Monday, April 24, 2017

Trump -- The Legend Continues


I'm getting to an age that, when I look out across the political landscape, I can pretty much, in most cases, say (or think), “Oh yeah, I've seen that before” -- or “Here we go again” -- or “What else is new?” or some such. There is no more fruitful source of deja vu than politics, unless it's fashions in clothing, which predictably recycle like clockwork every few years or decades. When I talk to younger people about current events, and find them puzzled/disoriented/confused, and mainly upset, I can always go back to the Sixties as my baseline of reference for real political strife – real alienation, real violence, real generational and cultural gaps, and so forth. There was a civil war going on back then, folks, let's face it. You can call it a “cultural revolution” if you like, but in any case it was a high water mark in the age-old story of rebellious youth vs. the Establishment. Nothing that's happened since, and nothing that's happening now, even comes close, I will say – in a manner that is meant to assure whomever I'm speaking to that all is not lost, and the world is not coming to an end. In other words, there is nothing new under the Sun, as far as I'm aware... and as far as my personal experience goes.

And yet here we are in the Age/Era/Season of Trump, and it seems like genuinely new things are happening – both quantitatively and qualitatively. And for a long time, it seemed a puzzlement... but now I'm starting to understand, or at least I think that I am. But before I explain, let's go over a few salient points.

Yes, Trump is a character – and a bit of a loose cannon. He has unconventional hair and a perpetual tan, he talks like a New Yorker, and not an especially high-class one either. He's in constant fighting mode, and has yet to learn what's worth fighting over and what should simply be ignored. (In this, he shows his marked difference from the average politician, who seems to have remarkably thick skin. Or, at least, they can freely choose what to get offended about, and not be constant victims of what's in the morning paper or on TV or the Internet.) So all of these things scream “outsider”, and Trump accepts that label and is justly proud of it. Compared to previous “outsiders” who have reached the very peak of American politics, he's way more of one than, say, Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan. They had at least attended the school of political hard knocks for a season – although in Carter's case, it's hard to see what good it did. No, in Trump's case it's more like he got selected at random from William F. Buckley's proverbial phone book. And he's not even a typical businessman or a typical billionaire; he's apparently atypical and an outlier in pretty much every respect. In fact, his hair may be the most normal thing about him.

And, although not an ideological conservative, his program, when you get right down to it, contains goals which, up until recently, would have been considered common sense, and not all that unrealistic. But he is no absolutist, and his proposals to date seem ripe for negotiation, except that he has taken on the burden of making certain campaign promises which he actually intends to keep (again, in a blatantly non-politician way), so he's going to be in hot water with those who voted for him if he starts getting too squishy. The “deplorables” who voted for him tend to see things in a black-and-white way, and they are notoriously impatient with business as usual in Washington, which is all about wheeling and dealing, compromise, and cutting one's losses – and mostly seeing to it that the ruling elite remain so, for their exclusive fun and profit.

Plus, he has picked for his administration a group of quite level-headed and experienced individuals, which is atypical in that it defies the usual custom of picking donors, supporters, cronies, and hacks. (Have you ever wondered what some of these political types would do if they weren't working for the government? One answer is that, once out of office, they tend to disappear, although a good many transition smoothly into lobbying organizations or NGOs. Some of then hang around Washington in hopes that they will eventually be again called upon to donate their skills and knowledge – such as they are – to a new administration.)

In contrast, Trump's people actually seem to want to get things done, and they have the knowledge base and skills to do it – or, at the very least, have demonstrated that they are fast learners. They enter the fray as high achievers in other areas (military, business, etc.), which is another point of contrast with the career politician, who is basically a one-trick pony, the trick being "getting elected to office". In this, they are, again, superior to pretty much any group of high-level political appointees I can recall over the past 50 years or so (unless you want to consider JFK's “best and brightest” successful for getting us into a war in Vietnam, or Henry Kissinger successful for aggravating the situation in Southeast Asia, among many other lousy ideas). (Please note that Kissinger was, and continues to be, the ultimate globalist.)

