Transcript of Trump’s Inaugural Speech

God bless you.

And God bless America.

let’s see, at $2oT debt, quit imploring the metaphysical. for our sakes.

someone on tv said they thought steve bannon had written the speech – and they remarked on the phrase “one heart, one home and one glorious destiny” – alluding to but not quite quoting “one people, one nation, one leader”, a slogan from long ago and far away – but not THAT long ago, or THAT far away

may the Creative Forces of the Universe stand beside us, and guide us, through the Night with the Light from Above – metaphorically speaking

“Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed.”

If Trump actually manages to force companies to return production to USA, the Democratic Party is dead meat. I’ve already seen the people at DailyKos regurgitate some “free trade” drivel from the Koch-funded, market fundamentalist American Enterprise Institute. If Democrats are going to oppose Trump by defending the tenets of neoliberalism, then they are going to be useless in opposition. The only way Democrats can successfully oppose Trump is from the left: by pushing single payer health care; a tax on Wall Street speculation; and a massive $100 trillion world-wide program to stop climate change by building new energy, transportation, and industrial systems that do not use fossil fuels. I do not see that happening. Certainly not with the old guard of Pelosi and Schumer still in control.

Looked at in this way, the election of Trump WAS the American people voting in their economic interests: rejecting free trade, globalization, financialization, and all the rest. The great irony is that American industrialization in the 19th and early 20th centuries (and Germany’s, and Japan’s and South Korea’s and Malyasia’s and other Asian tigers) took place behind a system of protectionist tariffs, but very, very few people know this history. I see no indication that Trump or Bannon know this history, either: they appear to be stumbling toward a poor, faulty re-invention of what used to be called the American System of political economy.

Will they eventually realize they cannot succeed in bring back production without imposing some forms of capital controls? And will they realize this requires a titanic struggle with the financial markets and the MOTU? The interesting point here is that Trump hates Wall Street. He is not a financier. He has had to deal with them, and he knows their tricks and their modus operandi. Almost all the problems he has had in his “deals” can be traced back to some imposition or other by the financiers and bankers he had to work with. So, he generally despises them. This is one major reason why Wall Street and the financial industry was so solidly for Clinton. Note that the people Trump has selected who have ties to large Wall Street firms, in most cases, those ties are from ten or twenty years ago. At least that’s the case with Bannon, Mnuchin, and Ross. They may still have been involved in finance until recently, but they have not been insiders at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup or wherever for a very long time. I am reminded of what FDR reportedly said about making Joe Kennedy the first head of the SEC: the best way to guard the henhouse was putting a fox in charge of watching the foxes.

The Democrats can wreak havoc on the Republicans by repeatedly introducing a tax on Wall Street, and either force Trump and Wall Street into each other’s arms, or driving Trump and Wall Street further apart. If the former, the Tea Party base of the Republicans will simmer in revolt; if the latter, he will be making some very powerful enemies.

The one vulnerability Trump has is that he has come to power by appealing to the very worst aspects of the American people. I believe he has done this with cold calculation and ruthlessness, but I do not believe he is able to foresee the monsters he has unleashed as a result. The bigots of America now feel they are free to openly express their hatreds, and act on them. This is going to result in thousands of individual incidents that will over time form a swelling national torrent of public unrest, violence, and increasing lawlessness. If Trump can pull off his economic “Make America Great Again,” it is this national torrent of racist attacks and counterattacks that will become the most dangerous obstacle to his success as a President. If he does as his supporters will want–clamp down by imposing a police state step by step–he will be increasingly unpopular and will probably fail. If, however, Trump actually speaks and –dare we hope? acts–decisively against racism and bigotry, he may have a chance to succeed.

I just love that Hillary was forced to sit there and listen what was a total indictment of everything she has ever stood for as a politician while scumbag Bill was caught on camera ogling Trump’s wife. I’ll bet some more china got smashed up in Chappaqua tonight.

Trump all but said “You’re fired!” to Obama. Michelle looked pissed as hell. Laura Bush was like, “The Hell?” revealing that Trump truly is an outsider. Barrack Obama looked as if he got bitchslapped. Bernie was sending the Party Leaders of the Democrats a “I told you so look.”

Well now to see how many more manufacturers tow the line and bring jobs back as more just said they will bring the jobs here.

This is too polite:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/inauguration-protests.html

This is what’s is happen on the streets of the capital.

morris berman was right. americans are irredeemable hustlers, whether left or right.

Not his voice, not even his belief. I’ll give him points for delivery, though. That was excellent.

It revved up his rowdies, and it appeared to shock everyone else. The shock was so strong, it seemed, that the talking heads on the teevee could barely believe their ears. He was supposed to deliver a speech of reconciliation as presidents traditionally do. He didn’t. The horror.

The horror was only overcome when, in his own voice, unscripted, he said nice things about the Clintons at the lunch in the Capitol. That they said was what he should have done in his coronation speech.

But he didn’t.

Meanwhile, somebody burned a prop limousine in the streets of DC. The pageant of glory and rage must go on no matter what.

