Ok folks, let’s say what people keep refusing to say:
Trump’s economic plan makes sense and will work.
Okay?Ian Welsh
Trumponomics – How the Trump Economic Plan Will Work
Ok folks, let’s say what people keep refusing to say:
Trump’s economic plan makes sense and will work.
Okay?Ian Welsh
20 comments:
Backhanded compliment from Welsh. Trotting out the Nazi, fascist card if Trump gets elected. A caricature based on a gross misunderstanding of the man and the country he'll likely be leading.
There's a difference between calling Trump a fascist and being concerned with some of the support from the extreme right that Trump is getting and not disavowing it.
It's also disconcerting to find him telling supporters to attack protesters. Trump does have an unsavory side, and it appeals to a certain type of person, like David Duke. If Trump is elected he will either disappoint these people (because they are projecting) and there will be trouble, or he won't disappoint them and there will be trouble.
Trump is not about healing the divisions in America but rather exploiting them. He is the opposite of Obama in this respect, which is to be expected because successive elections tend to draw out opposites. The is what "the historical process is dialectical" means.
There are other things that are concerning, too. Europeans, especially, are concerned with what they see parallels with their past.
I thought Ian's post was pretty well balanced in this regard.
I agree that Trump has an unsavory side but that doesn't make him a fascist or Nazi. Pretty much all Presidents have this unsavory side, but do a better job than Trump in hiding it.
As for bridging the divide in America? Can't be done--by anyone.
As for bridging the divide in America? Can't be done--by anyone.
I'd say that Obama proved that.
The US is dividing into enclaves and that doesn't bode well.
What is going to happen is that laws are not enforceable uniformly. If fact, it has already happened. Then the rule of law breaks down. That's the beginnings of a failed state.
I'm glad you posted this, Tom. I consider it today's must read.
Ian has his strengths and weaknesses. He's good at seeing the big picture. Sometimes he's weak on details, and on a personal level he can be a little abrasive. But when he is good he's really good.
Well, I have the luxury of being able to embrace the anarchy from afar, therefore I come across as flippant. Being someone in the middle of it would be misery and horror beyond comprehension, or agony. I DO have unsettled and deep sympathy for those who must endure the misery, which I don’t. So please always take my remarks with that caveat in consideration anywhere on this site. I am one of the more fortunate ones . . . . pontificating.
The odd thing is that Obama offered so much hope and delivered zilch. A failure on such profound levels.
What would this opposite, this Trump, create?
Obama is great talking about change. Trump is good at effecting it.
The question with Trump is how effective the Establishment would be disrupting him.
They were very effective disrupting Obama, but with Trump they would be faced with someone who would extract a very high price for opposing him to make others think twice about trying it.
Trump when elected (and I'm pretty sure now it will be when) will likely do something completely unexpected. Quite what that will be *nobody knows*.
Never mistake the marketing for the real thing.
Malmo: :As for bridging the divide in America? Can't be done--by anyone."
It can be done but it won't be done by what's on offer, a crucial distinction. If FDR could do it, albeit only when pushed, then today's America can find the wherewithal to do it. If not, America is going to go up in flames, and that will in all likelihood take the rest of the world with it.
Neil: "Trump when elected (and I'm pretty sure now it will be when) will likely do something completely unexpected."
I never thought I'd say it, but it's gonna be Trump versus Hillary. As Tom said elsewhere, vote for the candidate whose less likely to start a war. That's Trump. Hillary is the most warlike candidate I think I've ever seen. She's the neoconservative's neoconservative, and that makes her the most dangerous person in US politics.
Trump is too much of an unknown. He may turn out to be quite pragmatic on many issues, and the damage won't be too severe - like Bill Clinton. Or he just might be totally wacko and go all Dubya. Who the hell knows? Has he really done a 180 on everything he believed up until recently? Maybe he has had some demented Damascene conversion to the nativist right. If he ever does decide to run America like a business, and there's enough powerful vested interests to push that line, America is going to implode. Meanwhile, if Trump ever starts a war it'll be one to the bitter end, no matter what. He'll be a supercharged Nixon.
Neil: "Never mistake the marketing for the real thing."
Absolutely, but every so often the marketing is the real thing. Is Trump Coca-Cola, the real thing, or is he Obama, the blank slate, the disillusioned voter's projection of their own desires?
