Chomsky on Trump

[ahinton]

In connection with which, it's interesting to observe the anticipatory obsequiousness observed in reportage of Trump's sidepersons as having a positive effect on his purportive change of mind on a number of his scarier pre-election promises, while noting the differences in our mainstream journalist's assessment of Corbyn, in the way the latter deliberately overlooks the fact that in the British example on offer leadership always involves more than one person, whereas in the States it puts people in places where they can indiscriminately order other people around, and there's apparently nothing they can do about it. Note especially the differences between the transparent defensiveness betrayed by Trump's apologists whenever interviewed and asked to justify their uncritical support, and the outspokenness of Labour Party members in criticising Corbyn.

Interesting point, based upon the notion of a comparison that it had not occurred to me to make. The trouble with the former case, however, is that I suspect Trump, whose sheer noisiness seems inseparable from the rest of him, might be as likely to fire henchpersons Sugar-style as to appoint them and this is likely only to compound the uncertainty generated by such unreliability; Sorabji's phrase "noisily advertised weathercockadoodlery" (albeit obviously used in a quite different context) seems to have some degree of pertinence here, perhaps coupled with the neat irony of Trump the climate-change-denying weathercock contriving nevertheless to generate sufficient quantities of hot air and wind energy as to exert a possibly positive impact upon US's carbon footprint.

[Lat-Literal]

I said that I wouldn't write any more and I am not doing so but here are a few links to provide light beyond Chomsky on the ideological connections:

The proposals considered by Thatcher and Howe throughout 1982 for the abolition of the NHS (to be replaced by individual contributions to private insurance - compulsory by law), the charging for every child to attend state school - again compulsory, and the indefinite freezing of pension levels, all based upon the work of the American Heritage Foundation:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/25/margaret-thatcher-pushed-for-breakup-of-welfare-state-despite-nhs-pledge

The connections of Roger Helmer MEP, Nigel Farage and Liam Fox to Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Henry Kissinger, Pfizer/GlaxoSmithklein and especially the same American Heritage Foundation, albeit larger and more influential, to 2016 - these essentially explain Farage's rather surprising comments that he has known the Trump people "for years":

https://www.buzzfeed.com/marieleconte/roger-helmer-donald-trump?utm_term=.qi5d325km#.qv67zEd58

http://ukipwsx.org/nigel-farages-speech-at-us-heritage-foundation/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic_Bridge

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/files/fox_nato_speecj.pdf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25574096

Details of the evolution of UKIP NHS Policy to 2015 softened by leadership contender Suzanne Evans - she was responsible for the 2015 voter friendly UKIP manifesto - with information on the position of leadership contender Paul Nuttall - ie “the very existence of the NHS stifles competition”. The latter is favoured by Farage and probably Trump:

http://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2014/10/pinning-down-farage-what-is-ukips-policy-on-the-nhs-and-health.html

Hopefully this helps to remove some of the mysticism from the new global order.

[Conchis]

I wouldn’t say I’m looking forward to it, but he might turn out to be a 'good president’.

Our fears and concerns might have more to do with our belief system than what might actually happen - a bit like the idea of him being elected was treated as joke by us, initially. Perhaps reality isn't as closely related to our world view as we think.

I can envisage a situation in which he is a 'good President' almost incidentally - he has already endeared himself to some liberals/leftists (by accident, of course) by serving notice on TTP. That TTP might be replaced by something they will like even less, though, is a distinct possibility.

The frightening thing about Trump - to me, at least - is that he appears to have very little in the way of strong convictions. He is a businessman, who believes in 'the deal' . 'the financial advantage', etc; he does not appear inclined to 'reflect' My guess is that he will allow others to dictate policy in areas (there will be quite a few of them) where he himself is not that fussed. As he seems to be determined to surround himself with the politically marginalised, this could make for interesting times if you don't happen to be an ordinary, decent, heterosexual American.

[Tarantella]

He's right inasfar as he goes, but it requires more imv.

The feeling of powerlessness they're all now talking of is built on a prior feeling of imagined empowerment, based in the idea of individual choice encrypted in consumerism, the "latest" manifestation of a ruling class self-entitled system of competitive profit making basis for accumulating and then distributing the goods and necessities in itself deeply rooted in the religion-born model of the individualised defective skin-encapsulated ego (Watts & others) perpetually driven towards atavism short of salvation. We don't trust others because we've been led since childhood not to trust ourselves (forgetting that we have no choice but to); but this externalised "other" has (of course) to be specified, in order that the deficiencies of capitalism (which our rulers will hang onto by every means from daily propaganda to state force and even war), when exposed in its inbuilt periodic downturns and the dashing of hopes inspired thereby, can be blamed on what is nearest to hand, the projected consequence of a false model of human nature upheld to keep themselves in power and living off the backs of the rest of us.

Capitalism is wasteful of earth's resources and its means of wealth generating destroys the ecosystems that protect lifef's network of which we are a part (not apart!), which is why it has to go, the sooner the better.

