OF THE
TIMES
It's a sick thing that so many have been fooled that he was an outsider and somehow won the election by mistake. No, my friends, if you get to that point of the nomination, you are already vetted by the control system.Oh no, that can't be. He is draining the swamp, you know ...
There is a battle raging at the top: and ordinary people on the bottom suffer the consequences.An interesting point, worth some consideration, methinks.
Neoliberalism: This roughly translates as the incremental privatization of public assets, the internationalization of volatile money markets, the global circulation of labour to fill skills gaps and the favouring of finance over manufacturing and production. The political and economical effects are complicated. The middle class can survive, but it is weakened and has to work longer for stagnant wages. Children of the middle class have fewer life chances than their parents. The poor suffer most under economic neoliberalism. But the rich (those earning annual six-figures, or in the case of expensive cities like London, double that) typically do very well out of neoliberalism: they enjoy tax breaks, opportunities to invest in publicly-paid-for-services and reductions in the rights of their staff. Wealth is concentrated in fewer pockets. One of the results is voter disengagement. Under neoliberalism, whoever is in power we end up with the same results, so voters have few party loyalties.
Slow neoliberalism: One branch of the elite wants to continue pursuing global economic neoliberalism, but slowly. Advocates of slow neoliberalism favour status quo politics: left-wing governments moving to the centre; the formation of policy through supranational institutions, including the EU and multilateral investment deals and the World Trade Organization. They advocate their agenda by appealing to fear of change; that in the absence of familiarity, the far-left and far-right will take over.
Fast neoliberalism: Another sector of the elite thinks that the slow model is too slow. Call them Brexiteers and Trumpites, after the hedge funds that bankrolled Britain's vote to leave the EU and, of course, Donald Trump. They feel that supranational institutions-like the EU- are far too politicized and, as a result, slow the workings of neoliberalism by imposing regulations on financial institutions. Advocates of fast neoliberalism want to move ahead, despite a slow global recovery from the Crash of 2008. They advocate their agenda by quietly sponsoring far-right 'nationalists' (who are not really nationalists), like UKIP and Trump.
The ideological effects of neoliberalism on the general public are also complicated. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAAFTA 1994) is an example of a multilateral neoliberal economic policy. NAAFTA was signed by America, Canada, and Mexico. It guaranteed the rights of corporations, particularly American ones, over people. By the time China acceded to the World Trade Organization in 2001, the combined effects of Chinese steel and Mexican manufacturing resulted in mass lay-offs in US production factories in what analysts call the rustbelt (or Trumpland). But Mexicans fared no better. Millions of Mexican farmers undermined by US agricultural products imported under NAAFTA rules flocked to the USA. This led to anti-immigrant operations, like Bill Clinton's border wall. The successive Republican and Democratic parties continued these policies and attempted to expand them globally with the Trans-Pacific-Partnership; a NAAFTA-style deal concerning mostly East Asian countries.
Meanwhile at home, regulations were gradually eroded, laying the basis for the Financial Crisis, and tax-payer funded bailouts. The slow neoliberals felt that NAAFTA, TPP and meek economic regulations should be pursued. The fast neoliberals and general publics alike thought otherwise. Fast neoliberals wanted to dismantle TPP and NAAFTA because they fail to tackle hidden taxes on US corporations. They packaged this policy for domestic voters as their patriotic desire to want to bring business back to America: and Donald Trump was their main salesman. This political advert also tapped into the very real anger people felt about jobs being undermined; the trouble was, the angry constituents blamed the wrong targets; migrants and liberals. A similar pattern was repeated in France with far-right Marine Le Pen. Those of the far-left (which happens to be the majority of Americans and Europeans on most issues, from nationalization to universal healthcare to halting aggressive wars) simply couldn't get their candidates (Sanders in the US) elected because those candidates were working within the machinery of their centrist political institutions (the Democratic Party in the case of Sanders), who blocked them at every turn. As Trump said, he's so rich that he could simply use the Republican Party machine as a Trojan Horse.
So, where does fake news come in?
The so-called liberal establishment media (BBC, CNN, Guardian, New York Times et al.) tended to support the centrist status quo candidates and their positions (like Macron in France, whom they ridiculously painted as an 'outsider', the remain camp in the UK's EU referendum, Clinton in the US, etc). The slow neoliberals were happy with this position, the fast neoliberals were not. Men (and most of them were men) including hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, PayPal-founding billionaire Peter Thiel and virtual reality entrepreneur near-billionaire Palmer Luckey weaponized social media as a way of whipping up support for Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK by influencing sites like Reddit and creating sites like Breitbart News, which had the effect of spreading Islamophobic, xenophobic and misogynistic views in support of Trump and Le Pen in France.
Both the slow neoliberals and their status quo media feel threatened by the fast neoliberals and their rebellious media. In the ensuing battle , both have lobbed the charge that the other is 'fake news'. Both sides have cited multiple cases of fakery against the other; and often the charges are true.
But ordinary people are stuck in the middle of this. They continue to get spoon-fed status quo propaganda by the slow neoliberals about social issues, the economy and foreign policy by the status quo media. But they also get sucked into manufactured controversies (like the Obama 'birther' story) by the fast neoliberal libertarian alternative media. In the digital haze are thousands of other sites containing news, analysis, truths and lies from a range of positions.
The Left throw a two-year tantrum over the wall, send manufactured caravans at the border like shame torpedoes in an attempt to swing the mid terms, dig in their heels to prevent any action toward anything even resembling wall-building, all of which backs Trump into a corner.
And the result?
He's on the verge of exercising the only option left; enacting a state of emergency to get the thing built, mobilizing the US military within the borders of the US. Ta Da! Martial Law is now in effect! -And the Libs are massively complicit. Amazing! Astonishing!
In this crazy wavy world with all this magical energy flying around, what you fear most and deep down believe you deserve to experience, is going to materialize in your life. -Oh, those self-hating Liberals, trying to project their darkest selves. Those flies always land back on you when you stop flailing around.
The 'secret' isn't that visualization works, it's that you don't control it; it controls you!