The regular readers of this blog will have noticed that since the US election the author has gone numb. But now even my cardiologist encouraged me to resume writing. As a model patient I have to follow doctor’s orders. Lets pick up the thread.
No real change in America
On election day the NZ Herald came out with this front page :
I have it laminated hanging on my wall. I am somehow still in disbelief. On the other hand nothing really changed in the USA on November 9th. The picture just has become much clearer.
Still the country has a deeply undemocratic constitution designed 250 years ago to keep control in the hands of the establishment and keep the riffraff out. Just to give you some examples look at the US Senate, which makes a mockery of the most basic democratic principle that each vote should count the same. In California you get two senators for 50 million people the same number as in tiny states like Wyoming or Vermont for a few hundred thousands.
Or the so called electoral college gave Trump a decisive victory despite the fact that he got about three million votes less than his opponent.
And still Americans accept this and even go to war to teach and bring democracy to other countries. Many even believe that somehow the constitution was given to them by “GOD”.
And still the country is run by big money via corrupt political parties. For example a couple of years back some freshly elected congressmen even missed their swearing-in ceremony because they were already attending fundraising events for the next election.
And still the corrupt political system is held in place by the undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system aggravated by Gerrymandering. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a short video clip WHY CONGRESS IS WORSE THAN HERPES describes this system correctly as “politicians pick their voters instead voters picking their politician” and “politician draw their district lines so safely that even when congressional approval rating went down into single digits they couldn’t lose” and “the former soviet polite bureau had more turnover than Californian politics“.
And still the USA act aggressively against her former ideological foe. It is if the Soviet Union and communism hadn’t expired over a quarter of a century ago.The US military – industrial complex needs an enemy to keep going.
And still most of the US media disseminate the old propaganda line about Russian aggression like Saddam Hussain’s weapons of mass destruction. Just one look at a map of US military bases around Russia from 1990 to 2017 would debunk the propaganda as lies.
The picture is clear for everyone to see
Since Trump’s inauguration i.e. the angry orange meteor hitting the earth and us with it
we can see clearly that our worst fears have come true. The events since the election have proved what all actual observers of US politics feared. Now it cannot be denied by anyone anymore. Houston we have a problem a threefold problem.
# 1 There is now a leader of the most powerful county on the planet who will not only take his place in the history books but also future psychiatric textbooks. The US professor who wrote the standard text on malignant narcissism didn’t classify Trump as ill despite meeting all the criteria only because he doesn’t seem to suffer from his condition. All his life he got the lollies feeding his condition like an open carriage ride down the London Mall with our gracious Queen. Its like calling a heroin addict not ill as long as he has enough supply. However we better not wait for what happens if he runs out of lollies eventually and suffers serious rejection, which even he in his alternative factual world might not be able to deny. So far in his mind he could turn around poor attendance and rain at his inauguration or a botched military action in Yemen into the opposite.
However Trump is only the symptom. A boil full of pus on the sick body politics USA threatening to pop anytime.
# 2 The bigger problem are the Trump enablers around him. A criminal gang called the Republican Party or GOP. They not only made him their standard bearer despite all he said during the primaries and without demanding his tax return or that he divests himself from his business interests. They confirm the worst of his cabinet choices. A billionaire secretary of education with the declared aim of destroying the public school system. Or the head of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) who is against all scientist of his department a climate change denier with the declared aim of destroying the agency. Or a racist white supremacist pig as his top aid and security adviser with no experience in the later.
Not that the Democrats are or have been Lilly white but the Republicans are taking their unashamed and blatant abuse of power to a whole new level. In North Carolina for instance after they narrowly lost the gubernatorial race the Republican majority in parliament turned around and stripped the office of governor of all its political power. The court had to put a stop to it.
We are actually watching live the biggest heist in human history. Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry, private education providers (charter schools) and the health insurance/providers and of course the “wall” building industry to name just a few gorge themselves at the expense of the sick, the poor (many of them Trump voters) and the environment.
That is what the GOP has been all about for quite some time but now their audacity is mind boggling.
# 3 The third problem are the before mentioned Trump voters. There have always been the traditional tribal Republicans waging class war from the top. They seem to be unable to change their vote whatever unqualified sick candidates the party puts up. But they have now been joined by a lower class, angry, often racist, uneducated crowd who have no idea what they are voting for or talking about. They for instance want to get rid of “Obamacare” because they – as they say – still have the “Affordable Care Act” not realising that these are one and the same.
I asked friends from California on their recent visit about what has changed in their day to day lives since the Trump election. Their reply was that people just have become angrier, more openly racist and nastier than they ever experienced before.
For me there are just the scary images of Nazi rallies during the 1930s and the infamous Berlin “Sport Palast” crowd.
Are we there yet ?
World renowned physicist and thinker Stephen Hawking predicts that Greed and Stupidity Will End Humanity Earlier than Expected. The doomsday clock has been moved closer to midnight since Trump’s election.
I have over many years observed where the world is heading especially in regards to climate change and inequality and have come to the conclusion that things would need to get much worse before they would get better.
Even looking at the downwards trajectory from Reagan to Bush II and now Trump I lack the imagination to foresee anything worse. And therefore the good news is . . . . .
We might have hit rock bottom.