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The Historic Magnitude of Trump’s Failure
Eric Zuesse
In order to understand the enormous magnitude of Trump’s failure (not merely of performance, but of his actual intentions), consider a poll by a top pollster, published on 18 November 2016, ten days after the U.S. Presidential election, and headlined “Support for Trump Fed by Near-Universal Frustration that Government Ignores the People”:
A remarkable nine-in-ten voters agreed that ‘Elected officials think more about the interests of their campaign donors than the common good of the people.’ …
This profound dissatisfaction with government has reached new heights in response to longstanding trend line questions. Asked whether government ‘is run for the benefit of all the people’ or is ‘pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves’ in the 1960s only a minority said that it was run by big interests. In recent years this number has risen to eight-in-ten. In the current study this leapt to an unprecedented 92 percent. …
“Trump effectively mirrored back to voters what they have been saying for years, that they feel like they are being ignored in a system dominated by special interests,” said PPC Director Steven Kull, who directed the survey. “That he said he was self-financing and was denounced by leaders in his own party, strengthened his claim that he was independent and capable of shaking up the system.”
Trump has stated, “We are fighting for every citizen that believes that government should serve the people, not the donors and not special interests.” And, “I am working for you.”
The full details from that stunning poll can be found here. If this isn’t a pre-revolutionary electorate being shown there, then what possibly could be?
Quotations are cited there from Trump when he was campaigning for the Presidency, such as:
We are fighting for every citizen that believes that
government should serve the people, not the donors
and not special interests.
The only special interest I am beholden to is the
American people.
I am self‐funding my campaign and therefore I will
not be controlled by the donors, special interest and
lobbyists who have corrupted our politics and
politicians for too long.
My pledge reads: “I’M WITH YOU –
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”
Aren’t you tired of arrogant leaders who look down
on you, instead of serving and protecting you?
Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the
people I have met all across this nation that have
been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.
But not only did he appoint to his Administration billionaires and Goldman Sachs people and champions of privatizing government and cutting programs for the public while boosting programs for the most wasteful and destructive of all federal departments — the aggression department (euphemized as the ‘Defense’ Department), which is the only federal department so deeply corrupt that no accountants can be found who will certify its financial records — but he acknowledges that ‘maybe’ burning of fossil-fuels is heating the planet, even while he as President boosts burning of fossil fuels and shrinks government support of development of safer alternative energy-forms (which also are the high-tech energy future that, with Presidents like this, will be led by other countries, not the United States).
In other words: He won the White House by saying he sides with the public against the aristocrats, but as President he strongly sides with the aristocrats against the public.
Impeaching him for the high crimes and misdemeanors that were involved with his having lied his way into the White House would be no solution, because he chose a Vice President who is as far-right as he is (and who would become President in his place), but blocking everything that Trump (or Pence) tries to ram through this far-right Congress might at least be effective as a holding-action until the entire elected personnel of this government, the White House and Congress, are replaced by new candidates who have only proven records (with complete tax-returns and speech-transcripts and emails) of courageous opposition (and that means losing some highly principled fights) against the billionaires who are destroying this country — the manipulators behind-the-scenes, in those “smoke-filled rooms” or otherwise. This would entail nearly a 100% House-cleaning. And Senate-cleaning. Perhaps a few people, such as Bernie Sanders (who has lost more than his share of gutsy fights), would be able to pass such stringent tests, but over 95% would certainly not.
Or, will the revolution instead be violent? How much angrier does the American public have to be in order for the revolution — peaceful or not — to occur? The answer to that question will determine whether it will be peaceful.
The American people are discovering the enemy, and it is their own government and the billionaires who are behind it passing around big bucks and abusing it in the name of “The People.”
Suckers no more, if it’s to be peaceful. But if, instead, the blind lead the sighted, it will be hell. In either case, clearly, the present course cannot be sustained much longer.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
The Historic Magnitude of Trump’s Failure was originally published on Washington's Blog
Source: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/03/historic-magnitude-trumps-failure.html
