economic growth

We now live during the time of the fasci-clown. In post-election analyses, all the discussions of the appeal of his racism and patriarchy capture important things. But they may not speak starkly enough to why these sentiments run so deep and cut so broad a swath, though for different reasons, through both the white donor class and so much of the working class. Neither do they explain how and why growing segments of the populace laugh so much at Trump's fascist humor. Dressing up and clowning as a "garbage man" illustrates only one recent instance of that conjunction.

The donor class knows, and much of the working class senses, that neoliberal capitalism cannot survive in its old form for much longer. Knowing that, the donor class intends to capture as much wealth and power as it can in the time left to it, prepared to support a transition from neoliberalism to fascism if that is what it takes. Elon Musk is a perfect exemplar here, turning Twitter into a propaganda machine, becoming the fasci-clown’s Goebbels, and informally assuming the role of his economic lieutenant, preparing to impose punishing austerity in the name of a restoration of a pre-New Deal government. So much of the working class, feeling neglected and sidelined by the Democratic Party for decades, are increasingly prepared to allow Trump to twist and turn their grievances into shapes that fit a fascist agenda.