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writing for godot

THE NEW ORDER

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Written by tom kando   
Tuesday, 26 July 2016 15:33
The Democratic Convention is supposed to boost Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. However, it seems that neither the mainstream media nor the Sanders die-hards are willing to give her a fair chance. As the election approaches, both of these groups continue to throw up obstructions to the coalescence of a unified progressive campaign, which would be the sine qua non to defeat Trump. They do everything in their power to prevent any surge of unified support for Clinton. Meanwhile, Trump’s chances are getting better every day. Make no mistake about it: He is overtaking Clinton at the polls. At the present rate, he WILL be your next president!

Today’s distraction is the Debbie Wasserman-Schultz e-mails allegedly showing a bias for Hillary Clinton. Big f...ing deal! If it’s not one thing, it’s another. The mainstream media have long been in a full National-Enquirer mode. Because ratings, sales and readership are their paramount concern, scandal mongering dominates everything they do - at all times, and regardless of the consequences. Political campaign coverage is now 90% about the alleged scandal du jour. At no point will the media allow the electorate to evaluate a candidate on her MERITS and those of her political agenda. Time is running out for Hillary Clinton. The media and the Sanders faction will not allow her to present herself and her agenda to the public, so that it may judge her on substance.

So then, let’s imagine a Trump presidency, which is becoming increasingly likely. It is important to be quite clear about this country’s future, something about which the mainstream media and the Sanders die-hards are utterly clueless. I don’t have a crystal ball, but here are some ideas.

It begins with the German analogy: Although the analogy with that country in the 1930s is flawed, some of the similarities are becoming compelling.

The far Right and far Left have polarized America, as they did Germany in the 1930s, where the Nazis and the Communists faced each other. The major cause of America’s rightward drift has been the downward mobility of the middle class, just as it was the cause of the rise of fascism in Germany. As political sociologists such as William Kornhauser and many others have shown, when middle-class societies undergo radicalization due to economic decline, there may be polarization, but the major trend is to the RIGHT more than to the left. Russia underwent a socialist revolution in 1917 because it was a largely proletarian society. But in Germany, the communists didn’t have a chance against the Nazis. Similarly, in America, the Right is likely to defeat the Left. In bourgeois society, the Right wins.

So Trump wins. What we have, then, is an authoritarian leader; a strong man; a demagogue. Perhaps not a Hitler or a Stalin, but at least a Juan Peron, a Ferdinand Marcos, an Augusto Pinochet, or a Vladimir Putin (whom Trump admires!). After that, the German analogy breaks down. Clearly, this strong man is not likely to engulf America in a World War, a catastrophic defeat, foreign occupation, concentration camps, etc.

At that point, Latin America becomes perhaps a more appropriate model. America becomes not a totalitarian regime, but an authoritarian one, say, not unlike Argentina and Chile were in the recent past. It may also resemble countries such as Russia and China, powerful regimes with low respect for freedom and human rights.

Domestically, this is what the New Order will look like: Ever greater economic inequalities; a law-and-order society with bulging prison populations; increasing discrimination against a variety of “out-groups;” increasingly corrupt, chaotic and malfunctioning institutions; increasingly corrupt and dishonest corporate and other elites. The “fourth estate,” the “chattering classes” (the media) will be increasingly intimidated, cowardly and opportunistic. Money, profits and corruption will drive all politics.
America’s two-party system will remain totally dysfunctional: The Republican Party will continue to care about one thing only - amassing as much money as possible. Progressives will remain as incompetent as ever, unable to enact and coalesce around a progressive agenda, be it within the Democratic Party or as a third party.

Internationally, the US is likely to engage in a variety of military actions around the world, actions that will be costly in blood and treasure but will accomplish nothing. The future of NATO and the role of the US at the United Nations are anybody’s guess. The US will lose any claim of being a beacon of democracy and moral leadership in the world.

Yes, the system will be rigged, but not in the sense in which Donald Trump meant. What will be rigged will be an elitist, unjust and unfree society that reflects the warped values of our new strong man and those who will have elected him. This system will muddle on as far as the eye can see into the future.

What will the world be like, once the country which is still (precariously) number one loses its way?
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