Can Trump ‘Drain the Swamp’?

MICHAEL JABARA CARLEY | 15.11.2016 | OPINION

Everyone seems to be writing and talking about Donald Trump and his election as president of the United States. For many Americans it was a great day, one to savour and to remember with children and grandchildren. For other people, who view themselves as so-called liberals, it has been a rough week, an unmitigated catastrophe and a nightmare from which one cannot awaken. Universities are offering «stress healing therapies» to distraught students, the poor dears, and have cancelled classes and exams. Imagine how distraught these students would be if their favoured candidate, warmonger Clinton, had won the election and then sent them off to fight the Russians. You can be sure that there’d be no therapy sessions on the «Eastern Front». Clearly, the students were not thinking that far ahead.

Some people have even gone into the streets to protest and to vandalise cars and shop fronts. For three nights now (as I write these lines), it’s been going on. Some journalists  say it’s the billionaire ghoul George Soros trying to start a «colour revolution» in the United States.

«Not our president» read the demonstrators’ placards: «Stop Nazi Trump».

«Trump Makes America Hate,» says one handwritten poster. «Trump racist» asserts another.

No question about it, US «liberals» are upset.  And they should be… but with themselves first of all

No question about it, US «liberals» are upset. And they should be… but with themselves first of all. They backed a loser. I mean Hillary Clinton, the warmonger and alleged influence peddler. «It was her turn,» so apparently few amongst the Democratic Party leadership thought about the downsides of proposing her as the party nominee. Some people who supported rival Senator Bernie Sanders had thought about that, but they got short shrift. The Democratic National Committee rigged the primaries or some of them anyway. It passed debate questions to Clinton but not to Sanders, exchanged cozy messages with journalists, and threatened Sanders if he did not abandon his candidacy. Critics are now saying that Sanders could easily have beaten Trump. Hindsight is always 20/20.

There was so much rotten business in which Hillary appears to have been involved: from the coup d’état against the democratically elected government in Honduras, through the early proxy war of aggression against Syria, to her alleged influence peddling through the Clinton foundation

The Democratic elite did not mind that Clinton as secretary of state was the lead proponent of US aggression against Libya, oversaw the hunting down of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and then gloated over his sodomy and murder as though she were some primitive prehistoric warrior holding up in celebration the severed head of a defeated foe. And there was so much other rotten business in which she appears to have been involved: the coup d’état against the democratically elected government in Honduras, the early proxy war of aggression against Syria, her alleged influence peddling through the Clinton foundation, and that’s only a small sample from a long list of black deeds. Nor did the Democratic elite mind that Hillary was openly for confronting the Russians and the Chinese, overthrowing the Syrian government and risking World War III.

How could that be? Because Hillary is a woman, and identity politics count for more in the United States than American plundering and violence abroad in which she was so deeply involved. Clinton may have been a pirate and an alleged felon but so are many of her male colleagues, and thus «breaking the glass ceiling» for women in politics became the main objective. She could claim to support gay rights and transgender toilets and that made her a «progressive» and OK for other «happy white liberals» who also support US world domination and aggression. Why shucks, backing fascists in the Ukraine and jihadists in Syria is as American as apple pie.

That makes the American left as rotten as it is in Britain or France, corrupted by leaders like Tony Blair or François Hollande. The Democratic Party betrayed all the constituencies it has claimed to support since the days of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Blacks, working class people, Latinos, LGBT folks are all pandered to during elections and then forgotten until the next electoral cycle. In the New World Order (NWO) of neoliberalism and bipartisan US hegemonism, it is the 1%, which governs in the United States. Everyone else is an accoutrement running after and fighting over the diminishing «benefits» of NWO trickledown economics.»Morons,» say the 1%.  Their role is to shine our shoes, and be happy with a quarter tip.

In the New World Order of neoliberalism and bipartisan US hegemonism, it is the 1% which governs in the United States

It was supposed to be «Hillary’s turn» for the presidency. She worried though with  her friends amongst the 1% that she had become disconnected from the real world of most of her fellow citizens who live from pay cheque to pay cheque and can’t even put aside a thousand dollars  for emergencies. Everybody that mattered, people just as disconnected from the real world as Clinton, thought she had the election in the bag against the billionaire bumpkin Trump. He was in fact  the preferred Republican opponent because he would be so easy to beat.

