This mainstream Republican repudiation of free trade, open borders and Neoconservatism on Fox News is an historical moment in American history:
Just listen to the attack on the neoconservatives here.
The fact that the neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz – the architect of the 2003 Iraq war – is probably voting for Hillary is one of those Orwellian moments when people should look from the faces of pigs to humans, and humans to pigs, and see no difference.
In another stunning development, it is reported that George H. W. Bush (Bush senior) will be voting for Hillary Clinton.
I don’t think enough people on the left understand the history of American conservatism. This is certainly my personal experience.
The worst elements of the George W. Bush administration were caused by the wing of the conservative movement called the Neoconservatives or “neocons.”
The older Neoconservatives gravitated from the Democratic party to the Republican party in the late 1970s, and under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were considered too extreme even by the militaristic Cold war warriors under Reagan.
In fact, in these years, the Neoconservatives were known in senior US policy circles as the “crazies” (I kid you not), as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern points out in the video below:
By the 2000s after 9/11, the “crazies” had taken control of US foreign policy. The 2003 war against Iraq was designed and driven by the Neoconservative wing of the administration of George W. Bush, and the Neoconservatives captured the support of Dick Cheney, and, through Cheney, George W. Bush himself. This illegal war was a catastrophe and the results can be seen in the Middle East today.
In the 2000s, the neoconservatives pushed a militant, almost neo-Trotskyist, neoliberalism that held that establishment of secular democracy by war in the Middle East would solve the West’s problems in that region. This policy has been a spectacular failure, again and again, whether in Iraq, Libya, and Syria – even when tried in a lesser form by Obama.
Even worse, this neocon-style foreign policy is gunning up a major – and totally unnecessary conflict – with Russia, and Hillary Clinton is on-board with this insanity.
And what about Trump? Once again the left is clueless and so stupid.
Trump has rejected the Neoconservatives, subjected them to the most incredible humiliation and even defeat, including arch-neocon Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard.
In one of those wonderfully comical moments of the campaign, Trump even took time out to bash that bloviating warmonger and neocon-sock puppet John McCain:
Trump has also repudiated the Neoconservative nation-building foreign policy, and seems to want cooperation with Russia. This is a very good thing indeed, but once again he seems to get no credit from the left.
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Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Monday, August 1, 2016
Trump the Keynesian causes Libertarian Heads to Explode
Right here. Except this libertarian idiot connects Keynesianism to Herbert Hoover, which demonstrates, if nothing else, how libertarians never seem to get anything right.
Apparently Trump did an interview recently where he said this:
If true, it would not be surprising, since in Chapter 12 of Trump’s book Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York, 2015), even if supposedly largely ghostwritten, we find passages praising infrastructure projects as a way to create jobs and even invoking the Keynesian multiplier and the positive effects of such infrastructure stimulus on private sector economic activity. “If we do what we have to do correctly,” we read, “we can create the biggest economic boom in this country since the New Deal when our vast infrastructure was first put into place.” There are hints that deficit-financed spending is envisaged as the way to pay for this.
I like what I’m hearing, Donald.
I’m on Twitter:
Lord Keynes @Lord_Keynes2
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Apparently Trump did an interview recently where he said this:
“Mr. Trump himself said in a telephone interview last week that he believed more borrowing and spending would help lift economic growth, a departure from traditional Republican economics.I can’t track this interview down, and would be interested to see what he actually said in full.
‘It’s called priming the pump,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘Sometimes you have to do that a little bit to get things going. We have no choice — otherwise, we are going to die on the vine.’”
Nelson D. Schwartz, “Clinton? Trump? Either Way, Count on Deficit Spending to Rise,” New York Times July 31, 2016.
