Jul 162019
 
 July 16, 2019  Posted by at 8:19 pm Primers Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Gustave Moreau Orpheus at the Tomb of Eurydice 1891

 

“Don’t Take The Bait”, said 4 young congresswomen yesterday in a press conference in Washington DC. They were referring to comments Donald Trump had made about them earlier. However, just the simple act of calling the press conference meant they were … taking the bait.

Yes, Trump was out of line, way out of left field territory out of line. But he did that on purpose, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, were voluntarily following him into that same left field.

I’ve been saying for over 3 years now that the role of Trump is to expose the -inherent and longtime- failures of the US political system. But when I see things like that press-op, how can I possibly think the system has learned anything at all?

If Trump’s role is to reveal the failures of the system, and that same system turns around and blames Donald Trump for all of those failures, how are we ever supposed to take the next step out of here?

 

Trump has been especially vicious against the 4 women, and it’s simply not enough to put that down to his racism or anything like that. There’s something else going on; how obvious would you like it?

What is happening here is not Trump pandering or virtue-signalling to his base -that’s just an added feature. The reality is that Trump, in say (re-)election mode, sees a divide within the Democratic party, drives a wedge into that divide, and twists it.

His strong if not vicious attacks on the 4 women are aimed straight at Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, plus all the rest of the centrist Dems. Trump is calling them out. So they will have to either end up supporting AOC and co, or they will not.

If they don’t the Dems are seriously split. They might have been anyway, but Trump makes it impossible for them to keep hiding that. He forces Pelosi et al to either stand behind AOC et al, or to leave her alone, as Nancy was sort of trying to do last week by saying (paraphrased) that “they are just four women”.

And then these girls take the bait to the extent that they call a press conference, which gets tons of attention, but not because they are so newsworthy, as I’m sure they believe, but because Trump is, as anything Trump still is.

It is Pelosi’s worst nightmare. The most vocal members of her party are the furthest removed from the picture she wants to present of the party. But she has to deal with it, with them. She talks about unity all the time, and for good reason.

And Pelosi is smart enough to understand what Trump is doing. She sees the big divide within the Dems and she sees how the divide could make her party lose in 2020. And she sees how Trump uses that.

 

But what can she do? Tell AOC to shut up for the good of Joe Biden’s chances? The last big shot the Dems have at redemption is next week’s 5 hour Mueller hearing on Capitol Hill. And if that doesn’t work out, where are they going to go? Is it perhaps not the greatest idea to keep people with such different ideas in one party?

Bernie Sanders wants Medicare for all, as allegedly do AOC and Elizabeth Warren. AOC wants a Green New Deal, whatever shape that may take, and so on and so on. But if they ever agree on one candidate to run against Trump in 2020, will this person (m/f) run on that platform too?

Or will they go for a center kind of like candidate who’s totally out of line with the four women Trump is aggressively railing against, who thinks US healthcare only needs to be tweaked in minor fashion, Biden-style?!

By now, it’s all good by Trump, because he understands how divided the Dems are, and he’s had time to prepare for using that division.

And he also understands that the main thing the Dems are going to run on, because they have nothing else, is that they are not Donald Trump. They’re not going to agree on Medicare for All or absolving all student debt or any grand plans like that, because they’re too divided to do it.

What unites them is Donald Trump. And then he has them where he wants them.

Please note this is not what I prefer, I think America needs a strong Democratic Party, or perhaps by now more than two parties. It’s just that I think -as I have since 2016- that Trump is the ultimate challenge to the US political sytem, and the system is failing miserably in its response.

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Don’t Take The Bait

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  • #48587

    Gustave Moreau Orpheus at the Tomb of Eurydice 1891   “Don’t Take The Bait”, said 4 young congresswomen yesterday in a press conference in Washin
    [See the full post at: Don’t Take The Bait]

    #48588

    Yeah, screw me, I’m now saying the same thing Pat Buchanan says, as in almost literally. Really proud of that.

    Trump Fuels a Tribal War in Nancy’s House

    Trump is driving a wedge right through the Democratic Party, between its moderate and militant wings. With his attacks over the last 48 hours, Trump has signaled whom he prefers as his opponent in 2020. It is not Biden; it is “the Squad.”

    Sunday, Pelosi recited again her mantra, “Diversity is our strength; unity is our power.” It sounded less like a proclamation than a plea. We see the diversity. Where is the unity?

    Oh, but, I think Trump prefers Biden as his opponent. So there I differ from Buchanan.

