What goes on in Donald Trump's head is not interesting -- nor is your opinion of the man. We have no idea what's in Trump's mind, any more than I know of yours or you of mine. We should abandon this 20th century style of history... in which a Hugh Trevor Roper presumes to tell us what Hitler or Churchill were thinking.
Trump's presidency exposed the wurst of the state and all the unspeakable parts that go into making it. The abiding image is the smirk in Congress of former FBI agent Peter Strzok who was given the job of co-ordinating the Russiagate hoax. Strzok brushed off questions as, metaphorically, he stroked his stalk in the public's face. Yes, his disdain was that crude and many celebrated his defiance. It is part of the story of these years.
Objectively Trump's presidency was a watershed. Historians and political analysts should seize upon this administration to expose how government really works (they'll claim they knew all along, and then consign the knowledge to the dustbin).
You can hate Trump (which politicians do you love?) but he served a valuable purpose. He showed us how government works in all our countries: the superiority of the bureaucrat, who conspires against the people, for the institutions' benefit as the corporations pull the strings.
As for the idea that bureaucrats seek to learn from business how to manage more efficiently, they had a businessman but they were not interested in learning anything from him. What bureaucrats mean by partnering with businesses has more to do with graft and a second job once they retire.
There seems little point in surmising what Trump could have, should have or intended to do. We know that he was obstructed at every step and that many officials justified their obstruction in the national interest. The very struggle between Trump and his officials tells us a lot about government.
It tells us about vested interests and institutional psychology, about the challenge that outsiders represent to the in-group. Such neutered academic language is insufficient, however, because we also saw bureaucrats lie and create fake dossiers, frame individuals and prosecute patsies, and put up 'whistleblowers' who were really just insubordinate. We saw Russiagate revealed as a hoax and the Ukraine-related impeachment exposed as a put-up job. We saw the FBI operate as secret police for the political elite against any attempt to investigate corruption.
Many won't accept my interpretation because another feature of these years is the politicization of the media, the corporate world, the bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies and even the military. This was an era in which there were not facts only activism and political outcomes. In this mindset to acknowledge one piece of information while downplaying another is to declare your allegiance. Thus your assessment of what is worth mentioning may be different to mine.
If we can agree this far, perhaps we can acknowledge that massive commercial interests manipulate the body politic: that bureaucrats as much as politicians are engaged in the business of war; and that in turn war is used to enter countries and grab resources, from energy to rare earth minerals; and that the most profitable activities are often not mentioned in polite society: the cultivation and pushing of drugs, licit and illicit; and sex trafficking and slavery.
We should be able to agree on something from the history of the past four years and debate it, before it becomes set in stone. Whatever your politics the partial and prejudicial view of the Corporatist Media does none of us favours. The hastening censorship of social media is even more cack-handed. One can hope it is short term but there are grounds to fear we are witnessing an upheaval as free speech is jettisoned for a consensus on truth.
The key takeaways from Donald Trump's administration:
- The Epstein scandal and cover up, which briefly exposed how sex trafficking is used to entrap and blackmail politicians.
- Epstein's liaison with investors like Bill Gates to finance scientists and the media.
- Evidence that the CIA worked with Epstein and Mossad against the national interest.
- The utter corruption of the judiciary. A president cannot get a hearing, let alone justice. Not even a ruling on something as important as a general election.
- The evolution of the military industrial complex into the pharma-military-tech-media complex.
- The power of the biggest industries: warfare, drugs licit and illicit, trafficking and slavery, and energy.
- The rebirth of the Corporatist State.
- Evidence that social media is an arm of the state for propaganda and surveillance.
- Corporatist Media's staggering uniformity in peddling the same line as military intelligence.
- The moment we realized that Chinese-style surveillance is in store for all of us.
- The subversion of sovereignty as Corporations go supra-national while milking government for subsidies and contracts.
- Corporations ceased paying tax, while demanding the right to set trans-national rules for their own benefit.
- The middle class shrinks further as wages continue to slide has they have since the 1970s.