The lack of attendance, the empty reviewing stands, the disinterest, if you will, of the multitude in the elevation of an autocratic overlord to the Presidency is telling us something that ought to be paid attention to.

The People are saying “No” in the ways they can, but who is listening?

Not Trump or his loyalists and followers, for they see themselves as the only ones who matter — as was made clear in that speech.

Ruling from that position cannot — and will not — end well.

@TonyW

Have you seen the Trump team’s proposal on import/export taxes? Increasing import tax to 20% and reducing export tax to zero. Tariffs seem to have been more specific aimed at a particular country, product or commodity. Another difference is that that earlier protectionist era was designed to grow our industrial base to supply a growing demand and expansion. That is not the situation today with mature markets and producers but he can affect where the production takes place and who’s workers benefit.

Advising Trump to become a tax and spend democrat or thinking that power plays are how he can succeed are both dead ends. Trump may have good personal reasons to dislike bankers but he needs them now more than ever to further his larger goals. Penalizing them now will not produce the cooperation he needs to keep and return skilled jobs to the US.

I don’t know if Trump has studied these issues but he doesn’t seem to do anything without being very well prepared. Just look at how efficiently he sliced through our electoral/political system right to its core and rebuilt it to meet his goals as President Donald Trump.

Tony Wikrent — exceptionally well said, all of it. I have visited your page now and again and have been impressed, I think I’ll try to start reading it more regularly.

I’ve already seen the people at DailyKos regurgitate some “free trade” drivel from the Koch-funded, market fundamentalist American Enterprise Institute.

Heh, you see that too? DKos has gone nuts, embracing not only this, but the sage wisdom of our intelligence agencies and the notion that transparency of information about candidates and their campaigns true intent (i.e., the DNC leaks) is a horrible thing that must be stopped!

Which leads to EmilianoZ’s likewise excellent comment:

He forgot to say that it was also mainly redistributed upwards inside the US. He blasted the political elite in DC at the beginning of his speech but he left the oligarchs (his own class) off the hook. In final analysis the political elite in DC are only the servants of the oligarchs. So he offered scapegoats but concealed the real masters of the universe. This does not bode well.

Yes, the Trump people are scapegoating immigrants and foreigners to let his fellow oligarchs off the hook. Yet the “free trade” shtick hasn’t been good to them either. As Ian has pointed out, Africa fared better under managed trade, in Egypt when they were more “socialist” and allied with the Soviet Union the average real income of average Egyptians doubled (as opposed when they started taking our economic advice, when food ended up being unaffordable to many). As Ian notes, calories in India have fallen, and *even in China* wages as percentage of GDP fell until recently (when the Chinese government has started to promote more internal consumption). The “end of history” economy has been shitty for all workers, domestic and foreign, in developed and developing countries, not just for those with low educations but also those with advanced degrees including STEM degrees. The only people who came out winners where the oligarchs. Finally, as for “foreign aid” that many Trumpsters think of the US as being overly generous much of that is military aid, and I don’t really see that group suffering under Trump.

I do not see Trump and Bannon (who is actually the most “progressive” advisor economically, as bad as his views on “race” and other things may be) as willing to take down their fellow oligarchs. Even if they are genuine about improving the lot of American workers (and one look at Mnuchin creates doubts about that) they will not do what needs to be done, like tax them heavily. Instead, I think they will try to pressure their fellows oligarchs to rob American workers less and foreign economies more, so all oligarchs stay happy and fat (note how Trump talks about denying ISIS and “the Jihadists” oil as it if was our oil to deny?). But that policy too wouldl cause blowbacks that we will feel.

Peter writes: “Tariffs seem to have been more specific aimed at a particular country, product or commodity.”

This is an example of what Ian has written: Trump is doing something that should be done, but he is NOT the person we want doing it. The present GATT / WTO regime of world trade functions to allow multinational companies to profit from regulatory arbitrage. I.e., relocate production to nations that are “less expensive” to operate in. The “cost saving” derives only in small part from cheaper labor costs; most of it comes from less stringent or complete lack of government regulations banning, or forcing company expenditure to alleviate, pollution, workplace hazards, and so on. The death rate of workers in the work place in China is nearly three times that of USA.

I do not intend to be cruel or impolite, but “earlier protectionist era was designed to grow our industrial base to supply a growing demand and expansion” is an example of what I mean when I write that very, very few people actually know the history of American System political economy. The first act of the First Congress was to specify oaths of office for junior officials; the second act was to pass Hamilton’s plan of tariffs. It is true that this tariff was aimed at economic “expansion,” generally, but my reading of what Hamilton and others wrote at the time is that an even weightier reason was the recognition that to remain dependent on British manufactured goods threatened to undermine the political independence won during the war. Trump’s position is a much attenuated reverberation of this “economic nationalism” which lacks almost entirely the classical republican understanding of “promoting the general welfare” which underlay the formation of the USA Constitution, and which–and this is crucial–set the USA economic system apart from the mercantilism of the European monarchies and oligarchies.

