US Civil war or Revolution? — Putin’s heaven.
By: Mitch Inoz
Tags: Trump, Economy, Democrats, Putin

The narcissist and his victims — The $50 trillion steal from America’s suckers, you know…the workers.

President Donald Trump as he returns to the White House after posing for photographs in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) Source: TheNation

For Trump and the elite, it is better to set up 99% of the population against each other than to have the 99% revolts against the 1%

So the mad man, who has been latching onto any and all conspiracy theory, and adding a few of his own, (the ‘stolen election’, based on nothing but the President’s wish, a brazen beauty), is on his way out. The Grand Old (White, as conservatives like to keep traditions) Party waits until their authoritarian cult-leader has burned-down as much of US democracy as he can, whilst simultaneously pretending to protect it. His followers believe both: Trump protects democracy and destruction of the democratic institutions is the right thing to do.

A narcissist can get his victims to act against their own interests.

This acceptance of contradictory statements is an important characteristic of the relationship between the narcissist and their victims. The narcissist makes one claim and also claims the opposite in the same sentence, or he acts in direct contrast to the claim they just made. This results in cognitive dissonance in the mind of the victim who will justify both contradictory claims. They cannot align the love they feel for their leader with his claims and actions, so, discombobulated as they are, they double down on the love for their leader and justify his behavior: “You don’t understand. He does this out of love for me”. As a result, the victims let go of logic to the point of denying evil when they see it. They lose all mental control over themselves. They have become cannon fodder for their narcissistic leader. Cults function this way. And Churches. And Terrorism. And the Republican party under Trump.

The President and some of his 2nd level cult-representatives mocked mask-wearers during the pandemic; Trump calling their responsible behavior ‘politically correct’, to much laughter and disdain from his audiences who only want to hear what they want to hear. They don’t see the virus so they believe it doesn’t exist. If you believe that it does exist then you have to act on it. Rather not act on it? Just deny it. And here is a President who tells you that you are the clever one! Such a relief.

As such Trump is co-responsible for the deaths that have occurred as a result of his followers acting unaware of the risks they posed to themselves and others.

After having checked that his followers are happy to walk unprotected into a pandemic, risking their own lives and that of their families, Trump and his enablers are now asking that their followers be prepared to die for their country. It’s only a small, and logical step after you have already bought into virus-denial and denial of all responsibilities to yourself and your fellow man. Arizona GOP quotes Rambo: “This is what we do, who we are: Live for nothing, or die for something.” (Forbes). It is the same call to arms of Al-Qaeda.

Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kelli Ward, with husband Michael Ward and other family members by her side, concedes the primary in a speech to supporters at an election night event on August 28, 2018, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Source: Forbes — Getty Images

It’s apt. Trump-voters feel empty and angry. They love their Leader. He is the only way out of their desperate situation. It should be noted here that many in the US are indeed in a desperate situation as the buying-power of their pay-packets has been diminishing over the past 45 years whilst that of the top 1% has been increasing exponentially. Trump appears to give them a simple way out. He asks them to sacrifice themselves for their country. He is giving them a mission. They can now die believing that they are heroes. They are too exhausted to see that the 1% is setting up the 48% to pick up their guns and fight the other 51%.

American against American. Putin is in heaven.

If you have been working hard over the past decades and you have seen the increased GDP go to the elite year after year, whilst you earn less and less and the cost of living keeps increasing, you become frustrated and desperate. It doesn’t help if you do not have the ability to look at the complexity of the powers of government, the workings of the economy, and of societal change. Even the brightest and richest among us don’t have the time or capacity to get our head around these complex forces. We trust the democratic institutions. The checks and balances. Until we get so angry that we don’t. We project the cause of our dire situation onto others. And as we will see in this article: so we should.

The only thing is that those angry enough to pick up their guns believe that their enemy is the other 50%. Instead, it is the 1%. It has always been the 1%. The 1% is the enemy of the People.

Fight the enemy! Finally a cause out of my daily misery.

