THE VERTICAL OF POWER: DEMOCRATS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE UP AGAINST

by: Professor Gilbert NMO Morris

@morrismedici

I care not who runs governments, nor do I care much for how they mutilate tradition to affect into being their particular ends; though I care for human value, and wherever instruments of power seek their adumbration, I oppose them.

In the bacchanalia, that has characterised the nascent Presidency of Mr. Donald Trump, the Democratic party - late to the game - has fanned out in marches, weeping at various turns, huddling in "safe spaces" to express their pains. This is precisely the self-indulgent formula that led to the Trump presidency; feckless whining and hyperbole without the slightest taking of responsibility for their political incompetence in having lost a winnable election.

Sloganeering is not strategy and name-calling is not action. And if the Democratic party is going to form a reasonably effective opposition, much less challenge or take Mr. Trump's power, they had better understand what they are up against.

The tragedy in power relations is in attempting to accommodate or get along with an opponent whose actual intent is your elimination.

President Donald Trump, Senator Jeff Session, General Flynn and Steve Bannon do not believe and are not guided by:

• The Declaration of Independence,
• The Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
• The Federalist Papers or
• The Writings of Thomas Paine.

Their central goal is the utter destruction or complete absorption of every institution in a "Vertical of Power". 

The Vertical of Power is best exhibited by and in Vladimir Putin's Russia: there Putin worked to aggregate and control (by aligning) the main national industry (oil) directly to political power.

Second, Mr Putin did the same with TV. You can have all the print media you like in Russia, but Putin controls Television, because television controls the audience.

There are three phases to Mr Trump's Vertical of Power:

I. First, to call Mr Trump a racist is to miss the point. Mr Trump uses racism and xenophobia mixed with nationalism because that guarantees him 30% of his supporters. He acts in their name and speaks their language which horrifies the rest of his tentative supporters and mortifies his opponents. For the balance of those who support him, Mr Trump uses fear and familiarity (saying I am like you), picking up on anxieties or deep beliefs they hold, so that they hold their noses and support him; which is why - for instance - he nominated Judge Gorsuch. Because his non-racist, deep believing supporters stomach his outrages in exchange for his support of their objectives. 

As Trump sees it, he can always win, because if he has all the racists and xenophobes (let us be honest about their presence), and those who fear America has been made weak and those who believe deeply (new suburban white women, nationalists, anti-abortionists etc), against the status quo, that is enough to continue winning.

ii. Mr Trump - it is reported - has already registered and raised nearly $10 million dollars for the 2020 elections. This first term is actually a campaign for the second. Mr Trump uses this to cower NOT democrats but Republicans; whom he delights as much in humiliating. He has refused to exit his businesses, and actually books government events at his properties, whilst praising his properties from the White House. As an unprepossessing vulgarian, he brings a cheering chorus to every official event and will now include in "his media" bloggers who always speak unthinkingly well of him. 

Poor whites who support Mr Trump will be the ones most disappointed by him, because he has put the country in the hands of those who actually destroyed their jobs - including himself - whilst directing their blame toward immigrants and the establishment; all of this whilst selling his supporters a stupid illusion by the bogus lie that "their jobs" were lost through trade agreements and will be returned to them.

This idea of "lost jobs" is based on that same stupid illusion (advanced by both President Obama and Mr. Romney), that there is still such a thing as the "US Economy" in a networked world, within which one is able to make nationalist decisions with any prospects of economic success.

If Mr. Trump insists on insulting Mexico and Australia, whilst rubbishing NATO, and the European Union, (which I would see die myself), the result should be clear to any first year economic student: Initially, the dollar will soar, the markets will go rosy, productivity would increase and interest rates would rise. But the US would be stuck with its US made products, which the dollar would prove to expensive to facilitate in trade, and worse, as a hedge, the world would make swift accommodations to off-set US lunacy, and the fall of the US economy would be precipitous and mighty.

iii. Yet, this 'stupid illusion' is the basis of the Vertical of Power. In its thrall, joyous in myopic xenophobia and ignorant of the world, it allows Mr Trump to attack US companies (which costs US jobs), attack allies (like Australia and Mexico), ruining important relationships, and so creating the very risks from which Trump says he wants to protect America as his supporter roar in satisfaction; as he tells his supporters, "all of this is for you". 

Democrats - wasting time marching up and down in the road, hollering hot tears, yakking on about their feelings and calling people names - are clueless about what they face in Trump and Bannon. If they fail to follow Trump he will demonise them as un-American, and when they follow him - out of some confused pretence at bipartisanship - he will force them - to stomach churning lengths - further than they expected to go.

Every time Democrats complain or ask 'how far will Trump go?' The answer is farther than you can imagine; as I said: the intent is to test the limits of every rule and to destroy the establishment. 

There is a self-defeating elasticity in Mr. Trump's approach that will frustrate the devil, and more so, the Democrats. When one has a hardcore of fanatic supporters for whom one has to do nothing but humiliate the establishment or speak in tones of a racist xenophobe, then tousle such language and sentiments in themes of nationalism; whilst leveraging the reasonableness of one's mainstream supporters, this wrong foots impassioned detractors, no matter how legitimate their claims. Therefore, each time Democrats waste time talking about how Trump makes them feel, they are playing into his hands. 

Added to the political quixotica above, Bannon believes that if you do a frenzy of things - at a breakneck pace - attacking every rule altogether, you destabilise your opponents, and that provides enjoyment for those supporters who feel that elites have excluded them, which permits the regime to do as they please.

This results in war as a tool of support - by stumping up conflicts that do not exist - convincing supporters - who are ready to believe they are more important than they have ever been, even to themselves - that the actions and words of some other country's leader is a direct insult to them. 

This approach cultivates a false reality at so many levels: Let's say Mr Trump's manufacture in America threat does not work - because it won't - and car sales fall, do you think it is beyond Mr Trump to force government agencies to order 100,000 cars to boost sale numbers? He would then say 'wow, look at how well we are doing!' And have his supporters praise him as a genius, and if you disapprove, he would accuse you of being an anti-American traitor.

All this, as his more reasonable supporters - because they benefit from this chaos financially - and certainly the Republicans, because they hold onto power, they will justify what they know is wrong, false or stupid out of insipidity, greed and fear.

This withall, is the character, terror and impact of the Vertical of Power.

#Trump #America #Putin #Democracy #Power #Verticalofpower #Democraticparty #Clinton #Obama #Racist #Xenophobic