Friday, December 11, 2015

The American Yeltsin

Everyone is still having a fit over the overt racism Donald Trump has been spewing for… well, his entire life. But specifically his demand that Muslims be locked from entering the US. Even if they’re US citizens, if they’re friends of Muhammad than they ain’t allowed.

While this is racist and fascist and all sorts of ugly, it’s also just plain ridiculous. Like every other “policy” Trump has presented, it amounts to TV’s biggest blowhard yelling at a perceived problem and that’s the end of it. Too many rapist immigrants? Deport them all, logistics be damned! The Chinese are beating America at green energy and other infrastructure investments? Negotiate them down, somehow! Income inequality? You should be paid less anyway, so sayeth The Donald!

Every proposal Trump makes is as shallow as his hair, so it plays well to the spiteful morons who support him. How much he means it and how much he’s just playing to the ignorant screwheads who still think Bush II did a good job is a question Trump himself couldn’t even answer. While his campaign is serious, he remains a profoundly un-serious candidate.

So let’s talk seriously for a moment about what would happen if he actually won. Not just the nomination, but the general election. Would a Trump presidency really be the Fourth Reich we’re all worried about?

Nah, not really. It would suck from one end to another, the biggest bummer in American presidential history since Dubbya’s second term. If you’re not white and stupid you might as well run for Mexico now, where you’ll get more respect and more conscientious police. But no one is likely to end up in a government extermination camp and, despite his posturing, there won’t be any wars besides the usual colonial skirmishes that Clinton II wholeheartedly supports.

But if you do get ground up into soap, it will be by a for-profit entity. Trump’s history as a business man consists of the sort of corporate raiding and chicanery that not even Mitt Romney would tolerate. A man whose only proven skill is declaring bankruptcy to his own advantage is not going to start pogroms by executive order, he’ll just sell the material to do so to the lowest bidder.

That’s the real danger of a Trump presidency: the outsourcing and offshoring of the instruments of government will accelerate exponentially. The short-fingered vulgarian won’t stoop to exterminating Muslim Americans himself, he’ll just let some other billionaire asshole buy up half the National Guard armories in the country. Then it’s all just private enterprise and self-starter initiative when a Somali family gets riddled with bullets.

And don’t think there aren’t many Americans itching to mass murder their fellow citizens. Inequality is already driving a boom in rage massacres and racism always finds convenient scapegoats for real economic distress.


Anyone but Sanders or Jill Stein in the White House will ensure that same stress persists. Exacerbating the racist dimension only serves Trump’s interests now during the primaries, when he needs to win over the rubes . Trump’s real goal once sworn in will be the same as Boris Yeltsin: selling off everything not nailed down and securing a tidy profit for himself. It makes good business sense and that’s the only sense that’s allowed anymore in America.

No comments:

Post a Comment