If true, it would not be surprising, since in Chapter 12 of Trump’s book Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York, 2015), even if supposedly largely ghostwritten, we find passages praising infrastructure projects as a way to create jobs and even invoking the Keynesian multiplier and the positive effects of such infrastructure stimulus on private sector economic activity. “If we do what we have to do correctly,” we read, “we can create the biggest economic boom in this country since the New Deal when our vast infrastructure was first put into place.” There are hints that deficit-financed spending is envisaged as the way to pay for this.
I like what I’m hearing, Donald.
I’m on Twitter:
Lord Keynes @Lord_Keynes2
https://twitter.com/Lord_Keynes2
Friday, July 29, 2016
Look at that Filthy Commie
No, the one **on the left.**
Yes, this is the new propaganda line over at the Weekly Standard, Neocon Central.
Seriously, dudes, Neoconservatism is dead. Get over it.
Yes, this is the new propaganda line over at the Weekly Standard, Neocon Central.
Seriously, dudes, Neoconservatism is dead. Get over it.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Neocons Run Third Party Candidate: He Thinks US White Working Class Should Die
People well informed about the current US presidential election should know that the neoconservatives – America’s all-star team of warmongering foreign policy GOP elite – have had a massive falling out with Donald Trump (e.g., see here). That assault on the neocon and GOP elite is summed up by this amusing cartoon here.
The result of all this has been that now one neocon faction prefers to vote for Hillary, and the other faction led by neocon-in-chief William Kristol is supporting an alternative candidate to run against Trump.
Ol’ Bill has been doing the rounds of US talk shows for weeks now assuring the #NeverTrump party faithful that they will have a splendid candidate to vote for – even while driving pro-Trump conservatives insane with rage, as illustrated in this video:
People’s interest was piqued a few days ago by this tweet by Kristol.
Well, Kristol apparently has made his pick: some neocon hack and nobody called David A. French (ughh, change your profile photo, dude), who is yet to make a decision.
But it gets better than this. As we know, many GOP establishment conservatives and the neocons have been foaming at the mouth over Trump’s stunning victories and also enraged that his support seems to come from angry white working class voters who have been savaged by decades of their free trade neoliberalism.
A while ago the leading US conservative journal National Review published this atrocity of an article here, in which Kevin Williamson vents his spleen at America’s poor white working class and proclaimed his belief that the “truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die” (see more here).
Well, guess what? Old David French – possible neocon candidate for president – is in wholehearted agreement with Williamson’s view of the white working class, and said so in this stunning defence here.
Good luck with that run for president, David!!
Is this American neoconservatism in 2016? Really? Infected with a genocidal hatred of their own people?
The result of all this has been that now one neocon faction prefers to vote for Hillary, and the other faction led by neocon-in-chief William Kristol is supporting an alternative candidate to run against Trump.
Ol’ Bill has been doing the rounds of US talk shows for weeks now assuring the #NeverTrump party faithful that they will have a splendid candidate to vote for – even while driving pro-Trump conservatives insane with rage, as illustrated in this video:
People’s interest was piqued a few days ago by this tweet by Kristol.
Well, Kristol apparently has made his pick: some neocon hack and nobody called David A. French (ughh, change your profile photo, dude), who is yet to make a decision.
But it gets better than this. As we know, many GOP establishment conservatives and the neocons have been foaming at the mouth over Trump’s stunning victories and also enraged that his support seems to come from angry white working class voters who have been savaged by decades of their free trade neoliberalism.
A while ago the leading US conservative journal National Review published this atrocity of an article here, in which Kevin Williamson vents his spleen at America’s poor white working class and proclaimed his belief that the “truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die” (see more here).
Well, guess what? Old David French – possible neocon candidate for president – is in wholehearted agreement with Williamson’s view of the white working class, and said so in this stunning defence here.
Good luck with that run for president, David!!
Is this American neoconservatism in 2016? Really? Infected with a genocidal hatred of their own people?
What Happened to You, Donald?
Just watch this clip from his interview with Larry King in 1999:
Yes, you heard right. The man was for universal health care in America in 1999. He began as a moderate or liberal Republican (or what was sometimes called a “Rockefeller Republican”), different from the quasi-libertarian conservative Republicans.
