Say it Ain't So

Say it Ain't So

  

Every morning I ruin the start of my day with my usual perusal of the mainstream media . Also for a Middle East prospective I look at the always grim news as reported by Aljarzeera (for the most part US media avoids much discussion of the relentless carnage in Gaza and now Lebanon). Never have I felt such dread in engaging in this daily ritual.

 

And darkening it all is the knowledge that Donald J.Trump climate change denier, serial liar, convicted felon, hoarder of classified documents and braggingly proud sexual predator has now been reelected.  This is the same Donald J Trump who attempted a coup d'etat by falsely claiming he did not lose an election which he clearly lost and then encouraged a mob to storm Congress to prevent the legal formal transfer of power. Astonishingly has he escaped prosecution of this high crime of treason.

No post election disappointment has carried with it such a specter of doom. This is far worse than when Nixon trounced McGovern in a landslide, or when when Ronald Reagan and the reinvigorated GOP waltzed in to begin its 40 year attack at FDR's New Deal, or when we had to endure the back to back victories of the inept neocon Bush/Cheney regimes. But now the worst has happened, a wannabe dictator has been returned to the presidency by an electorate of ignoramuses. And this time he is armed with an agenda planned by a cabal of billionaire-financed think tanks who have conjured up a frighteningly ruthless road map to a Trump led ultra libertarian Christian nationalist theocracy.

 

It appears the good ole USA has been reduced to essentially a nuclear armed banana republic as all time honored norms have been flushed down the toilet. Apparently a majority of voters (49.9% vs 48.3%) are just fine with that. This born-on-third-base cheap hustler, multiple bankrupt developer and one time television personality, has discovered late in life that he also has a stellar talent for demagoguery.

 

For the losing half, the 48.3% who voted against him, there is only numbness and shock as we face four long years of chaos and retribution. Persecution and harassment awaits the “fake news” (aka MSN mainstream news) while legal prosecution awaits perceived political opponents as “his DOJ” actually is "weaponized". Basically a wrecking ball is being readied  to slam into responsible governance.

 

The MSN paid punditry presently is now grudgingly  'splain' how it happened and getting us prepared for January 20, 2025. And the Democratic Party must regroup and come to terms with its historic monumental defeat. Yet almost half voted for Harris, just a crucial little less.

 

As non-MAGA citizens we must for now stand by helplessly as his demolition team is assembled assisted by a well funded network of right wing think tanks led by the Heritage Institute. Their game plan known as Project 2025 is an execrable concoction of fevered reactionary wet dreams first unveiled this the summer. Despite Trump's lying denial of affiliation, it was cooked up by Trumpian alumni aided by the same hotheads that brought  us the Tea Party during the Obama administration. They have concocted this witches brew to slosh all over the guiless American public. In their fevered paranoid imagination they believe the entire country has fallen victim an imaginary authortarian yet decadent liberalism that wants to stiffle Christianity, free speech and the 2nd Amendment while running interference for LGBT especially the T's.

 

This goes beyond Trump and is part of a ongoing broader ideological confrontation with modernity which is seen as 'the enemy within' and which they wish to attack from all sides. They see the US government with its post 1930's legacy of managing the brutal excesses of Late Capitalism in what they 'regulatory state', the see within academia with the college educated leaning left politically; they see it deeply ingrained in the culture in all its forms: news media, entertainment, even leaking into professional sports.  In short this is the new billionaire ruling class's response to widespread public discord new resulting from shocking new levels of income and wealth disparity. This is a worldwide phenomena. This could be seen a neo-fascist version of a total cultural reset much like Mao Tse Tung's 1962 infamous Cultural Revolution - but from the right. Trump and his MAGA nonsense is a just the latest tool to be used by the master oligarchs. .

 

As things set in through the crucial second half of this decade with a MAGA-run and reworked federal government taking over, we are in for a real 'sea change' both literally and figuratively. And at any time the full weight of the climate crisis could set in as one or more of the forecasted tipping points are reached and all hell will breaks loose.