By Steve McCann, AT
[…]
Despite this relentless bombardment of epithets and accusations, Donald Trump has not lost any of his core supporters and has, in fact, gained additional support. Further, reliance on calculatingly prolonging the economic fallout from the Wuhan Virus lockdown and the Antifa sponsored rampages will not be effective in altering the mindset of these voters.
Why? Two clues for the myopic elites: how have Americans fared when men and women of “character and civility” acceptable to today’s self-styled elites oversaw the fate of this nation? And who is responsible for the rise and mainstreaming of radical leftism, including their militant arm Antifa and its affiliates?
In the United States since the 1960’s, the governing American elites, who are people of great sophistication, erudition and rectitude, unlike Trump and his execrable supporters, have recorded quite a litany of accomplishments:
- South Vietnam was a corrupt supposed democratic nation essentially created out of whole cloth by the elites in the West. When North Vietnam began to militarily reunite the two nations, the men of refinement and good manners in the United States decided to intervene. From 1964-1973 there were over 213,000 American casualties (including 58,000 deaths) as well as 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilian deaths. The financial cost: $6.0 trillion (2019 dollars). Nonetheless, the North Vietnamese won. Further, this debacle unleashed not only riots and protests but mainstreamed and legitimized the radical wing of the American left allowing them to aggressively infiltrate the entertainment, media and education establishments, establish its own militant wing dedicated to violence as a means of intimidation and eventually take over the Democrat Party.
- The war in Afghanistan began as a response to September 11, 2001; however, it and the invasion of Iraq quickly metastasized into a determination to impose democracy on two populations with no history, desire or understanding of democracy. Those wars (Iraq– 10 years and Afghanistan–18 years) have to date resulted in 57,000 American casualties (7,000 deaths) and cost $6.5 trillion. ($9.1 Trillion in 2019 dollars) Further, civilian deaths have exceeded 400,000. The primary accomplishment of this naivete is a more dangerous and destabilized region, which created ISIS, emboldened and nuclearized Iran as well as fomenting a devastating civil war in Syria.
- The overall national debt (including state, federal and local) in 1960 was $2.6 Trillion (2019 dollars) today it is $26.1 trillion, a tenfold increase making the United States, with 5% of the world’s population, the largest debtor nation in history currently accounting for 40% of all global national debt. The wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan account for more than half of the growth in the overall national debt and allowed the radical left to make use of their influence in Hollywood and the media to portray, and convince millions, that the United States is an imperialist power devoid of any humanity.
- This nation’s sophisticates and ruling elites declared that globalization would greatly benefit America. In particular, the empowerment of China would ultimately transform China into a bastion of democracy. China did indeed rise, but to an aggressive and dictatorial world power in less than 25 years, thanks to the unconstrained transfer of American jobs, technology, capital and business acumen. In the interim, many of these same sophisticates became enormously wealthy either doing business in China or unabashedly promoting Chinese investments and takeovers in the United States, as this nation became disastrously dependent on manufactured goods from China. Meanwhile, in 1988 25% of all jobs in America were in the high paying goods producing sector, by 2016 it was just 12%.
- In 1988 there were fewer than 14 million immigrants living in the United States (including fewer than 1 million illegal immigrants). Thanks to the elitist ruling class declaring immigration, particularly illegal immigration, a boon to the country, by 2016 there were 44.5 million immigrants living in the country (including an estimated 18 million illegal immigrants). Not coincidentally, between the China first policy and unfettered immigration providing cheap domestic labor, in this same 28-year period the inflation adjusted income of the top 5% rose by nearly 50% and the income of the bottom 50% fell by 1.9%, an outcome that has been conveniently utilized by the most radical elements of the left on college campuses to successfully recruit and rail against income and societal inequality and promote their solution: militant socialism.
- Our ever-naïve moral betters have been for decades wallowing in their wealth, refinement, erudition and civility, choosing to be oblivious, and thus complicit, to a radicalized American left assuming control of nearly all of the institutions of society throughout the nation. Today college campuses resemble mini-totalitarian states with virtually no freedom of speech. Unfounded accusations of racism and a myriad of other mythological isms directed toward vast swaths of Americans are increasingly used to silence, coerce and intimidate. The militant wing of the left, Antifa, has been given the green light to run amok inciting riot, arson, looting and precipitating societal turmoil. By their complicity, the ruling elites have sanctioned the undermining and nullification of the Constitution as well as the fundamental transformation of the United States.
The nation’s elites have been a disaster for the nation but have been enormously successful in taking care of themselves. However, the rest of America, as Donald Trump pointed out in the 2016 campaign, has paid the price. Consequently, armed with the calamitous experience of living with the ruling elites over the decades, the bulk of the American people see through the incessant personal vitriol directed at Trump and themselves. They also see through the nakedly transparent attempt to prolong the economic fallout of the Wuhan Virus as a wedge issue to defeat him in November and how the radical militant wing of the left was allowed to metastasize and threaten the well-being of all Americans.
Donald Trump was successful in winning in 2016 because he instinctively understood that the most important factors in political leadership in the United States today are: first, compassion for and a true understanding of the day-to-day lives of the common man; second, the ability and willingness to comprehend the existential dangers of the left and their determination to transform the country; third, an unshakable tenacity in confronting the opposition, nationally or internationally, and willingly suffer their slings and arrows; and fourth, moving heaven and earth to keep one’s campaign promises. He has governed accordingly.
