Four years ago, just before Trump was inaurgurated, I wrote the post I have copied below.
At the time I got quite a lot of heated reactions to it along the lines of “Be fair! Give him a go!” and other comments suggesting I stop writing posts (at least that’s the general drift of what they said 🙂)
As he is about to leave the Whitehouse this week and I’m still here I thought maybe it was worth reposting it.
15 January 2017
How will we explain Trump to our children?
By this time next week Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States.
He got there by lying and belittling people.
Will we tell our children “That’s how you succeed in this world” ?
Will we tell them that “Money is everything” so avoid paying your taxes and your bills for as long as you can ?
Will we tell them “Wise up kid. The Golden Rule isn’t ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’ but..
..”He who has the gold,rules!”
Or will we tell them that having “a successful life” isn’t simply measured in money and that the meaning of life is to be found more in what you do for others – your family,your friends, your neighbours,your colleagues… your country – than what you do for yourself.
Will we tell them that’s why Trump will never be as loved a President as Franklin D.Roosevelt or remembered with as much affection and admiration as Mahatama Gandhi or our own Michael Joseph Savage.
Why? Because these men were self-less..not selfish..They inspired hope, not fear….believed that cooperation achieved more than conflict and championed truth and justice over lies and vendettas.
Will we tell our children that however bad the coming years of Trump’s presidency may become…. it will end.
That tyrants eventually fall….and that Trump will never have what he desires the most…..Respect.
Parenting and Teaching are two of the most important jobs in the world…for what we tell our children today will determine the kind of world we will have tomorrow.
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
Hang on a minute , mate… what contemporary’s like to forget is Trump never ushered in a global world war as all the woke newsmedia aka George Soros or Rupert Murdoch said he would, that Trump not only staved off aggression with Kim Jong-Un but ended up in a relationship that was swimmingly good, and that Trump also, – when wining and dining the PM of China, sent a warning shot via a missile to a middle east air base, – and not only THAT, – gave fair warning so that NO Russian or Middle eastern allies personnel were harmed. And at the same time delivered a very direct demonstration to the Chinese PM while doing so.
And the message was : Don’t f@ck with us.
He told the NATO forces to pull their own weight, that the USA was NOT going to be their financial and military benefactors and subsidize their affronts and grievances with the Russians,- while maintaining relatively peaceful relations with Putin and Russia, he gave the two fingered salute to the globalists in the Counsel of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergers,- and all that while exposing the Clinton Foundation as a conduit for funneling arms to ISIS via Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to profit from the American arms industry.
No wonder Obama was viewed as so impotent in curtailing ISIS. He had too many military industrial billionaires hanging on his coattails via democrats and ‘Killary’ to do anything but sign off every Tuesday for five years for sending drone strikes to kill innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians, eh?
As for these latest developments, – at least Trump has kept his shit in his own back yard. I think history will look back kindly on Trump. Give it 100 years and this woke generation to die off and he might be looked more upon as a ‘Stonewall Jackson ‘ or a ‘Ulysses S Grant’. That is if the revisionists haven’t got there first.
You are not Americans, – most of you know little of American politics, and to comment from afar from lil ole Nu Zild as if you live in New York state or Georgia or Arizona is a bit rich IMO. You know about as much of the grass roots politics and feelings within the USA as you know about the states within Russia, – which is sweet fuck all.
400,000 COVID deaths. Attempted insurrection. Uncountable lies, fraud, tax evasion, sexual harassment. Neglected duties, played golf instead. illiterate, incontinent, addicted to stimulants.
Trump’s wars were against immigrants, minorities, reality, justice, and democracy itself.
And yet, if we were to balanced and look into other historical Presidents , would we not find other faults? JFK was a womanizer,… how does that sit with sexual harassment with the Left and the mental torture of Marilyn Monroe?
And her eventual and tragic demise?
And Lyndon B Johnson?… his successor?… A Democrat from Texas, waiting in the wings to take over the Presidency while in an airplane over Texas while the assassination transpired?
Hmmmm….
And pretty much the same could be levelled at Johnson… Uncountable lies, fraud, tax evasion,- as for ‘Neglected duties’ ,… the same could be said for escalating the Vietnam war and rescuing the Bell company from dissolution by contracts to provide the war effort with helicopters. In fact many multi billionaires profited by Johnsons gratuitous handing out of contracts to military industrialists.
We are talking the deep state and their influence on Capitol Hill, here.
illiterate?… well he sure appealed to more than just the deplorables.
Incontinent?- lets get a medical opinion and does that really effect the top job ? Seriously? – Oh c’mon.
