{"id":2493,"date":"2016-08-17T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T05:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=2493"},"modified":"2021-11-18T13:56:59","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T18:56:59","slug":"why-not-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=2493","title":{"rendered":"Why not Trump?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Cutrone<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

Platypus Review<\/em> #89<\/a> | September 2016<\/em><\/p>\n

Distributed as a flyer<\/a> <\/em>[PDF<\/a>] along with “The Sandernistas: P.P.S. on Trump and the crisis of the Republican Party” (June 22, 2016) <\/em>[PDF<\/a>].<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If one blows all the smoke away, one is left with the obvious question: Why not Trump?<\/em>[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s claim to the Presidency is two-fold: that he\u2019s a successful billionaire businessman; and that he\u2019s a political outsider. His political opponents must dispute both these claims. But Trump is as much a billionaire and as much a successful businessman and as much a political outsider as anyone else.<\/p>\n

Trump says he\u2019s fighting against a \u201crigged system.\u201d No one can deny that the system is rigged.<\/p>\n

Trump is opposed by virtually the entire mainstream political establishment, Republican and Democrat, and by the entire mainstream news media, conservative and liberal alike. And yet he could win. That says something. It says that there is something there.<\/p>\n

Trump has successfully run against and seeks to overthrow the established Republican 1980s-era “Reagan Revolution” coalition of neoliberals, neoconservatives, Strict Construction Constitutionalist conservatives and evangelical Christian fundamentalists \u2014 against their (always uneasy) alliance as well as against all of its component parts.<\/p>\n

It is especially remarkable that such vociferous opposition is mounted against such a moderate political figure as Trump, who until not long ago was a Centrist moderate-conservative Democrat, and is now a Centrist moderate-conservative Republican — running against a moderate-conservative Democrat.<\/p>\n

Trump claims that he is the \u201clast chance\u201d for change. This may be true.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it is useful to treat all of Trump\u2019s claims as true — and all of those by his adversaries as false. For when Trump lies, still, his lies tell the truth. When Trump\u2019s opponents tell the truth they still lie.<\/p>\n

When Trump appears ignorant of the ways of the world, he expresses a wisdom about the status quo. The apparent \u201cwisdom\u201d of the status quo by contrast is the most pernicious form of ignorance.<\/p>\n

For example, Trump says that the official current unemployment rate of 5% is a lie: there are more than 20% out of work, most of whom have stopped seeking employment altogether. It is a permanent and not fluctuating condition. Trump points out that this is unacceptable. Mainstream economists say that Trump\u2019s comments about this are not false but \u201cunhelpful\u201d because nothing can be done about it.<\/p>\n

The neoliberal combination of capitalist austerity with post-1960s identity politics of \u201crace, gender and sexuality\u201d that is the corporate status quo means allowing greater profits — necessitated by lower capitalist growth overall since the 1970s — while including more minorities and women in the workforce and management. Trump is attacking this not out of “racism” or “misogyny” but against the lowered expectations of the “new normal.”<\/p>\n

When Trump says that he will provide jobs for \u201call Americans\u201d this is not a lie but bourgeois ideology<\/em>, which is different.<\/p>\n

The mendacity of the status quo is the deeper problem.[2]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

For instance, his catch-phrase, \u201cMake America Great Again!\u201d has the virtue of straightforward meaning. It is the opposite of Obama\u2019s \u201cChange You Can Believe In\u201d or Hillary\u2019s \u201cStronger Together.\u201d<\/p>\n

These have the quality of the old McDonald\u2019s slogan, \u201cWhat you want is what you get\u201d — which meant that you will like it just as they give it to you — replaced by today\u2019s simpler \u201cI\u2019m loving it!\u201d But what if we\u2019re not loving it? What if we don\u2019t accept what Hillary says against Trump, \u201cAmerica is great already\u201d?<\/p>\n

When Trump says \u201cI\u2019m with you!\u201d this is in opposition to Hillary\u2019s \u201cWe\u2019re with her!\u201d — Hillary is better for that gendered pronoun?<\/p>\n

Trump promises to govern \u201cfor everyone\u201d and proudly claims that he will be \u201cboring\u201d as President. There is no reason not to believe him.<\/p>\n

Everything Trump calls for exists already. There is already surveillance and increased scrutiny of Muslim immigrants in the \u201cWar on Terror.\u201d There is already a war against ISIS. There is already a wall on the border with Mexico; there are already mass deportations of \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants. There are already proposals that will be implemented anyway for a super-exploited guest-worker immigration program. International trade is heavily regulated with many protections favoring U.S. companies already in place. Hillary will not change any of this. Given the current crisis of global capitalism, international trade is bound to be reconfigured anyway.<\/p>\n

One change unlikely under Hillary that Trump advocates, shifting from supporting Saudi Arabia to d\u00e9tente with Russia, for instance in Syria — would this be a bad thing?[3]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

