It's been roughly seven months since Donald Trump has taken office, and even by more favorable polls it seems like there has been a severe toll in his levels of favor, even amongst more hardcore supporters. That number has dwindled to 33%. 1 in 8 straight up regret their vote. Most of the country either disapproves or strongly disapproves of his actions. Things simply don't seem to be getting done, and the things that are done are being done seem to be transparently unfavorable to common folk. It raises that question of: How long can this really go on?
An ugly political situation
Trump after months of theater and nonsense likely has no political capital nor legitimacy in DC. The Republican party likely only puts up with him because they would fear the backlash of turning on him; their clear distaste for the man was demonstrated on the campaign trail before he won the nomination and they were forced to kiss up to his cheeks. The fiasco with the recent healthcare bill should more than prove that behind closed doors his party has painted itself into the corner and is having some serious problems organizing a palatable way to pillage and dismantle public institutions in support of their donors. The moneyed interests are likely at serious odds with the religious populists that they exploited as voting stock, and their serious differences in immigration and trade interests are breaking the seams. And his administration's fight against net neutrality is such a great misstep and aroused so much public anger that none of his bastions of support online are willing to swallow the propaganda pills.
The possibility of tax breaks and pulling back regulations - one of the few things both groups probably agree with - are likely going to be his only saving graces in the coming months.
An ugly investigatory situation
People in the know with the intelligence community seem pretty certain that, should Trump live long enough, and institutions are not somehow impeded, he will be behind bars. And given their monitoring capabilities combined with what New Yorkers knew about his shady business activities for years, it's probably likely that you don't have to dig very far into the tar pit to see the bones. Heads all around him will roll, if not from Robert Mueller, then from Eric Schneiderman and Dana Boente and while Mueller can be fired at the cost of serious backlash, there is nothing he can do to protect himself from the latter two. The repeated shooting of himself in the foot, combined with the lightning speed of news in this day and age makes it feel like he is speedrunning Nixon's second term. His adversarial relationship to the press and deep state has taken its toll, and there is a seeming war between them and his administration's farcical press secretaries is not helping anything.
I can't help but think, with underlings captured and complying combined with his son shooting himself in the foot, that he has at most 9 maybe months before an airtight, undeniably ugly case comes out that causes a real uproar.
A slipping personal situation
Trump doesn't seem to like his job and doesn't seem to really want to do anything but golf, and be a face for rallies. Given all the headaches of the above happening, it's no surprise. All the pressure likely takes a toll on his ego. That's not to even speculate on possibly legitimate health problems. If he had a way out without bruising his image or sense of self worth any further I don't doubt he would take it.
Why it doesn't even matter
For his money tight and desperate voters growth of the economy in their favor is the only thing that will be realistically cared about, and the President has made incredibly optimistic growth targets which will likely never be met. The growth will not come and money is likely only going to be getting tighter.
For many months, major financial institutions have been predicting the possibility of the market entering a recession by fall of 2017, predictions that were made since last fall, and indicators for that have seemed to be slowly lining up. Malls are dying, and the retail sector has been essentially collapsing inward for the past year. The velocity of money has been continually decelerating. Businesses have been closing faster than they have been starting up. There's an auto loan bubble. We don't know what exactly will blow the keg, of course, but something is going to give.
There are very few monetarist voodoo tricks that can save him because the previous administration essentially expended all of them. Interest rates can't really go lower, and I wonder how well people would respond to negative interest rates. Taking on even more debt securities from failing American megacorporations and investors would be political suicide.
Unorthodox techniques - as the Argentinians have proven quite handily for many decades through their own periods of demagogic malaise - will not save him either. Hard tariffs will likely cause a contraction; people will sooner purchase or smuggle the cheaper foreign goods from Canada and Mexico than pay for an American made car, or computer, or ounce of steel. Capital flight is not a situation we want to encourage when capital is effectively the only substantial thing made here anymore by our own businesses. Subsidies for essentials could stimulate, but seems neither politically possible nor will it be sustainable if the upper class panics at the deteriorating situation for the underclasses and makes a run. Even imperialism is likely not a safe option for a country that is exhausted in regards to war, and the last two we started gave no returns.
Small town America never really saw the economic recovery that many urban areas experienced after the great recession. The jobs that sustained them continue to decline as cheaper foreign goods out compete company towns, family farms are out competed by huge half automated corporate corn and soybean operations. When this recession hits, they will go from terminal decline to on their death bed, wheezing for air without any life support systems to save them.
And small town America is where Trump's vanguard is. If things actively become economically even worse not even they will be able to support him no matter the level of self-deception or propaganda; the lack of bread on the table doesn't lie. Assuming that there will be no of dismantling and decay of democratic institutions to bolster him in an otherwise declining situation, the backlash will only be a matter of time.