- Confirmation that the USA is no democracy but an oligarchy (See Stanford study, 2014).
- The apotheosis of decades of DARPA and CIA research into public manipulation and control.
- Behavioral research and influence activities take a leading role in determining policy and outcomes.
- Cancel culture goes mainstream, epitomized by events at Evergreen State College
- CIA's subversion of feminism yields wave after wave of self-destructive criticism.
- Hollywood's American Made (2017) sanitizes Mena, The Glorias (2020) sanitizes Steinem.
- Facing transgender crisis, Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics postponed.
- For first time bankers question U.S. Dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.
- End of dollar hegemony means Americans would no longer enjoy superior living standards.
- Technocrats seize opportunity to reset monetary and economic system.
- World governments largely abandon Climate Change as a driver of policy.
- Climate Change replaced with Event Covid as impetus to reshape society.
- Unlike climate, Covid leads to demands for military intervention, more surveillance and medical martial law.
- Except for Las Vegas music festival soon after Trump took office, truly mass shootings were notable by their rarity. Media focus switched to supposed white supremacist parades.
- 2020 U.S. general election revealed systemic voting fraud, confirming research going back to the Carter administration.
- Censorship of individuals for "hate speech" became mass censorship as social media and big tech banned discussion of entire topics (election fraud) or any departure from the World Health Organization's official line on Covid.
- Amazon, Google and Apple shut down Twitter-rival Parler.
- Chinese trade marked the start of the administration. Chinese espionage and corruption emerged by the end.
- The Biden family were belatedly investigated by the FBI and DoJ over money received from Russia and China.
- Rep Eric Swalwell revealed to have been sleeping with a Chinese spy prior to pushing Russiagate and impeachment of President Trump. In fairness to Swalwell he was not the only one.
- China, Bidens and Russiagate revealed to be related to a cover-up of the Clintons' Uranium One scandal.
- Intel agencies delayed report on foreign interference by China, believing it would strengthen Trump's hand. Ombudsman says politicized intel agencies threaten the republic.
- The techniques of Color Revolution and Phoenix Program Fusion Doctrine came home to roost.
- As administration ends, Domestic Terrorism Bill poised to update Patriot Act definition of an action "dangerous to human life."
- Just as Event Covid is more ambitious than Climate Change, in terms of surveillance and control, so Domestic Terrorism will expand the ambitions of Gun Control.
Did I miss some positives?
It is remarkable that we can summarize so many aspects of a presidential administration as bullet points that the informed reader will recognize immediately, even if he or she doesn't agree with all of them. This underlines the historical importance of the last four years.
Trump's administration broke the two party paradigm forever. If you still believe in the party system after witnessing the RINOs (Republicans in name only) kissing Biden's ring or the cross-aisle collusion... what is there to say?
History will probably airbrush the fraudulent election from the picture. It's likely that the unashamedly partisan view of the media will set the tone for academic studies. We got to witness how the sausage is made, to paraphrase Bismark. I wonder what other history we imbibed with mother's milk that was thus contaminated at source?
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I wonder about what seems to me the founding arena of our entire Western world I e. WW2. The aftermath of that war marked the emergence of America onto the world stage as the new dominant empire. Every empire needs an ideology to mark it as “The Great Good". Simply to claim to be good will not suffice. It needs to be presented against some “Great Evil”.
Communism fulfilled this role ....eventually. But in the immediate post war years, America was partitioning the world in agreement with the Soviet Union and it would not have been tactful to make the USSR the “Great Satan" at that point. So ...who to pick as the “fall guy"? The obvious answer was the recently defeated small nation of Germany. And Hitler and the Nazis were ideal representations of “Evil". They have served so to this day.
This is not to argue that the Nazis were good guys. Only that they have been so gleefully and so relentlessly portrayed as THE ULTIMATE EVIL that it is difficult if not impossible to try to get to some more objective assessment of them. And it's interesting to see the virtual blanking out of GG Preparata's “Conjuring Hitler” by the mainstream.