As the American System is further elaborated over the next half century by such as Henry Clay and Henry Carey, the policy of protectionism is fully justified in terms of the benefits and advantages given to American workers. A completely forgotten part of American economic history is the Doctrine of High Wages

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/1/1508946/-HAWB-1800s-The-Doctrine-of-High-Wages-How-America-Was-Built

which argued that not only were American workers better paid than their counterparts in England and Europe, but they were far more productive as well. In fact, American System economists argued that high wages created a virtuous circle: the superior productivity of American workers allowed them to be paid much higher wages than anywhere else in the world, while those high wages provided American workers a much higher standard living, which, in turn, enabled them to be more productive.

None of the following books and economists from this period are ever mentioned in economics textbooks of our time:

Essay on the Rate of Wages: With an Examination of the Causes of the Differences in the Condition of the Labouring Population Throughout the World, by Henry C. Carey, 1835

The Rights of Labor, by Calvin Colton, 1847

Manual of Political Economy, by Erasmus Peshine Smith, 1853

Essays on the Progress of Nations: In Civilization, Productive Economy, Wealth, and Population, by Ezra Champion Seaman, 1869

Wages and Trade in Manufacturing Industries in America and in Europe, by Jacob Schoenhof, 1884

The problem with this history is that at the same time, the American System was in constant combat with the ideas and purveyors of British political economy. Adam Smith, for example, was never reprinted by an American publisher until the last half of the 1800s. The foremost opponents of the American System domestically were the slave holding oligarchs of the South–and we all know what they ultimately decided to do about the Union. That so many people today mistakenly believe the USA economy was established on the ideas of Adam Smith is a testament to how thoroughly the American System has been defeated by its enemies.

I can think of no better remedy than to highly recommend people investigate and read the American System economist Henry C. Carey–who also ran what was the largest publishing house in USA until the 1880s or so. Carey makes clear the argument for protectionism as it relates to foreign trade and balance of payments: the ability to import is based on the ability to pay. The ability to pay is based on the earning power of a nation’s work force. If you force a nation’s work force to compete with the cheap colonial labor of the British empire, you diminish the earning power of your nation’s work force. The result will be that imports will increasingly be paid by incurring increasing debt from foreign creditors.

This is exactly what has happened to USA in the past half century, over a full century after Carey made the argument. Though the original and strongest impetus to abandon American System protectionism came from the policy decision to open the USA domestic market to the nations of Europe and Japan, which needed to be rebuilt after they were devastated by World War 2, and to make them strong allies in the containment of communism during the Cold War.

“cheap colonial labor of the British empire” of course today is replaced by the labor and environment of other nations left unprotected by regulatory arbitrage.

realitychecker writes: “Where’s the fucking humility, fools?”

I do not think there is any need for humility in these corridors. Ian and most commenters here have been the most lucid, most logical, and most persistent critics of the Clinton / DNC / centrist Democrats and have repeatedly warned that the Democrats’ refusal to renounce economic neoliberalism would lead to electoral victories by wrong-wing economic populists.

A Hobbesian speech … nasty, brutish and short. Thuggish and cruel, uninspiring. THIS is what late-stage capitalism looks like just before it dies.

Tony Wikrent:

This is exactly what has happened to USA in the past half century, over a full century after Carey made the argument.

Carey also predicted that not only did the “Engish system” of laissez-faire capitalism ” looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level” but also required an empire and perpetual war to maintain. That too looks to be incredibly prescient to today’s American experience.

Where’s the fucking humility, fools?

Your Cheeto Messiah won (barely, with lots of help from his master, Tsar Putin).

You lot Trumped That Bitch and showed those uppity women and coloreds and hippies and heathens and eggheads that Real White Men Still Rule.

You should be soaring in joy–but no, you seem to be angry.

You want “humility”.

You lot seem to be unhappy because we losers haven’t been “humble” enough.

Unless I overestimate the shrewdness of you lot, you would know that any “humility” we expressed to you would be as false as anything your Cheeto Messiah promises.

Humility, like love, must be sincere to be satisfactory.

If I am wrong about that, and you lot would be satisfied with the mere simulation of humility–who, then, are the greater fools?

I’ll go back to lurking now, and I’ll enjoy your rage at the hollowness of your victory.

That’s fine.

It was just a speech. “Empty talk” as it were, most notably,

“we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”

“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.
January 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”

Well, who are these people Trump is talking about? Billionaire investors, the COO of Goldman Sachs, the CEO of Exxon, lots of generals, but you know what? not an ordinary American to be seen anywhere, and not one of Trump’s Administration with any history of leaving their blood on the floor defending ordinary Americans or fighting to improve their lives.

Character is destiny and a narcissist is a narcissist is a narcissist. He’s just not that into you.
Personnel is policy, and you don’t hire a pirate crew for social work.
Oh yes, the math doesn’t work and never bet against the math.
But aside from that… Oh right, there is nothing aside from that.

