Who was it said, "People are the cwaiziest animals"?
As our Ship of Fools rushes toward the brink of the great maelstrom,
Captain Donald Trump strides forth and grasps the helm.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/19/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Prashad writes: "What Trump has done is merely shout out loudly what the
Republican Party wants whispered."
Donald Trump supporters. (photo: AP)
A Fearful Ascendency: The Rise of Trump
By Vijay Prashad, CounterPunch
18 March 16
What began as a joke is now no laughing matter. Donald Trump will most
likely be the Republican nominee for the President of the United States.
Given the deep uncertainty of this presidential campaign, there is a sense
that he could even win the presidency. The headquarters of the Republican
National Committee in Washington, D.C., teeters in fearful anticipation. No
one would like to speak openly about the presumptive nominee, but most of
the party faithful fear his ascendency.
Trump, the real estate baron, is truly an outside candidate. He says
anything he wants, including dismissing the formidable pieties of the
Republican Party on trade and foreign policy, and is therefore out of the
party establishment's control. Each of the mainstream candidates (Jeb Bush
and Chris Christie) fell before Trump's withering attacks and the massive
support these attacks generated. Christie fell and then joined Trump's
juggernaut. Along New York City's western highway are a series of buildings
that bear-in large letters-Trump's name. He was the real estate developer
of
these Trump Place Apartments. The Republican Party fears that it has been
transformed into the Trump Party. He has done a hostile buyout under their
noses.
The last Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, went to the
Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah to deliver a major
address against Trump. Robert Hinckley created this institute in 1965 to
"encourage the youngest and best minds to enter politics". Neither Trump
nor
Romney fits the bill. Barack Obama defeated Romney in 2012. Trump seized
the
irony of a failed candidate taking the podium to attack his own party's
leading candidate. "Mitt is a choke artist," said Trump in his inimitably
harsh style. "He choked like I've never seen anyone choke." Romney, in the
same gutter style, called Trump "a phony, a fraud". Trump's "promises are
as
worthless as a degree from Trump University", said Romney. "He's playing
the
American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and
all
we get is a lousy hat." Romney was referring to the red hats that are now
commonplace at Trump rallies. They bear the slogan: "Make America Great
Again". This is the sum total of Trump's message. He has said little else.
An indicator of how removed Romney and the Republican establishment are
from
the mood of the electorate of the Right was that several people in the Utah
audience of 700 wore these Trump hats. When Romney said, "Donald Trump
tells
us he is very, very smart," a heckler yelled, "Smarter than you!"
Ted Cruz, deeply disliked
On many issues, Trump is not as harsh as his rival Ted Cruz. Cruz comes
from
the extreme right-wing Tea Party section of the Republicans. He is an
uncompromising religious zealot, who believes in much the same kind of
programme as Trump on issues of immigration and war-making. (It was Cruz,
after all, who said that he would bomb Iraq and Syria to "make the desert
glow".) Cruz is deeply disliked by his Republican colleagues. At a
Washington Press Club meeting in late February, the party leader Lindsey
Graham said: "If you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the
trial
was in the Senate, nobody could convict you." Beneath Senator Graham's joke
is an edge of what is widely believed. Cruz is no better than Trump and yet
is the only other viable candidate in the Republican primary.
Romney urged his party to block Trump, not at the elections, where his
warning has been irrelevant. A few days after Romney made his speech, Trump
handily triumphed in the primary elections in Kentucky and Louisiana (Cruz
won in Kansas and Maine) and is now well ahead to become the presidential
nominee. What Romney wants is for the party leaders at their convention to
create rules that circumvent Trump's election victories and deliver the
candidacy to an acceptable person. He did not say who this should be. This
is for the better since the two establishment candidates (Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida and Governor John Kasich of Ohio) are anaemic.
A "brokered convention" has its perils since it would likely turn off those
people who are loyal Trump voters and who might boycott the general
election
in November. This would deliver a landslide to the Democratic Party, not
only in the presidential election but mainly in the concurrent elections
for
the Senate and the House of Representatives. In anticipation of that
prospect, the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
(a State that voted for Trump), will release his members so that they can
attack Trump as they run for their own elections. This is pandemonium.
Why do the Republicans fear Trump so much? Romney evoked the racism and
misogyny of the Trump campaign. Romney even said the word "misogyny",
something of historical proportions for a party that has systematically
gone
after women's reproductive health and women's rights. The "gender gap" in
the 2012 presidential election was the largest in U.S. history, with the
Democrats winning the women vote by 20 points.
