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Donald Trump's Lunacy Reveals Core Truth About the Republicans
He is the Republican id - finally entirely unleashed from all restraint and reality
Since the election of Barack Obama, the Republican Party has proved that one of its central intellectual arguments was right all along. It has long claimed that evolution is a myth believed in only by whiny liberals – and it turns out it was on to something. Every six months, the party venerates a new hero, and each time it is somebody further back on the evolutionary scale.
Sarah Palin told cheering rallies that her message to the world was: "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way!" – but that wasn't enough. So the party found Michele Bachmann, who said darkly it was an "interesting coincidence" that swine flu only breaks out under Democratic presidents, claims the message of The Lion King is "I'm better at what I do because I'm gay", and argues "there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas."
That wasn't enough. I half-expected the next contender to be a lung-fish draped in the Stars and Stripes. But it wasn't anything so sophisticated. Enter stage (far) right Donald Trump, the bewigged billionaire who has filled America with phallic symbols and plastered his name across more surfaces than the average Central Asian dictator. CNN's polling suggests he is the most popular candidate among Republican voters. It's not hard to see why. Trump is every trend in Republican politics over the past 35 years taken to its logical conclusion. He is the Republican id, finally entirely unleashed from all restraint and all reality.
Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr)
The first trend is towards naked imperialism. On Libya, he says: "I would go in and take the oil... I would take the oil and stop this baby stuff." On Iraq, he says: "We stay there, and we take the oil... In the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation's yours." It is a view that the world is essentially America's property, inconveniently inhabited by foreigners squatting over oil-fields. Trump says America needs to "stop what's going on in the world. The world is just destroying our country. These other countries are sapping our strength." The US must have full spectrum dominance. In this respect, he is simply an honest George W Bush.
The second trend is towards dog-whistle prejudice – pitched just high enough for frightened white Republicans to hear it. Trump made it a central issue to suggest that Obama wasn't born in America (and therefore was occupying the White House illegally), even though this conspiracy theory had long since been proven to be as credible as the people who claim Paul McCartney was killed in 1969 and replaced with an imposter. Trump said nobody "ever comes forward" to say they knew Obama as a child in Hawaii. When lots of people pointed out they knew Obama as a child, Trump ridiculed the idea that they could remember that far back. Then he said he'd "heard" the birth certificate said Obama was Muslim. When it was released saying no such thing, Trump said: "I'm very proud of myself."
The Republican primary voters heard the message right: the black guy is foreign. He's not one of us. Trump answered these charges by saying: "I've always had a great relationship with the blacks."
The third trend is towards raw worship of wealth as an end in itself – and exempting them from all social responsibility. Trump is wealthy because his father left him a large business, and since then companies with his name on them have crashed into bankruptcy four times. In 1990, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston studied the Trump accounts and claimed that while Trump claimed to be worth $1.4bn, he actually owed $600m more than he owned and you and I were worth more than him. His current wealth is not known, but he claims he is worth more than $2.7bn.
Johnston says that in fact most of Trump's apparent fortune comes from "stiffing his creditors" and from government subsidies and favours for his projects – which followed large donations to the campaigns of both parties, sometimes in the very same contest. Trump denies these charges and presents himself as an entrepreneur "of genius".
Yet for the Republican Party, the accumulation of money is proof in itself of virtue, however it was acquired. The richest 1 per cent pay for the party's campaigns, and the party in turn serves their interests entirely. The most glaring example is that they have simply exempted many of the rich from taxes. Johnston studied four of Trump's recent tax returns, and found he legally paid no taxes in two of them. In America today, a janitor can pay more income tax than Donald Trump – and the Republicans regard that not as a source of shame, but of pride.
How are these tax exemptions for the super-rich paid for? Here's one example. The Republican budget that just passed through the Senate slashed funding to help premature babies to survive. The rich riot while the poor shrivel. Trump offers the ultimate symbol of this: he won't even shake hands with any ordinary Americans out on the stump, because "you catch all sorts of things" from them. Yes: the Republican front-runner is a billionaire who literally won't touch the poor or middle class.