A Rambo quote and slogans like “America First”, “Clean Coal Jobs”, “Covid is not a problem”, “Democrats want to steal your Freedom”, are a good outlet for the frustrations accumulated over the last half-century for almost 50% of Americans. Maybe it feels good for more than 50%, but a faction is educated and intelligent enough to understand that these simple slogans do not provide structural solutions. These slogans do the opposite. They deflect from the real problems. To many Americans divisive slogans give a feeling of relief: it’s not my fault; it’s Mexicans, Jews, Black people, Democrats. We point the finger to others. Our Leader shows us whom to blame. No more abstract stuff. Just more money. It’s simple after all. “Mexicans are rapists”. Away with Democrats and their abstract shit that never results in a dollar more in our pay-packets. At least Republicans have changed under Trump. “Trump may not always be right, but he says it like it is”. “Trump no longer make deals with the elite because he doesn’t need to, he’s a billionaire after all”.

The reality is that there is no need for politicians to make deals with the elite: the government is the elite.

“Long live the elite!”, shout the Trump supporters. Only they don’t know it. At the same time that Trump c.s. are helping themselves and the others in the top 1% to even more money and more power, Trump supporters are now so vested in their beliefs that they must ignore that this is happening at the expense of the 99% to which they belong. Trump supporters must ignore this, or there would be no hope for them left. When they do admit it, they must justify it: “That is the American Dream. That’s what makes America great! We have the most Billionaires in the world!” Also, they cannot simply negate the feelings of love they have vested into their President.

Like bin Laden, Trump and his vasals are creating a willful army of suicidal fighters. They make their vasals believe that it is better to die for their beliefs than to identify and face the real problems.

Admitting reality, that life for the unprivileged can be shit, that they have been taken for a ride by the privileged elite and that their Leader, Trump, is the champion of this elite, it is too much, too hard to admit!

If desperate and without hope, then dying for a cause sounds good. Dying a hero. Romantic. You see yourself as a hero, a winner. Better than living and dying a loser (conveniently forgetting that Trump will call you a loser afterwards anyway). The cause is the solution. The cause is fighting the enemy. The enemy is those who do not love the Leader. Allah Akbar!

You can hardly blame the elite.

The people who vote for such simple ‘solutions’ deserve what is coming to them.

This is how the elite justifies misleading their followers. Followers = suckers. Trump’s followers believe this wholeheartedly. The irony escapes them.

People with money and power, who also view the world through a binary lens, see the ones with money and power as winners, and the rest, especially followers, as losers. It’s no surprise that Trump calls soldiers, who died for their country, ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ (The Guardian). Winners send people into battle but do not take any risk themselves. Trump will send his followers onto the barricades, but he will be on the golf course. Why would they fight? They have no reason and nothing to gain by fighting themselves. Again: winners stay away from the battlefield. The battlefield is for suckers. Anyone surprised that Trump calls former Presidential candidate and Republican senator McCain a ‘dummy’ for being captured by the Viet-Cong, and adding “I don’t like losers”.

Trump himself obviously never served in the military and got out of the draft because of hypothetical ‘bone spurs’ that were added to his medical record after his previous medical didn’t put him at the bottom of the draft-list (Politifact). Trump: a draft dodger who regards fallen and captured soldiers as losers, suckers, and dummies. That’s the man representing the true Republican spirit.

His followers and his Republicans let go of their tradition of honoring the military, instead they revere the draft-dodger. They love him. They depend on him. The Republican party used to view senator McCain as a war hero, but they did not defend his reputation against a draft dodger’s cheap, underhanded attacks. Republicans needed Trump’s base as a platform for the elite to seize more power and the time was ripe for an extremist authoritarian to undo American democracy in favor of the 1%. Without Trump, the Republican base was crumbling even faster than that of the Democrats.

How could half of America let go of the things they stood for and applaud a vile, selfish, narcissistic if not psychopathic, man?

Glad, you asked.

It is true that American governments, Democrat and Republican, have conspired to direct the totality of the GDP-growth of the last 45 years to the top 1% (or more precisely: to the top 0.1%). A new report by RAND Corporation found that (see: Business Insider):

$2.5 trillion is redistributed from the bottom 90% of Americans to the wealthiest 1% of Americans every year.

The median college-educated American worker would have seen their annual pay double without this theft.