Addicted to stimulants?- again just c’mon…
What exactly? Can you prove it ?, – and if you can?… are you the arbiter of judgement of what constitutes someone fit for governance? Really?!!?
He made it to the top job of the worlds most powerful nation,- don’t you think he would have been vetted?, – have you been vetted?
lol @ your main point
https://twitter.com/kylekulinski/status/1350980295277871106?s=21
“Did not get America into a new war”, just:
– increased the illegal drone war 432%.
– continued bombing 8 countries.
– assassinated a top Iranian commander (who was fighting ISIS on the ground) sparking an international crisis.
Well Wild Katipo, Bryan didn’t mention any of the shit you espouse. Politics aside, Trump is morally corrupt.
Well Bert, I reckon they are all morally corrupt.
I just don’t like folk putting forth a one sided argument without looking at the good someone has achieved for political purposes. Particularly geo political purposes that actually are to our benefit. Trump made a lot of mistakes, but what of the good he has done?
Is anyone going to have the balls to stand up and balance that?
Or is it all because he was a Republican and the ‘Left’ traditionally supports the Democrats?
And BTW , – it was the DEMOCRATS who supported SLAVERY in the American CIVIL WAR.
Check your history. Its true.
Yep. Couldn’t agree more.
How will we explain Trump to our children? – pretty easy, Neoliberalism has created the perfect storm for crooks and narcissists leading the world. Media owned by profit chasing narcissists helps keep the people focused on the trivial, while education is not longer something precious and important for local people, but a commodity to sell the flakey, bums on seats, courses to the highest punters around the world .
Trump was a protest vote against globalism…. he maybe a crook and a narcissist (which is a reflection on the US legal system for white collar crime) but there may be something to be said for what Wild Kapito has to say. Trump kept his shit local, and the rest of the world might be better off for that.
In NZ we are so brainwashed by neoliberalism we have allowed our government and media to develop a hate for our own identity so much we refuse to even allow our cultural institutions to be run by Kiwi’s…. “other is better”…
“Since the first of Auckland Art Gallery’s 11 directors was appointed in the 1950s, only two New Zealanders have held the role – and one was an acting “fix-it” director who stayed less than two years.” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/auckland-art-gallery-curator-nigel-borells-shock-resignation/XFXABPBLHZBLSEVCZA6HEE2XME/
Our educational institutions are increasingly run by academics coming from outside NZ and imposing their cultural views….
Not just culture but throughout our educational systems, NZ has the now dubious reputation of the only country in the world where a student body lie undiscovered in a CHCH University hall for weeks and becomes so decayed they can’t even determine cause of death…
CHCH uni leadership vision is held by another incoming migrant academic for the role, while the CHCH uni hall were run and owned by Australian business interests… Meanwhile Auckland Uni buys a 5 million Parnell mansion for their headhunted OZ chancellor. while closing down specialist libraries and destroying books. It seems tertiary education and academic direction in NZ, is led by people who have no experience living in NZ and commanding large salaries, while educational and moral standards fall… I wonder what is wrong with this picture????
Trump is the Simpson’s come to life. NZ is similar, but due to our lack of interest in cultural values here, we will probably not see a parody operating culturally to warn us or have much academic dissent.
Our media’s hack is to buy overseas shows and content and then put in a ‘NZ’ announcer to pretend it is local content or rehash the same tired ‘economic’ views and economists, same with culture and education here…. their advice have failed here for decades, time to change the record.
Well said.
Many local councils are being overrun by the Afrikaner Broederbond as well, all kiwis seem blind to it. They quickly surround themselves with like minds and then local government is run by the very worst of people kiwis could imagine.
Corruption like you have never seen before is just around the corner.
Kiwis are by far the best choice in any organisation I have worked with, yet every new job that is placed is given to a foreigner.
Their wages in the corporate world don’t seem lower, so why is this happening, unless by design.
Things must have gotten pretty bad for the American people for them to ditch their smooth talking hope and change leader for a game show host
And another thing, whether people want to convolute things,… is Trumps nationalistic inclinations to avoid free trade agreements that lumped the USA into legally binding sub clauses that would in effect, cause the USA to be subject to prosecution from multi corporates if it was deemed any legislation impeded those same multi corporates from exacting profits ,… something with which , our very own Prof Jane Kelsey spoke against. And with which the most of us here were in agreement with Prof Jane Kelsey. Yes there were mitigating circumstances which most of us followed along with, while at the same time managing to rail at Trump. The best of both worlds.
We as the Left in NZ felt let off the hook and gratified at being able to still sling stones at Trump.
