I have been watching the US election preamble with growing fascination, and apprehension.
Fascination because the political establishment is getting a thorough kicking from both sides of the populist outsider coin that is Sanders/Trump. Apprehension because, ultimately, the victor could be Donald Trump.
Many will say, indeed have been saying for many months, ‘It will never happen’. I have been noticing that the chuckle or snigger that usually follows this pronouncement has been sounding ever more nervous and hollow of late.
Which brings me to ‘Until it does’. History is bulging at the seams with precedents of outsiders taking power against the odds. Julius Caesar even left us an expression that describes the massive first risk the interloper needs to take, ‘Crossing the Rubicon’, the point from which there is no going back.
Trump has gone well beyond this point even if his campaign goes down in flames in the coming months. His hate-filled, fear inducing brand of rhetoric has unleashed a tidal wave of prejudice and racism that is increasing in confidence in its expression. This is made even more menacing by reports of growing violence against Trump opponents with the courage to protest at his rallies. This will be very difficult to contain even if Trump is eliminated from the race and virtually impossible if he wins the Republican nomination or, stuff of nightmares, the US Presidency.
The problem that the Republican hierarchy has with Trump is not so much the ideas he expresses but the volume and bluster with which he expresses them. A Cruz or Rubio presidency would attempt to distance itself from Trump rather than actually look for meaningful solutions to the inequality that has spread far and wide in US society after more than 30 years of Neoliberal policy.
Trump has seized on the resulting corrosive fear and loathing that has been long growing in some sectors of the community. He may not have created the problems but he is taking full advantage of them, much like two European outsiders did in Italy and Germany over 80 years ago. Hopefully this horror story does not come to pass at the ballot box or the US, and the world, could be in for a very bumpy ride.
Many USA presidents in the past have acted presidential and have been disasters.
Maybe Trumps style is whats needed to get the right things done,too much PC correctness allows corporations and other nominees to take advantage. Cruz comes across as insincere and opportunistic , looks like a crooked used car salesman.Rubio listens to advice about how to behave
after hes put his foot in it,not strong enough, but maybe in the future he will come up to scratch.
Kasich too quiet in the beginning now trying to put Trump down to attract attention,dosnt suit him.
Trump is not presidential in the accepted sense,but hes a fighter who dosnt cave in to pressure,just what USA needs against corporations or the establishment as they call them.
In the long run if republicans and corporations dont want him because they cant controll him, they will try anything to get rid of him ,including
attacking him and ruining his rallies.
Whenever Trump is attacked by anyone, his votes seem to go up ,maybe his followers are as determined as he is.
Trump is a flim-flam man – a snake oil salesman. He’s harnessing the anger of “they took ma job” and directing it at “the usual targets” while BEING a member of the group that “..took ma job”. Trump is a 1% er who hires ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT MEXICANS to build his hotels while calling these same people Rapists and Murderers! This guy has been sold by the msm for ratings – he’s not a figher. He only works for himself.
Those who follow him would do better looking to Bernie Sanders for someone who’ll really fight for them (unless they really are just a bunch of violent racists, which I don’t think they all are).
Brilliant article on this subject in Wake up New Zealand this morning
Been wondering for a while now what would happen if Trump embraced the marginalised US Police Dept’s around the country.Instances of police power abuse have created an angry, armed constituency who feel persecuted, and support for the police plays to Trump’s narrative.The parallels to the SA are chilling.
Trump and Sanders are spearheading a populist upsurge. It hardly matters who or what spearheads this upsurge or its results. In the prevailing nightmare nothing matters except that the sleepers begin to awake.
Trump and Sanders represent completely opposite expressions of popular unrest, as different from each other as the Tea Party and Occupy. In both cases, the former channels frustration with the status quo into a shallow “libertarianism” that calls for further privatization and deregulation, to the benefit of corporations. Where as the latter call for a massive restructuring of political-economic systems, so they stop concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of the corporations and the 1%. Occupy and the popular campaign behind Sanders represent the sleepers beginning to awaken. The Tea Party and Trump represent sleeping pills that make sure they don’t.
Hi Alex
US foreign policy for decades has been duplicitous. On one hand portraying itself as a beacon for democracy, freedom, human rights and justice for all. But on the other, subversion, support and training of terrorist elements, coups, torture, illegal rendition.
I have no time for Trump but im fascinated by some peoples fearful reaction to his possible chance at winning the Presidency, as if US foreign policy is going to dramatically change for the worse.
If anyone can explain to me how Obama authorizing the extra judicial killings of civilians including US citizens by the use of drones, which is illegal under both International Law and US law, protection from prosecution of the war criminals involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to name just two, and who will be welcomed here in NZ with open arms if he visits, makes him a better human being than Trump.
Then im all ears.
US foreign policy will probably change for the better. The US foreign policy establishment is uniting against Trump for a very good reason – because he isn’t interested in treating the rest of the world as slaves like they do. Yes he says stupid stuff all the time but don’t think that the media is giving us an even handed view of him. He also says outright that the basis for the Iraq war was a lie – who ever imagined that a US presidential candidate would say a thing like that?
Anyway, don’t listen to me, check this out instead http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44418.htm
And I’m definitely not a Trump fan but it’s a helluva fun watching this from a distance.
Sanders is out of the race. Here’s an interesting article on Trump and Reagan.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/trump-and-reagan-have-more-common-gop-likes-admit/ri13390
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