(I originally wrote the following as a reply to a comment that Frank Wilhoit made on Booman’s recent post “Trump is Acting Like Nixon in His Last Days.” It grew, so here it is as a standalone. And here is Frank’s whole post.)
We had a fire extinguisher. We used it on Nixon. It’s empty now. It can’t be used again.
It couldn’t be used on Reagan. Who will be Trump’s Poindexter?It couldn’t be used on Bush 43; no one even wanted to pick it up and shake it to see if there might be a little bit still in there.
It won’t be used on Trump.
No one — exactly no one, in any position — will make any attempt to defend, let alone restore, any of the institutions whose failure, over many preceding years, has been revealed during the past one-and-a-fraction. None of those institutions have any friends left.
Everyone realizes, and everyone denies, that the 1787 Constitution has been abrogated and is no longer in force. Once it becomes impossible to cling to that fiction, then a fresh start will have to be made. No one who held any position of responsibility, at any level, in any sphere, in the old regime can be permitted any role in the new one.
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Yes Frank!!!
You wrote:
[The fire extinguisher] won’t be used on Trump.
No one — exactly no one, in any position — will make any attempt to defend, let alone restore, any of the institutions whose failure, over many preceding years, has been revealed during the past one-and-a-fraction. None of those institutions have any friends left.
Everyone realizes, and everyone denies, that the 1787 Constitution has been abrogated and is no longer in force. Once it becomes impossible to cling to that fiction, then a fresh start will have to be made.
It is the failure of those institutions that inspired Trump to try to take control of the system. He knew that they were failed, because he was part of the corporate system…an outlier, admittedly, a rogue part…that engineered the failure. The first telling blow on the system that he landed during the primaries was when he said that during the Obama administration he…due to his previous “donations” to the Clintons…had the power to basically demand that they attend his daughter’s wedding.
The following deathless phrase applies here:
From NYC Tammany Hall ward heeler George Washington Plunkitt when asked if he felt any guilt about the way he did business in the Tammany Hall years, the 70 years or so during which New York City was built.
I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.
Plunkitt openly made a point about honest and dishonest graft.
EVERYBODY is talkin’ these days about Tammany men growin’ rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There’s all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I’ve made a big fortune out of the game, and I’m gettin’ richer every day, but I’ve not gone in for dishonest graft – blackmailin’ gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc. – and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in politics.
There’s an honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works.
Now…you can choose to call bullshit on this if you wish, but there is an honest point to it. What has progressively happened to the U.S. federal government…from the assassination years on…is that the “honest” graft that produced a world power and an overall high standard of living during the 20th century has gradually been replaced by “dishonest” graft. And…as this has happened…the scale of that graft has multiplied geometrically. Ward heeler types have been replaced by faceless lobbyists with unlimited corporate cash to spend. Not on public works, but simply on globalist, corporate profit.
“L’état, c’est moi” said Louis XIV. He was,. of course, eventually proven wrong, but this concept might very well be stated today as “L’état, c’est nous.” The “nous” in that sentence would refer to the globalist mega-corporations that buy and sell politicians. The “failed institutions” to which Frank Wilhoit refers have been bought and sold out from underneath the people that they…imperfectly but quite consistently in the long run…served during the rise of the U.S. to world power. The same interests own the media system, which has been so well perfected as a massive, trance-producing propaganda machine that most of the people in the United States didn’t even realize that they were being propgandized.
Not until the economic catastrophe of 2009 did the realization gradually begin to dawn on fairly large numbers of citizens that they’d been had, and still the Mighty Wurlitzer of the media managed to convince enough people that everything was going to be OK if only they supported and re-elected their wonderful Peace President.
But everything wasn’t OK. Terrorism, random acts of violence, police brutality, economic hardship for groups that had prevously been able to at least manage to live a survivable, working class/middle class life, the collapse of the manufacturing system as it was sold down the river to the poorer nations of the world…not “OK” at all.
And then came Trump.
He saw his opportunity…just as he had throughout his life…and he took it.
“L’état, c’est moi” all over again.
One more time once, as Count Basie used to say.
Only…he was neither as smart nor as powerful as had been Louis XIV, plus the corporate system that had taken over the government still had serious media power over the hearts and minds of many of the people.
And here we jolly well are, aren’t we.
Two failed political parties, a megalomaniacal president and a broken governmental system that is trying like hell to heal itself sufficiently enough to get rid of him.
May we all be born(e) into interesting times.
Shit’s gonna come hot and heavy over the next few weeks.
Watch.
Try to stand behind the fan.
I am.
Later…
AG
P.S. You also write:
No one who held any position of responsibility, at any level, in any sphere, in the old regime can be permitted any role in the new one.
Sadly…that is not about to happen.
Sorry, Frank.
I wish that it was.
But…it’s a nice thought.
Thank you.