The fourth trend is to insist that any fact inconvenient to your world view simply doesn't exist, or can be overcome by pure willpower. Soon, the US will have to extend its debt ceiling – the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow – or it will default on its debt. Virtually every economist in the world says this would cause another global economic crash. Trump snaps back: "What do economists know? Most of them aren't very smart." Confront the Republicans with any long-term social or economic problem, and they have one response: it would go away if only we insisted on our assumptions more aggressively.
This denial of reality runs deep. So Trump says "it's so easy" to deal with rising oil prices. He says he would call in Opec, the cartel of oil-producing nations, as if they were contestants on his show The Apprentice, and declare: "I'm going to look them in the eye and say, 'Fellows, you've had your fun. Your fun is over.' "
It's the same, he says, with China. He will order them to stop manipulating their currency. When he was informed that the Chinese had some leverage over the US, he snapped: "They have some of our debt. Big deal. It's a very small number relative to the world, ok?" This is what the Republican core vote wants to be told. The writer Matthew Yglesias calls it "the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics". It's named after the Marvel comics superhero the Green Lantern, who can only use his superpowers when he "overcomes fear" and shows confidence – and then he can do anything. This is Trump's view. The whiny world simply needs to be bullied into submission by a more assertive America – or the world can be fired and he'll find a better one.
Trump probably won't become the Republican nominee, but not because most Republicans reject his premisses. No: it will be because he states these arguments too crudely for mass public consumption. He takes the whispered dogmas of the Reagan, Bush and Tea Party years and shrieks them through a megaphone. The nominee will share similar ideas, but express them more subtly. In case you think these ideas are marginal to the party, remember - it has united behind the budget plan of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan. It's simple: it halves taxes on the richest 1 percent and ends all taxes on corporate income, dividends, and inheritance. It pays for it by slashing spending on food stamps, healthcare for the poor and the elderly, and basic services. It aims to return the US to the spending levels of the 1920s – and while Ryan frames it as a response to the deficit, it would actually increase it according to the independent Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Ryan says "the reason I got involved in public service" was because he read the writings of Ayn Rand, which describe the poor as "parasites" who must "perish", and are best summarized by the title of one of her books: 'The Virtue of Selfishness.'
The tragedy is that Obama needs serious opposition – but not from this direction. In reality, he is funded by similar destructive corporate interests, and has only been a few notches closer to sanity than these people. But faced with such overt lunacy, he seems like he is serving the bottom 99 per cent of Americans much more than he really is.
The Republican Party today isn't even dominated by market fundamentalism. This is a crude Nietzscheanism, dedicated to exalting the rich as an overclass and dismissing the rest. So who should be the Republican nominee? I hear the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were considering running – but they are facing primary challenges from the Tea Party for being way too mild-mannered.
168 Comments so far
Show AllIMHO, what Trump is all about is being a candidate who can collect million$$ in campaign donations while traveling around the country living a first-class life-style while doing nothing productive for society. Win or lose, a candidate's life is damn good compared to the average person.
Your comment can be used for Obama, too. He is a Republican corporatist, rich and unethical.
I agree 100%
Absolutely! Indeed, our biggest problem as a democracy is the corporate-media-inspired need to see the two parties as opposites--one the party of the people, the other the party of the insane.
In actuality, of course, the only difference between the two parties is that one talks well and smiles nicely as it promotes policies that decimate the well being of 98% of us.
"living a first-class life-style while doing nothing productive for society"
That is what Trump has been doing his whole life. A campaign has nothing to do with it. He has perfected the ability to "live on the float."
He's also got one of the most pathological egos known to man coupled with ignorance that's on a world-scale of stupidity.
Trump's narcissism appeals to Americans because it is a society of mindlessness, narcissistic, consumerist, gluttons as are all the other Repubican candidates. All their chants about American exceptionalism and so on appeal to narcissism which identifies with most Americans, especially the pretend christians and their doctrine of Satan and insulting the Christ and his teachings which are opposed to narcissistic, gluttony. About 90% of christians are follow the doctrine of the anti-christ and their churches are Towers of Babel. This information is from the Bible.
