Thursday, April 28, 2016

Fred: The establishment is "Putrefaction most foul"


Fred Reed's latest column is a masterpiece.  Here's an excerpt.

Donald Trump’s campaign reveals the establishment for what it is, a swamp of corruption  as fetid as those of Latin America. It is better entertainment than Vaudeville. The frantic scramble to rig the primaries, change the rules, and thwart the voters–anything to defend their cozy entanglement of political tapeworms–makes absurd any pretense of democracy.

. . .

But it does make sense. The Republicans try desperately to ditch the only Republican candidate who could win the Presidency because... Hillary is one of them. Because, as every sentient being has by now noticed, the Republicans and Democrats are members of the same corrupt club of blood-sucking parasites, the action arm of the corporations, Wall Street, the Israeli lobby, and those who want the US to control the world at any cost–except, of course, to them. They are panicked at the rise of someone who might put first the interests of America. Better Hillary, a fellow parasite, than Trump, who isn’t.

. . .

Will  the two parties succeed in blocking the Donald? Might they even resort to the Martin Luther King solution? My powers of political prognostication would be under zero if they could figure out how to get there.

. . .

The corruption is adroitly hidden, yes, or disguised as something else. Yet it is there. Consider the subprime disaster. To believe that it was an accident, or a cyclical downturn, or other artifact of econobabble, one has to believe that bankers, realtors, and Wall Street do not understand mortgages, credit, or defaults. You have to believe that officials of the Treasury, who slide back and forth between Wall Street and government like the motion of the tides, had no idea what was going on.

At the top, America is as corrupt as Mexico but American corruption is far more efficient. Among the white middle class, the rot is less. But within the clubhouse of insiders,  at the level of the anointed, of the Adelsons and Epsteins and Clintons and Bushes, there is putrefaction most foul.

It is cleverly done, and seldom involves anything so sordid as open bribery. Yet the results are everywhere. Men who knew exactly what they were doing engineered the student-loan bubble. Yet it is legal, like so many scams. Huge military contracts for things not needed, the near-control of Mid-Eastern policy by Israel, poor medical care at high prices, the deliberate gutting of American industry so that corporations can enrich themselves in China–all of this is legal. You pay Congress and it makes legal anything you want.

. . .

Corruption has come to be the purpose of government, and the Club battens on it.

. . .

Of course Trump also is a billionaire,but he is a turncoat, a class traitor, the Benedict Arnold of billionaires. He addresses the issues that the Insiders want to remain unaddressed. He is indeed dangerous. He threatens the endless (immensely profitable) wars, the endless (immensely profitable) shipping of American jobs to China, the endless (immensely profitable) importation of cheap Mexican labor. He threatens the sacred rice bowls.

It is why he must be stopped.

There's more at the link.  Go read the whole thing.  It's well worth your time.

As I've said several times before, I'm neither in favor of nor opposed to Mr. Trump as a Presidential candidate.  Some of what he's said sounds excellent.  Some things in his track record don't square with what he's currently saying, and I'm not sure whether that's political dissimulation or a genuine change of heart.  The jury's out on that.  Nevertheless, I think Fred Reed has put his finger on the pulse of precisely why the establishment - which, as I've pointed out earlier, is nothing more or less than the wealthy class in America - is so united in its opposition to him.

This is also going to be problematic if Mr. Trump is elected President.  What if the establishment - which has long since bought control of Congress and the Senate - ensures that his policy proposals are never enacted into law?  Will he do an Obama and try to rule by executive fiat, without legislation authorizing his measures?  Or will he respect the Constitution, but be forced into a public relations presidency, telling the American people what he would like to achieve but never being able to actually do so?  Your guess is as good as mine.

It would be very nice if the American people would 'throw the rascals out' and elect Congressional representatives and Senators who were genuinely committed to representing their constituents, rather than the establishment . . . but I suspect that would take a home-grown version of 1789 to achieve - and I don't want to endure the inevitable consequences of such an upheaval.

Peter

16 comments:

Topher_Henry said...

I'm kind of tired of this whining about how the system is rigged against Trump. Before the primaries this week, Trump had 37% of the vote and 45% of the delegates. If anything, the primary system is rigged to help the front runner, which is Trump. In Florida, he won 48% of the vote and got 100% of the delegates. In South Carolina, he won 34% of the vote and and got 100% of the delegates. It's not like he hasn't benefited from these rules. Agreed that the 'ruling class' on both sides of the aisle is corrupt. With such a large concentration of power at the Federal level where a small group of people have such a large amount of authority over the rest of the country, it's a recipe for disaster because it attracts people who are power hungry and it pays REALLY well. At some point our whole system is going to collapse under the economic strain of all this debt that is unsustainable. Those will be interesting times.

mark leigh said...