But Trump was a kind of nationalist, America first. Aka MAGA.
And yet with all of our so called Left wing politics we managed to vote back in Adern as our Blairite conscience and salve , our bulwark against guilt feelings and our joyous piling in on Trump,…we had the best of both worlds. Our self righteousness, our boosting of our own sense of ‘this is how the world should be run’.
Do you not think, … that much of this, is a cover up for the refusal to admit that homelessness, poverty in our own back yard, our own brand of racism, our out of control economy favouring the rich, and our COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE to turn around the neo liberal rot in this country is nothing more than a cowardly back patting exercise?
The old adage- ‘look after your own backyard first’ rings true.
Easy, Bill Clinton sent all the jobs to China, and removed Glass–Steagall (partly causing the GFC) then his wife tried to run for President and the American people said.. “we’ll vote for the other guy, at least it’s not a Clinton”.
Pretty simple really. Hope that helped.
+1 Zack Brando
According to this, people like John Key contributed to the GFC…https://www.thevinnyeastwoodshow.com/vinny-mr-news-eastwoods-blog/john-keys-real-past-exposed-must-see-please-share-6mins once that was done, came back to NZ to sell NZ off to the highest bidder and donor.
More closer to home Bryan, how will we explain to our kids who owns NZ now?
+1 Control denied
As an almost boomer, without kids, but nieces and nephews, I would explain the situation to them as “sorry guys we fucked up big time. Most of us ignored the implications of neoliberalism, and when it became all too apparent to those who were in the know, such as me, we thought we could change things by simply warning each other of the dangers, while the proponents spent their money and energy understanding the psychology of the human mind and made sure there was no way we could ever reverse the greed and destruction they were causing.
We should have got out on the streets and laid our bodies on the line for the future, but you know, we were too comfortable to have to worry about that expenditure of energy.”
In my simple mind, we accept too much BS from social media and our politicians. Psychology has dictated that anyone not happy with BS is labelled a Karen, oppose the system you are a terrorist.
The article from Grant Robertson 5 or 6 days ago saying anyone who was not mainstream is someone to be feared shows exactly how close we are to a malevolent takeover by a facist government.
People need to start threatening a revolution, before it is actually imposed on us.
“what will we tell our Grandchildren about Trump?”
That he was a loud mouth philandering New Yorker who became President of the US and divided the country,
OR will it be the man of vision who offered American’s a view of a revival of the “American Dream” by “Making America Great Again”
Some 73 million Americans who voted for him will see him as the latter, a man of vision, a man who was never fully given the opportunity”to drain the swamp” and restore prosperity particularly to middle America.
Both views are valid and will have their proponents.
But a dispassionate view is that he was the first President since FDR to put America first, he saw him self as first and foremost the Patriotic Leader of the US and not as “the Leader of the Free World” which every other President in my life time of 70 years has tried to be.
That is he chose not to be the worlds policeman and go about “bullying” or supposedly “saving” populations from perceived tyranny here and there around the globe. He did not take the US into any new foreign war that is the biggest break with normality that was Trump!!
He attempted to return jobs lost from the US to China back to America with some success.
He was first and foremost a nationalist who believed the US was for Americans not for all comers.
The liberal promiscuous left will always despise him, the moral conservatives on the right will hail him as a hero.
Now if Nancy Pelosi and Joe Bidden decide to persecute and pursue Trump, effectively martyr him that will irrevocably divide America and his support will grow from the 73 million to many more to maybe a real independent political movement.
The significant history is that unfortunately which is already written for Joe Biden, he will go down as the President that finally destroyed the American dream (as proposed by Trump) and dragged divided America back into the swamp! He is the real looser from the reign of Trump
Time will tell on how Trump is remembered.
Pretty easy. Trump was a narcissistic and egotistical populist leader who was smeared by left-wing pundits and media to make him out as some sort of anti-Christ figure. Most people that didn’t like him is because of his general demeanor and jingoistic rhetoric, as opposed to actual policy – he triggered the woke left in a way that made him an incredibly polarising figure – people despised him and loved him in almost equal measure.
Trump’s economic and foreign policy provided the US with some of the best growth seen in several decades, while inequality (an inevitable result of capitalism) continued to get worse. While he succeeded in smoothing over relations with Russia and North Korea, he antagonised China and Iran. His inability to battle CoVid combined with a relentless hostile mainstream media ultimately cost him a second term.
Trump’s future is yet to be written.
He has indicated he will be launching a media empire if he didn’t remain President, and all indications are that he will be more powerful from the end of March 2021 than he was over the last four years.
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