Why it really doesn't matter
Trump is just a symptom of a much larger and worse systemic malaise bred on willful ignorance and apathy. And when he goes the conditions that ultimately gave rise to him will absolutely not go away with him. Focusing on what he does is in some sense a waste of time, because whatever he does is not likely to last for the reasons above, but the implications of what he accomplished winning the election is worse. He has proven that populism and empty language works just as well in the United States as it did in Belarus, or Russia, or Poland, or Hungary, or Turkey, or Liberia. Unless we actually learn from this lesson someone significantly more devious and competent will exploit the same mechanisms to empower himself to a degree never before seen. We cannot have another round of collective Bush/Obama amnesia, forgetting how the system stacks itself against our favor and our interests. These teams were never our teams.
People still think that, if they give up their rights, if they give up their power that they don't realize they have when working together, to a big man with a big mouth and big money that they will get milk and honey in return. That is a universal falsehood that man gets tricked upon again and again, and has tricked us for over nine thousand years. You cannot trust such men to do you good. Men who seek power with promise to help in times of need are vultures out to let you die and pick your corpse to share with their other vulture friends. Prosperity and liberty will only be gained in civilization by people working together, from the ground up. Until we collectively learn this lesson and etch it into our children's very skulls we will be doomed to see this same nonsense happen again and again.
Some wag said:
A lawyer, a spy, a mob boss, and a money launderer walk into a bar. The bartender says: "you guys must be here to talk about adoption."
Bingo! Until the fear of Change becomes dwarfed by the harsh realities of cold and hunger, large demographics will be willfully blind. Hell, people won't even change toothpaste brands unless their teeth fall out. Imagine having to accept we've been "used" as tools from cradle to grave - that's pretty hard to accept.
In the meantime The Great Ponzi Scheme will serve to keep as many as possible content with Games & Circus, until... until it fails, which appears by many measures to be looming.
If the Country were a corporation, which it has become, facing the viability of its illusion and means, which it is - the Board of Directors would very likely select a fast-talking con artist with extensive experience in bankruptcy, dodging creditors, and "acting" tough as CEO to protect the value of their investment. To them, everything else is deemed collateral damage. Sad.
Excellent illustration from 100 years ago. Unfortunately for us, He Still Doesn't Understand. Few things ever change. Tragic.
On a positive note, Heather Marsh's treatise, "Binding Chaos," offers alternative paths for societies. Hopeful.
Spot on. I'm somewhat hopeful that other paths can be tried out. With the potential dangers ahead, it feels like there's never been a better chance - at least in my life - to steer ourselves onto better paths.
There is a good chance we'll find out within a year. I wonder how much longer the music will play in this game of Musical Chairs. What is truly tragic is that the supposed "leaders" of all of our developed societies seem to consider it really is a "game." Daily, we observe things unravelling. It's not for nothing that the federal governments have supplied military-grade armaments and technologies to local police departments.
In Australia, now TPTB are pressing to involve the military in domestic matters, because of, "... their unique capabilities..." One has to wonder about tanks, submarines, fighter jets, artillery, fully automatic weapons, and the like. One has to wonder how a force trained to neutralise and kill is going to interface with a civilian population of their fellow citizens, who may be protesting the actions of an authoritarian, right-wing government.
It beggars belief that anyone outside of the well-to-do class would vote for fascists - much like the example of turkeys voting for Thanksgiving! Yea! bread & circus, movies on demand, tv game shows... woooopeee... Recall Country Joe and the Fish, "C'mon all you brave young men, Uncle Sam needs a helpin hand, got himself in a terrible jam..." Recall how that worked out as well as the subsequent military-industrial inspired conflicts since. And people have the audacity to imagine some of us are merely "grumpy old men." Good grief! (grief being the operative expression!)
I spent two years in combat and I know firsthand what it's like to see and hear young troops writhing and screaming in fear and pain from their wounds. Picking up pieces of people one used to have a beer with uniquely qualifies one to hold forth on the downside of "sacrifice." I wonder what qualifies our politicians to have empathy for those men... Pluuuuuseeee, spare me the false and trite expressions, "... our thoughts and prayers are with you," claptrap! How about a guy who had a "sore foot" couldn't serve in the armed forces, cheered on by a swath of fat old white men over fifty, is ever so keen to send young people into harm's way? Now, that is really pathetic!
Like a great mind once remarked, "Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Really, we seem to never learn from our mistakes... even turkeys deserve more respect - they can't reason and are bred to be victimised. Supposedly, we can reason, yet - we don't! I guess we do really deserve the government we get.
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