Phillip Frazer
Trump’s been president for 45 days and there are now two powerful groups in the USA out to fire him.
Most obviously, there are The People: this includes the three-quarters of adult Americans who didn’t vote for him, and the growing number who did who are already having second thoughts. Among The People, women in particular are up in arms: millions have marched, refused to go to work, and more will be radicalised as the profound misogyny of Trump and his appointees unfolds.
Now, every modern US president has come to power supported by a few points more or less than 25 per cent of eligible voters, but Trump won fewer votes than any – and his opponents are more vehement about him than about any other president in living memory.
Outrage
The People’s disapproval and outrage will only deepen as Trump’s radical policies unfold, because most of his edicts will please small constituencies, such as arms manufacturers and people who are passionate about which toilet transgender people use, while displeasing larger groups like the 20 million who finally got health insurance under Obamacare and could soon be uninsured again, and residents of neighbourhoods that will be trashed when the Environmental Protection Agency is scuttled.
A very small group might also want to dump Trump – billionaires. He says he’s one himself, but a real estate shark invested in alleged entertainments, like fake wrestling, beauty pageants, golf courses, and casinos, is not a real, truly high-finance guy. A recent commentary on the ABC suggested that a collapse in the $10 trillion US bond market could inspire a trillionaires’ rebellion – however, the Constitution makes it extremely unlikely they could force the Twitterer-in-chief to quit or have him tossed out. (And Pence would be as big a nightmare.)
Huge tax cuts
In any case, manufacturing businesses are not ready to join a dump-Trump movement because he’s promising them huuuge tax cuts and a tsunami of taxpayers’ money for a trillion dollar ‘infrastructure plan’. This plan will be all about roads, bridges, and old-time power technology – no fast trains, no sustainable energy (though Elon Musk’s hoping for a piece of the pie). And it will be accompanied by what Trump’s Svengali, Stephen Bannon, calls ‘the destruction of the administrative state’, by which he means abolishing regulations and all forms of welfare or income redistribution.
Last week, Bannon himself announced that someone really is out to stop him and the President: it’s called The Deep State, and Bannon is in full fight mode to beat them back.
Deep State
Deep State is now the label the American far-right hang on anyone who opposes the Trump-Bannon agenda. Republican Rep Steve King just told the New York Times, ‘we are talking about the emergence of a Deep State led by Barack Obama, and we should prevent [it].’
This is an extraordinary claim – that Obama heads up a conspiracy of civil servants, intelligence agents, judges, and dog-catchers, united to thwart Trump-the-brave-leader.
Meanwhile, the response of America’s upper crust has been even more extraordinary. Every media outlet with even a toe in the mainstream agrees that this is paranoid right-wing madness – that the term ‘deep state’ only applies to states like Turkey or Egypt, where the conspirators kill and incite wars to get their way.
In 2014, a former Canadian diplomat named Peter Dale Scott released a book called The American Deep State, which he described as ‘a second order of government, behind the public or constitutional state… partly institutionalised in non-accountable intelligence agencies like the CIA and NSA, but it also includes private corporations like Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC, to which 70 per cent of [America’s] intelligence budgets are outsourced.’
Scott is not a right-wingnut, nor a left one. He is emphatically not a devotee of American Exceptionalism, which has a longstanding record of sending secret agents to assassinate people, and launching wars on false pretences to eliminate those who are opposed to American business or strategic interests.
Deep hate
Like most political labels, ‘Deep State’ means what the user wants it to mean.
Unfortunately, the deep truth here is that Trump and Bannon hate the Deep State because it’s not brutal enough; that’s why they rage against Clinton, the New York Times, Obama, and it’s also why Australia should do what Paul Keating said and stop tagging along with the new, more-brutal-than-ever, Exceptional State of America.
Phillip Frazer is trying to avoid a state of deep despair for the planet at www.coorabellridge.com.
President Donald Trump can fire off personnel and words like a revolver and has now been in office for 45 days. When Barack Obama was president the trigger group was the gun lobby but now there are two powerful pressure groups in the USA out to fire Donald Trump.
One, is the voters who are staunchly loyal to the opposing force of the Clinton family and Hillary Clinton. The Clintons had the numbers but could not convert those numbers to seats. Many women are among the numbers and the odd thing is they stood behind Bernie Sanders, and not Hillary Clinton so the Democrat’s disjointed campaigning fell apart once Bernie Sanders fell by the wayside and that added to the swing to Donald Trump. The election was very much a Brexit re-hash event where Hillary Clinton would have won right up to the 11th hour. And that is the grieving that is going on in that they have the “they was robbed” syndrome.
Another group who wants Donald to fail are many billionaires as taxation of big businessmen and high rollers is a big problem in the US. This week Donald Trump’s 2005 tax return was obtained and revealed not only to the media but the media knowing that publication was illegal, they published the figures. These two volatile pressure groups are breathing fire and animosity across the vastness of the US even when democracy was served fairly and honestly to the American people. The Barrack Obama camp were the good guys for eight years under the embattled Barack Obama, but now that he is gone the good guys and bad guys are becoming indistinguishable.
How does this critique look now Len? Trump has been in office almost 3 yrs….the US economy is breaking records….unemployment is down/jobs are up (especially for blacks and Hispanics)….Trumps approval rating is above all of those who would run against him (& now stands nationally at 51%)….factories and big business are returning at a great rate….illegals and sex offender/trafficking apprehensions & convictions are at an all time high. Still ‘Orange Man Bad?’ Like Mr Frazer does your TDS still blind you to the positives? Love him or hate him president Trump is having a positive impact worldwide and, I believe will continue to do so after his landslide win in next year.
They’re on Cloud Cuckooland if they think the Donald is going to be deposed lightly. He can still call out the National Guard if there’s any sign of violence anong his detractors.