Damn auto fill on cell phone:
“Could llecting should be collecting
“in this me” should be income

Power to the people…

I am not a patriot. To be a patriot, you have to love the Empire. I find the Empire reprehensible, destructive, rapacious, evil. Trump calls us all “patriots” but he is wrong. Some of us hate the Empire and will not serve the Empire, no matter what. Our blood does run, and it is red, but it is not the blood of patriots that runs in America. It is the blood of the victims of Empire who are not patriots. Patriots run off to foreign lands and enact Empire’s ambitions and machinations upon other peoples. Now they want to do that here. Patriots become mercenaries for Empire, sacrificing the common good for Empire’s greedy ambitions. Patriots come home and champion the Empire as the ‘hope of mankind’ while ignoring the true hopelessness Empire actually causes. Patriots are not my countrymen, they are my enemies and always will be. They belong to the evil that grows and abuses everything that is alive today. Trump’s patriots are among the very worst of them all, ignorant, stupid, uneducated and blindly indifferent to everything but their own ambitions and greed. They don’t care who they trample or how they do it or what they destroy. Nothing is sacred to them. Their selfish greed is unmatched. I’ll be dedicating my life to opposing these faketriot patriots. There is a violence coming to the Earth and it will have the face of an Orange Monkey as its Chief Proginator.

I think the main thing I didn\’t like about it (I turned off the TV after about 5 minutes) is the same reason why I think the speech is significant. It sounded a lot like a Trump stump speech, which I don\’t find too interesting. (Contrast that with Bernie speeches, where he peppers his main points with supporting facts and argument – though not excessively).

However, Trump not only delivered a strongly worded indictment of the existing political order (which was awkward, given the folks on the dais with him), but he also has painted himself into a corner, from which he will either successfully burst out of, or will be seen as having failed. While Trump\’s a frequent whiner, he seems NOT to be either a quitter or excuse maker.

In other words, what I gather from this is that Trump is going to FIGHT. Probably not every significant battle he could pick (Twitter \”fights\” with John Lewis and Meryl Streep are embarrassments, of no great importance), but a lot of big fights, all the same.

Paul Craig Roberts had a similar takeaway. In \”Trump’s Declaration of War\” @ http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/01/20/trumps-declaration-war/

he says,

\”Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans’ enemies are right here at home: globalists, neoliberal economists, neoconservatives and other unilateralists accustomed to imposing the US on the world and involving us in endless and expensive wars, politicians who serve the Ruling Establishment rather than the American people, indeed, the entire canopy of private interests that have run America into the ground while getting rich in the process.
…
We should ask ourselves why a 70 year old billionaire with flourishing businesses, a beautiful wife, and intelligent children is willing to give his final years to the extraordinary stress of being President with the stressful agenda of putting the government back in the hands of the American people. There is no doubt that Trump has made himself a target of assassination. The CIA is not going to give up and go away. Why would a person take on the grand restoration of America that Trump has declared when he could instead spend his remaining years enjoying himself immensely?

Whatever the reason, we should be grateful for it, and if he is sincere we must support him\”

==========================

N.B. While Trump has powerful enemies, he also has powerful friends. I recently found out that scandalous info about Trump mob connections were kept out of most of American MSM. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy7wGrRSB24
Johnston, a Pulitzer prize winner, says that Trump scandals (or \”questionable associations\” with a major drug trafficker) merited network attention in Australia, Japan, Canada, Britain, France and Germany, but has not gotten on ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox, and PBS \”edited out every reference to Donald\’s connections to these criminals.\” Furthermore, there was \”hardly\” any coverage in the NY Times and Washington Post.

Then, the plot thickened after reading Pepe Escobar\’s \”Here’s how the Trump presidency will play out\”. @ http://thesaker.is/heres-how-the-trump-presidency-will-play-out27909-2/ .

Escobar\’s \”Master of the Universe\” \”Deep Throat\” gives a plausible explanation of which elites are backing Trump, and why. These elites are elaborated on by a commentator:

\”You’re confusing two groups which Pepe failed to explain in detail in this particular post.

Masters of the Universe = Wall Street and mega-corporate interests. Trump’s Cabinet.

Deep State = majority of CIA, Syria jihadist trainers, “warmongering neocon/neoliberalcon status quo”, former pro-Clinton hangers-on, now issuing propaganda against Trump.

Pepe’s source X (who he’s used in the past, to good effect) claims that MotU are using Deep State as their bad cop. That’s simply the way the game is being played, that doesn’t mean Deep State is not independent and able to move on its own.

MotU wants continuity of government. They see America at a precipice, and they don’t want their heads getting chopped off. They will do what is necessary to prevent national collapse. They have been pro-Russia for years, Trump’s Cabinet included.\”

@RC

Now you’ve done it, RC you have whipped these snowflakes into another frenzy with your sharp Yankee wisdom. They’re duct taping two soapboxes together now to give them more height to spread their demented HP headlines.

