made it so that the USA became the greatest power of all the competing groups of the human life form. Its culture was the dominant culture. If humanity was to become united, one species, self-governing, the USA would have been the leading element at the beginning of this process.

Alas alack! The USA was run by kleptocratic, dogmatic capitaist scumbags and imperialists. "Politics" was "inverted totalitarianism." Make-believe democracy, consisting of empty contests between public relations industry created drones (like Barack Obama) or long-time party-hacks (like John McCain or Hillary Clinton). It was all stage and spectacle. (Something the US-Americans are quite good at.)

But things got out of hand. An "outsider" named Donald Trump, who only hoped to add some further notoriety to his name (with his public persona being a major prop in his "brand" of snake-oil) by running for president, revealed just how shallow, dumbed-down, regressive and ugly US culture had allowed itself to become. First he hired some actors to show up at the NYC skyscraper he owned to cheer him as he rode DOWN an escalator to make his announcement. Late-night comedians laughed.

And why shouldn't they have laughed? Trump is a buffoon. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth. A crass, ugly, pushy real-estate developer, serial bankrupt, corrupt, boorish, racist, sexist, publicity whore, ignorant, arrogant, ... creepy, .... reality-show star. A lot of nothing behind a garish exterior. This move was, obviously, just about keeping Trump's name in the news, because Trump is a character and having that character run for president is a great way to do that.

And, in spite of the fact that Trump won the Repugnican nomination and, through the Electoral College, eventually the presidency, notoriety and publicity WERE the primary reasons for Trump's run.

What he did was ask some political advisors: "What are the rubes all upset about?" He asked this with no previous allegiance to any specific Republican or Democratic policy platform. When his advisors told him that ordinary US-Americans are concerned about jobs being lost to off-shoring, and job losses due to illegal immigrants, and the supposed illegal immigrant crime wave, and the high cost of healthcare, he said he'd reverse off-shoring, make better deals for the people on pharmaceuticals and health care generally, and clamp down on illegal immigration. To this he added his own idiosyncratic take on US foreign policy, to whit; Any idiot can see that the results of US invasions in the Middle East have been disasters. (He didn't know that "managed chaos" is the actual goal of psychopaths like Hillary Clinton and her ilk.) Any idiot can see that military brinkmanship with nuclear-armed Russia is insane. Trump said he'd stay out of further entanglements in the Middle East and pursue better relations with Russia. Then he topped it all off with promises to himself about massive tax-cuts for the super-rich and de-regulation of the economy. Trump also believes that global warming is a hoax, so full-steam ahead for the carbon economy. (In contrast to Obama who reduced US-American reliance on coal while boosting the extraction of other carbon fuels for a net impact on climate change of zero.)

Things didn't go well for Trump at the very beginning. At the very beginning, on the Repug-friendly FOX News Network, right-wing anchorwoman Megyn Kelly asked the ignoramus some questions he wasn't prepared for and he was discomfited. The next day however, the world turned for Trump.

You see, Donald Trump is a rich, white male. He's on the tall side. He's been in the popular culture (to his benefit or not) for decades. He had a highly rated show on that thar tee-vee machine.  To certain impressionable, gullible minds, Trump's CELEBRITY is intoxicating. More intelligent people are dismissive of such empty fame and of such non-accomplishments as being a tall, rich, white man. But that's what makes us such elitist pin-heads. By gawd, Trump is FAMOUS! He was in "Home Alone 2"! He was on "The Cosby Show"! Plus, he's gonna bring our jobs back, kick out the Mexicans, and beat-up the pharmaceutical companies! Oh yeah! And those uppity Blacks declaring war on innocent policemen? He's gonna clamp down on them too! Law and Order!

Trump essentially said that Megyn Kelly was mean to him because she was on her period. FOX News (never particularly concerned with the dignity of their female employees) was deluged with angry criticism from its viewing customers and sided with Trump against Kelly. From then on, it was a wave that Trump rode all the way to White House. (Although the wave just barely got him there. As mentioned, he needed the Electoral College to do it, having lost the popular vote by 3 million.)

Well, I'm bushed. I'll continue part-two tomorrow.