Progress Pond

Trump/Anti-Trump-Merely a Ruling Class Tiff.

The following illustrates what I have been saying here for years. It needs little further comment. (Emphases mine):

Trump Represents a Split in the Ruling Class by Manuel E. Yepe

It is good that many on the U.S. left are beginning to see that the clashes between Trump and his supporters against the so-called “resistance,” reflect a “split in the ruling class.”

—snip—

“It is a very healthy advance because it rules out confusion fomented by the Democratic Party leadership, childish sensationalism, and the meaningless simplicity of the capitalist media.”

—snip—

…this is a real and fierce battle between different groups among the richest and most powerful. It’s a conflict that gives deeper meaning to the strange mischief of the Trump era. Behind the harsh and illusory images of a corrupt vulgar person like Trump, to whom only by the “heroic” protectors of freedom and security (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.) object, hides a real struggle for ideas, interests and the future. It is good that more people are seeing it as a struggle between the rich and the powerful fighting over their different visions of the future of capitalism: “a split in the ruling class.”

—snip—

The United States is more interested in selling arms than in resolving its many wars (it is known that Secretary of State Pompeo convinced members of the Trump administration, publicly embarrassed by the massacre in Yemen, not to cut off support for Saudi Arabia because of such misdeed due to the possible loss of $2 billion in arms sales).

A recent reflection by Joshua Green, Bloomberg Businessweek national correspondent, entitled “The Dividends of Anger,” accounts for how the recognition of the changing political terrain provoked by the crisis. Trump’s slogan of economic nationalism “Make America Great Again” explains how it was the anger over the financial bailout that gave Trump the presidency. Green recalls Obama’s infamous meeting at the White House with the CEOs of the major banks, where he frankly told them, “My administration is the only thing between you and the gallows.”

—snip—

This harsh indictment of post-apocalyptic capitalism captures well the conditions that have fuelled the fear of such pitchforks. Make no mistake, those who rule the major capitalist centers pay attention to anger, not to respond to it, but to divert it.

The history of American politics in the last decade is the story of how the forces that Obama and the Democratic Party failed to contain, restructured the world by unleashing energies on the left (Occupy Wall Street) and on the right (the Tea Party). The critical mass of conditions that led to Donald Trump had its genesis in these reactions.

—snip—

Of course, the idea that Trump was planning to build a workers party or intended to transform the Republican Party into a “workers party” is ridiculous, but it is remembered that his campaign was driven by anti-immigrant animosity with the argument that jobs were being taken away from them. When Trump declared his candidacy, Americans of all stripes were bitter with the ruling elites of both parties, and on that rests Trump’s opportunistic position of attacking them, including the Republicans.

—snip—

There it is, in a nutshell.

A split in the ruling class.

Not a fight between “good” and “evil.”

Not a competition between “Democrats” and “Republicans.”

Not really.

Just a tactical argument. The strategy remains the same…keep the proles down while making them think that they really have a say in the matter. Some Republicans have…at least publicly…shifted to the Trumpist party. So it sometimes goes in a family quarrel.

I likened the competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign to a Scylla and Charybdis choice. Instead of a “Damned if you and and damned if you don’t” choice, it was “Damned no matter what you do.”

The situation has not changed.

Yet.

But if the Trumpists win…and I personally think that despite all the media hoo-hah, the pro-Trump vote remains solid…if they prevail for another two years, the tiff will be over.

Until that particular tactic drives the U.S. into the ground.

Sorry, but that’s what I see.

Either side of the argument will result in an eventual dissolution of the U.S. Empire. Trump’s will just be…meaner.

And quicker, too.

So that goes as well.

Later…

AG

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