The Dr Dementos over at the Intercept are fuming because Trump committed the worst possible sin in the Clintonite rulebook, he was transparently displaying his wealthy friends and supporters at the inauguration. All of that hard work that the Clintons and Obama did to shield their dependence on powerful wealthy people has been wasted because of Trump’s heresy and the fact that he is one of these people not needing their wealth but appreciating their help.

Today at the CIA, the man with the nuclear codes said, “We have not used the real abilities that we have. We’ve been restrained.”

That is the key line in the remarks. The rest is pretty much bragging lies about the crowd size at his inaugural and how the press lies and how smart he is.

You can argue around the edges all you want, but the President of the United States controlling the largest military in the world is bonkers.

Actually, “fucking humility” is often remedied by ingesting the little blue pill. It was perhaps misleading to preface “humility” with “fucking.”

Btw, one of my favorite scenes in The Martian is when they discuss how the martian meant to use “fucking” in one of his sentences transmitted back to earth.

OMG, did you hear the latest news about Trump?

That arrogant oligarch prick actually used two sheets of toilet paper to wipe his ass this morning.

HIS FIRST MORNING AS LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD!!!!!!!!

Who the fuck does he think he is?

We must all oppose him before he takes this kind of behavior any further. Let’s all raise our impotent little fists in protest.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

markfromireland, the problem with conservatism, much like liberalism, is that it doesn’t work. We used to make fun of the 26-percenters who supported Bush right up to his last day. They were completely impervious to any fact or argument. Then Obama got elected and we saw the liberal version of the 26-percenters. Now Trump’s in and it’s déjà vu all over again. Each time, it is the same damn story. Nothing changes. Nothing improves. It is just this group or that group that thinks they are so damned clever that they have wrested for now the keys to the bus we are all riding on. It’s all about being “effective”, having the power. They don’t care a bit that we are still headed toward the cliff. But tell me this. What good are those keys going to do you when we finally do careen off the cliff? What happens to all the 26-percenters who think they can stare down reality when reality finally stares back?

Hugh: But Obama, with a few exceptions followed conservative economic, social and foreign affair policies. He threw a (very) few bones towards the LGBTI community and that was that.

The rest were straight continuation of Bush’s policies, whcih were largely Clinton’s as well.

The Dems, like UK’s ‘New Labour’ under Bliar were totally co-opted by the neo-liberal economic consensus. And hence there has been virtually zero difference in many (especially economic) matters between either parties.

This is not even a new phenomena, Gore Vidal noted ‘one party with two wings’.

In very simple terms ‘conservative’ (though neo-liberal economics are not actually conservative in the traditional sense) policies have dominated for decades in most the west, since Thatcher & Reagan, in Australia Hawke/Keating, in New Zealand Langey.

I prefer the second version of that comment, but can live with either one lol.

markfromireland: What was the purpose of the anti-abortion issue?

“Virtue-signalling”, obviously.

See I told you so.

Basically it’s about forcing a pregnant woman who does not want to give birth, to undergo the full pregnancy and give birth. ie, torture of a known-to-be-actual rights-bearing human in favour of a hypothetical one.

@Lisa – in other words she backed a political winner, something she’d had a lifetime of doing. I love it when my opponents prove my point for me.

@ Ian Welsh

Well it had but as a profession it was coopted so completely and so long ago that I find it difficult to see any utility in it. (Sorry can never resist a pun). Yes there are some exceptions and holdouts but they’re too few and too far between to have much influence.

No argument from me about the other social “sciences” I’d suggest that the sooner they go back to being arts that are influenced by scientific methodology the better for everyone.

Yes of course conservatives have had the benefit of long-run funding; of not having to scramble to survive – eggs granny already knows how etc.

And yes I agree that it’s cyclical but the long-term trend (and function) off conservatism remains. And yes despite the vehement protestations of your commentariat the “liberal” era now stumbling round waiting to be put out of its misery was a profoundly right-wing era in all the important respects. Liberalism always had a tendency to “greed is good” from its inception it’s just that that tendency became ever more marked. Good (successful) parasites don’t kill off their hosts – a lesson that the current generation of “liberals” should have learnt but didn’t.

@ Tony Wikrent

“Actually, “fucking humility” is often remedied by ingesting the little blue pill. It was perhaps misleading to preface “humility” with “fucking.” ”

Shall we just let that stand as the high point of your writing skills?

Clearly, you are a serious man.

Populism.

The US went through a populist era more than a century ago, and the populists were both crushed and co-opted. They represented a clear and present danger to the power of the oligarchs of the day, and so use of force against them and their allies was considered appropriate and necessary, but that only had the effect of enraging and energizing the survivors. Something else had to be done or the rule of plutocrats and kleptocrats would inevitably be toppled.