    #48589
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    I’m just cynical enough to think it just doesn’t matter anylonger.
    Whomever wins, loses to the deep state; and ultimately do their bidding.
    This ship of state is too big to turn…

    #48592
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    Pelosi’s problem is that “The Squad” has not yet been bought off by the monied interests. Worse yet, they are tuned into the populist zeitgeist which would have easily put Bernie Sanders in the White House in 2016 if not for all the deep state, media, and DNC chicanery.

    Now, that last thing that the monied interests want is for the old guard of the Dems to give in to this new populist energy. Since both parties are owned lock, stock, and barrel by these same interests, it doesn’t matter to them who is in office as long as they stick to the status quo script, and smother populism in its crib, which is exactly what Pelosi and Schumer are trying to do to these four newbie representatives.

    This current division within the Democratic Party is only a holographic snippet of the revolutionary tension that is currently sweeping across much of the western world –Trump, Brexit, and the Yellow Vests all being fueled by the same sources of discontent.

    #48593
    zerosum
    Participant

    The political systems that we knew is not coming back.
    70% of the population is very busy trying to tread water. They are not reading TAE or paying attention.
    The ship is sinking. Water is rising around them. Until the people get a mouthful of water they won’t believe it.

    #48594
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    The political systems that we knew is not coming back.
    70% of the population is very busy trying to tread water. They are not reading TAE or paying attention.
    The ship is sinking. Water is rising around them. Until the people get a mouthful of water they won’t believe it.

    Yep. And by then; isn’t it too late?
    Having left in 2003; I keep looking for the angle of repose…
    …nowhere to be found…but is steepening relentlessly…

    #48595
    zerosum
    Participant

    I keep looking for the angle of repose…
    …nowhere to be found…but is steepening relentlessly…

    You might like “collapsed slump”
    🙂

    #48596
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    You might like “collapsed slump”
    🙂

    Works for me… 🙂

    #48597
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    This current division within the Democratic Party is only a holographic snippet of the revolutionary tension that is currently sweeping across much of the western world –Trump, Brexit, and the Yellow Vests all being fueled by the same sources of discontent.

    That would, under normal circumstances, be cause for optimism but; what I’ve seen is escalating, militarized, resistance from the entrenched aristocracy in France, Britain, and most especially the U.S. government.
    The violence factor is rising exponentially on both sides, particularly the police, IMO…

    #48598
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    The West is teetering on the edge of a cliff. Cost cutting, the forever wars and the transfer of the world’s wealth to a few thousand oligarchs must come to an end. The Chinese, Russian and Iranian Axis is a global alternative to the Atlantic Alliance. Climate Change is real. Stored solar energy in fossil fuels is finite. The GOP remained in power by hijacking populism, electing Donald Trump, and withstanding an incompetent “five-eyes” counter coup. He defines “Ugly American”. Hate, propaganda and fear works with America’s European ethnic tribe which is under stress: dying early, losing the rat race. For Democrats the only alternative to chaos is the restoration of law and order, equality, and rebuilding the middle class; the very last thing their corporate donors want. Facing reality is hard. The good times are over. It is time for a new generation. Last month the globe was 10 minutes away from economic collapse if not a world war too.

    #48607
    Dr. D
    Participant

    It’s so clearly a chess move that DJT admits it in public. What? He doesn’t just Twit with poor impulse control? He just makes these morons run around with their hair on fire while he calls the tune? Yup, and even when he tells them that’s what he’s doing, they do it anyway. What can I say? Now WHY after 3 years of the same pass play does he suddenly admit he’s not a moron and is just a guy who’s had to play with and deal with the ignorant, aggressive, narcissistic media for 70 years? Because he just passed something IMPORTANT, that, since Obama can pass executive orders but somehow Trump can’t un-pass them, since although borders is one of the few legal things the federal level does, he can’t protect them, he can’t treat immigrants the same as every other legal detainee ever, going back 200 years, safely with adult vs child holding processes, he instead got Mexico as a safe 3rd nation and signed Guatemala to take all Central Americans. But that wasn’t going to draw fire. That’s just a Monday. Passing the order to deny refugees who have blown $10,000 in African plane tickets and passed through 7, 6, 4, or even 2 safe nations – since they have been safe all along and just PREFER America’s economy, just apparently PREFER our racism and PREFER being in a “Concentration Camp” – now THAT was going to draw fire, since it shuts off the openly-funded U.N./NGO payday to fund mass-migration. …And human trafficking, and rapes, and kids dying in the desert, because the U.N. has long shown they’re all about raping and killing children, ask OxFam.

