To my American cousins;
I understand why half of you are angry and disappointed. I understand why despite the sins, misdemeanours, criminal and subversive behaviors/actions and policy threat-statements that define Mr. T that you voted him into office again.
After the election, it’s become clear that the claim of a stolen 2020 election is false and has always been false. Otherwise, why didn’t the democrats ‘steal’ it again? If they did so once, they should have been able to do it again. I wonder why the Democrats did not claim the same thing about this election for their candidate?
Even with the curious stamina in believing that the apparatus of government (federal and state) were ‘weaponized’ against Mr. T, there must be at least one of these behaviours that is an accurate description of what kind of person he is and what he wants. People should take his explicit statements as accurate about where he will take your nation.
I understand, because the same social movements that have and are electing such persons have been and still are potent throughout the world.
The question is, why? There are many reasons. The world-wide events of the pandemic and the subsequent (yes they’re connected) massive rise in costs causing inflation are part of the dis-ease many of us feel. But these are not the work of a single person, party, administration or government. Nor are they the direct policies of some cabal that want to cause such turmoil from which they can benefit. These recent developments are world-wide phenomena, caused by world-wide actions of entire nations, the economic whirlwind of money, war and other factors. They are outside the grasp and creation of anyone. Though, when they occur, some benefit more than others. They are not you and me.
It is history that holds the key to explaining what you and many all over the world feel. Something has gone wrong, or ‘off’ for a generation or three, for at least 45 years. In that period, the drumbeat for a ‘free market’ and the attraction to thrust libertarian principles into public policy, promoted by persons outside and inside governments over the world, enabled a deeper incursion onto modern democratic ground. Those who have most benefited have run away with the ball. That was the era of Thatcher (UK) and Reagan. The latter once said, “government is not the solution to our problems; it is the problem.“
Drawing on the ideology of libertarianism and the fantasy of a “free market,” these leaders spearheaded globalization. This means getting rid of extra costs and taxes on goods traded between countries, so that all countries can compete fairly. On paper, markets, unbound from any one country (or company in a sector), having an unfair advantage -based on rules agreed to by all participants through non-coercive debate- is not a bad idea, if it were fair. What you were not told is that ‘free markets’ are never free nor fair for all parties. Someone always pays outsized costs or suffers from them. A few others benefit from outsized gains.
Globalization helped bring millions of people around the world (e.g. Vietnam, Brazil, India, China and Indonesia) out of poverty, increasing opportunities for jobs/careers and wealth.
However, the economic uplift of the many elsewhere than here (US, Europe, Canada) had a flattening effect upon our wages and jobs. Globalization energized the capitalist purpose, which is to reduce costs. Companies for whom it was cost-worthy packed up their goods and factories and went where tax rates and wages were lower than in their countries of origin. Jobs moved offshore because capitalists did what capitalists do. This, in turn, resulted in the disproportionate capture of mountains of wealth by the few against the many, all over the world.
These global elites used an updated set of techno-auto-bureau-cratic principles to create their own nation (non-country), with no loyalties to anyone but themselves. They share a narcissistic loyalty; to themselves and their money. They have a vast army of enablers who admire and want what they have. These include lawyers, accountants, bankers, the minor wealthy (like $10 million -plus perks- a year bank CEOs), sycophants, pundits, opportunists (even hair dressers and dentists!) and politicians. If the enablers cannot have mountains of money, they worship the new technocratic elite gods so they can gain hills of money.
They, in part, generated their wealth by their own cleverness in taking advantage of opportunities as they arose. However, they also continued to benefit from abundant subsidies and lower taxes from governments under the influences of admiration and/or threats to keep them from slipping away to some other country with even lower taxes, standards and subsidies.
They won’t tell you this, but capitalism has benefited from the largesse of governments (e.g., your money) for years. Two examples. Billionaire-of-the-moment, Elon Musk, acquired lucrative contracts (your money) with your federal government. The second example: in 2009-2010 governments bailed the bankers for the financial crisis that almost bottomed out the world financial structure, caused by their greed, of whom not a one went to jail for their avaricious betting on flimsy financial instruments. Others knew what was happening and cashed in by betting against the housing market.