What person with more than 3 brain cells left doesn't know this???
I tend to agree with Chris Hedges that all candidates and elected politicians are courtiers, there to do the work of the powerful. So my first disagreement comes with the title: Donald Trump's Lunacy Reveals Core Truth About the DUOPOLY.
Thanks Molly for pointing this out.
The duopoly needs a scandal in order to fictionalize differences between Rs and Ds. Obama may be killing innocents in oil rich nations, torturing US citizens, he may be breaking laws right and left, creating a situation where the rich are made richer and the middle class made obsolete, giving BP unprecedented authority to kill sections of our oceans ......... but he's not a crazy! right?
People need to get a grip on the fact that the media plays them for fools - including the so called "left" media.
The one person that can run and win is bernie sanders. I am currently writing senator sanders a letter encouraging him to run for office. I hope others will do the same.
Kucinic, Nader, Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura are also solid. The victory of any pair of these guys will a victory for all humanity. But don't get your hopes high. First, independent (Kucinic and Paul are largely independent despite party belongings) candidates won't be allowed to win. Second, even if they win, the can be killed or rendered impotent through various means. Don't put any faith in elections. Only expect the worst from all elections. Voting won't get us anywhere - we need alternate, more viable, strategies.
As for Trump, he is a psychotic strong man who will appeal to the ignorant American populace as Hitler appealed to the depression-struck Germans. Barring "October" surprises or an anomalous strong challenge by a third party, Trump (What a name he has, the bastard!) will be the most likely next president of the United States. A Trump presidency would be as amusing as it would be horrific.
If memory serves me, I believe the original family name wasn't actually Trump but Drumph, or something to that effect. And when his grandfather immigrated he changed it to better fit in to the new society.
I agree with everything except "Trump (What a name he has, the bastard!) will be the most likely next president of the United States." The late entries (think JEB Bush) will be the party favorite with the 'good ole boy' endorsement. The TALK is that the GOP is looking for a YOUNG candidate with appeal to the Hispanic population - (right from the grand pupa's mouth)
True, the race is difficult to predict at this stage, and to be honest, the result will likely be of little consequence. The Obama-Bush era has proved yet again that the presidents are little more than photogenic puppets.
Considering Obama's abysmal performance, there will be a swing to the right in popular opinion. Disillusionment with both parties will favor candidates perceived to be independent. The charged atmosphere will benefit candidates with a macho public persona. Entrenched corporate power will obviously prefer a big business candidate. Trump fits the bill perfectly. Of course, unpredictable future events may change the whole picture. Other convenient candidates may appear. We'll see.
"...we need alternate, more viable, strategies."
Would you care to be more specific?
Here are a few ideas:
- The schooling system has deteriorate so badly that it is beyond salvation. As many children as possible should switch to homeschooling.
- Since Washington is completely overrun by the corporations, more effort should be put in capturing lower level seats of power - governorships, mayorships, and so on.
- Since the economic structure of the country is in utter decay, and since working for the corporations is slavery, we should avoid working for or buying from the corporations, and should try to revitalize "small business". Obviously this is easier said than done, especially in the prevailing legalistic climate, which favors the corporations.
- Since Christianity has been heavily corrupted by evangelism and the peculiar cult that unites crass materialism (pursuit of money) and fanatical adherence to ill understood dogmas, we should try to shift focus to the basic moralistic framework of Christianity - though shalt not kill, etc. Again, how do we do that?
- Divisive issues that are of small general import, like gay "rights", pro-life/choice, madmen burning the Koran, other madmen building a mosque somewhere, and so on, should be ignored. The key issues are the wars, corporate influence, and tangential issues like the lack of transparency at the CIA, the Fed, and other elite institutions, Wall Street criminality, and so on.
