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People who are horrified that Donald Trump is about to become US President should understand why.
He is a very remarkable man, a force of nature, but also a reaction to and judgement on 8 years of Barack Obama, following 8 years of George W. Bush.
The old Republican party tradition is exhausted. It's meaningless.
The new Democrat party based on identity politics, that thought Third World immigration was guaranteeing its future, is in big trouble.
I hope the Democrats can be rebuilt without identity politics, but I doubt it. This is sad because, unlike the Bushes, they will come back to power.
George W. Bush betrayed and destroyed conservatism, did his country irreparable harm and left it, as he found it, deeply split down the middle. Obama made liberalism into something authoritarian and deliberately very divisive, that tore the country further apart instead of healing it.
Neither of them protected the borders.
But behind the failures of these two men there is a deeper cause. On 9/11/1989, when the Berlin Wall opened and the Cold War ended, a political vacuum opened, in foreign and domestic policy. Nato and the old left-right political divisions continued, but robbed of much of their meaning.
After the Founding Fathers made the USA, three Presidents remade the republic, in far-reaching ways, whether good or bad: Andrew Jackson who made it a democracy, Abraham Lincoln who caused and waged a civil war and Franklin Roosevelt. 1828, 1860 and 1932 remade American politics and society.
Donald Trump might be the fourth such President and 2016 a comparable turning point.
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But, while things change, we'll have to put up for years with stories in the media as silly as this one from the BBC about Congressman John Lewis.
I summarise it as follows.
John Lewis: Trump is not legally President.
Donald Trump: Mr. Lewis should focus on his constituents.
BBC: Oh my God! Trump has insulted a black man who marched with Martin Luther King!
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I read the news but I don't read biographies and books of revelations about political leaders. One should do. To learn for example how much Hillary despised Obama. I read extracts in the press, but I should read the whole book.
This is an example - a new book about Donald Trump's family which sounds like The Forsyth Saga mixed with The Godfather and Jackie Collins.
It seems that Trump's mother was a housemaid before she met his father. His paternal grandfather ran a brothel, after selling horsemeat beefburgers to prospectors during the Klondike gold rush.
Someone Donald Trump was at school with is quoted as saying:
“The difficulty I had with Donald is I thought there was a real emptiness inside him. And if you have no empathy you are fit, as Shakespeare would say, for stratagems and spoils.”Trump and his father do not sound at all like nice men.
But the electors do not imagine Trump is a nice or high-minded or good man. Those who voted for him saw him as the necessary thing,
Lewis's comment was outrageous, as was Cory Booker's dissension against Sessions earlier in the week. There's a bit more to unpack about Lewis here. Booker just argued that it was racist to reject the failed progressive re-introduction of racism he has been a part of, but Lewis's history and present are a microcosm of part of America.
ReplyDeleteHe really is an American hero. His civil rights work in the 1960s was brave, against dreadful violence and daunting odds. He deserves all the film depictions, statues and honours he has had, and more.
But Trump is right. Lewis's district includes about 3/4 of Atlanta, not 'a prosperous suburban district'. Atlanta has been in the 'top' ten most dangerous cities in the USA during most of the last decade, pushed currently into 12th place by Black Livers Matter's sterling work in making Baltimore, Milwaukee and Cleveland even more dangerous, so in 2016 it stood at no 12, down from 6th a couple of years ago.
Economically it is a prosperous district, compared to some, but it was badly hit by the 2008 crash and hasn't really recovered, lagging well behind the US average recovery. Unemployment remains very high.
Lewis is committed to every failed and racist policy in the Democrat playbook. He wants reparations for slavery, supports the antisemitic racial separatists of BLM (who have reversed a 60 year decline in the murder rate in several cities to stand responsible for hundreds of extra deaths of black Americans) but is refusing to recognise a President who won with a unique commitment to improving the life chances of African Americans.
In Lewis, you can see where a movement for equality became one that tries to reintroduce prejudice and fights to keep too many black Americans in poverty and crime.
Peter Risdon
A fair analysis Paul.
ReplyDeleteI might contend that Obama was not deliberately divisive, simply reacting to a hostile Congress, however he did spend more time berating his opponents than educating his base so it is an arguable point. Ever the snippy academic I'm afraid.
Still he has years to run and his friend and mentor Jimmy Carter is still there.
Willis McBriar
nice article peter pn
ReplyDeleteGood analysis.
ReplyDeleteRobert S. Popescu, Esq.
He'll be our greatest president ever!!!!
ReplyDeleteLibtards went bonkers when a second-rate, B-Picture actor was elected president. "It's the end of America," they whined. Yet, Ronald Reagan is now rated as one of our greatest presidents.
ReplyDeleteVery good. I couldn't have said it better myself. Joel
ReplyDeleteyour point about John Lewis and the BBC was spot-on. I scratched my head when I saw their "reporting"
ReplyDeleteAgainst the closing line:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/tobiaschneider/status/827982518360080384