But you really knew all that, didn't you?:

That same dreadful system of capitalism has removed tens and tens of millions of Chinese out of grinding poverty. And the fact that "you all knew that" about how bad it is shows that you've not been living in the stone age as the Chinese have, and that you take your world view from inside the bubble of the media rather than the sweat and grind of the real world. Very sadly for you, but particularly for the polity in general.

[Serial_Apologist]

That same dreadful system of capitalism has removed tens and tens of millions of Chinese out of grinding poverty. And the fact that "you all knew that" about how bad it is shows that you've not been living in the stone age as the Chinese have, and that you take your world view from inside the bubble of the media rather than the sweat and grind of the real world. Very sadly for you, but particularly for the polity in general.

You haven't read my post.

[Jazzrook]

Michael Moore on Trump:

https://www.channel4.com/news/michael-moore-on-trump

[Richard Barrett]

Trump in himself is terrifying enough, but what's worse is the global phenomenon he's a morbid symptom of. A Trump presidency wouldn't have been possible without the coalescence of very many other trends which are also apparent elsewhere in the world including of course the UK, going to show how fragile and incomplete the seeming ascendancy of liberal democracy was. As wars over dwindling and/or squandered resources displace more and more people across the world, this could become a lot worse; or (since this is another fundamental human characteristic) a new level of cooperation could arise to overcome all those challenges - as Marx said, humanity doesn't set itself problems it can't eventually solve. I hope he was right. With luck Trump himself will be displaced before he and his henchmen can do too much damage.

[french frank]

Keeping this to Ideas & Theory , it has all sorts of ghostly echoes, when you read about about the public reaction to Trump's intention to repeal Obamacare (hooray!) - and you realise that they are in favour of the Assisted Care Act, but against Obamacare:

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/19/kimmel-on-aca_parnter/.

It's the level of public ignorance that is so appalling. And whose fault is this? How, in a democracy, can people be educated to vote for what they fully understand?

In the case of TTIP (mentioned previously) - why is Trump against it? Is it because the EU is able to negotiate a deal which will benefit Europe (is this why it's floundering?); whereas Trump welcomes a deal with the UK (come to the front of the queue) because the US can eat the UK alive?

[Richard Barrett]

In the case of TTIP (mentioned previously) - why is Trump against it? Is it because the EU is able to negotiate a deal which will benefit Europe (is this why it's floundering?); whereas Trump welcomes a deal with the UK (come to the front of the queue) because the US can eat the UK alive?

Clearly. The combination of Brexit and Trump could prove lethal to the UK.

[jean]

But TTIP did not benefit Europe - it benefitted no-one but the multibnationals whose profits were protected at the expense of national governments. It was opposition from the French particularly that sank it.

[aeolium]

Trump in himself is terrifying enough, but what's worse is the global phenomenon he's a morbid symptom of. A Trump presidency wouldn't have been possible without the coalescence of very many other trends which are also apparent elsewhere in the world including of course the UK, going to show how fragile and incomplete the seeming ascendancy of liberal democracy was. As wars over dwindling and/or squandered resources displace more and more people across the world, this could become a lot worse; or (since this is another fundamental human characteristic) a new level of cooperation could arise to overcome all those challenges - as Marx said, humanity doesn't set itself problems it can't eventually solve. I hope he was right. With luck Trump himself will be displaced before he and his henchmen can do too much damage.

Among those trends must surely be the way in which the neoliberal economic policies of particularly the last three decades have immiserated great numbers of people and accentuated inequality, as well as the surrender of the centre-left to those policies which has left the field open to the authoritarian and populist right to challenge them.

I was reading at the end of last year two books which analysed these phenomena in different ways. The first was Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal which traced the change in the American Democratic party from the party of progressive Keynesianism under Roosevelt and Johnson to the party of the business and professional classes under Clinton and Obama, largely abandoning economic policies which benefitted the poorer areas of America. It was Clinton, not a Republican, after all who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act paving the way for the casino financial gambling and the crash of 2008; and it was Obama who brought in Larry Summers to join his Treasury team after the crash, when there would have been strong public support for a policy assault on Wall Street, and Obama who befriended the tech giants who are helping to automate and casualise employment in ways which are returning it to the insecurities of the 1930s.

The second book which is well worth reading is Wolfgang Streeck's How Will Capitalism End? which is a collection of essays analysing social and economic developments over the last few decades, and even if you are sceptical of the premise in the question, that capitalism will or can end, the analysis is worth reading. Streeck's argument essentially is that capitalism will collapse into an interregnum state as a result of its own "success" combined with its internal contradictions and the lack of opposition - as partially suggested by the 2008 crash, a repeat of which would be hard for the global economy to survive. And as Streeck indicates, liberal democracy was in any case being seriously undermined by the lack of proper democratic pluralism and its replacement by a kind of technocratic managerialism serving large corporations (combined with institutional corruption with the revolving door between politics and business, financial criminality, VW emissions scandal, etc). Streeck has a number of essays on the New Left Review website, including one with the same title as his book containing a condensed outline of his thesis.