So, yes, socialism (public money – yours- from governments around the world) saved capitalism. These economic elites maintain, and have always maintained, that they accumulated their vast fortunes on their own and see government taxation as an act of theft.
It is a persistent lie that governments steal from the wealthy. It was and is these elites and their enablers who, through subsidies and taxes (your money) who are guilty of theft. Taxes are what you pay so that you live in a civilized society. By stealing from you, the elites of every political stripe are making your society uncivilized (that is, lower on the non-egalitarian scale).
It’s understandable that you’re furious. You have been treated unfairly. The entertainer, speaking in short words and phrases, thinks of you as suckers, and you can only react with emotion, unable to articulate why you feel this way.
It is not a special group of elites whom, lemming-like, you blame because Mr. T blames them (e.g., party democrats). This set of global elites, without loyalty to a party, government, country, or religion – except their own, despises the herd, the rest of humanity.
Both republican and democrat governments have given enormous tax breaks to the few. Those breaks have to be paid for somehow. That means gutting spending for education, health care and social goods upon which some citizens below a certain income depend. It has been both types of governments who sent your children as soldiers over the world to die. And for what? To maintain their way of life.
Remember Mr. T’s ‘drain the swamp,’ comment in 2016? He was referring to the gators he didn’t like, but then he brought in his own T-brand gators and repopulated the swamp. The same sort of elites have screwed you; the minor and the ultra wealthy (plus all their hangers-on). And you are about to be re-screwed.
And Mr. T? The election is over and the people he is putting in various posts are a different gator but with the same desires: money, power and misperceived desire or revenge. Betting you wouldn’t look too close at his hands as he moved the shells, the showman had beguiled you. And if you say you are a Christian and agree with Kennedy that, ‘God has given me Trump’, then you have exchanged your trust and loyalty from He whom you call Lord for a human trickster, an idol and have therefore become apostate.
When the elite speak of ‘free’ (markets) and ‘freedom’ and ‘our way of life’, and ‘taxes’ and ‘money’, they are not talking about your freedom, taxes, money or security. They are talking about theirs. By shouting those words, you are not helping yourselves, but the very people who use your emotion behind those words to manipulate you. These are libertarians. From the 1970s to the present, their goal has been to dismantle government, democracy itself.
After the 9/11 attack, then President Bush spoke at an invitation-only banquet for the elite. He said, “some call you the ‘haves’; I call you the ‘have-mores’.” These people (not all of them), republicans and democrats, despise the middle and lower class.
The T brand is making this analysis clear in real time. Shuttering the dept of education? Punching the teeth out of the IRS? Turning the EPA into a sheep pen? Getting rid of anyone in the DOD that showed spine and opposed Mr. T’s previous regime? A new AG whose chief goal is to wreak vengeance on Mr. T’s (and his own) enemies, turning the justice system into a private concern? By ‘private’ means that you, as one of the herd, cannot depend upon absolute principles of democracy; the rule of law and the separation of powers. Even thinking the Constitution can be ‘ended’ and Mr. T ignoring the Constitution by already thinking he can run for a third term?
Whom do you think these anti-democratic, anti-legal, above all else, anti-American goals will benefit? If you are reading this, it won’t be you.
By not voting for this reality, you are already resisting. Those who voted for this reality should consider that the cult and gods of money, fame and entertainment are responsible for it. In case you wake up feeling like you have a hangover after an emotional party and doubt your actions, seek a lawful means to resist through the Constitution and the rule of law.
So, for the next four years, every six months, check your personal economic pulse. Is your wallet or purse getting lighter and you haven’t even opened them? Are you still paying too much for goods and services you cannot afford now? Have you received a reduced Social Security payment? Have your taxes come down? And by how much in comparison with the elite? Is there more violence, as there was in Mr. T’s first regime? Is there more misogyny? Do you feel more or less secure?
If not, then weep for yourselves and your children. Then, when the unpleasant and shameful truth of Mr. T’s lies is revealed, and while everyone is responsible for what they do, remember that you were deceived once more. But it was not your fault.