The Real News Network, April 2017
Paul Jay says the enablers of Trumpism are the leaders of both major parties and the corporate media.
Donald Trump is not an aberration. He’s the raw and naked face of an economic system that showers speculators with obscene riches and political power.
“I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.” That’s a quote attributed to Adolf Hitler. Donald Trump is not the only actor on the political stage who ascribes to such methods. The enablers of this surging far right “populism” are the leaders of both major political parties and the corporate media.
Whether it’s the charming smile of leading Democrats or the religious fervor and patriotic zeal of establishment Republicans, they both ensure super-profits for the superrich. According to an IPS report, the Forbes list of the top 400 American billionaires hold more wealth than the bottom 61% of the nation combined. In the years of the Obama administration, the top 1% of the population captured 95% of the post-recession increase in income. This is the legacy Hillary Clinton promised to continue.
For most people living conditions are more insecure and for many desperate. No wonder some turn to a snake oil salesman. The growth of such inequality, managed by the Democratic and Republican Party leadership, has facilitated conditions for the election of this dangerous caricature.
Corporate media focuses on the horse race. A contest they need to feed their treasuries with the more than 6 billion dollars they reap in political advertising. They talk about Trump’s temperament and showmanship as he surrounds himself with the dregs of the far political and religious right.
His VP and cabinet choices are war mongers and climate change deniers of the worst sort. He is poised to undo what’s left of the New Deal, and in spite of his promises to American workers, he will intensify their exploitation.
The liberal media mostly ignores the complicity of their own political heroes. Instead they feast on a morbid fascination with Trump’s outrageous racism and xenophobia. They make a furor about the alleged role of Russia in the release of emails, yet the more important issue here are the revelations about Clinton and her campaign.
The corporate media hide the underlying truth. The rise of such a dangerous farce to the White House is a sign of the deep decay of the system itself.
Capitalism has lost its dynamism. Too few people own far too much. More profits are generated from parasitical speculation than productive investment. The elites who revel on the deck of the Titanic have next to no interest in the well-being of the majority of people.
Trump’s major billionaire backer Robert Mercer made his fortune in high frequency stock trading, gaming the stock market using advanced algorithms and data analysis to create unprecedented profits.
Mercer’s daughter Rebecca helps run the Trump transition team, and key Trump advisors Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon both worked for Mercer.
Another major backer is Sheldon Adelson, who made his billions owning Las Vegas casinos. Adelson, a close ally of Israeli PM Netanyahu, reportedly gave Trump twenty-five million dollars.
From climate disaster to the destructive orgy of unrestrained finance, the billionaire class and their political minions are not even capable of dealing with threats to the very system that made them so wealthy. It’s the whole of humanity that will pay the price.
The ruling elites are dysfunctional. Their answer in times like these has always been war. They are not fit to rule. A critical piece of this rotting politics is the corporate news media that makes the rule of billionaires seem so reasonable, civilized, and inevitable.
TV news, the gatekeeper of mass consciousness, is necessary to the elite’s ability to maintain control. If we are to transform this country, we have to break the corporate monopoly on daily video news.
We need to speak to the real concerns of working people and focus on what real effective solutions look like. We must create a Global Climate Change Bureau. We need a global platform to discuss and debate what to do next.
In 2016, the movements for the Sanders campaign, to defend black lives and fight to save the planet, have challenged the politics of the powerful at an unprecedented scale.
If a broad front is built that can contest the elites’ control of the political process, it could usher in a new phase of struggle of the American people. As this fight develops, TRNN will be there.