The Democratic party has continuously been shifting to the right since the early 1970s, as it distanced itself from the anti-war progressives, the hyppies, the anti-establishment protesters questioning capitalism, the very foundation of American Freedom (and justification for the existence of the ultra-rich). The Democratic Party became, in fact, a party that catered to the elite but kept throwing moral platitudes and high-brow rhetoric to the voters. The Clintons embodied this two-faced spirit of serving the elite whilst pretending to serve the 99%, like no other Democratic leaders. It is no accident that Hillary Clinton referred to the non-intellectual strugglers as ‘Deplorables’. She spoke her true feelings. The Bushes were, as Republicans used to be, much more upfront about their objective to serve the elite. Conservatives want to conserve the elite and the working class.

Professional politicians, and Trump is right on this, decided that truly representing the working class was less beneficial than leveraging their voting base to the elite. The Republicans have been more blatantly honest: “hey! we are here for the rich people!”, and they told the poor “you want the rich to be protected because you don’t want what you have to be taken away either!”. “That’s what socialists want: to take away what you have. Even your freedom to believe in the American Dream. Your dream of one day becoming rich should never be extinguished.” False hope to the people whilst consolidating the position of the elite. That’s conservatism if you strip away the rhetoric. After all: ‘conservative’, that doesn’t really shout: let us have a more equitable distribution of the wealth generated by the nation now, does it?.

The Democrats’ shift to the right meant that the Republicans could move even further to the right, to distinguish themselves. So far to the right as to endorse authoritarianism (“Maybe I stay longer than 8 years”), racism (“Mexican rapists”, “good people on both sides”), male chauvinism (“grab’m by the pussy”, and “Proud Boys stand by”), violence (“Free Michigan”, “Stop the Steal” rallies that said: “I am willing to give my life for this fight.”, see Forbes) and deceiving the American people by spreading lies to the point that many Americans believe that Covid is a hoax and that Democrats are evil Satanic cannibalistic pedophiles (“I don’t know much about QAnon but they support me and they are against pedophiles so that sounds good to me”).

Republican supporters repeat anything their leader says, justify it or think it is funny. Voters so desperately need something different from the previous decades of governmental deceit that they have put all their hopes into The One Who Is Not A Politician. They are prepared to accept anything he says as long as it is a radical break from the same-old-same-old politics. From “lock her up” and “Democrats are Satan-worshipping pedophile cannibals” to“if Trump loses, it is because the elections are rigged”, they will heed his call. At least it is not that same old abstract shit the Democrats push onto people only to increase taxes. All their leader needs to do is repeat the slogans for his followers to believe. The enemy is the Democrats and everything related to the establishment and politics, everything that is complex, everyone who tells you to do things you don’t want to do, everyone who thinks differently from you.

In the mean-time, Putin sees the US crumble and all he has to do is flood the social networks with outrageous conspiracies. They cannot be outrageous enough. Trump will fan the flames of discord by amplifying these conspiracies. People will clash. Politicians place their bets after social network analytics show them how many believe this or that conspiracy.

Al-Qaeda taught us that desperate people need to believe. The more desperate, the more they identify with their belief and the more outrageous their belief can be. 72 virgins forever? And they remain virgins after penetration? And what did those virgins do to be rewarded like that for eternity? For Americans, a simple: “die for your country”, will do just fine, even though your President will call you a sucker after you died. Their belief gives them a mission, and if you don’t have anything else, a mission will make you a hero. Well-educated people were led to believe that they needed to die for Allah. They flew planes into buildings. Now, hard-working Americans are happy to die from Covid-19 or in a civil-war against Democrats and the very institutions that make up America. They would do so, even knowingly, for the elite. At least they have a mission. No matter how misguided.

Republicans perceived that the lower-classes were disgruntled with politicians and with Democrats in particular. They saw politicians (even though they themselves were no different), lining their pockets by catering to the elite. They believed, not without cause, that America consisted of a rich and powerful elite that is well-educated and self-serving and that politicians and the Media were spreading false information. Democratic Presidents talked about complex issues and made arguments that most of the working class found difficult to follow, if not against their interests; arguments about a changing world-economy and about climate change for example. What’s in it for them? Fewer jobs and higher taxes. Higher taxes, anti-gun, pro-abortion, health-care for all, and equal rights for all is not what they, the white strugglers want to hear. And remember, the whole of the middle-class is now struggling, even those on an income of $150,000 have difficulty paying their bills. Even in their current privileged position, white strugglers feel they can hardly cope. Democrats ignored that blue-collar and middle-income Americans were working harder and more hours than ever, yet end up with less money in their pocket year after year. This whilst GDP had been growing year on year. The most pressing issue to many Americans was: “why is it more difficult year after year to make ends meet?”. Their attitude became: “piss-off with your stories about the economy and climate change and equal rights. Make sure that I have a well-paying job and lower my taxes! It is ME-time!”