If Trump wants to win over Bernie voters and actually do something no other US president has ever done, he ought to return to that issue, but framed in a way that does not alienate his Republican base.
But of course that would be too much like common sense, wouldn’t it.
Curiously, Trump has been attacked on this issue by US fiscal and anti-government conservatives, as in this dishonest anti-Trump add below:
But this is just dishonest, because Trump has long given up on advocating a universal system.
I also was somewhat impressed with his assessment of Trump here on Counterpunch. As the author says, if Trump were ever to become US president, his time in office could be the “century’s most profound anti-climax … marked by boring stuff like indecision, gridlock, contradictions and frustration. A ‘liberal’ Trump is boxed in by a conservative Congress, and a weird, ‘impulsive’ Trump is de-fanged by the Democrats.”
Watch the full interview to gauge Trump the man circa 1999. E.g., one of his terrible ideas is that you can run government like a business. Very bad idea.
Yes, you heard right. The man was for universal health care in America in 1999. He began as a moderate or liberal Republican (or what was sometimes called a “Rockefeller Republican”), different from the quasi-libertarian conservative Republicans.
If Trump wants to win over Bernie voters and actually do something no other US president has ever done, he ought to return to that issue, but framed in a way that does not alienate his Republican base.
But of course that would be too much like common sense, wouldn’t it.
Curiously, Trump has been attacked on this issue by US fiscal and anti-government conservatives, as in this dishonest anti-Trump add below:
But this is just dishonest, because Trump has long given up on advocating a universal system.
I also was somewhat impressed with his assessment of Trump here on Counterpunch. As the author says, if Trump were ever to become US president, his time in office could be the “century’s most profound anti-climax … marked by boring stuff like indecision, gridlock, contradictions and frustration. A ‘liberal’ Trump is boxed in by a conservative Congress, and a weird, ‘impulsive’ Trump is de-fanged by the Democrats.”
Watch the full interview to gauge Trump the man circa 1999. E.g., one of his terrible ideas is that you can run government like a business. Very bad idea.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Will Trump make a play for Bernie Voters?
Serious question in light of this:
Note well: the question is not whether Trump will actually do anything after he is elected to raise minimum wages (excuse me while I laugh… because I would be genuinely astonished if he did), but whether, once he’s the official Republican party candidate, he will be smart enough to make a play for all those angry Bernie Bros who hate Hillary, the Democratic establishment and neoliberalism by presenting himself as pro-working class and as anti-neoliberal – at the same time without making his Republican base angry.
He recently said he wants to turn the Republican party into a “workers’ party” (see here and here). Is this part of a long-term strategy?
Did he chicken out of the proposed Trump versus Bernie Sanders debate as part of this strategy?
So can he do it? Well, to do so will require that all those Bernie people need to, say, hear more of the “old” Donald Trump who was actually in favour of some kind of single payer health care system (yes, as he really was in the past).
Even as recently as last year, he was making noises about something that sounds suspiciously like much more government involvement in health care provision:
Note well: the question is not whether Trump will actually do anything after he is elected to raise minimum wages (excuse me while I laugh… because I would be genuinely astonished if he did), but whether, once he’s the official Republican party candidate, he will be smart enough to make a play for all those angry Bernie Bros who hate Hillary, the Democratic establishment and neoliberalism by presenting himself as pro-working class and as anti-neoliberal – at the same time without making his Republican base angry.
He recently said he wants to turn the Republican party into a “workers’ party” (see here and here). Is this part of a long-term strategy?
Did he chicken out of the proposed Trump versus Bernie Sanders debate as part of this strategy?
So can he do it? Well, to do so will require that all those Bernie people need to, say, hear more of the “old” Donald Trump who was actually in favour of some kind of single payer health care system (yes, as he really was in the past).