The “something” was Progressivism. It was a means to mollify the Rabble — without actually ceding power. Instead, power would be exercised and mediated through experts. The finest minds from the finest institutions would be set apart from the nasty business of politics and would be given the authority to determine what was best and best practice for the the well-being of the people and the state. Elected bodies would be subsidiary to appointed managers and commissions. The voters would be allowed to ratify the decisions of the experts — or not as the case may be — but they would have very little direct say in most of those decisions. Initiative, referendum, and recall would be instituted and the gross corruption of the previous era would be curbed or eliminated. Science would rule over emotion.

Progressivism had a pretty good run, about 80 years or so, until the advent of Reagan to the Presidency. His objective was to dismantle it as a governmental operating system. He got plenty of practice in California where he dismantled most of the Progressive operating system of government there, and he did it rather cleverly, by using its own administrative non-partisan nature against it. He replaced it with a throwback to the kleptocratic rule of the past which he marketed as “getting government off your back.”

Well, it didn’t do that for the masses. They fell under greater and greater government intrusion, surveillance and restriction. It did, however, liberate the oligarchy to do as they wished, and they’ve taken full advantage of it — to the detriment of most of us and the world in general.

Populism is said to be arising again, in reaction it’s said, to the restoration of oligarchical rule we’ve been living under for decades. Trump is being marketed as some kind of Grand Populist, but he is nothing of the kind.

He’s one of the oligarchic class, the very same class that’s been exploiting the working classes and destroying their lives, fortunes and futures with gleeful abandon. Neoliberalism is the economic ideology that has justified and reinforced his behavior in business throughout most of his career. It’s a fantasy that he will overthrow it; he has no reason to. It’s helped to make him and his cronies very rich.

His political goals appear to be much more personal. I only half-jokingly refer to it as wanting to be a God-Emperor. People in his class have long been aware of how easily a cult of personality can develop and be sustained around almost any president — we’ve seen it again and again since Reagan’s 1980 landslide election. Bush the First wasn’t able to accomplish the task, but Clinton certainly could, and after a rocky start, Bush the Second managed to develop a pretty good cult following — until it all collapsed in disaster toward the end of his reign. Obama, however, has managed not only a cult of personality while in office, but one that is likely to continue the rest of his life. His tactic was modesty and gratitude and humility. It worked. It’s still working.

Somebody like Trump sees that and wants it for himself, but there’s no modesty, gratitude or humility in him. He’s a bully and an abuser. At his age, he’s not going to change his spots, and he’s making no effort to. He’s doing what he’s always done, bullying, lying, conning, threatening and browbeating to get his way. Not for you or for me, but for him, personally. His “populism” is pure fakery.

On the other hand, millions of Americans and people around the world took to the streets yesterday in opposition to this clown-prince, in a mass demonstration of genuine populism. Their demands were simple: Women’s rights and human rights, dignity, justice, respect, community, liberty, and a positive future for all, not just the “winners.”

Of course, that only enraged the Trumpists even more.

If it can be sustained, the nascent opposition to Trump’s self-referential oligarchy will overwhelm the phony populism he’s marketing.

His strategy will have to be to destroy it.

As I say, it can’t end well.

@Hugh,

I just think your focus on policy and then your personal distaste for Trump cause you to miss the forest. Trump is not, by all indications, owned. Before he was inaugurated he faced multiple assassination attempts, and had the physical and moral courage not to back down. Do these things resonate with you at all? We haven’t seen them in an American President probably within living memory.

You mention that Sanders “has a history of folding” – almost as an afterthought – yet you think he could have defeated Trump? He wasn’t going to beat anyone. He wouldn’t even fend off two sassy black women at his own campaign rally. Look how weak he is. Championing Sanders points starkly to the deep despair of the “white” left.

Trump, bless him, seems to be a true believer in what’s called “civic nationalism”. Look at his speeches – “black or brown or white”, “urban sprawl of Detroit” – where he tries to appease the left’s fetish for identitarian inclusiveness. Obviously if he’s sincere in this he will fail. The left in its essence never had any positive goals, only the chimera of “equality” which justifies the pursuit of permanent revolution.

What I found significant in Trump’s speech is that he points the blame at the political class, not the ownership class. The problem is the middlemen according to Trump. He’s taking power back from them and giving it to the people? No, those are mere words. Trump’s actions say he’s taking power back from the middlemen and the owners will run things themselves. That’s what his Cabinet says about him.

Neither Trump nor Clinton would have taken meaningful action on climate change. Neither one would have done anything to help workers, health care, the environment, or inequality. Complaining about these things as if Clinton would have been any better is, in a word, moronic. If Trump scuppers trade deals and does nothing else that would make him a bigger friend to the working class than Clinton or Obama. If he keeps the US out of war with Russia or reduces the number of stupid and evil wars the US is involved in that will put him over Clinton in a big way and justify the people who voted for him. It would be a big moral victory, too — imagine that.

@Res

When Trump won the election he announced he would represent everybody and I take him at his word. That ‘everybody’ includes the banksters, corporates, wheeler-dealers and John Q Public or it wouldn’t be everybody.

Trump’s mission is to convince, entice or at last resort force the banksters and corporates that it is in their interest and their survival may depend on including John Q Public in their calculations as an asset not a deficit.