Neil,
“Trump when elected (and I'm pretty sure now it will be when).” I think you’re right, I think you have a finger on the pulse of this nation from afar.
The head-scratching and mea culpas are going to be interesting to watch when this election cycle ends. FOX News thought it had a handle on its viewership. It doesn’t; in my view, it never did. Murdoch can rail all he wants against a possible Trump presidency, denigrate his ideas and supporters, as he did a few days ago but he and his cocky news outlets created this monster.
Few in the uber-urban media centers (NYC, DC) has had a handle on the desperation still felt in the middle of the country, now, following 2008. They’ve glossed over it. People want jobs. No, people need jobs. They want work with living, not existence, wages. They are feeling bereft, and none of these news outlets, including FOX, gives a shit that they feel this way. If Trump wins the presidency, there is going to be a reckoning (starting with Bill Kristol’s involuntary enema). Megan Whatever-Her-Name-Is’s career is over in one way.
I don’t live in NYC any longer. I live in the Southwest. I can’t go anywhere that has a TV in the reception room--dentist, doctor, barber, mechanic, tire store, where CNN or FOX is on the screen--without hearing that maybe Trump can turn things around, can create jobs, “So I’m voting for him.” It is that pervasive.
Fox and traditional media is a dead man walking... As is the Democratic party in its current state and the GOP w/o Trump (or Trump-like)...
Most youth doesn't give a fuck about the establishment of both parties and doesn't give a fuck about the traditional irrelevant media outlets. They are dinosaurs walking waiting to die...
MRW: "...but he and his cocky news outlets created this monster."
Murdoch created this monster, but Thatcher created Murdoch.
It will of course be the most delicious irony if Trump is the monster who puts a stake through Murdoch and his web of warmongering and neoliberal propaganda. The Trump monster does have the merit of looking as if he's made up of ill-fitting body parts hastily arranged by a mad scientist. If Trump fails, we can only hope that Jerry Hall will be vigorous enough to induce a heart attack.
"Malmo: :As for bridging the divide in America? Can't be done--by anyone."
Father time can bridge the divide. Conservatives are dying off everyday and the youth are overwhelmingly liberal. They view socialism more favorably than capitalism! Actually the country as a whole is liberal, according to polls. Frank Luntz recently said the youth are "terrifyingly liberal", which bodes well for humanity.
The biggest problem is the geographic distribution, all these podunk conservative states (I live in one) still get two senators.
Joe: "Father time can bridge the divide..."
Father time may well arrive too late, and for that matter what's to stop the "terrifyingly liberal" of today turning into the "terrifyingly rightwing" as borne out by every generation?
I don't think the situation is quite the same. Earlier generations grew up in the cold war. Socialism was the dirtiest of dirty words. Now the youth view it positively. So even if they do gradually become more conservative, they might end up centrist. After WWII we had a generation of economic growth, now we have stagnation, and trillions in student loans, so maybe they'll hold onto their leftist leanings a bit more.
Most people just aren't as conservative as the media likes to make them out to be. Talking heads on TV (which the youth don't watch, cord cutters) says we're a center-right to right country, but the polls on issue after issue say we're center left. The media's ability to create reality seems to be diminishing... for now at least.
Yeah, it isn’t a stretch to go from “social media” to “socialism.” Social media sounds like a subset of it.
Yeah, it isn’t a stretch to go from “social media” to “socialism.” Social media sounds like a subset of it.
When on e thinks in terms of self-organizing systems and social networking, the meanings of "socialism" become clear. It's not about property ownership as much as the dynamic functioning of human social systems and networks.
There is no evident reason that human social systems and networks should be organized around accumulation of property rather than the welfare of people. And there are a lot of evident reasons why people should be prioritized over property.
Capitalism as it ass-backwards in prioritizing property over people and it is evident therefrom why capitalism is antithetical to democracy as the rule of the public, by the public and for the public.
I was talking about the kids’ perception of the word “socialism,” Tom. it’s not a dirty word to them unless they have parents like those that live in my milieu. I was just making a flippant comment about how it wouldn’t be hard for a kid to go from the words social media to socialism, and thinking they are related.
My point is that they are related. Those that understand social systems and social networks realize this. Technological advances are empowering people and making socialism realizable.
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