Even as recently as last year, he was making noises about something that sounds suspiciously like much more government involvement in health care provision:
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Trump the Right-Wing Keynesian on Infrastructure
At least in terms of public rhetoric as described here and here. It is difficult to see how he could do both this and cut taxes (a promise of his) without driving the US into deep, deep deficits.
We can also turn to Chapter 12 of Trump’s Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York, 2015). I am not sure how much weight one should attach to this supposedly ghostwritten book, which Trump signed off on. But for what it is worth we find the book praising infrastructure projects as a way to create jobs and even invoking the Keynesian multiplier and the positive effects of such infrastructure stimulus on private sector economic activity. “If we do what we have to do correctly,” we read, “we can create the biggest economic boom in this country since the New Deal when our vast infrastructure was first put into place.”
Although it gets cagey about how it is to be funded, we find it does admit that deficit-financed spending to some extent will have to be the method.
Naturally, hysterical libertarian blowhards are already up in arms. The Donald could be the Second Coming of FDR!
I already speculated here that Trump, if elected, could implement Reaganomics Mark II, with protectionism, large tax cuts, huge deficit spending, and presumably right-wing deregulation, just as Reagan did. There will probably also be a new labour market protectionism.
So all in all a mix of bad and good things.
But of course his rhetoric changes and is inconsistent, so we can’t really know.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Trump, Donald. 2015. Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again. Threshold Editions, New York, NY.
We can also turn to Chapter 12 of Trump’s Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York, 2015). I am not sure how much weight one should attach to this supposedly ghostwritten book, which Trump signed off on. But for what it is worth we find the book praising infrastructure projects as a way to create jobs and even invoking the Keynesian multiplier and the positive effects of such infrastructure stimulus on private sector economic activity. “If we do what we have to do correctly,” we read, “we can create the biggest economic boom in this country since the New Deal when our vast infrastructure was first put into place.”
Although it gets cagey about how it is to be funded, we find it does admit that deficit-financed spending to some extent will have to be the method.
Naturally, hysterical libertarian blowhards are already up in arms. The Donald could be the Second Coming of FDR!
I already speculated here that Trump, if elected, could implement Reaganomics Mark II, with protectionism, large tax cuts, huge deficit spending, and presumably right-wing deregulation, just as Reagan did. There will probably also be a new labour market protectionism.
So all in all a mix of bad and good things.
But of course his rhetoric changes and is inconsistent, so we can’t really know.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Trump, Donald. 2015. Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again. Threshold Editions, New York, NY.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Michael Lind on Trump
A really fine analysis here, with an excellent history of American neoconservatism:
He notes too that the left is also partly responsible for Trump. The mainstream Democratic left is also to blame because of its neoliberalism and even the Postmodernist and progressive left, with its rabid obsession with extreme identity politics and neglect of economics.
Parts of the cultural left have come to have an irrational and extreme hatred of men and the working class: especially white working class men, who are constantly slandered as racists, bigots, sexists and homophobes, etc. This is no way to win over the working class and create a viable political movement.
As painful as it is for many left-wing people to hear, I am afraid the left’s obsession with extreme identity politics, cultural relativism, pro-big business mass immigration policies, and hatred of free speech is wrong and increasingly toxic.
The left needs massive reform now, and certainly in the American context because it could be that a new kind of right-wing will step in and court the working class and lower-class people with an agenda more in line with their interests.
Michael Lind, “The Neocons Are Responsible for Trumpism,” The National Interest, March 7, 2016.Trumpism, at least in the rhetoric we hear from Trump, is a rejection of second wave “fusionist” neoconservatism and its foreign policy, and is a kind of protectionist statism and a rejection of aspects of neoliberalism.
He notes too that the left is also partly responsible for Trump. The mainstream Democratic left is also to blame because of its neoliberalism and even the Postmodernist and progressive left, with its rabid obsession with extreme identity politics and neglect of economics.