But none of this apparent reasonableness and moderation impresses the opposition, because since Election Day they've been in the streets, and on the airwaves and the Internet, screaming and turning purple, and having psychotic breakdowns right in plain sight, over the “fact” that Trump is not just another Hitler, but that he is Hitler, reincarnated in some mysterious way. And if he is Hitler, as they all seem to believe, the glory days of the Nuremberg rallies are long gone, and he will never enjoy being chauffeured victorious through the streets of Prague and Warsaw. No – he is already hiding deep in an underground bunker in the middle of Berlin, shaking in fear every time he hears the muffled thud of bombs going off overhead. His movie is almost over; he's in the last scene, like Edward G. Robinson in “Little Caesar”. (“Is this the end of The Donald?”) And his followers are paralyzed with fear, and busy plotting ways to save their skins once the administration collapses (any room on a slow boat to Argentina?).

This is what passes for conventional wisdom among the media and commentariat these days. Trump is on the ropes, he's washed up, and his people are scattering like the proverbial rats from a sinking ship. And of course, what little in the way of governing they manage to eke out is quickly snuffed, neutralized, and canceled by the efforts of the embedded bureaucracy (now called “the Deep State”) which consists entirely of holdovers from the previous administration who, for some mysterious reason, cannot be removed because, among other things, they can't even be found. (This is also, please note, a departure from politics as usual, where the long knives come out the day after Inauguration Day, and someone from the new administration shows up with “a little list” like the guy in “The Mikado”.)

Not only that, but Trump has an ex-president living just up the street, sharing an upscale house with his most loyal staff members, and they are in charge not only of the Deep State but of a shadow cabinet, which is ready to take back the reins of power as soon as the pretender can be ejected from his throne. And not only that, but – most dangerous of all – he has the entire national security/intelligence apparatus arrayed against him, and how is he supposed to conduct foreign policy (including military operations) if they won't tell him anything he needs to know, or if what they do tell him is designed to deceive, misdirect, and sabotage? Any notion that the intel community, along with the military, is on the conservative side of things has now been proven quite wrong. If it were ever true, is no longer is. And it's no real surprise, since, like anyone else in the system, they are attracted to power and tend to gravitate toward it and toward politicians who are willing to grant it. And in this, I might add, both parties are guilty of giving away too much power, but the consistently totalitarian tone of Democrat policies and programs gives them an edge, and a greater claim on the loyalty of the intel types. What better purpose for a world-wide intelligence apparatus combined with a vast mercenary army than to establish and maintain a one-world government?

So what we have here is, basically, an interregnum – a person who is president, at least for the time being, and who is nominally in charge, but who, in fact, has no power and who is opposed by virtually everyone in Washington and in the media, the Internet, Hollywood, etc. In other words, everyone hates him except the people who voted for him, and I suspect that some of them are starting to have their doubts. So he is flailing, and everyone around him is flailing, and it's hard to see how they can do otherwise. At least – once again – this is the conventional wisdom. But there are data to back it up, and I have to note that the only thing Trump has managed to do in a decisive way so far is toss a few dozen cruise missiles at Syria, for the simple reason that the only area of government where the mythical Congressional “checks and balances” do not apply is in the area of starting and perpetuating wars.

Strange, isn't it? Congress supposedly has the sole power to declare war, but whoever came up with that phraseology forgot that you can make war without declaring it. This modern spin on things started with Korea, and continued with Vietnam, and now here we are with the perpetual, endless “War on Terror”. (And don't bother mentioning any of these pathetic “war powers acts” by Congress when they occasionally regret their cowardice. The attitude of whoever is president at the time is typically akin to Stalin's -- “How many divisions does Congress have?”)

But if Trump doesn't have any power aside from this, where does the power lie these days? With the Republicans, who, despite their majorities in both the Senate and the House, never seem to know what to do with power, and who, on any given day, would probably really rather they didn't have any? No – the power all lies with the minority, so-called – with the likes of Schumer, Pelosi, Franken, and Feinstein. They're still pulling all the levers, and they can because they are, in effect, the chief operatives of the Deep State, with Obama at the top and Hillary Clinton as empress-in-waiting. (And by the way, if you don't think Hillary is planning a comeback long before 2020 rolls around, think again. She can spot a weakness the way a vulture can spot an animal that is on its last legs.) Apparently this cabal even has the power to shut down the government, although they are in the minority in both houses of Congress – thus another unfathomable mystery when it comes to the American system.  When the Democrats are in charge, they're in charge.  And when they aren't in charge, they're still in charge.  Figure that one out if you will.  

