"I hope he fails," - Rush Limbaugh, now a shocking thing to say.
"Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe." - Omarosa Manigault.President-Elect Donald Trump is set to succeed Barack Obama on 01/20/2017. At his back will be a Republican controlled House of Representatives, a Republican Controlled Senate, and a Supreme Court Vacancy.
The Republican Party is poised to dominant the Federal Government for the next generation. It's little solace that for the 6th time in 7 elections Democratic Presidential Candidates have won the popular vote because the Republican Party is in total control now.
The media will be falling all over themselves to qualitatively ease Trump and the Republican Congress into the semblence of success. Faux News and the conservative internet will have to readopt the role of defender of the Government instead of the anti-government opposition. But, it won't cause any problems or consternation for conservatives because they love wielding the power of Big Government. The Deplorables are no doubt relishing their chance to use the awesome power of government to enshrine oppression and intolerance and destroy the Progressive Gains of the 20th century.
As with the George W. Bush Presidency, a whole litany of excuses and a massive amount of justifications will be proffered up to allay blame away from Trump and the Republicans. The same people who blamed Barack Obama for everything and anything will deflect blame to the usual suspects; minorities and immigrants, liberals and gays. Faux News and the right-wing internet will continue to lay all of America's woes on the poor and the powerless.
"Incidents" like Obama's tan suit, or a Marine holding an umbrella in the rain, which caused breathless angst, days of media coverage, and countless internet articles filled with conservative rage against Obama denigrating the office of the Presidency will never make a blip.
All of Trump's baggage and negatives, his lies, ignorance, abuses of women, business failures, and fake piety didn't matter. What mattered was his bedrock promise to make America White Power Again.
Will Trump be able to fulfill his campaign promises to the WWC? The answer, most likely, will be no. Trump is a savvy showman. He's going to break up his Presidency into 4 seasons. So in Season 1 he'll throw some red meat to keep the WWC occupied and their attention off the wild impossible promises he made which he can't keep. Enter HRC.
Trump is going to follow through on his threat to have his Attorney General and the Justice Department arrest her because the constant circus and show trial will be great reality programing. And the coverage will buy Trump 12-18 months cover as the excitement generated by Trump's proclamations of an unjust society and unvarnished racism begin to fade.
While, this is going on Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and John Roberts will be quietly crafting euphemistically titled legislation to steal Social Security, repeal Obamacare, undo Roe v. Wade, scuttle the multi-nation Iran Deal, ignore the Paris climate change accords, ensconce voter suppression, institute wage slavery, codify religious bigotry, and transfer all money from aid programs into the Military-Industrial-Complex.
I hope I'm wrong.
7 comments:
I don't think you're wrong. IMO DARK days lie ahead. BTW, the media is currently falling all over themselves to legitimize Trump's win. Despite him saying (pre-election) that he wouldn't accept the results... unless he won!
Re this being the "6th time in 7 elections Democratic Presidential Candidates have won the popular vote"... I looked into it, and, as it turns out, ONLY Democrats running for the White House have won the popular vote but lost the presidency. HRC being the 5th Democrat to get the most votes but not serve as POTUS.
My thoughts exactly. There will never be another free and fair election in America in my lifetime or that of my children.
Dervish and Blog Fodder,
Already we see the Right-Wing media running with Trump has a Mandate rhetoric. This is standard conservative media approach to proclaim themselves the winners in every contest (either the people voted to obstruct or the people voted to endorse right-wing governance) and then repeat, repeat, repeat.
Wondered over here from Ranger Against War via your link.
It seems to me that the mandate/not-a-mandate issue is an easy one to tweak the media on, when what's really happening is their sheer laziness. The media incessantly crafts "narratives" to explain reality. They even talk about doing it now on their op-ed pages, which is very meta of them, but surprisingly unhelpful.
When the outcome of the election comes down to a couple of percentage points of the population of Florida and Michigan, it's tough to argue that any "narrative" is actually meaningful one way or the other, especially when you consider the number of people who voted for Trump hoping he wouldn't win anyways and tack on the number of people who would have voted for Clinton if they'd anticipated the alternative. A very messy business, trying to make sense out of 300 million people.
I meant to add, and will now tack on: Clinton will never be charged with anything.
For one thing, despite the incessant prattle in the media of Trump being an "outsider," which his supporters have swallowed hook, line, and sinker, Trump is part of the same elite class as the Clintons. I'm not at all persuaded that this election represents anything more than elite factions mobilizing popular support bases the same as always, even though Trump's win is supposedly an epochal shift in the political universe or some such.
But second, and setting that bigger question aside for today, I cannot imagine a faster way to undermine the new administration's political standing at home and legitimacy abroad than an obviously politically motivated drumhead trial of an opposition politician. Even Trump is not that foolish, and if he was, Pence would dissuade him.
Dave,
Trump got less votes than Romney (as well as HRC but I digress) and it's not a clarion call or Mandate. What Trump actually believes is immaterial, what matters is what he's going to do.
So, while I agree HRC won't be charged what WILL undoubtably occur is Clinton Criminal Circus, with daily Faux News updates o the Clinton Crime Watch and endless Congressional Investigation. Whatever is necessary for the next 12 months to keep the WWC occupied and distracted as Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and John Roberts eliminate the Social Safety Net and Tom Cotton and John McCain gear up the country for an Iran War (which is the plan for Season 2 and 3 of the Trump Presidency) in order to win the 2020 election.
So, no I think you underestimate the calls for Clinton's Death which dominated the conservative internet and aren't going anywhere. And who is going to stop them? The Democratic Party? The SCOTUS? A drumhead trial is exactly what the Right wants and I wouldn't be surprised to see calls for Obama to face charges.
I read the same right-wing news as you, but I'm not sure I read them the same way.
Trump's going to be in a bit of a pickle. He's spent a year and a half largely inventing promises on the spot that he never intended to keep, and then repeating them as long as they continued to get him applause. Now somebody is going to have to figure out how to govern the country. The resulting ineptness is going to be comical, or at least it would be if the stakes weren't so high.
Already today I read in the NY Times that the first purge of his transition team has commenced because Chris Christie was building up secret loyalists, aka, trying to install some people who might be at least marginally competent.
I don't want to sugar-coat it. I think it's going to be a rough four years for people who care even a whit about the rule of law or about science. I doubt, however, that there's anything so systematic as a four-year plan. The nice thing for Trump is, there doesn't need to be. I doubt it will take too much persuading to get his supporters to turn out again in 2020 to beat the elites once again. After all, those elites aren't going anywhere.
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