We have already seen this new attitude take hold in the auto industry with very little push from Trump but with strong nationalist rhetoric that these boardrooms were apparently already primed to embrace.

None of this change in attitudes will happen if you send loudmouth politicians such as Warren or Sanders into these boardrooms, they’re merely viewed as some political forces hired help or self promoters. Trump went headhunting when he choose his assistants and many are leaders in their industry who will have the respect and influence needed to move these mountains.

It may be eternally frustrating to those who cling to the silly notion that you can gain control by taxing the wealthy into submission when In fact the only way to improve everyone’s conditions may be to keep them fat and happy so long as they agree to be slightly less fat.

why drag trump into the bring back the jobs discussion. shit. obomber had 8 f*kin years to act in that regard. what the h* did he do? certainly, trump won’t likely deliver even 50% on his campaign intentions. throw darts at the earlier admins that reneged on their sworn allegiance to uphold the constitution and token lip service government for the people when they instead kissed hollyworld’s asses by evangelizing for the nwo religion. like all religions: utter nonsense. complete b. s.

Peter

It may be eternally frustrating to those who cling to the silly notion that you can gain control by taxing the wealthy into submission

How do you explain then the pre-1964 tax rates, during the Great American Prosperity, where the wealthiest paid a nominal rate of c. 90 % and an effective rate of 74 % even after hiring armies of lawyers and accountants? Mind you, then the US had an economy that actually worked for most people and one of the most equitable distributions of income and wealth in the world. We also had a *effective corporate tax rate of c. 50 %* (so much for us needing to lower corporate taxes to bring those jobs back, eh?). These are simply empirical facts.

It was “loudmouths” like Sanders (FDR, in fact, remember his thundering against “economic royalists?”) who accomplished this, not people who tried bribing them to play nice and throw the serfs a few crumbs now and again like Trump’s policy looks like it’s going to be.

@Anon

Is that what you desire for the country, more low wage dead-end jobs? Auto workers can earn about $60 hr but let’s demand those low pay careers return to build prosperity. Why not concentrate on those good paying jobs so some of the poor folks already stuck in low wage nowhere have something to advance into.

I was referring to some people who think someone can mine the wealth of a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett through new higher taxes on income when most of their wealth and yearly pay is not earned income but stock holdings and capital gains.

Hope, fear and perception are strange things. If only there was a proven way to cut through one’s own personal BS (and past the BS of those skilled at taking advantage of such BS) to see everybody as they really is (or are, if that’s your style.).

Even after the 2008 meltdown, a fundamental misunderstanding about the kleptocracy we live in remains. People continue to view kleptocrats through the prism of their own conceptions of greed. They think kleptocracy is about stealing the golden eggs, and maybe the goose that lays them, because that’s what they would do, or rather because so many people are really decent what they would imagine they would do. But the lessons of 2008 are different. Kleptocrats will loot to a crash, and then loot the crash. They have only one setting and one speed. They loot without any concern for the consequences of their looting or what happens after. This psychology was typified back in the run up to 2008 as IBG, YBG, I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone. This is what the normal world doesn’t get. Kleptocrats will steal the golden eggs, steal the goose that lays them, kill the goose, eat it for lunch, and then go looking for another goose.

So no, our rich kleptocratic ruling class can not be kept fat and happy. They are predators with a vast maw and an endless hunger. It is either us or them. It’s that simple. The idea that one of these predators who surrounds himself with an army of like-minded predators is somehow going to be a savior to the rest of us is beyond strange. It is rather the latest example of the efficacy of the Big Lie. A lie so big that many can not imagine that anyone would make it without it being true.

Obama and Clintons are psychologically more normal, but were conned,power-threatened or mentally defensed themselves into turning out as they did. High on the narcissistic scale, yes, but not to the point of lying about everything in plain sight of the truth.

Trump represents his class, though he is ruder and cruder than most. That quality endears him to the Trump loyalists among the Rabble. How could an upper-class predator reach the heights he has by talking and sometimes acting like an average dumb fuck alley fighter? It doesn’t compute. Thus, he must be one of the Rabble himself, right?

Bush2 could sometimes pull off the same sort of masquerade. He could talk and sometimes act like any ordinary schmuck. Sure he killed a lot of people — he was known for presiding over the most executions in Texas history before he was appointed to the presidency and was already bloodsoaked — but he was just one of the guys who everyone wanted to have a beer with, right?

More advantageous for him, he had a casual nonchalance and boyish ease that made him seem almost cool. And then came disaster that inspired a fervent patriotic response which he rode to heights of popularity hardly ever seen in presidents. And then it all collapsed. At least he was/is humble enough to stay in the shadows after his multiple catastrophic failures.

That won’t happen with Trump. He’s been wrong-footing his presidency from the get-go, and there’s no sign he’ll turn it around. He is starting off as the most despised president in modern history, something he doesn’t even try to correct. The millions in the streets yesterday — estimated between 3.6 and 4.5 million in the US alone — are harbingers of things to come.