But wait – I said at the beginning that some things had developed that were truly new and unprecedented. But isn't all of the above fairly typical, and differing primarily in degree from prior episodes? There are always political holdovers throughout the bureaucracy. The media always take sides, and prefer one president over another and one party over another; the same holds true of the academic community, Hollywood, the Internet, etc. And as far as street demonstrations go, nothing these days can hold a candle to the action back during the war in Vietnam. Hasn't every presidential administration from, say, LBJ on, had to deal with non-stop opposition from the first day to the last? There are no longer any good losers in Washington, even though there are occasionally good winners.

The answer, of course, is yes, it's all happened before – but that's not where the difference lies. One difference is in the sheer magnitude of the opposition – the fact that it is not only non-stop, but is at a fever pitch day in and day out, with no let-up. This hostility informs and infects virtually every story that emanates from the mainstream media; it's headline news each and every day. And as far as academics, Hollywood, and the Internet are concerned, I don't think even LBJ had to deal with the white-hot psychotic hatred from all quarters that Trump (and his family, note) have to deal with.  At least he could wave the Civil Rights Act in front of them, and dazzle them enough to make them temporarily forget the debacle in Vietnam.  

So yes, it's a matter of degree, but it's also a matter of kind, or of content. When I described the Trump administration and its policies above, I was not, it seems to me, describing anything that could ever set off this level of hostility and violence (both verbal and physical, including the threat of physical) . Most of these policies, if they had come from some other – any other – administration, of either party, might have set off some controversy and opposition, but nothing like what we're seeing here. And when I go back and look at Trump's fabled first news conference on Jan. 11, and his Mardi Gras speech to Congress, and pretty much any public pronouncements that have emanated from the White House since, I have to keep asking, why the outrage? Why the hatred?

One clue is that, when you listen to, or read, the protests, no matter the source, you will find that the verbal content has very little to do with the actual programs or goals of the administration. The subject matter may be the same in some cases, but the sheer paranoia and wild exaggeration, fantasy, delusion, and – yes – fake news makes that all beside the point. In other words, the protests are not about what is actually taking place, or what is intended, but about fantasies – an army of straw men. The advantage, if I can call it that, is that if delusion and fantasy are what is feeding into all of this, there is no satisfying it. Nothing can be done to make it “OK”, because there are no objective criteria; Trump has to go – period, full stop. Trump has become the ultimate scapegoat for all that is wrong in America, a mere three months into his administration – some kind of record, if records of this sort were being kept.

So if it's not about the program per se, or Trump's being an outsider per se, what is it about? Where does all this negative energy come form? What is its source of fuel? At least in the Sixties, it was easy to see what people were protesting about, and it was real. The government was doing genuinely terrible things both here and overseas, and so the protests made sense; it would have been shameful if there had not been widespread protests. But now there's this mismatch, both in quantitative terms (magnitude, volume, violence) and in qualitative terms (the mismatch described above). So what sustains it?

There's clearly much more going on here than most people think – and it's not just about the “Deep State”. (And I'm sorry that term has been expropriated to describe something as temporary and dull as Obama holdovers in the bureaucracy. I liked it better when it was another word for the Regime, AKA “the people who are really in charge”, which has nothing to do with civil servants, political appointees, or even presidents. Now we'll have to adopt another term – like “Deeper State”, the way Trump came up with “very fake news”.)

I said that Trump was an outsider, but he's clearly more than that. I've already presented my theory about incoming presidents, how they get “the talk” from representatives of the Regime, at some point between the oath and the Inaugural Ball, that basically lays out, in no uncertain terms, what their options are and what they had better not fool with – or if they do, it will be at their peril. What's happening right now is evidence that Trump did, in fact, get “the talk” at some point, but basically told whoever was delivering the message to stick it where the sun don't shine, and to go back and tell whoever sent them to do the same thing. So he declared war, and now he's at war; how could it be otherwise?

