August 4, 2018
Trump`s American Betrayal @ Helsinski
By Arthur Kane Scott
President Trump’s behavior with Putin at Helsinki is indeed a “Faustian Bargain.”
But a “Faustian Bargain” that American itself made in the election of 2016. Nearly42% of voters stayed away from the polls.
Let`s look at those who supported Trump and why they were willing to sacrificedemocratic values for short- term gain.
Evangelicals, who despite their Christianity, sacrifice the Jesus message of love for keepingAmerican white &isolationist through an increasingly conservative Supreme Court.Nativism has become their god, and the wall their metaphor.
Wall Street/corporate minions, the 1 percenters, who got a tax reform bonanza of 21%. Theaverage American, on the other hand, still continue to receive nickels/dimes in wages which remain flat.The Millennials and Plurals likewise find it difficult to be economicallyproductive as they are burdened with a $1 trillion educational debt.
The Republican Party,traumatized by Trump, has lost its ethical mooring from the traditional values of the rule of law, globalism, free market, and American as the “indispensable beacon” of democracy in the world. It refuses to act as a check on an executive who misreads the office of the presidency and the democratic ethic.
Traditional women,intimated by modernity,seek safety in patriarchy, but in the bargain surrender control of their mind, body and spirit to an exploitive system of gender domination in which they always remaindependent on alpha men losing Roe-Wade in the bargain.
White nationalist, who feel culturally and economically by-passed, and who in their enthusiasm for‘Making American (themselves) Great Again” gravitated toward a politician who like themselves exhibits dangerous authoritarian proclivities and wish to return to the 1950`s Father Knows Best.
Those who knew better, but instead voted their pocketbook or their gender prejudice, or worsetheirapathy. This embraces large swath of Americans, the poor, college students, Muslim Americans, indigenous, Latinos/Mexicans, Asians, and of course, women of all sociological stripes.
Isolationist/jingoist drawn to the notion of “Fortress America” in which safety and security comes through Walls, anti-immigrant rhetoric, attacking NATO, conceding to Putin on the Crimea, eastern Ukraine, Syria, and in denying the unanimous conclusion of American intelligence that Putin through cyber warfare tilted the 2016 election in favor of Trump.
Rust Belt Americans, whose way of life collapsed as their industrial/manufacturing economies nosed dive before the juggernaut of globalism leading to a dramatic decline in coal, iron, steel, aluminum production, in standards of living, along with a corresponding explosion in unemployment, depression, opioids, and ghost towns.
Climate deniers, including petrol-chemicals, oil and auto companies, and of course, Trump enthusiasts.Many have known since the 1980s the dangers that carbon dioxide poses to the environment, and yet persistin the name of profit, anddespite the cries of Mother Earth to ignore all the warnings: melting polar caps, rising sea levels, temperature in the 100`s, horrific fires, torrential rains and floods.
An immigrant backlash consisting primarily of white Anglo-Saxon Americans (WASP)concern with theircultural and socio-economic lost. They have picked-up on Trump’s characterization of immigrants “as the barbarians at the gate,” who are primary druggies, cartel members, illegal, and brown, who have no business entering “Fortress America.” Demography is power. It is estimated that by 2050 more than half the population will be non-white. This shift already prevails in California.
Authoritarians and those of similar autocratic stripe, who dislike democracy with its free press, checks /balances, separation of power, “no one is above the law.” They endorse a pathology of lying, “fake news,” based on the ethic that winning by any means is justified. This pattern of lying unfortunately has become somewhat rampant in the culture making it difficult to hold America’s civil society together through a truthful dialogue based on fact.
Remember that the Trump victory in 2016 was won in the electoral college by only 80,000 votes in three `rust belt states’, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He lost thepopular vote, on the other hand,by 2.9 million votes making him the largest minority president in American history. This explainsTrump’s sensitivity over the Russian probe as it makes his electoral legitimacy even more questionable.
Others wereGeorge W. Bush who lost by 543,816 votes to Al Gore in the 2000 election; Benjamin Harrison who lost by 95,713 votes to Grover Cleveland in 1888; Rutherford Hayes who lost by 264,292 votes to Samuel J. Tilden in 1876; and John Quincy Adams who lost by 44,804 votes to Andrew Jackson in 1824.
As can be seen, the great task ahead is to vote in the mid-term 2018 election. The Trump followers at best represent only 40 percent of the Nation, and although they appear united the corrosive effect of Trump’s lying, womanizing, tweeting, and chaos and bromance with Putin seem to be undermining even their support.
More important, Trump’s incompetence is mobilizing the rest of us, especially women, Millennials/Plurals, Latinos/Blacks, and suburban middle-class whitesinto asignificant “Blue Wave” pointing to a Democratic recovery of the House. By taking back the House, the “Trumpian” authoritarian threat to American democracy will bechecked through a reinvigoratedDemocratic party that honors the constitution, respects the rule of law, and holds all its elected officials, most of all, the president, accountable to a higher standard of behavior embody by the likes of Washington, Lincoln and FDR.
Reinhold Niebuhr, philosopher and ethicist, said it best: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
Arthur Kane Scott is Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies at the Dominican University of California and Fellow of American Institute of International Studies.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
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