What does he do? He babbles, whines and lies at the CIA and sends a very nervous Sean Spicer out to denounce and threaten the media for not covering things the way he wants. This isn’t even sane.

Yet he believes that his will alone is capable of turning matters in his favor, and if that doesn’t work, he’s got all the power of the presidency to compel the favor he demands.

It has begun.

We ain’t seen nothing yet.

@Hugh,

Part of me says screw the US corporation. Give the business to newer better startup replacements. I once worked for a name-brand multinational where the culture there was Machiavellian madhouse. Their products are inferior to the competition, and IMO they cannot operate profitably without outsourcing jobs and significant government assistance. So I went to a mom&pop company where I worked my ass off but was rewarded for it. Then it was bought out, repeatedly, until it was now part of a US corporation – and then… the same old Machiavellian madhouse culture again. Apparently having ownership onsite, keeping watch on the minions is important to keep productivity up and the games down. Maybe that’s why Elon Musk sits on the SpaceX open-cubicle office floor. My own personal reason why the corporate-government oligarchy sucks. It’s not even capitalism anymore.

Went a little OT, but you’re right. A taxation scheme would be be geared towards increasing federal revenues and growing good jobs at the same time. But selling such hasn’t worked, with all the BS noise out there. Trump did see that promoting an America first nationalism might be the ticket, but I don’t trust him. I knew one too many sociopaths in the corporate world. They’ll say anything to get more personal power.

Ian, I have read and admired you for years, but I sincerely feel that your strong desire for the rise of some power outside the neo-liberal mode has blinded you a developing American-style fascist order under Trump.

For years I have read you, the Archdruid, and Jim Kunstler (and I noted how all three of you accurately predicted Trump). But, (tragically) all three of you over-emphasize the value of his
upset of the order you all hate, over the disaster that will replace it.

Trump is going to cure herpes with a big dose of AIDS.

So Tom, how do you fit Trump’s sucking up to a fascist, apartheid Israel into your view? Who is bitchslapping whom?

@ Hugh

Israel is surrounded by savages who never stop killing each other, chopping heads and clitorises, enslaving women and other weak victims, when they don’t have Israel to whine about.

How do YOU explain supporting those savages? Doesn’t it conflict with some of your liberal views re women, for example?

I may be vexed by the many neo-Taxmen here who drag out dusty old and meaningless new shibboleths but some people just can’t seem to get beyond lost causes. I looked at the peaks in income tax rates and found they coincided with our great and lesser wars which helped to pay for them while the wealthy found ways to reward themselves outside the earned income bracket.

The recent nonsense trying to compare the very wealthy with the very poor is purely emotional and tells us nothing useful. People who earn two dollars a day spend their money on food and fuel not buying condos or gambling in the great economic casino where very rich people store their wealth.

Mandos seems particularly confused about history and the present where people such as Clinton, Bush and Obama have inflicted neoliberalism on the US after a test trial on the third world in the ’90s. Some Clintonites may have whined about its evils but they lined up to feed at the trough when their vote was needed to ram through these programs.

The early descriptions of trickle-down as voodoo economics were accurate because it was part of neoliberal restructuring that treated productive labor as a commodity to be used, abused and abandoned for profit.

If the Red Queen and the PTB that she served was starting their reign now the TPP would be a glorious accomplishment and good jobs would continue to bleed from the country but Washington is under new management and good working class jobs can be used to stimulate demand while some the tax savings promised to business can be invested in financing the infrastructure rebuilding needed. This isn’t trickle down anything it’s recognizing and acting on the notion that a prosperous skilled working class is vital to a strong economy not just a profit tool to be used and discarded.

@ Peter

“Mandos seems particularly confused . . .”

Ha, coulda stopped right there lol.

@ Willy

I’m wounded lol.

LOL now I’m REALLY wounded. Go watch Animal House again. That’s your speed.

I may be vexed by the many neo-Taxmen here who drag out dusty old and meaningless new shibboleths but some people just can’t seem to get beyond lost causes. I looked at the peaks in income tax rates and found they coincided with our great and lesser wars which helped to pay for them while the wealthy found ways to reward themselves outside the earned income bracket.

The recent nonsense trying to compare the very wealthy with the very poor is purely emotional and tells us nothing useful. People who earn two dollars a day spend their money on food and fuel not buying condos or gambling in the great economic casino where very rich people store their wealth.

Mandos seems particularly confused about history and the present where people such as Clinton, Bush and Obama have inflicted neoliberalism on the US after a test trial on the third world in the ’90s. Some Clintonites may have whined about its evils but they lined up to feed at the trough when their vote was needed to ram through these programs.

This is a terribly interesting theory, very much in line with the sort of thing that “blames” the wars for prosperity and downplays FDR and the New Deal. It also, you know, completely sidesteps/ignores the whole issue of the role of a “fat and happy” oligarchy and its (usual un)willingness to share a little of its fat. Skilled workers + fat-n-happy oligarchy = party time? Really?