Trump bluffs well and is in it for himself not others, that I appreciate it lifts him well above the herd. He is however not a friend to the little guy and certainly not above using government force to enrich himself.

Glen Filthie said...

Fred Reed is an idiot - possibly from too many drugs during the 60's. Next week the malodourous old fart will be slagging Trump from the roof tops - assuming he hasn't already. He's one of those turd brains that figures slagging everyone else makes him a big shot.

But he is a good writer.

Gorges Smythe said...

You can usually gauge the truth of an opinion by the anger and self-righteousness of those railing against it.

Bob said...

"... and I don't want to endure the inevitable consequences of such an upheaval."

Oh my.... we are most likely going to have to endure it anyway.

Anonymous said...

Interesting essay. Some I agree with, some that is way out there...

I find the quote " . Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Explains a lot of our government. Unionism explains more.

The Israelis near control of us Middle East policy? Umm, no. Iran deal, Syria red line, Iraq withdrawal, Egypt debacle, Libya debacle, Turkey relations prove the statement wrong.

The incestrious ruling class that is ivy league educated has control of a lot of levers of power in the US. The leftist education system is doing so much damage. Plus the Mainstream media and entertainment industry. Plus the win at any cost of the sjw. The Frankfurt school that moved the class war of Marxism to one against culture.

Another anon


Michael Brazier said...

Reed's statement that Clinton would defeat Cruz or Kasich easily but could be beaten by Trump is perfectly wrong. In all head-to-head polls of Republican candidates against Democrats Trump loses by a landslide to the Democrat; he is consistently six or more percentage points behind Cruz, and has been from the start of the primary season. The only way for Trump to become President is if Clinton is actually indicted for exposing the US government's secrets between her nomination and the presidential election, so he wins by default.

Jess said...

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/trump_38_clinton_38

Dated today, tied at 38%.

Anonymous said...

This is delusional. Trump is not the only Republican who can win the general. He is the only Republican who can't.

Scott H said...

In regard to 1789 being nasty: was the adoption of the current Constitution that traumatic? My sense was that it was pretty much business as usual with the exception of the commerce clause which eliminated tariffs between the States. Now 1776 was a whole other situation.

Peter said...

@Scott H: Follow the link to see what happened in 1789.

Scott H said...

@Peter We have a missing link. From Wikipedia, the worst thing that I can see is the importation of a macaroni machine in 1789. Obviously I am missing something.

Peter said...

@Scott H: You may need to clear your browser cache. The link goes to the Wikipedia article about the French Revolution.

Scott H said...

@Peter Thanks. That's what being US centric gets me. And you are right, that kind of excitement we don't need.

Ender said...

It's a huge warning sign for me whenever anyone starts going off on the evil "corporations, Wall Street, the Israeli lobby". This is all standard Soviet doctrine and though the Soviet Union is long gone, it seems its pernicious propaganda will never die.

Mike said...

This is a brilliant case of someone on the right applying the same sort of hopium to their views on Trump that the leftists applied to Obama. The Trump that Fred seems to think exists and the actual Trump seem to have little in common.

Fred's Trump is an outsider, bravely bucking the establishment to go his own way. The real Trump is the quintessential insider, the elitist who has been pulling strings for years using his money to manipulate the crony capitalist system. He's been very open about donating money to all sides to gain influence and favor for his interests. I fail to see how being the one paying the bribes is somehow more noble or ethical than the one taking the bribes.

Fred's Trump is favored to win vs. Clinton when Cruz or Kasich would fail. Yet here in the real world, Cruz and Kasich consistently poll better vs. Clinton than Trump. Trump is either well behind Clinton or even with her in the best case. Trump is also hugely polarizing - most people that will back him are already backing him. He has little headroom to gain support from independents.

Fred's Trump poses a viable threat to illegal immigration, offshoring, etc. The real Trump uses all these things to his personal advantage while making public remarks about how terrible they are. He's either a liar or a hypocrite, neither of which are thrilling qualities.

I won't even bother with his insanity about the Israeli lobby.