The nation’s elites would do well to heed a Tweet from Academy Award nominated actor James Woods on May 17th of this year as to why Donald Trump is supported by so many Americans despite his lack of “character and civility”.
Let’s face it. Donald Trump is a rough individual. He is vain, insensitive and raw. But he loves America more than any President in my lifetime. He is the last firewall between us and the cesspool called Washington. I’ll take him any day over any of these bums.
Excuse me, what?
The W DC kleptocracy owns the Wuhan virus and the rioters! They are the same people who have done ZILTCH to improve the lot of the minorities. They are the real DEPLORABLES & DISPICABLE!
@ Bear Klein: I agree 100%. Extreme liberalism has led to a disasterous decline in law enforcement all over the States.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Even some affluent areas areas in big cities are being attacked. NY Soho, LA Melrose, Downtown Seattle Business Area. Santa Monica California (NO poor neighborhoods there). This is no longer about burning down the Hood.
This will have an impact on small middle class business people in cities. I do not know what the future holds. In the old days of policing this amount of destruction and violence would not have been tolerated. I am not for shooting people accept in defense but what we are seeing by mayors and law enforcement is encouraging violence, Gov. of MN. basically said at length that at first they did not want to stop anything or arrest anyone because of Floyd and the sensitivities. Amazing they allowed a police to be over run and burned down.
One of the earliest riots I studied was from protestors in the late 60s I believe. There were riots in the City of Berkley (CA). For those who do not know Berkley and Oakland CA are adjacent to each other.
There were about 10,000 rioters marching on a street from Berkley about to invade Oakland. The Police Chief Hart on a white horse with a sword in one hand and bullhorn in the other hand and Oakland’s entire Police Force Behind (~700 Cops).
The protestors stopped at the City Line where Hart had his police force lined up behind him in formation. He told the Mob from Berkley to turn around as they will not be allowed to enter Oakland. They did not enter Oakland.
Ted, please detrash the comment I just posted about the future “storm clouds” over the U.S. economy, which may prolong our recession here. As I point out, these “storm clouds” could conceivable impact America’s willingness and ability to help Israel.
Many economists are concerned that the there may be a new wave of job losses and the collapse of public services in the near future, maybe in 2021, because several states and hundereds of municapalities are in effect bankrupt and may have to default on their debts.
Congress and the Fed could probably bail out all of these states and municapalities–California and Illinois are among the states– by creating additional trillions of dollars to give or loan them. But it is not known whether Congress will vote the necessary bailout money. Some conservative Republican senators will probably object. Whether Trump will support a bailout is also unknown at this point.
Even if there is no complete bailout, there will be a large surge of newly unemployed state workers, which will require the Federal govt. to pay out very large amounts of unemployment insurance. And uncertainty about all this by many businessmen in the endangered states and municipalities may make them uneasy about resuming full operations, even after the lockdown ends in their communities.
The race riots add to the problem, since many businesses in communities impacted by them also are located in broke municipalities. This is a second reason why many businesses will be reluctant to reopen even after the lockdown ends. Some of the chain stores whose stores were looted and burned by the rioters have decided to close these stores for the forseeable future.
The triple whammy of unemployment, government banrupties and rioting are heavy storm clouds hovering over the U.S. economy. In the long run, that will have a bad impact on Israel, since the U.S. is its largest rading partner and its only source of foreign aid.
@ Bear Klein: I agree that it is impossible to know how or even if the riots will affect the outcome of the November election. November is still a long way off. But I think there is enough evidence to predict that the riots will accentuate the negative economic effects of the lockdown, and in particular with have a very bad impact on poor, mainly minority, neightborhoods. The very people the anarchist-Communist “protestors” claim they are supporting. It will also severely damage race relations in the U.S., and increase housing segregation as white move as far away as they can from urban centers. Past rounds of black rioting going all the way back to 1965 have had that effect. And it will lead to increased violence against Jewish communities, as was evident in the destruction of a Los Angeles Jewish neighborhood only two days ago.
In the long run, race riots, combined with a depression sparked by the CoVid-2 lockdown, could endanger the American democratic (small “d”) system of government, or even lead to the disintegation of the uSA as a unified entity.
Writer must be clairvoyant as the Riots are not even over yet he can measure the cost and effectively poll how Trump is coming out of it.
A brilliant, on-target analysis. The stupidity and blindness to reality of America’s political leaders, combined with their favoritism of the very rich resulting from our campaign-contributer-driven politics, has created a situation that will pave the way for a Communist-Islamist takeover of the country.
The situation is to some extent reminiscent of the situation in Russia during the rule of the last two tsars. Their incompetence, ignorance and irrational prejudice against Jews, and the same shortcomings by most of the officials whom they appointed, led to revolution supported by nearly all Russians. The extreme leftist Bolsheviks, who never had majority support, were then able to exploit the chaos, which they had helped to create, and take power.
The same thing is happening now. Donald Trump resembles Peter Stolypin and Sergei Witte, the honest and decent officials in the Tsar’s court who tried to persuade him to stop persecuting the Jews and start addressing the needs of Russia’s impoverished peasantry. Unfortunately, Witte was sidelined and Stolypin was assassinated, apparently with the complicity of the secret police.
Donald Trump seems to be playing the same role as these two gentlemen in his efforts to save the system from itself, despite having a radically different “man of the people” personality. Will his efforts to hold back the deluge succeed? God help us if he fails the way Witte and Stolypin did.