Trump honed into this discontent and the working class’s inability to understand the complexities of the changing times. There is enough reason to doubt Trump’s own understanding of complex issues but that happens to play in his favor as it is easier to publicly espouse simple ideas that you already believe and spout them to your frustrated audience. It makes him come across as authentic.

Coal-plants are no longer as financially sustainable as they once were, but miners only see their jobs disappear, they don’t have an MBA to analyze the changing energy infrastructure, or to understand the economic analysis that comes to one simple conclusion: coal is shrinking as a major source of energy so jobs in this sector disappear. “Coal-mining stays” is all they want to hear. And Trump just says it. Democrats keep ‘educating’ an increasingly angry population who doesn’t want to be taught.

Republicans decided to use Al-Qaeda marketing to gain the souls of voters. Repetition = Truth. The word ‘Democrats’ is replaced with ‘Radical Left’. Anything against Trump is ‘Deep State’ or ‘Radical Left’. Allah Akbar!

Trump appeals to this audience with simple bumper-sticker messages such as: “America First!” and “Clean coal!”. It’s enough to win the strugglers’ vote. It doesn’t matter that the messages ignore the complexity of reality, nor that they are meaningless and do not deliver better outcomes for voters. The desperate vote is wishful thinking. A simple message that reflects their wishful thinking will get their vote. Hence: “Beautiful clean coal” and “America First” and “Democrats are the radical left”. Trump and his party decided to ignore reality and provide the American people with a clear enemy and with the slogans that they want to hear: “Build the Wall”, “Lock her up!”, “Democrats are pedophiles”. Anything will do. Repetition = Truth. Allah Akhbar!

Republicans have been talking to “deplorables” since talk-back radio was invented. Republicans simply amplify discontent.

In the meantime, Democrats kept believing that the American people are, by and large, intelligent, educated voters who understand complexity and arguments based on facts. This reflects the Democrats’ ivory tower. Trump’s campaign manager had done his research. The analytics showed that discontent due to continuous reduction of buying power didn’t exist just in the traditional deplorables’ red mid-west and southern states, but also in the richer blue states where higher earners like the ones earning say $150,000 were finding it harder and harder to pay their bills.

The Ivy League Democrats have lost their ways a long time ago and now have no idea how to talk to the poorer, less educated classes. Republicans (also Ivy League by the way) do: they don’t try to educate them, they just amplify their discontent.

They have been talking to, and with, the so-called ‘deplorables’ since radio was invented. Through the radical Republican mouthpieces of talk-back radio and, since 1996, Fox News, Republicans have been amplifying the discontent of taxi-drivers, plant-workers, meat-packers, and any other workers in low-intellect, physical industries. It provides their listeners and viewers with a channel to spout their frustrations, hear like-minded talk-show hosts not only agree with them but also fan the flames of anger and direct that anger to their political enemies. The Republicans channel frustration, fear and perceived unfairness even though the party represents only one thing: the interests of the elite. This base has increased with the discontent resulting from the great sub-prime recession when many well-educated middle-class professionals lost their jobs and became the well-educated deplorables. They never got back to where they were before 2008. They are frustrated too. Brad Parscale’s first Presidential campaign was able to hone into this broader, deeper and overall discontent with the political establishment. Even after Trump had shown all of his weaknesses and his campaign was less powerful than his first one led by Parscale, Trump support in the 2020 election increased from 52% to 55% under white males and from 30% to 35% under white women.

Who needs a Goebels when you have a President with Twitter and an angry audience who adores their Leader and doesn’t care about facts and reason?

People became exhausted because they had to work harder but ended up with less money in their pocket (see below). With less time and energy to understand the changing world and the difficulties confronting society, the bumper sticker messaging of the Republican party became the only messages that got through to these voters. “It is not your fault! It is the Radical Left!”. Repeat ad infinitum.