Parts of the cultural left have come to have an irrational and extreme hatred of men and the working class: especially white working class men, who are constantly slandered as racists, bigots, sexists and homophobes, etc. This is no way to win over the working class and create a viable political movement.
As painful as it is for many left-wing people to hear, I am afraid the left’s obsession with extreme identity politics, cultural relativism, pro-big business mass immigration policies, and hatred of free speech is wrong and increasingly toxic.
The left needs massive reform now, and certainly in the American context because it could be that a new kind of right-wing will step in and court the working class and lower-class people with an agenda more in line with their interests.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Neocons declare War on… Trump!
Details here. People on the left: take careful note of this. Many neoconservatives may even desert the GOP for Hillary Clinton.
Trump also caused hysterical outrage by the mere suggestion that maybe – just maybe – when running for US president he should display “neutrality” on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And now the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) – an organisation of neoconservatives and US evangelical Christians who think their ticket to heaven depends on Israel inciting a Third World war in the Middle east – are running this ad against Trump below.
I mean: just look at this ad.
Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi are long dead. Putin isn’t the new Hitler, and it is perfectly clear that as bad as Bashar al-Assad is (and he is brutal and bad) any likely alternative to him such as a rebel government in Syria would probably result in a genocide in that country.
I’ll just add: it doesn’t even matter to the neocons that, if and when Trump gets into office, I imagine he will be as militantly pro-Israel as any of the current Republican front runners, and maybe even more so.
Update
An amusing video on this very issue from Democracy Now, with an interview with Zaid Jilani, who points to the important difference between (1) old-fashioned Republican realists (e.g., like James Baker) and (2) the war-crazed neocons.
I also notice that Trump seems to attract some of the more crazed Alex-Jones style conspiracy theorists on the US right, because over at the Alex Jones YouTube Channel they seem to love Trump.
Update 2: Michael Hayden on Trump
In the video below. Very interesting. Michael Hayden was director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009. People forget there are real limits even to the power of US president.
Trump also caused hysterical outrage by the mere suggestion that maybe – just maybe – when running for US president he should display “neutrality” on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And now the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) – an organisation of neoconservatives and US evangelical Christians who think their ticket to heaven depends on Israel inciting a Third World war in the Middle east – are running this ad against Trump below.
I mean: just look at this ad.
Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi are long dead. Putin isn’t the new Hitler, and it is perfectly clear that as bad as Bashar al-Assad is (and he is brutal and bad) any likely alternative to him such as a rebel government in Syria would probably result in a genocide in that country.
I’ll just add: it doesn’t even matter to the neocons that, if and when Trump gets into office, I imagine he will be as militantly pro-Israel as any of the current Republican front runners, and maybe even more so.
Update
An amusing video on this very issue from Democracy Now, with an interview with Zaid Jilani, who points to the important difference between (1) old-fashioned Republican realists (e.g., like James Baker) and (2) the war-crazed neocons.
I also notice that Trump seems to attract some of the more crazed Alex-Jones style conspiracy theorists on the US right, because over at the Alex Jones YouTube Channel they seem to love Trump.
Update 2: Michael Hayden on Trump
In the video below. Very interesting. Michael Hayden was director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009. People forget there are real limits even to the power of US president.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Another Reason Why Trump is Popular
Just listen to his rhetoric in the video below.
In other words, Trump poses as a billionaire white knight who is now a kind of class traitor: nobody can buy him because he is too rich! But all the other guys are bought and sold by corporate America.
Trump is a Republican Bernie Sanders, and both are vehement anti-establishment candidates who claim they can’t be bought.
In other words, Trump poses as a billionaire white knight who is now a kind of class traitor: nobody can buy him because he is too rich! But all the other guys are bought and sold by corporate America.
Trump is a Republican Bernie Sanders, and both are vehement anti-establishment candidates who claim they can’t be bought.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
How is this Man a Popular Republican US Presidential Candidate?