On racism, the Republican coalition has relied upon Richard Nixon's
"Southern Strategy" of 1968, which evoked issues of "law and order" and
"States' rights" to send a message-blow dog whistles-to whites in the South
that the Republicans would not honour the victories of the civil rights
movement. The idea of "cutting taxes" and "stopping welfare" suggested that
whites would not have to provide compensation for the years of slavery and
apartheid. It was a not-so-subtle way to reproduce racism in the Republican
coalition. What Trump has done is merely shout out loudly what the
Republican Party wants whispered. His fulminations against Mexicans and
Muslims-dangerous as they are-emerged directly out of the coded racism of
the Republican establishment. Trump is the outcome of the Southern
Strategy,
of the anti-immigrant sentiment in the party and the deep wells of
Islamophobia that have been cultivated since the 1990s. In this, Trump's
danger is his nakedness.
What worries the establishment is more than this surely. Trump's erratic
political positions whip from condemnation of the Iraq War of 2003 to
denunciation of the trade agreements from the North American Free Trade
Agreement of 1994 to the current Trans-Pacific Partnership. There is fear
among the business elite that Trump will not honour the carefully crafted
consensus between the two parties to protect the global interests of what
is
now called the 1%. The sum total of Trump's platform was enunciated clearly
in 2015 at a rally in Jacksonville, Florida: "We're going to make our
country great again. Remember this: the American dream will be back, bigger
and stronger, I promise, than ever before. Ever." With wages flat since
1973
for workers, that dream has been unattainable for at least two generations.
It is the distance from that dream that draws disgruntled white rural
voters
to Trump and college students and urban multi-ethnic voters to the
socialist
barnstorming candidacy of Bernie Sanders.
Both Sanders and Trump have rattled the cages of the consensus. Sanders,
the
establishment believes, will eventually be undone by Hillary Clinton, who
will loyally protect the interests of the 1%-unlike both Sanders and Trump.
While Sanders could enliven the politics of unions and community
organisations, Trump has merely enflamed the politics of his stature. One
opens the door to a conversation about socialism, while the other opens the
door to Trump. The establishment recognises the choice these men place
before the electorate. It is socialism or-dare one say the word-fascism.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid.
Donald Trump supporters. (photo: AP)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/18/a-fearful-ascendency-the-rise-of-trum
p/http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/18/a-fearful-ascendency-the-rise-of-tr
ump/
A Fearful Ascendency: The Rise of Trump
By Vijay Prashad, CounterPunch
18 March 16
hat began as a joke is now no laughing matter. Donald Trump will most
likely be the Republican nominee for the President of the United States.
Given the deep uncertainty of this presidential campaign, there is a sense
that he could even win the presidency. The headquarters of the Republican
National Committee in Washington, D.C., teeters in fearful anticipation. No
one would like to speak openly about the presumptive nominee, but most of
the party faithful fear his ascendency.
Trump, the real estate baron, is truly an outside candidate. He says
anything he wants, including dismissing the formidable pieties of the
Republican Party on trade and foreign policy, and is therefore out of the
party establishment's control. Each of the mainstream candidates (Jeb Bush
and Chris Christie) fell before Trump's withering attacks and the massive
support these attacks generated. Christie fell and then joined Trump's
juggernaut. Along New York City's western highway are a series of buildings
that bear-in large letters-Trump's name. He was the real estate developer
of
these Trump Place Apartments. The Republican Party fears that it has been
transformed into the Trump Party. He has done a hostile buyout under their
noses.
The last Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, went to the
Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah to deliver a major
address against Trump. Robert Hinckley created this institute in 1965 to
"encourage the youngest and best minds to enter politics". Neither Trump
nor
Romney fits the bill. Barack Obama defeated Romney in 2012. Trump seized
the
irony of a failed candidate taking the podium to attack his own party's
leading candidate. "Mitt is a choke artist," said Trump in his inimitably
harsh style. "He choked like I've never seen anyone choke." Romney, in the
same gutter style, called Trump "a phony, a fraud". Trump's "promises are
as
worthless as a degree from Trump University", said Romney. "He's playing
the
American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and
all
we get is a lousy hat." Romney was referring to the red hats that are now
commonplace at Trump rallies. They bear the slogan: "Make America Great
Again". This is the sum total of Trump's message. He has said little else.