Republicans dominate the airwaves with their binary view of the world. Fox News, a channel dominated by extreme partisan hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity who have no compulsion to tell the truth, has become the main channel of influence for those too tired to listen to facts, analysis, debates and arguments. Sure CNN and MSNBC are biased, but they use fact and reason to make their arguments, and thus find no reception among angry voters. Fox News (exceptions like Chris Wallace aside) are happy to amplify discontent, feelings and unreasonable conspiracy theories to stay connected to their audience. On top of that they present simple, but fake and dangerous ‘solutions’, and I am not talking about shining UV-light inside your body here.

The Republican Party is the American Conservative Party. Conservatism, political doctrine that emphasizes the value of traditional institutions and practices.

“Conservatism is a preference for the historically inherited rather than the abstract and ideal.” (Britannica). What did we inherit? That’s right! An elite of 1% who owns more than the upper and middle-classes COMBINED! (Bloomberg)

The foundation of the conservative-values is based on the idea that ‘we must defend what we have (the traditional) and if there is to be change then it should be demonstrably practical (to be determined by the elite), implemented slowly and steadily whilst minimizing disruption to the status quo.’ In other words: the elite is to be kept safe and must grow richer and more powerful; the rest stays where they are or should retreat. As you were soldiers!

It looked like the Republican Party would lose the 2016 Election whilst voters were tiring of the political establishment. Voters were not enthused for either party. Hillary Clinton seemed to have the upper hand, and the Republican Party failed to find an inspiring representative.

In comes Donald Trump. A guy who presented himself as a successful businessman. The Republicans and the Democrats dismissed him believing that the American People would be far too clever to vote for a shambolic reality-star, who inherited a fortune from his father and then went bankrupt multiple times so all he had left was to rent-out his fathers’s name and join a reality television-show to lift his brand and ailing bank-account (again, the name he inherited from his father).

Republicans slowly came to understand that Trump’s lack of political background and his political incorrectness, resonated with the people tired of politics. No-one saw this coming, but it looks like he became President because of his ‘pussy-grabbing if you are famous’ statement, not despite of it.

Voters had lost faith not only in the political establishment but also in the other democratic institutions such as Education, Health, the News, the Law, Science, Civility and simple decorum. Insults instead of reasoned argument became the new normal. Trump would be a breath of fresh air who would fan all their anger and frustration and channel it against Democrats. We have reached the point where ‘if you have nothing positive to say about yourself just dump shit on your opponent’ has become a standard approach to politics. Democrats expected that the majority would not fall for it. They were wrong.

The conservative political establishment initially didn’t want him either. He doesn’t stand for ‘keeping dear what we have and minimal change’. Unlike the original conservatives, he doesn’t care about the establishment at all. He doesn’t care about institutions, rule of law, education, health, science, civility nor decorum. These are difficult subjects that require focus, intelligence and reasoning. None of these faculties have been apparent in Trump’s dealing with complex issues, e.g. “We have the best doctors” — then sidelines them because they don’t agree with him, or: “I am a successful businessman and I surround myself with the best people”— then either firing them or they are indicted, jailed and subsequently pardoned by him. And so there are countless other examples.

Trump cares about power. His power. Power should come with his name and with his alleged fortune. Not with reason, facts, intelligent argument and discussion.

The Republican Party understood that with him they could seize victory out of Clinton’s grasp if they doubled down on his divisive bumper-sticker messages. With an authoritarian right-wing President and the Senate in Republican control they could do damage to the democratic foundations that would hand more power and wealth to the top 1%. Even if that meant that they would burn down the traditional institutions that the GOP holds dear (in name only as has now become more than apparent). Republicans would have to destroy their own house. If with Trump they can strengthen their power on the Republican voter-base consisting of the disgruntled, the bikies, racists, ‘deplorables’, the uneducated, the religious and the ultra-wealthy, and also the educated strugglers, then Republicans would sign for it.

They had to gamble or they would have lost against Hillary Clinton. They won, even though they needed the American electoral college system, which favors Republicans (see: Newsweek), to overcome their popular vote-defeat.

