By ann summers![TrumpSmashGrabRegulations[1]](https://genehowington.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/trumpsmashgrabregulations1.png?w=640)
President Bait and VP Switch, one way or another, will default to a GOP legislative majority moving forward with voter suppression and census manipulation, backed up by a majority conservative judiciary.
All in the name of an ironic Bannonism that might at one moment claim to dismantling the administrative state, but which also has the consequence of heightening the contradictions.
The new administrative state will be leaner, meaner, and god-emperor orange.
Trump’s political success was based on a two-sided attack on the establishment.
- First, he ratcheted up the existing Republican “illiberal” cultural values agenda into full-blown racist authoritarian nationalism.
- Second, he captured the progressive critique of the neoliberal economy, especially the critique of globalization.
Trump’s ratcheting-up of the illiberal cultural values agenda enabled him to displace the Republican establishment. His extremism jumped him to the front of the Republican queue, which was critical in the primary process as that process engages the most extreme voters.
However, his racist nationalism also has broader political appeal because racism reaches far beyond the Republican base, while nationalism has bi-partisan establishment support.
The other side of Trump’s success was his capture of the progressive critique of the neoliberal economy. For four decades, the US economy has short-changed working class voters via wage stagnation and manufacturing job loss. That has created discontent and disappointed expectations. Trump exploited that discontent and disappointment by masquerading as a critic of the neoliberal economy and promising to make the economy work for working class Americans…
Trump’s representation as being on the side of workers stands in complete contradiction to his own interests as a billionaire businessman whose metric of success is money and wealth, and who is devoid of charitable inclination or notions of public service.[…]
THE REALITY IS HE IS ENGAGED IN A SKILLFUL “BAIT AND SWITCH” BEFITTING A CON ARTIST.
The bait was his critique of the economic establishment and globalization and the harm they have done to working class voters. The switch is rather than reforming the neoliberal economy, Trump substitutes racism, nationalism, and authoritarianism, while simultaneously doubling-down on neoliberal economic policy.
ZOMG! Even if there wasn’t an electoral disruption in 2016, all the procedures are now laid out for the GOP to seize the polls and stage a coup because … if stupidity prevails as contradictions heighten…
By 2020, Agent Orange could still be in power, want, and get his dictatorship-for-life.
Remember the paranoid fantasies of RWNJs about white-helmeted UN peacekeeping troops on US streets because NWO is not a rap group … be careful what you’ve been wishing for, thinking your personal arsenals will fend off that zombie apocalypse sprawling from the cities.
Imagine a nation of only charter schools, medical care proportional to your net worth, relocating “those people” (pick the name of your preferred hated race/class/gender). Your wealth and value to the nation will determine your place in the new America First Republic. Full employment is available in the military and/or the police as long as you’re not a member of a “special-interest” group who will be relocated to the former Sanctuary Cities.
Think the US can’t be a Christo-fascist military dictatorship … remember the history of US RWNJ movements, especially in the chaos caused by the Red Scare, and how their progenitors remained alive and viable for a very long time (see John Birch and the Koch brothers)
Don’t even need to teach Trumpites to read so they can understand their Turner Diaries. ZOMG!
The plan allowed for the deployment of “armed federal law enforcement agents” to polling places if hackers managed to halt voting. It also foresaw the deployment of “Active and Reserve” military forces and members of the National Guard “upon a request from a federal agency and the direction of the Secretary of Defense or the President.”
For three days after the election, a special interagency effort would be tasked with addressing “any post-election cyber incidents,” including “planted stories calling into question the results.”
Here’s Scaramucci saying Trump’s lie about millions of illegal voters is probably true, since Trump said it: https://t.co/8FnAlGXsoU
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 21, 2017
The plan reflects how thoroughly the Russian effort to undermine public confidence in the U.S. electoral system had succeeded. The U.S. intelligence community had concluded the primary and abiding goal of the Russian operation was “to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process.”
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
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Chuck Stanley
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Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
“Heightening the contradictions” strategy reminds me of an old Jewish joke from Eastern Europe. A man goes to his Rabbi (the community’s decider of controversies) and complains, “Oy Rabbi I can’t stand my own home. My wife is constantly nagging, nagging; the children run about screaming, hollering, there is never peace and quiet, I feel like I am going out of my mind. What shall I do?”
“Get a goat,” the Rabbi advises, “and keep him in the house with you.” The man does. Two days later, he returns, “Rabbi, it’s even WORSE!” The Rabbi says, “Get a dog, and keep it in the house with the goat and your family.” The man leaves and does as he is advised. To days later, back again, “Still no peace?” the Rabbi asks. “NONE!” he exclaims. “OK,” the Rabbi says, “Get a cat, and some chickens. And a rooster of course.” The man complies. After a week of increased menagerie treatment on a daily basis, he comes back to the Rabbi in tears, tearing at his hair. “Rabbi nothing is working it is only worse!” The Rabbi then says, “OK, now get rid of the goat, the hens and roosters, the cats and dogs, the ducks, the mule, and the two sheep. Come back tomorrow and tell me how you feel.” The man returns the next day, beaming: “Rabbi, it’s a miracle! My life is beautiful and I can think, I can work, I can sleep. My wife and children are all happy and I finally have peace in the home!”
Only with us, with Pence in line, no such…