An indicator of how removed Romney and the Republican establishment are
from
the mood of the electorate of the Right was that several people in the Utah
audience of 700 wore these Trump hats. When Romney said, "Donald Trump
tells
us he is very, very smart," a heckler yelled, "Smarter than you!"
Ted Cruz, deeply disliked
On many issues, Trump is not as harsh as his rival Ted Cruz. Cruz comes
from
the extreme right-wing Tea Party section of the Republicans. He is an
uncompromising religious zealot, who believes in much the same kind of
programme as Trump on issues of immigration and war-making. (It was Cruz,
after all, who said that he would bomb Iraq and Syria to "make the desert
glow".) Cruz is deeply disliked by his Republican colleagues. At a
Washington Press Club meeting in late February, the party leader Lindsey
Graham said: "If you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the
trial
was in the Senate, nobody could convict you." Beneath Senator Graham's joke
is an edge of what is widely believed. Cruz is no better than Trump and yet
is the only other viable candidate in the Republican primary.
Romney urged his party to block Trump, not at the elections, where his
warning has been irrelevant. A few days after Romney made his speech, Trump
handily triumphed in the primary elections in Kentucky and Louisiana (Cruz
won in Kansas and Maine) and is now well ahead to become the presidential
nominee. What Romney wants is for the party leaders at their convention to
create rules that circumvent Trump's election victories and deliver the
candidacy to an acceptable person. He did not say who this should be. This
is for the better since the two establishment candidates (Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida and Governor John Kasich of Ohio) are anaemic.
A "brokered convention" has its perils since it would likely turn off those
people who are loyal Trump voters and who might boycott the general
election
in November. This would deliver a landslide to the Democratic Party, not
only in the presidential election but mainly in the concurrent elections
for
the Senate and the House of Representatives. In anticipation of that
prospect, the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
(a State that voted for Trump), will release his members so that they can
attack Trump as they run for their own elections. This is pandemonium.
Why do the Republicans fear Trump so much? Romney evoked the racism and
misogyny of the Trump campaign. Romney even said the word "misogyny",
something of historical proportions for a party that has systematically
gone
after women's reproductive health and women's rights. The "gender gap" in
the 2012 presidential election was the largest in U.S. history, with the
Democrats winning the women vote by 20 points.
On racism, the Republican coalition has relied upon Richard Nixon's
"Southern Strategy" of 1968, which evoked issues of "law and order" and
"States' rights" to send a message-blow dog whistles-to whites in the South
that the Republicans would not honour the victories of the civil rights
movement. The idea of "cutting taxes" and "stopping welfare" suggested that
whites would not have to provide compensation for the years of slavery and
apartheid. It was a not-so-subtle way to reproduce racism in the Republican
coalition. What Trump has done is merely shout out loudly what the
Republican Party wants whispered. His fulminations against Mexicans and
Muslims-dangerous as they are-emerged directly out of the coded racism of
the Republican establishment. Trump is the outcome of the Southern
Strategy,
of the anti-immigrant sentiment in the party and the deep wells of
Islamophobia that have been cultivated since the 1990s. In this, Trump's
danger is his nakedness.
What worries the establishment is more than this surely. Trump's erratic
political positions whip from condemnation of the Iraq War of 2003 to
denunciation of the trade agreements from the North American Free Trade
Agreement of 1994 to the current Trans-Pacific Partnership. There is fear
among the business elite that Trump will not honour the carefully crafted
consensus between the two parties to protect the global interests of what
is
now called the 1%. The sum total of Trump's platform was enunciated clearly
in 2015 at a rally in Jacksonville, Florida: "We're going to make our
country great again. Remember this: the American dream will be back, bigger
and stronger, I promise, than ever before. Ever." With wages flat since
1973
for workers, that dream has been unattainable for at least two generations.
It is the distance from that dream that draws disgruntled white rural
voters
to Trump and college students and urban multi-ethnic voters to the
socialist
barnstorming candidacy of Bernie Sanders.
Both Sanders and Trump have rattled the cages of the consensus. Sanders,
the
establishment believes, will eventually be undone by Hillary Clinton, who
will loyally protect the interests of the 1%-unlike both Sanders and Trump.
While Sanders could enliven the politics of unions and community
organisations, Trump has merely enflamed the politics of his stature. One
opens the door to a conversation about socialism, while the other opens the
door to Trump. The establishment recognises the choice these men place
before the electorate. It is socialism or-dare one say the word-fascism.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