Five times a president came into power without the majority of the popular vote, Five times a Republican. Twice the chosen Republican President had neither the majority of the popular vote nor the majority of the electoral vote. (History.com)

It is not surprising that, when the elite makes the rules, that the Republican party that represents the elite first and foremost, finds its way to the Presidency. Today the Conservative Party has become the Trump Party. The Republican voters want Trump, not the old Republican party. Voters want non-politicians. Hence the Conservatives had no choice but to give away the house with all the furniture. They now are the right-wing revolutionary corporate party of Trump and his elite that sees democracy as an obstacle to furthering their personal interests and the disgruntled voters as their tool to get rid of this obstacle.

Biden is not as bad as the mad-man. The Democrats keep their same-old-same-old rhetoric based on fact, reason, and progress, but will keep doing so hand-in-glove with the elite. The elite wouldn’t be the elite if they didn’t have great influence in both parties. Who do you think is financing both these parties? The Dems were not that different from the pre-Trump Republicans, except that the pre-Trump Republicans were much more open about it and catered to antique beliefs such as guns and pro-life and hetero-marriage and … serving elite interests. Republicans also sold corporate-deals and corporate tax-cuts as a feature to the American People whilst Democrats called it a bug that needed to be addressed (but then they never did address it when in power). Now the Republican Party is the tool for Trump’s personal interests even more than the elite.

If it’s good for Trump, then it is good for the elite and for the Republican Party and therefore it is good for the USA. Almost 50% of Americans agree.

Even if they have reservations about him, they hate the Democrats (the Radical Left as it exists now in their minds thanks to Presidential repetition) with such vigor that Trump could ask them to send him their hard-earned money so he can become richer and continue his fight against Democrats after having lost the election. Trump doesn’t concede so he can keep asking his followers, his believers, for more money to keep up the good fight. And he did just that (Reuters). He raised more than 200 Million in the month AFTER LOSING the election. That’s more than double what he raised i the month before the election. Brazen? That’s what Trump supporters like about him! Whilst they are extremely frustrated about not making enough money they send the little money they have to their billionaire leader. How’s that for cognitive dissonance?

Trump voters cognitive dissonance is the same as that of the victim of the narcissist. What he says must be right. He wouldn’t be so cruel and lie to us, we who love him. He loves us. If he asks for help we must help him. If we feel hurt by him, it must be because we do not understand how it is actually good for us.

The mad-man is obviously bad for America. We (but not his followers) can see that he is in it to win it, for himself. The job is to serve the American People, but Trump is in it for himself, not even as President, but for his own ego, and he shows it openly. In the eyes of his many followers, this is the very winner’s attitude that they admire. Fight and never give up. Even in a boxing ring, if you lose, then take your opponent out by shooting him. That’s not treachery! That’s winning! This is the new normal. It is the will of Christ for you to be rich, no matter the cost to others (hence Trump’s appeal to evangelicals). It’s the American Dream. We might say that it’s this attitude that got him into myriad bankruptcies, why he had to pay-off prostitutes, why he got impeached. We might say that he uses the tax-funded office of the Presidency to prop-up the revenues of his resorts, to spend more time and tax-money on his own golf-courses (instead of in cabinet-meetings to help combat the virus), and he even asks his voters for what are poorly disguised personal financial donations. Yet his followers justify it: “well if I were so rich and boss of the country, I would like to enjoy myself on the golfcourss instead of going to the office. Good on him!”.

President Trump bragged about grabbing women by the pussy which, as he pointed out, “you can get away with when you are famous”.

He dodged the draft and ridicules dead and captured soldiers, naming them losers and suckers. Then he asks the military to vote for him.

He told the American People that he was so successful in business because he surrounded himself with the best people and he promised he would do so in government, only to have to use his Presidential pardons to free his associates from jail after they have been convicted of criminal offences.

He told the Ukrainian President to dig -up dirt about his perceived nemesis if he wanted critical US military support against Russia and he got impeached.

He openly supports right-extremism (“Proud boys stand back and stand by”), whilst labeling anyone who disagrees with him as ‘Radical Left’ or ‘Dumb’.

He was a close friend of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and wishes Epstein’s indicted partner-in-crime, Gilaine Maxwell, all the best in her legal battle.

This person is supported by evangelicals, white men and women, Blacks, Latinos, the wealthy, and the poor.

How is it possible that people buy-in to this you ask? Again, I am glad you ask.

