We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

To Understand Donald Trump is to Not Explain Donald Trump

Click here to access article by Maximilian Forte from Zero Anthropology.  [added material at 4:30 PM Seattle time]
The figure towering over this election, like a human marquee, dated, hazy, glowing, is Donald Trump. The chronicler for this election should have been Hunter S. Thompson.
I agree the American journalist, Hunter Thompson, would have been a good choice to write about Donald Trump and this bizarre election circus. Actually, better yet, I think comedian George Carlin could have done a hilarious shtick on Trump and the current primaries (see this video of his performance especially at 4:00m as an example). However, here is a sample of Forte's take on Trump:
As Trump repeatedly says, “we don’t win anymore, we don’t win with trade, we don’t win at the border, we don’t win with ISIS…”. One might explain Trump in terms of nativism and secular revitalization, but that is hardly sufficient; it may even be inappropriate. But at least Trump, in producing a slogan, willingly offers us a clue–he is to represent Americana.

Donald Trump is an American Classic. Trump is a Hall of Fame. He is an arena rocker. Trump is both the stadium, and the phalanx of heavily armoured football players at the same time. His supporters sense this, they see it, and that is what moves them. Once moved in this way, no amount of “fact checking” will deter them. They are drunk on his aroma. No pope, no tax returns, no past interview transcripts can sober them up.
Forte also thinks Trump is going to win. I definitely think he will win the Republican nomination, but not the presidency. This coronation for Clinton II will go as planned. The hidden Wall Street/CIA directorate that runs this country and the Empire have a perfect pre-election setup: Trump scaring the daylights out of most Americans on one side of Hillary, and on the other side with Bernie Sanders, a pretend socialist and "unwinnable" (read unacceptable to the ruling class), advocating all kinds of social programs that appeal to the hopey-changey crowd of mostly young people and assorted liberals. The majority of the American people will have no choice but to vote for Hillary, the candidate that our ruling class has been grooming for years as their choice for nominal head of the Empire.