The reader may not be aware of this, but the American left and right are in the same box.
The
Progressives are being shunned by the Democrats, and the Populists are
being shunned by the right. The reason is simple, but the mess commonly
referred to as US politics is a hot mess.
The
Democrats have been under seige by the Progressive left since the 1972
campaign of George McGovern. The left has had an ongoing crush on
Socialism for a long time, but the mass student movement in favor of
McGovern was the first time that segment of the Body Politic had
discovered just how many people supported the ideology and the power
they had to affect the nation.
It could be argued that FDR was the
first Progressive/Socialist president, and it's a strong argument, but
the ideological sentiments of the general public weren't quite there.
The Comunist/Socialist movement began in the 1920s in the US, but FDR
cherry-picked the elements that would draw the widest public support for
his campaign - Social Security, government spending on public works,
price controls, etc.
By the 1972 election, the
Progrssive/Socialist ideology had found a significant voice in the
population at large. They put up a strong challenge, but the entrenched
American right won out and put Nixon in office, but the Progressives
made in-roads in local and state offices and continued to build on it.
In
1976, widespread disgust with Nixon led to a backlash and a squeeker
victory for Jimmy Carter. Carter ws the classic "bleeding heart"
liberal - emotional, sentimental and naive. When he gave away the
Panama Canal, the right was shaken out of their complacency, realizing
that the left had no clue how to run a nation, and placing the nation's
strategic interests in the hands of people who felt sorry for other
nations was a direct line to ruin.
Sure enough, China bought the port concessions at both ends of the canal, but that's a different blog.
The
backlash was palpable. In 1980, Carter was trounced by Ronald Reagan, a
kind of Pro-Freeper, who subscribed to free markets, minimal regulation
and low taxes. It worked. The economy took off, millions made
fortunes, but unchecked greed has its drawbacks.
The entrenched
interests who had taken over the country in 1963, with the death of JFK,
weren't happy. And the Socialist left was getting ansy.
GHW Bush
was granted a term in office to give lip service to the Reaganites,
while the Bush crime family (intricately linked to the JFK
assassination) had time to find a suitable guardian for their
interests. In stepped the Clintons.
Billary - for they cannot be separated, like the Katzenjammer Kids
- were the perfect pair. Bill was the mellow dude about town, while
Hillary was the hardcore McGovernist. Together they played both sides
of the fence. Bill attracted the lassaiz-faire right, while Hillary
appealed to the radical left. They were the transition couple, lulling
the right into complacency, while sliding the Agenda under the RADAR.
Bill did what he was told as long as the trim and bud kept coming, and
Hil injected her vitriol into the Body Politic.
It takes a lot of
effort to stop a pendulum. With Carter, it has swng to the left, and
the momentum carried it all the way to Reagan, so Bush the Elder slowed
it, the Clintons caught the left swing, and Shrub caught the right
swing. Altogether, they slowed the swing of the pendulum towards the
nadir, where absolute destruction lay waiting.
In stepped Obama.
This piece of work was essentially the echo of Billary. He was the
mellow dude about town with a radical bent that would have made McGovern
blush. He almost stayed the pendulum, but there was a growing backlash
in the form of Ross Perot/Ron Paul adherents who believed the Reagan
Revolution had not gone far enough. There was unfinished work, and this
Obama dude was going the wrong way (compare election results for 2008
and 2012).
America was sliding back towards the right when the left put Hillary up for auction. This panicked the right. Rugged Individualism dies hard on the rocks of Socialism.
In
steps Donald Trump. Trump was a hold-over from the Reagan Revolution.
He was a self-made billioniare who was the symbol of 1980s Enlighened
Greed. He was the .Gordon Gekko prototype. He was a marketing genius who had made his own name synonymous with luxury and had created a media empire from scratch.
But if Carter was the naive left, then Trump is ihe naive right.
The
backlash against Trump was immediate, profound and relentless. He was
hounded from the moment he announced his campaign until he left office.
Hillary had been chosen to stop the pendulum, but Trump won, because no
one but Trump had foreseen the vast, silent Populist masses that they
thought they had silenced with Ron Paul, just as the right thought they
had silenced the Progressives with McGovern. Both were wildly wrong.
What
has become glaringly clear in Election 2020, is that there are two
competing ideologies that are diametrically opposed and will not be
silenced - and are no longer willing to be marginalized. The
Estalishment, installed under Wilson, encouraged by FDR, glamorized by
JFK, disheartened by Nixon/McGovern, energized by Reagan, placated by
Clinton/Shrub/Obama have been finally pressed together like opposing
magnetic poles, and they will fly apart against all efforts to confine
them.
We are seeing a Revolutionary Civil War, unlike anything
that has arisen before. One might point to the Soviet Union, but the
left in that case was exhausted and capitulated. In the current case,
there is an entrenched oligarchy that has played two camps against each
other for decades, but have now lost control of both, and everyone
loses.
Trump has likely lost, but a Harris administration - I mean Biden - is a disaster. Think of the brilliant scene in John Carpenter's Dark Star, where a character gets into an existential argument with a bomb. The bomb's entire raison d'etre
is to explode, but because it can't be released from the bomb bay, the
character desperately needs to talk it out of "becoming".
What's
really going on in the US, is that the Establishment have put forth
their preferred puppet, Kamala Harris. They have disguised her as Joe
Biden, who will be removed from office almost as fast as the echoes die
down drom his Oath of Office. Trump is waging a war against a foe he
was ill prepared to handle. In his inflated self-image, he thought he
could negotiate his way out of anything, but he never met a foe such as
the one he faces now. It is a global interlinked cabal of mutally
blackmailed Elitists who are scared to death they are going to be
lamp-posted and their century-long effort to take over the world will be
lost forever.
Talk about motivation.
How can we sum all
this up neatly? Well, America's genetic roots are a bunch of people who
wanted to be left the hell alone. They are pursued by people who have
had and want to continue having control over everything. There are
vast numbers of people on the ;leave me alone' side, and the US
Constitution is in their favor. There is vast wealth and ancient
history in the other corner. They are entrenched and intractible and
have been at war for centuries.
There is a solution for the US,
and it has succeeded elsewhere. What remains is to determine the
resolve of the independents and whther they are married to an
abstraction or reality.
Stay tuned...