In general, I think people should think on this by themselves. Come up with a plan and pursue it. The "give me answers!" mentality leads to mass movements that are governed from the top, and therefore easily distracted and neutralized.
I am a lifelong agnostic, but I recognize that Christianity has had many positive messages over the centuries, as well as some troubling ones. The US plutocrats fought against Christianity a century ago, when Christianity was being used by William Jennings Bryan and others to promote ideas of social justice. It was in the wake of McCarthyism that the plutocrats started to promote Christianity as it provided a nice contrast with the atheistic Soviet Union and made it easy to convince the little people that US corporate plutocrats were the "good guys," because they were against those evil atheistic Soviets.
If one follows the popular culture, one sees that Christianity is now being attacked by the plutocrats, though their puppets of the R variety still keep some poorly informed self-identified "Christians" voting for them. The plutocrats do not want any competing value systems to their corporatist value system, where everything is in dollars and cents, and the lives of the poor are worth nothing. Christianity could be used to compete with this and prevent the total dominance of corporatist-plutocrat values, and for that the plutocrats are hoping to slowly destroy it (with an assist from some misguided leftists), while some of their puppets continue to garner those votes from the unsophisticated of that faith.
As for gay rights, I believe the plutocrats do push that as a way to divide the little people. The poorly educated members of the working class are always going to feel more insecure and vulnerable than most and are going to cling to values and traditions more than most. So with the certainty of a mathematical algorithm the plutocrats can split the intellectual left from the working class by focusing on these issues, as long as the intellectual left goes along with it. The more intelligent strategy is to identify which goals are primary -- those that must be achieved in order to gain the power to deal with other issues and achieve other goals. Gay rights is not one of these primary goals, while providing a basis to unify the common people against the plutocrats and corporations is a primary goal. I believe that is what the above poster was claiming, and I completely agree with it.
I can agree with much of that. Positive messages are to be found within any belief system, but the reverse is also true. It is always a mixed bag, though the proportions can certainly vary.
The plutocrats will allow "Christianity" that they have completely co-opted to continue to exist. They were happy with Catholicism as long as the pro-US pope, JPII, was in charge of it, the one who was anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-Liberation Theology (which involved the use of Catholic social justice concepts in oppostion to US imperialism in Latin America), and the personal friend of Zbigniew Brzezinski, US national security advisor when JPII pope was elected.
Strange thing how JPII was elected, as he followed a pope, JPI, who survived for just a few days and then died mysteriously. The US government had lobbied for JPII when his predecessor was elected and was very disappointed when he wasn't picked. Must have been god's will that JPI died so suddenly and unexpectedly? How fortunate to have the national security advisor's old friend there, to be elected quickly following such a tragedy, especially when JPII was expected to increase anti-Soviet resistance in Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe and, more importantly, was expected to put a serious damper on the use of Catholic Liberation Theology to fight US imperialism in Latin America. When the Soviets tried to use an assassin to kill JPII a couple of years later, there was brief mention (very brief in the US corporate media) of Soviet allegations that the US had murdered the previous pope to install JPII and so they were not setting precedent, but following it.
I get the impression that you do not think too much of the Catholics, but I do believe the plutocrats see the Church as a dangerous enemy, particularly after it refused to endorse the Armed Robbery in Iraq. And I believe that is related to the high frequency of priest abuse stories and the media frenzy related to the abuse revelations a few years ago. Certainly the abuse was a great tragedy, but that story had been sitting around for many years, and it only seemed to surface when the Church was not longer useful for the purposes of the Cold War and apparently not willing to bend to the will of the plutocrats.
Humanity corrupted by religion, when it was humanity that created religion in the first place? Humanity is responsible for the blow-back consequences of its own actions.
Why is everything a "human" rights issue only?
I agree that voting in our current electoral system has little chance of saving us from fasism. Eliminating the electoral college and changing from a one vote to a ranked multiple vote system could change things substantially. Even than out-of-control and unregulated propaganda from the corporate controlled media will continue to have enormous influence over election results.