How could Clinton lose?  Everybody who was anybody… counted his or her chickens before they hatched

Virtually all the Mainstream Media was for Clinton and against Trump. In the New York Times, the so-called paper of record in the United States, a day did not pass without some direct or indirect attack on Trump. Almost all the economic and political elite, including the Republican neocons, were for Clinton and against Trump. The wish being father to the thought, most pollsters saw the election being locked up for Clinton and so perhaps designed their polls to show what they wanted to believe. It was a done deal. How could Clinton lose? Everybody who was anybody, almost, counted his or her chickens before they hatched.

So the shock was stupendous when all the assumptions of easy victory were contradicted by the actual results of the election on 8 November. Clinton could cheat in the primaries against Sanders but the United States is still too big and diverse for her to cheat in a general election. Trump said a lot of ugly things about immigrants, women, Muslims and Mexicans, but he also said he wants to «drain the swamp» of corruption at the heart of US government. He claims to want to restore jobs to American workers who have lost them because of the NWO, and to get along with the Russians in order to fight the jihadist terrorism fed by Obama’s support of it in Libya and Syria. For Americans surviving from pay cheque to pay cheque, or not having a pay cheque at all, living the most precarious of existences in a cut throat, violent society, the siren appeals of the billionaire bumpkin were a light however dim in the dire darkness of what America has become for many of its citizens. The «deplorables», as Clinton called them, voted for Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, states, which pollsters said were locked up for Clinton. That was the difference in the US election.

Can Samson bring down the temple of the Phillistines?

Now Trump has to deliver on his promises. The day after the election, the Republican establishment, which sided with Clinton or refused to support Trump, went to work to hijack his presidency. It remains to be seen if Trump can protect himself from the neocon vultures already circling above him. Can Samson bring down the temple of the Philistines? Can Trump pursue a rapprochement with the Russian Federation or with Syria to fight the jihadists backed by the Obama administration? Can he increase taxes on the privileged elite, implement a single payer health care system, reindustrialise the rust belt, let the European Union tend to its own defences? These ideas fly in the face of the entrenched interests of the neoliberal, neocon elite which united against Trump. Already the signs of elite revolt can be observed. Apart from the riots and demonstrations in American cities—almostthe only places where Clinton has strong support—there is a movement afoot to encourage members of the Electoral College to disregard their mandates and vote for Clinton. As I write these lines, the Mainstream Media is running headlines across the English-speaking world about impeaching Trump before he takes office. Is this a Soros funded and coordinated campaign? Some people are dreaming big dreams.

Trouble is the United States is not the Ukraine. Do «happy white liberals» think all the people who voted for Trump would sit arms folded before a coup d’état in the Electoral College or an attempted impeachment campaign? It’s a formula for chaos and civil war. Remember, the American people are armed to the teeth. Like the anti-Brexit sore losers in Britain, American «liberals» are democrats only when elections go their way.

The Democratic elite is in high dudgeon; many have been talking about immigration to Canada. In their hubris, they suppose that most Canadians would want these potential subversives, who would import their phoney progressive values and seek to undermine the decent things about Canada, which in fact distinguish it from the United States. And Canada has immigration laws. You can’t just cross the border expecting the Canadian government to embrace you because the last US election didn’t go your way. There are regulations and procedures to be respected even though Canada has its own phoney, pious «liberals» deploring Trump’s election. Just read the neoliberal, NWO Toronto Globe & Mail. «Women’s rights at risk under Trump presidency,» says one headline. The «Globe’s» columnists deplore the victory of Trump’s «racists» and «fascists». They’re borrowing lines from the New York Times.

In the meantime we must wait and see what happens next. Can Trump really «drain the swamp»? Probably not. Powerful vested interests will fiercely oppose him,  seek to co-opt him, or worse. Many Americans hope against all hope nevertheless that Trump can indeed bring down the temple of the Philistines… and they are not the only ones.

Tags: US  Trump 

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