Now, what is the main agenda of the Regime? All evidence is that it's pretty much synonymous with what's called globalism – and guess what, Trump is the first president who has ever explicitly come out against globalism as not being in the best interests of the American people. I suppose the last true presidential anti-globalist, if there had even been such a concept back then, could be said to be Calvin Coolidge. Every president since then has been, to some degree, a globalist, either explicitly or implicitly. A turning point – a tectonic shift – came when the U.S. ceased to be the obvious and inevitable leader of the globalist movement, and I would put that, at the latest, at the time of our defeat in Vietnam. Someone at that point decided that globalism was too important a project to be left in the hands of the stumbling, bumbling U.S. Since then, foreign policy (ours and everyone else's) has been in the hands of an anti-nationalist, globalist elite, most likely centered in Europe, but not synonymous with the EU by any means. They issue orders, and we follow; it's as simple as that. Everything else in foreign policy and in military activity is noise level.

So if this is Job One of the Regime, and they run into a president who is unwilling to cooperate, what do you think is going to happen? They will call all of their resources into play, and this will include (1) already-brainwashed (thanks to the public, i.e. government, schools) college and university students (the “snowflakes” being the most readily manipulated, and no more than cannon fodder to whoever is running the show); (2) Hollywood, which has been signed on to globalism for nearly as long as it has existed; (3) the mainstream media, ditto; (4) liberals/Democrats/Progressives, ditto; and (5) mainstream Republicans, who have been globalists starting at least with Eisenhower's administration. (Who talked about a “new world order”? A Republican! I doubt that Trump has much use for that idea.)

Now let's review. Who is wedded and dedicated to globalism, along with all of its ancillary features like anti-nationalism, world government, open borders, economic leveling, social leveling, socialized medicine, government educational monopolies, totalitarianism of all sorts (especially with regard to information and law enforcement), and “diversity” (which is a hoax and an actual stalking horse for total conformity)? And who is completely energized and going completely mental about Trump? The answer: The same people. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with Trump as a person, or with any of his associates, or his administration, or its programs, policies, and plans – with the exception of any that come into conflict with the globalist agenda (and let's admit that the attack on Syria may have been a way of walking back, to some extent, Trump's prior “reckless” statements in opposition to globalism).

The apparently missing link is between the Regime and the vast army of protesters, demonstrators, mass hysterics, and everyone else who is on the verge (or past it) of a nervous breakdown about Trump. After all, the Regime is “up there”, and only comes out in public for occasional confabs like Davos. But like any military organization, it has a structure, and a hierarchy, and resources, and – most important of all – ways in which orders get efficiently passed down from the top to the foot soldiers. How else do these mobs of protesters appear out of thin air every time there's a person, or a meeting, or some other event that is considered worthy of protest? (If only SEAL Team Six were that responsive!) Why do all mainstream media outlets parrot the same “talking points” at the same time, using the exact same words and phrases? Why do the Hollywood, entertainment, and Internet types erupt pretty much simultaneously whenever the most minute issue or event attracts their attention? Clearly there is a single source of orders, instructions, guidance – call it what you will. The opposition can no longer be described as an aggregate of individuals (assuming it ever could); it is now behaving like a single organism – a great steaming blob with millions of hands, eyes, and voices, like something out of a horror movie.

And there also has to be a source of funding; start with communications staff, and transportation to and from the demonstration du jour. And let's not overlook the fact that, although many of the demonstrators are activists and amateurs (i.e. unpaid) there is invariably a core group of professionals – the ones dressed all in black, with face masks. They're not there for their health; they're there because they're paid to be there. And where do these funds come from? It's not because the protesters hand around foam cups to collect contributions. The Regime includes any number of extremely wealthy individuals who are very good at scattering resources where they will do the most good.

And this is not to say that many of the street protesters, and many of the hooters and hollerers in the media, Hollywood, etc. aren't sincere in their delusions. The mistake they're making is in assuming that they are acting independently and spontaneously, whereas the truth is that they're being manipulated and exploited. They are – to use an overworked term – the “useful idiots” of our time, the middle-class reincarnation of the lumpen proletariat of a bygone era.

Plus, please note that among the most intensive areas of operation of the Regime are in foreign intelligence (CIA, NSA) and immigration – both foreign policy matters. When it comes to strictly domestic matters, they could not care less, although issues such as Obamacare are useful in that they tend to mobilize the opposition.