Perhaps when the TPs, who are largely reliant upon social security, medicaid, and medicare, finally get what they've been campaigning for against their own best interests, "keeping the gov'mts damn hands off their medicare", perhaps they will wake up. Though I don't hold much hope even then because as Hair points out, "The fourth trend is to insist that any fact inconvenient to your world view simply doesn't exist."
When the TPs finally succeed in helping their overlords to completely privatize anything public and they find themselves on the street with no food and no health care, they'll just keep the blinders on and blame the loony libs for all their misery.
Kucinich and Ron Paul are absolute ideological opposites. Ron Paul is an Ayn Rand kook - just like Rep. Ryan, Gov. Walker or Donald Trump.
Kucinich is a sell-out. Why WOULDN'T he consider running with Ron Paul?
Sanders is hardly different. You guys are kidding yourselves, which is probably why you voted for Obama.
There you go again with your anti-Sanders propaganda... what a delight to have you around
I'M IN for Bernie
The tragedy is that Obama is so despised by his former base that he really has no one to lean on in this campaign. African-Americans and Latinos are disgusted with him, progressives have given up, and independents may like Trump's aggressive style over Obama's constant cave-ins. The American public seems to vote against the style of the previous president. We elected Obama because he appeared smarter than Bush. Hence, someone who can play the outspoken bully/protector, speaking words that resonate with a lot of people ("our leaders are stupid")--may just give Obama, Mr. Betrayer, a run for his (or Exxon's) money.
I am not sure if that many African-Americans are disgusted with Obama. An article a couple of weeks ago in The USA Today stated that nine out of ten black Americans still support Obama while African-American leaders like Jesse Jackson are still loath to criticize Obama by name.
Could be they stick with Obama because the right has made it pretty clear where they stand in regard to ALL people of any color except white, and if they manage to take total control of the government again, who knows what hell these "new" republicans are capable of, considering what they've done in the past few months they've been in charge.
You may have something there. A president that has been a disappointment, is still better than batshit crazy and evil candidate on the other side . Unfortunately this is why we continue to spiral downward. As the Republicans get more and more crazy and loathing of the middle class, all the Dems have to be is just a little bit better and a little bit more reasonable. A third party would sure help end this downward spiral.
It makes no difference whatsoever how "disgusted" his base is with him, or any segment of it. Next year they will hold their noses and vote for him anyway, because he is "better than a Republican." Of course, if you were to ask any of those people "HOW, exactly, is he better than a Republican?" they will mutter something unintelligible and go back to the couch.
Demonstorm
Excellent observation.
He won't allow the wholesale destruction, sell-out of SS and Medicare. That's a huge difference to me. Look, the R's have come out of the closet with how much they hate the average American, and even more so the Americans of color or female gender. If there is a sweep of Dems in 2012, the mandate will be in, to return to the things of the 2008 Obama. I believe he did exist. I believe that when he got to DC, he was sat down and told, "Listen, boy, here's how it's gonna be". Unless Bernie Sanders decides to run, I don't think we'll have a viable choice in 2012 against the R's and the cons. Additionally, healthcare costs continue to skyrocket higher than predicted. Single payer will become a mandate by the people if this is addressed correctly. Believe me, I'd like to have a real choice. But as someone stated above, it's a crying shame that out of 311,000,000 people, we can't find a 'better' choice.
. I believe he did exist. I believe that when he got to DC, he was sat down and told, "Listen, boy, here's how it's gonna be".
Patt, go to video Google and watch "The Obama Deception".... You don't have to have drunk the Alex Jones kool-ade to watch footage that was shot before the election... Barry was a corporate shill from word one.
There were several "better" choices last election, but the sheep only believe that they are allowed to vote for a 'party candidate'. Anyone naive enough to have penned that statement gives testimony that they did not look at the slate of candidates (IMHO).