The People of the United States believe that there is something rotten in the US. They feel that they are being robbed. US GDP has been growing year over year for the past 50 years and they ask themselves: “Why am I not earning more? Why do I have to work twice as hard to make ends meet?. If the whole country is earning an increase of 3% year on year (GDP increase), then why does it feel that it is harder for me to pay for food, energy-bills, health-care, and rent?”

You are not earning more because the 1% have stolen 50 trillion dollars over the past 45 years. All the profits of the National GDP growth has ended up in the pockets of the elite. The Democrats and the Republicans are complicit to that robbery of the people. (RAND Corp)

It is this feeling of being robbed that has lead them to distrust poliics and the institutions such as News-channels, Science, Education, Healthcare, the Law. They are tired. They are desperate. They are disillusioned. They hate career-politicians. They want to tear it down.

Trump and Q-Anon question everything, espescially facts and reason. From the moon-landing, to the existence of viruses. There are no more facts. Facts are an illusion. Trump says: “Don’t believe what you see!”.

And it feels like it is harder to survive because it is harder to pay your bills. You earn less comparatively than 45 years ago and your money’s value is lower so you can buy less with it. But the top 1% of the nation has never been as rich as they are today.

The Trends in Incomes from 1975 to 2018 report by the RAND Corporation shows that this is truly the case. And before anyone starts, let me clarify for those who do not know RAND Corp.: you don’t get a much more right-leaning corporate think-tank than RAND Corporation. A think-tank that is as far to the right as is legally allowed: pro-corporations, pro-business, pro-profits (although it is a non-profit), pro-military, etc. Anyone still saying that this organization has a left-leaning, altruistic, empathetic, or any other such ‘socialist’ bias? Didn’t think so. Here is what the RAND organization reports:

We document the cumulative effect of four decades of income growth below the growth of per capita gross national income and estimate that aggregate income for the population below the 90th percentile over this time period would have been $2.5 trillion (67 percent) higher in 2018 had income growth since 1975 remained as equitable as it was in the first two post-War decades. From 1975 to 2018, the difference between the aggregate income for those below the 90th percentile and the equitable growth counterfactual totals $47 trillion. (Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 by Carter C. Price, Kathryn A. Edwards)

To put the above in a more digestible form, let me refer to the Business Insider report URL:

Their URL actually states the point clearly: “Wealthiest 1% has stolen $50 trillion […]”.

The RAND report says that the $50 trillion was stolen over the period from 1975 to 2018 (that is just the last year in the analysis, not an indication that after 2018 this problem has been addressed!). Thatcher-Reagan Neoliberalism anyone?

What does it actually mean that $50 trillion has been taken out of the pockets of the lower 99th percentile? Yes, you read that right. 99th-percentile! Only the top 1% benefited. They amassed all the wealth produced by the nation. No trickling down. Even the people making $150,000/year did not benefit. Let us forget about them, they are ok after all. What about the person earning around $50,000?

If the ultra-rich hadn’t rigged the system in their favor, your annual pay would be doubled — somewhere between $48,000 and $63,000 higher per year.(Goldstein, Business Insider)

If the top 1% hadn’t stolen the increases in National Income over the past 45 years, then those who are now earning $50,000/year would actually be earning $100,000 a year now. Those earning $70,000/year would be earning around $120,000, Those on $35,000/year would now be on $85,000. Not only that, but you would have earned about 10% more every year before 2018 too. Say that on average you would have earned $5,000/year more over this period. That is: $225,000 over 45 years! And this is too conservative, as the RAND publication says it is: $450,000 each of us has handed the top 10%!

So, not only would you be earning $50,000/year more now, you would have earned $450,000 more over the past 45 years. That’s a nice mortgage. Those people who told you that they worked hard to get rich lied to you. They want you to believe that if you work hard you would become rich too. You worked hard but you are not rich. They are rich and but didn’t work hard. Look at Trump. Did he have a headstart? How about Murdoch? The game is rigged. That $450,000 you worked for ended up in their pockets.

So yes my friend, there have been a few people pocketing your $450,000!