[Richard Barrett]

Here's an article which I think echoes and amplifies the kind of things Aeolium and I have just been saying: "Trump is not the problem. Trump is merely one symptom of a deeper systemic crisis. His emergence signals a fundamental and accelerating shift within a global geopolitical and domestic American political order which is breaking down."

https://www.opendemocracy.net/nafeez-mosaddeq-ahmed/donald-trump-is-not-problem-he-s-symptom

Oops, I just edited my last post instead of adding a new one! Never mind.

[aeolium]

This is the final paragraph of that Streeck essay on the New Left Review website:

"In summary, capitalism, as a social order held together by a promise of boundless collective progress, is in critical condition. Growth is giving way to secular stagnation; what economic progress remains is less and less shared; and confidence in the capitalist money economy is leveraged on a rising mountain of promises that are ever less likely to be kept. Since the 1970s, the capitalist centre has undergone three successive crises, of inflation, public finances and private debt. Today, in an uneasy phase of transition, its survival depends on central banks providing it with unlimited synthetic liquidity. Step by step, capitalism’s shotgun marriage with democracy since 1945 is breaking up. On the three frontiers of commodification—labour, nature and money—regulatory institutions restraining the advance of capitalism for its own good have collapsed, and after the final victory of capitalism over its enemies no political agency capable of rebuilding them is in sight. The capitalist system is at present stricken with at least five worsening disorders for which no cure is at hand: declining growth, oligarchy, starvation of the public sphere, corruption and international anarchy. What is to be expected, on the basis of capitalism’s recent historical record, is a long and painful period of cumulative decay: of intensifying frictions, of fragility and uncertainty, and of a steady succession of ‘normal accidents’—not necessarily but quite possibly on the scale of the global breakdown of the 1930s."

I think Trump's election is one of those "normal accidents" of which we can expect more.

[richardfinegold]

Among those trends must surely be the way in which the neoliberal economic policies of particularly the last three decades have immiserated great numbers of people and accentuated inequality, as well as the surrender of the centre-left to those policies which has left the field open to the authoritarian and populist right to challenge them.

I was reading at the end of last year two books which analysed these phenomena in different ways. The first was Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal which traced the change in the American Democratic party from the party of progressive Keynesianism under Roosevelt and Johnson to the party of the business and professional classes under Clinton and Obama, largely abandoning economic policies which benefitted the poorer areas of America. It was Clinton, not a Republican, after all who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act paving the way for the casino financial gambling and the crash of 2008; and it was Obama who brought in Larry Summers to join his Treasury team after the crash, when there would have been strong public support for a policy assault on Wall Street, and Obama who befriended the tech giants who are helping to automate and casualise employment in ways which are returning it to the insecurities of the 1930s.

The second book which is well worth reading is Wolfgang Streeck's How Will Capitalism End? which is a collection of essays analysing social and economic developments over the last few decades, and even if you are sceptical of the premise in the question, that capitalism will or can end, the analysis is worth reading. Streeck's argument essentially is that capitalism will collapse into an interregnum state as a result of its own "success" combined with its internal contradictions and the lack of opposition - as partially suggested by the 2008 crash, a repeat of which would be hard for the global economy to survive. And as Streeck indicates, liberal democracy was in any case being seriously undermined by the lack of proper democratic pluralism and its replacement by a kind of technocratic managerialism serving large corporations (combined with institutional corruption with the revolving door between politics and business, financial criminality, VW emissions scandal, etc). Streeck has a number of essays on the New Left Review website, including one with the same title as his book containing a condensed outline of his thesis.

I couldn't agree more. Almost everyone I know is a Democrat; I've been a Republican outlier in my circles. I was a "never
Trump" Republican that held my nose and voted for HRC. Most Democrats here are in la la Land. They don't realize to what extent their party has become the party of Goldman-Sachs and has abandoned the the middle class and the poor. They see
Progressivism in racial or gender issues only. HRC was the poster child for this; the Clintons were bankrupt in 2000 and now have a net worth of $200 million earned by doing what exactly? The Democrats brag about growth under Obama but are oblivious to the fact that all of those benefits went to the top 2% of the income bracket while millions in this country lost their jobs that were shipped overseas as businesses were liquidated to pay for the bailout. But as long as wealthy baby boomers see their portfolios grow and live in the nicer parts of our cities or our gated suburban communities they are as oblivious as Marie Antoinette. And while I hate Trump, it is fun to see the reactions of these Benighted 'progressives' as the Peasants rattle their gates with their pitchforks.
Trump's supporters are caricatured as racist, reactionary nabobs, and some of them are right out of central casting. Many of them, however, particularly in the swing states, voted for Obama in 2008. BO was then the Candidate of change, who to borrow Trump's phrase, was going to drain the swamp of the parasitic financial class that exploited them. Instead, under a veneer of progressivism, Obama completed the movement of the Democrats to become the party of the wealthy. Those voters woke up and dumped HRC as revenge. How Trump, a New York billionaire, became their champion is another story, but the root cause of his victory was economic, and not a sudden desire by Americans to embrace reconstructionism

[Conchis]

Trump will run America like a business enterprise. If something isn't profitable, it will have to go!