I am not so certain that he will do anything to save SS and Medicare. For example, during the passage of the health care bill, he did everything in his power to undermine genuine health care reform and thus we ended up with RomneyCare and further enrichment of the health insurance industry at the public's expense. I expect he will do the same with SS and Medicare - put on a show as if he is for some useless but seemingly plausible compromise, like say a "public option". He will then, in the end, pull the carpet out from under the plausible compromise and throw his support to privatization through a cleverly written and convoluted 2000-plus-page piece of corporate designed legislation.
"The tragedy is that Obama is so despised by his former base that he really has no one to lean on in this campaign." Why is this a tragedy? If it is true, it's a ray of hope. That no serious contender for the Presidency within the Republican Party would stop doing the ill Obama so "cleanly and articulately" does, nor start doing the good he so assiduously avoids, says nothing good for Obama, or for the fate of the country if he is President, and Petraeus and Mullen hold appointed office, for the next 5 years. The current population of the U.S. is estimated today as 311,253,000. If you want to talk about tragedy, it's that out of those 311,253,000 there isn't anyone able and willing to evoke the support from enough of the 311,253,000 to be elected, and then able and willing to serve overwhelmingly better than we are being served now.
As to the comment that "The American public seems to vote against the style of the previous president" -- what is the evidence for this? I know that my vote for Obama had nothing to do with the “style of the previous president". I voted for Obama because I regarded and regard Bush as a war criminal, Nader as entitled as anyone ever to run against anyone for President, as a man who has performed extraordinarily valuable service for the country, and as neither qualified to serve as nor able to be elected President - and so I was left with Obama. It gives me no pleasure to be in a position of being unable to bring myself to vote for the only currently electable alternative to the Republicans, because the first time around I only feared that Obama would embody evil, and hoped he would not - now I know he does, in massive measure. “Style” has nothing to do with. A total lack of any self, and a total embodiment of evil, have everything to do with it.
Good comment, and I'm with you all the way, except that part about Nader not being "qualified" to be president. I've voted for him twice (though for McKinney in 2008), not because I thought he had any more chance of winning than I did, but because he was a thousand times more qualified than either Clinton or Bush. I fully understood the futility of my vote, but I understood even more clearly the futility of expecting anything from either Clinton or Bush that I wouldn't absolutely loathe in every possible particular.
Was Clinton "qualified" to be president? or Bush? or Obama? How were any of them qualified except insofar as two had served as governors and Obama has been in the Senate for two years. Bush was a corrupt criminal even as governor of Texas, so that qualified him for the most corrupt office on earth. Obama is a rank opportunist and has always been, so those are his credentials, along with operating in the most corrupt city in the US as a political operative ("community organizer") who learned the ropes of the Daly machine. Clinton was Slick Willie, the governor of Arkansas, whose entire reason for living has been to operate as smoothly in the cogs of hopelessly corrupt governments better than anyone since Boss Tweed.
If insider knowledge of these criminal agencies we call the US government is the only legitimate qualification for being president, then Nader even has these credentials. He's been so immersed in Washington politics for 50 years, there are probably less than 10 people who really have power in DC that he's not on a first name basis with.
Dennab -- I mean no offense, but both the heat and the substance of your opening sentences suggest that you did not read what I wrote ("I regarded and regard . . . Nader as a man who has performed extraordinarily valuable service for the country"). I gather you agree. And perhaps Nader is more qualified to serve as president than I imagine. But neither my general acknowledgement of his service nor your more specific list of his services does anything to establish that he could well execute the office of the presidency, any more than either establishes his qualifications to be a concert violinist (the which he may be, for all I know -- but the accomplishments you list are not evidence of it).
Dennab paid no attention apparently to what I wrote. And neither have you. What exactly do you think "qualifies" someone to be president? What does it take for you? Participating in thoroughly corrupt political parties, like Clinton, Bush and Obama? Is that what qualifies someone to be president? Do you have any idea what Nader has done the past 50 years? Apparently not, or you wouldn't compare it to his skills as a concert violinist. No one could "list" any qualifications that would persuade you. It's obvious you think ONLY participation in politics as it's corruptively practiced is serious qualification. Anyone lacking that need not apply. Congratulations for being as mainstream as any American can get.