Thanks to the proliferation of trickle-down policies like tax cuts, wage suppression, and stock-market deregulation, 90% of all Americans are demonstrably worse off financially than they were 45 years ago. (Paul Constant, Business Insider, 19 September 2020)

What to do now that you know that you have been conned? You embraced the ‘trickle-down-economy’ hoax. The trickle-down-economy was sold to us as: ‘if we make the rich richer, then they will spend more, which creates more job opportunities and higher salaries’. We voted for this. You voted for Reagan (and Thatcher in the UK). We all, the 90%, paid the price of it ever since.

The rich believe that they are rich because they are better with money than you and me, that’s why they are rich and that’s why they should handle the money. And it’s just a side-effect that if they control the money flow, the money will end-up in their pockets. Oh dear me. We deserve to have lost those $450,000. It’s not like they didn’t tell us. Trickle-down economy of the top 10%. After 10 Mansions, 5 super-yachts, 20 luxury sports-cars, 4 personal trainers, 5 chefs and 100 staff they are not going to buy more stuff.

They buy shares in companies with their (your) extra cash, and as the companies become overvalued (say the NYSE passes 30,000) that part that has no productivity value goes to the CEO and the Board, who…that’s right…are in the top 10%. With the extra cash companies do stock buy-backs which increases stock-prices which increases the wealth of those holding the stock, which is the, you guessed it, the 10%. If you are in the top 10% you buy real-estate, you own energy companies, medical/pharmaceutical companies, communications companies. Stuff people need to survive. Then you combine forces and you tell governments that they have to be lenient with taxes and with money-flows because else they will take their business elsewhere. Governments acquiesce because they want the jobs. Without jobs, people create problems and do not vote for you. Companies siphon the profits, without paying taxes, to their owners, the shareholders. At the same time the salaries paid by the corporations don’t increase in line with rising prices and increasing taxes. That’s why you earn less and the extra money keeps flowing to the top 10%. To make things worse inflation ensures that every year your money loses 2-3% of its purchasing power. In 10 years you have lost a good 20% of purchasing power. The fact that those in government are also in the top 10%, if not the top 0.001%, ensures that not only do they have a requirement from a political perspective to keep the 10% happy because they finance their political campaigns, but they are all lining their pockets by keeping the system going. Remember that Conservatives like to keep things as they are. Politics is a great way to preach for your own parochy.

Trump made it clear to his voters: “I want people in my cabinet who have made a fortune!”. And he was truthful, even though many, like Betsy deVos didn’t make their fortune but inherited one fortune and married into another to consolidating into her billions.

Or Elaine Chao, who inherited from her mother and splits it with her husband, oh look! that happens to be Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell! The most powerful politician in Congress.

The others in his administration were also all born with a golden spoon and are intimitaly connected with the others in the elite Ivy League. Here’s the wealth in Trump’s cabinet (source: Forbes):

Besty deVos — secretary of education: Net worth — 2 Billion Wilburr Ross — secretary of commerce: Net worth — 600 million Steven Mnuchin — secretary of the treasury: Net worth — 400 million William Barr — general attorney: Net worth — 40 million Robert Lighthizer —US trade representative: Net worth — 25 million Ben Carson — secretary of housing & urban development: Net worth — 20 million Elaine Chao— secretary of transportation: Net worth — 20 million Alex Azar — secretary of health and human services: Net worth — 15 million

Voters, or as Trump privately refers to his base: suckers, believe that these rich people born with a silver spoon and marrying to consolidate capital for increased power, are the people looking out for the common people, the strugglers and the deplorables. The only thing they do is to faithfully execute the mandate their voters gave them: to make Billionnaires richer.

So what is the lesson from Al-Qaeda learned by the GOP?

Repeat the same vile stories about your opponent, tell them the worst stories you can imagine, the frustrated and the poor will be happy to finally have a cause. They will be happy to die for their leader. In the mean time line your pockets and make sure you enrich your powerful friends. That’s success. Allah akbar is for the desperate who need a cause to provide meaning to their hopeless lives.

In the mean time Putin has taken over the Middle-East, America is now an unreliable partner on the world-stage and Putin is starting to exploit his cybersecurity-attack 4 years in the making. It has been 4 beautiful Christmasses for Putin and the gifts of a weak, divided, insecure America will continue to deliver gifts to him for years to come. Certainly if Trump runs for the presidency again. Putin will be in Trump’s corner. Such an idiot comes by once in a milllenium, and the American People have made it all possible.

Putin is grateful to the American People.