But everything is open to compromise: Trump says only that he thinks he can get a \u201cbetter deal for America.\u201d He campaigns to be \u201cnot a dictator\u201d but the \u201cnegotiator-in-chief.\u201d To do essentially what\u2019s already being done, but \u201csmarter\u201d and more effectively. This<\/em> is shocking the system?<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s called a \u201cnarcissist who cares only for himself\u201d — for instance by \u201cPocahontas\u201d Senator Elizabeth Warren — this is by those who are part of an elaborate political machine for maintaining the status quo who are evidently resentful that he doesn\u2019t need to play by their rules.<\/p>\n

This includes the ostensible \u201cLeft,\u201d which has a vested interest in continuing to do things as they have been done for a very long time already. The \u201cLeft\u201d is thus nothing of the sort. They don\u2019t believe change is possible. Or they find any potential change undesirable: too challenging. If change is difficult and messy, that doesn\u2019t make it evil. But what one fears tends to be regarded as evil.<\/p>\n

Their scare-mongering is self-serving — self-interested. It is they who care only for themselves, their way of doing things, their positions. But, as true narcissists, they confuse this as caring for others. These others are only extensions of themselves.<\/p>\n

Trump says that he \u201cdoesn\u2019t need this\u201d and that he\u2019s running to \u201cserve the country.\u201d This is true.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s appeal is not at all extreme — but it is indeed extreme to claim that anyone who listens to him is beyond the boundaries of acceptable politics. The election results in November whatever their outcome will show just how many people are counted out by the political status quo. The silent majority will speak. The only question is how resoundingly they do so. Will they be discouraged?<\/p>\n

Many who voted for Obama will now vote for Trump. Enough so he could win.<\/p>\n

This leads to the inescapable conclusion: Anti-Trump-ism is the problem and obstacle, not Trump.<\/p>\n

The status quo thinks that change is only incremental and gradual. Anything else is either impossible or undesirable. But really the only changes they are willing to accept prove to be no changes at all.<\/p>\n

This recalls the character in Voltaire\u2019s novel Candide<\/em>, Professor Pangloss, who said that we live in \u201cThe best of all possible worlds.\u201d No one on the avowed \u201cLeft\u201d should think such a thing — and yet they evidently do.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/a>

Illustration of Professor Pangloss instructing Candide, by Adrien Moreau (1893).<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

There is significant ambivalence on the \u201cfar Left\u201d about opposing Trump and supporting Hillary. A more or less secret wish for Trump that is either kept quiet or else psychologically denied to oneself functions here. There is a desire to punish the Democrats for nominating such an openly conservative candidate, for instance, voting for the Greens\u2019 Jill Stein, which would help Trump win.<\/p>\n

The recent Brexit vote shows that when people are given the opportunity they reject the status quo. The status-quo response has been that they should not have been given the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Finding Trump acceptable is not outrageous. But the outrageous anti-Trump-ism — the relentless spinning and lying of the status quo defending itself — is actually not acceptable. Not if any political change whatsoever is desired.<\/p>\n

In all the nervous hyperventilation of the complacent status quo under threat, there is the obvious question that is avoided but must be asked by anyone not too frightened to think — by anyone trying to think seriously about politics, especially possibilities for change:<\/p>\n

Why not Trump? <\/em><\/p>\n

For which the only answer is: To preserve the status quo.<\/p>\n

Not against \u201cworse\u201d — that might be beyond any U.S. President\u2019s control anyway — but simply for things as they already are.<\/p>\n

We should not accept that.<\/p>\n

So: Why not Trump?<\/em> | P<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Notes<\/h3>\n

[1]<\/span><\/a> See my June 22, 2016 \u201cP.P.S. on Trump and the crisis in the Republican Party,\u201d amendment to my \u201cThe Sandernistas: Postscript on the March 15 primaries,\u201d Platypus Review<\/em> 85 (April 2016), available on-line at: <http:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2016\/03\/30\/the-sandernistas\/#pps<\/a>>.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/a> See Hannah Arendt, \u201cLying in Politics,\u201d Crises of the Republic<\/em> (New York, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1969): \u201cA characteristic of human action is that it always begins something new. . . . In order to make room for one\u2019s own action, something that was there before must be removed or destroyed. . . . Such change would be impossible if we could not mentally remove ourselves . . . and imagine<\/em> that things might as well be different from what they actually are. . . . [T]he deliberate denial of factual truth — the ability to lie — and the capacity to change facts — the ability to act — are interconnected; they owe their existence to the same source: imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

[3]<\/span><\/a> See Robert Parry, \u201cThe Danger of Excessive Trump Bashing,\u201d in CommonDreams.org August 4, 2016, available on-line at: <http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2016\/08\/04\/danger-excessive-trump-bashing<\/a>>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Cutrone Platypus Review #89 | September 2016 Distributed as a flyer [PDF] along with “The Sandernistas: P.P.S. on Trump and the crisis of the Republican Party” (June 22, 2016) [PDF]. If one blows all the smoke away, one is left with the obvious question: Why not Trump?[1] Trump\u2019s claim to the Presidency is two-fold: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,22,23,15,6,43],"class_list":["post-2493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-39","tag-neoconservatism","tag-neoliberalism","tag-obama-era","tag-the-platypus-review","tag-trump-era"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3151,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions\/3151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}