It all makes perfect sense, when you think about it – and it's not even all that controversial. We know that globalism has been a trend going back to Wilson (for us) and the Bolsheviks (for the USSR). We know that the trend was accelerated during FDR's administration, which segued into World War II, which segued into the U.N., which was the first successful (as opposed to the League of Nations) explicitly globalist organization. Every U.S. administration has signed on, and pretty much every European administration as well – at least since World War II. But then along came Brexit on their side of the Atlantic, and Trump on our side – and the parallels between the two have been drawn out in great detail, so I don't need to add anything. And Brexit was only the most obvious case of resurgent nationalism in Europe – you know, that oddball trend that the globalists invariably describe as “fascist”, and their leaders as “Hitlers” and “Nazis”. (Did Hitler really give nationalism a bad name for all time? It appears so, because there can be no other reason for it – or so the opposition says – than a burning desire to return to the glory days of the Third Reich. Fire up the ovens! Get the cattle cars back on the tracks! Der Trumpmeister is in charge, and can't wait to lead the master race to victory.)

So it appears that what was weird and mysterious has now become simple and almost obvious. There are many nuances and subtexts, of course – and many points of debate. And Trump is not the perfect anti-globalist by a long shot. (Ron Paul would have been.) His blind pursuit of the already-failed War on Islam, oops, I mean War on Terror neatly fits into the globalist agenda. For one thing, it requires massive resources in order to support perpetual war, which in turn impoverishes the economy in other areas and makes people more dependent on government, which makes government more powerful and accelerates the trend toward totalitarianism. Mission accomplished! For another thing, it makes the Euro-American-Israeli Regime more cohesive (despite minor annoyances like Brexit) by defining a perpetual enemy – the ultimate “Other” -- namely, Islam/Terror. So we're off to war to defeat a religion and a feeling – wow, it makes most other wars seem downright sane and just.

But if the American Empire – its care and feeding – is symbiotic with globalism, resurgent nationalism, especially of the economic and cultural sort, is not. And in fact, the American Empire is not American at all, but is a subset of the globalist military empire, except that we have been duped into doing all of the heavy lifting (and most of the dying). It's one thing to have a dull-witted servant at one's beck and call, but when that servant starts to get funny ideas about national pride and autonomy, it's time to put him in his place.

And by the way, speaking of brainwashing – this newfound reverence for Islam and Muslims amazes me. It was not that long ago that, as far as nearly all Americans were concerned, Muslims, and especially Arabs, were the lowest of the low... the scum of the earth, basically. The notion of them some day having any “rights”, or claims, would have been considered absurd – and by no one more than the same college/university students (or the same types, anyway) who are now falling all over themselves to provide what amounts to affirmative action for Muslims. This is nothing more than an instance of brainwashing – and you can bet that if the people in charge decided to turn their hordes of flying monkeys back into haters of Muslims, they could do it in no time. Why is it so easy? Because there are no principles involved, the same way “principles” of any sort are no longer part of the curriculum in nearly every institution of “higher education”. If everything is political, and everything is arbitrary, anything can be changed at the drop of a hat for any reason, or for no reason. (One has only to recall that the USSR turned on a dime when the glory days of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ended abruptly with the Nazi invasion of Russia.) This is one of the great blessings of the value-free culture that the globalists, among others, have concocted for us over the years – with the full cooperation of all the usual suspects.

I would say that, as a general rule, the more people you see freaking out about something that is just in their fevered imagination, and the more severe the freak-out, the more likely you are to be seeing the product of brainwashing. The current round of demonstrations reminds me of nothing more than what goes on all the time in North Korea, or what went on in China during the Cultural Revolution. And the people involved, far from having any steadfast principles, are infinitely malleable; this is what makes them so useful to the controllers. Political correctness is, by definition, political... and mob rule is the end result of the devolution of a political system into nothing but politics. Political processes are supposed to serve a greater good – but when politics is the only good, it becomes a destructive force like no other.

It's small consolation, I guess, but one thing about mob rule that people tend to forget is that the mob can turn on its controllers; it has happened before, any number of times in history. Today's demagogue, being carried on the shoulders of the adoring masses, can tomorrow be on the way to the gallows. (Just ask Georges Danton.) And revolutions do have a way of cannibalizing themselves. Occasionally justice will out – or at least karma will set in. But there has to be a lot of discomfort in the meantime.