We all know that Donald Trump has said some extreme and hateful things, but here he is in the videos below condemning the 2003 invasion of Iraq (in the first), and also admitting that he was once a supporter of a single payer health care system in the US. It is unclear exactly what his current health care proposal is, but it would seem that he wants (1) universal access and (2) to provide a heavy dose of government funding for anyone who cannot afford private health care.
These things are strangely out of step with the mainstream Republican party positions on these issues. Or is it that the mainstream Republican party is out of step with ordinary Republican voters?
If you go to the comments sections of these videos on YouTube, you will find some American conservatives (and I assume Republicans) venting their spleen at Trump for his “socialism” and “Big Government” policies. Nevertheless, the man is doing very well indeed in the Republican primaries. How to explain this?
Also a man who openly praises Britain’s “socialist” NHS is a very odd Republican indeed (see the video below in his comments about Scotland).
On Syria, Trump stands out as calling for some kind of de facto support for Russia and not inciting World War 3 over Syria.
Unlike other Republicans, he is also openly scornful about current free trade agreements (even if he pays lip service to the concept of “free trade”) and raises the issue of the collapse of US manufacturing and the trade imbalance with China. On these issues, he weirdly similar to Bernie Sanders.
Finally, I think I can understand why some Republicans love Trump: even with the loud-mouth talk on foreign policy (typical of other Republicans), he is the only fresh thing on the menu (if you can excuse that metaphor). He is a vehemently anti-establishment Republican and an economic nationalist, and this is very appealing.
I regret, however, Republicans might be disappointed with Trump. If Trump becomes president, what will his economic policy look like? Trump’s plan to cut taxes (heavily for the rich) but severely slash government spending will crash the US economy and possibly drive it into a deep depression. However, perhaps Trump is much smarter than this. Perhaps when he gets into office he will be the new Ronald Reagan: that is, he will cut taxes and increase government spending big time, driving the US into deep deficits. That will stimulate the economy, and make him a Keynesian big spender like Reagan, but such policies will cause the US government debt to continue to grow.
P.S. before I get idiots in the comments section this is in no sense an endorsement of Trump.
These things are strangely out of step with the mainstream Republican party positions on these issues. Or is it that the mainstream Republican party is out of step with ordinary Republican voters?
If you go to the comments sections of these videos on YouTube, you will find some American conservatives (and I assume Republicans) venting their spleen at Trump for his “socialism” and “Big Government” policies. Nevertheless, the man is doing very well indeed in the Republican primaries. How to explain this?
Also a man who openly praises Britain’s “socialist” NHS is a very odd Republican indeed (see the video below in his comments about Scotland).
On Syria, Trump stands out as calling for some kind of de facto support for Russia and not inciting World War 3 over Syria.
Unlike other Republicans, he is also openly scornful about current free trade agreements (even if he pays lip service to the concept of “free trade”) and raises the issue of the collapse of US manufacturing and the trade imbalance with China. On these issues, he weirdly similar to Bernie Sanders.
Finally, I think I can understand why some Republicans love Trump: even with the loud-mouth talk on foreign policy (typical of other Republicans), he is the only fresh thing on the menu (if you can excuse that metaphor). He is a vehemently anti-establishment Republican and an economic nationalist, and this is very appealing.
I regret, however, Republicans might be disappointed with Trump. If Trump becomes president, what will his economic policy look like? Trump’s plan to cut taxes (heavily for the rich) but severely slash government spending will crash the US economy and possibly drive it into a deep depression. However, perhaps Trump is much smarter than this. Perhaps when he gets into office he will be the new Ronald Reagan: that is, he will cut taxes and increase government spending big time, driving the US into deep deficits. That will stimulate the economy, and make him a Keynesian big spender like Reagan, but such policies will cause the US government debt to continue to grow.
P.S. before I get idiots in the comments section this is in no sense an endorsement of Trump.
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