Dennab: Thanks for your comments. I would say that Nader knows more of what is going on in corporate America than any other person in America. Bernie Saunders would be second. . BUT the U.S. Presidency does not rule America. it no longer has any power. Wall Street and the super top 1 % rule America. They are the source of Obama's "think tank". The revolutionary power must come from below, from the American Citizen. . But they must be assisted by our colleges, universities and churches, which is the last bastion of community in America. . To date, this does not look promising. Time will tell.
I love your guy Bernie
Obama is certainly a tragedy, but not because he doesn't have his former "base" to lean on in this campaign. In any case, the only thing he deserves to "lean on" is the business end of a pitchfork.
No offense, but I find the generally-accepted pop poli-sci concept of Obama's "base" to be illusory in the first place.
I mean, I can see stretching a point and asserting that Republican demagogues have an actual persistent "base" of yahoo winguts and reactionaries.
But Obama is just the latest in a string of pure opportunists, a political Pied Piper who seduces and enthralls a merry troop of desperate, deluded, or foolish constituencies to form a conga line behind him.
There may indeed be some common denominators, or "hooks"-- political labels and party affiliation, race or ethnic identity, economic status-- that give this motley plurality a semblance of cohesion.
But that only amounts to a "base" in the sense one might call Bernie Madoff's victims "investors". That's what they might have THOUGHT that they were, and it's the ROLE they played in the swindle-- and people may still politely refer to them as "investors" strictly out of tact and convenience.
I also reject commonplace terms like "mandate" for the same reason. Terms like this sound meaningful and substantive, but they're really just place-holders in everyday political discourse. I know this is an unpopular view, and that everyone will go on talking about "bases" and "mandates" regardless of my minority view that there really is no "there" there.
Obama's "base" is anyone he can fool into thinking he's worth supporting and voting for on a given day. He knows he has a bloc of pathetic battered-spouse "progressive" devotees that can be taken for granted, and he'll make up the difference with wishy-washy centrist and moderate "swing voters" from both parties who are just a little too leery of whatever insane Republican clown gets the nod.
Some "base".
OS, Obama's forte was his "tech-no-logic" computer based supporters. But even I have to admit, he's one hell of an orator.
one hell of an orator compared to the little bush boy. and just like with bush, i've grown tired of his voice and mannerisms. when i watched the state of the union speech, he looked and sounded as if he was so tired of perpetuating the charade.
You didn't catch his speech to the Democratic National Convention before his Senate election then. And he has also held several impromptu interviews and does well in those situations. Does he, as every other public celeb use a teleprompter, YA BETCHA, The state of the Union is another "developed for TV" media event.... The State of the Union 'letter' does not have to be delivered in person, nor orally. All for show, AND he probably IS tired of perpetuating the charade.
Just because I don't trust him does not mean I have to invent flaws in his persona, nor slight his attributes. I did not support, nor vote for him, but consider him an intelligent person and will still say the he is one hell of an orator.
Agree. After the Bush kid, Obama at least is not embarrassing. He doesn't swagger around like a cowboy and wave his middle finger at the world. But alas.....
An incredibly astute observation, thank you.
Trump is getting rave reviews from the hardcore racists in the United States and they remain a powerful force because America is still a profoundly racist country.
My bet is that Trump is out in front to act like a complete looney, so that Palin (or someone like her) can come in and say "Look, I'm a moderate compared to 'The Donald'. You can trust me."
Then, once safely appointed by SCOTUS and the Corporate Elite, carries out the Trump Doctrine in spades.
Democracy in the US is dead, dead, dead. And what's coming at you will make the excesses of a police state dictatorship look warm and cuddly in comparison.
Agreed. Trump is the "Bork" of Republican candidates.
"In this respect, he is simply an honest George W Bush." That's the best description of him I've heard yet.
Has anyone else seen the picture below?
http://imagepush.to/i/35559/trump-partying-with-koch-in-the-hamptons?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=imagepush