Tag: steve bannon

We’re in Deep Trouble

Trump’s un-American presidency is only 10 days old. And it’s going to be way worse than people think.

Trump is an insecure, narcissistic con man with an unsecure Android phone. He’s shown he is incapable of being an adult, obsessed with getting people to love him, attacking any and all real or perceived enemies and slights. His entire agenda is set to consolidate personal power in hopes that people will love him.

The real power is seemingly being wielded by white supremacist and self-described Leninist Stephen Bannon and billionaire Robert Mercer, who was the biggest single US campaign contributor in 2016. As Bannon said:

“Lenin…wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.

In the first ten days, they’ve already started to create chaos, started a constitutional crisis, destabilized the US and brought shame onto our country. A partial list: (more…)

Populist Revolt: Draining the Swamp and Refilling it With Old Swamp Water

A friend of mine texted me on Wednesday, “I’ve never been sadder to be proven right.” As someone who saw Hillary as the lesser of two evils and voted for her, I feel the same. Donald Trump, the vindictive, race-baiting, populist con man with authoritarian tendencies is our next president.

He wasn’t a joke or a clown. He’s the backlash against:

  • Elites taking all of the benefits since the 70s, and looking at the rest of their fellow citizens with disdain while calling them stupid, lazy or racists for complaining.
  • Politicians looking us in the eye and lying while promising to make things better.

He’s a big fuck you to the ruling class of both parties who made them the butt of their jokes and didn’t help as their lives got harder and in same cases shorter.  As I wrote two years ago:

As the US elites continue to amass wealth on a scale reminiscent of the years just before the Great Depression and continue to move toward Chilean levels and you see things like affluenza being used as a successful defense for drunkenly killing people and large corporations paying nominal fines and nearly zero taxes while normal people are punished severely for similar or lesser transgressions.

Solving these issues and putting the impunity index and Vautrin’s Law back into balance requires buy-in from government, politicians and most of all the elites that are currently benefiting from these conditions. I don’t believe that these conditions can last forever without some sort of reaction, whether its an economic reaction like the financial crisis or the election of a populist leader who will implement already disproven ideas that will punish the elites, but not raise the standard of the rest.

He’s also the backlash against social just warriors and bigoteers who have preached against and punished microagressions like asking someone “where are you from” the same as calling someone a racial slur. As I wrote in July:

(more…)