    THAT’S the bait he’s putting out there, although the election-defection is the name of the wedge. Really, he got all these idiots, morons, and howling ignoramuses to talk about an off-color tweet, and IGNORE THE IMMIGRANTS. Why can he do that? BECAUSE THEY PROVABLY DON’T CARE ABOUT THE IMMIGRANTS, or the citizens, or the poor, or anybody but themselves, the billionaires and their handmaiden’s tale, the media, Hollywood, and university insider sycophants from the 5% of U.S. counties. Were that not true, why would they spend 4 days on a pointless tweet war and 0 days on actual immigrant law? Or for that matter, 2 years of begging them to pass immigration reform and make/take his compromise with DACA? So, you get what you get, and American voters are very, very aware of how very, very much you don’t care about them, yes, but also don’t care about anybody but themselves either.

    So the new problem here is, back under Bernie, you could see the old worker’s Democratic party reform under a 1934-type model. But they HATE the U.S., hate the workers, hate the white working poor SO MUCH, they cannot even conceive of doing that, but can only promote the doctrine of Identitarianism and subsequent race war, while the GOP is saying we take all comers and please for the love of God stop it. So how on earth does the DNC reform, transform, into something new? They can’t, as NeoLibs, they only work for power, money, corporations, and war. As Progressive revolutionaries, they only burn everything down with no compromise and no quarter, even their own allies and base. They are AGAINST not only everything the U.S. stands for, all 10 Amendments, and everything the founders wanted, like religion, self-sufficiency, freedom to be left alone, and limited government, but against the very IDEA of government, as ALL governments run on cooperation and compromise. On coalitions and back-room trades, the sausage machine that keeps things working in a messy world that is NOT a two-dimensional zealotry.

    The Squad and a lot of the Progressives are incapable of that, showing that the very act of HAVING borders, the very EXISTENCE of the country is a fascist platform. ANYONE being in prison, ANYWHERE is genocide and concentration camps. But words don’t mean whatever you want them to, because objective reality DOES exist, however ignored, and it only means what it actually IS. Calling EVERYONE a racist, EVERYONE a rapist, EVERYTHING a genocide only makes those words mean nothing at all, just as I said when Cheeto was elected. Now if a real racist appears – you know someone that hasn’t dated black women, that didn’t win black community awards for 25 years, that doesn’t have a Jewish family – they will be helpless and inoculated against real racism and fascism due to living in a self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing fantasy for 3 years.

    But that’s the point. There are smaller plans, but ultimately the plan was always to fan a race war and collapse the United States into a civil war they would lose, China would win, allowing the oligarchs to act without our annoying Bill of Rights, and buy back the U.S. at 1c on the dollar, re-making it in their neo-feudal image. And although they’re getting nowhere with the race war because the U.S. isn’t racist, they’re pushing as hard as they can, and doing pretty well to have the peasants all kill each other and shut the lights out with deferred maintenance.

    But all these guys play along. They are the enemy of the state, or rather of the people, making them fight while the ship needs all hands and sinks all lives lost, citizen and immigrant alike. CNN, NYT, NBC, the Guardian, but you already knew that because they all work for Murdoch, Zuckerberg and Bezos.

    #48613
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ Dr. D

    You have convinced me.
    I would not want to be living in the USA

    #48621
    seychelles
    Participant

    They are the enemy of the state, or rather of the people, making them fight while the ship needs all hands and sinks all lives lost, citizen and immigrant alike. CNN, NYT, NBC, the Guardian, but you already knew that because they all work for Murdoch, Zuckerberg and Bezos.

    OR RATHER OF THE PEOPLE

    Key point. America is a geographic reality but a loyal political illusion. A captive of Mr. ZioGlobal.

    #48622
    seychelles
    Participant

    “When Orpheus looks back at Eurydice on their way to the Upperworld, he breaks the condition Hades gave in allowing Orpheus to retrieve her from death. Orpheus is supposed to trust that Eurdyice is behind him and must not look back to check; unfortunately, he does look back and then loses her forever. A moral lesson here is the necessity of trust, both in the gods as well as in love.”
    enotes

    And of course there can be no trust without Logos.

    #48628
    lasttwo
    Participant

    I think the Dems had better try to find the fire that Bernie inspired in the young and/or screwed over. Trump got that vote because more of the same Hillary was not the answer. Bernie may well have won in 2016. The Dems need someone who can inspire a Bernie style revolution and get people fired up about positive change. Someone in between Bernie and Biden. If you’ve read any of my other post I am a fan of Gabbard because of the anti war anti military spending and the progressive ideas. I was pretty much a lifelong republican but I think the pendulum has swung way to far to the right. The endless wars and the financial collapse in 2008 were the final straw. I would never vote republican again. Trump should be careful with the racist statements with some of his followers on many of the sites I am afraid he may get one of those women hurt or killed. I think in the long run his ploy will backfire Nancy and Omar were hugging today. He may just heal the riff instead of open it. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

    #48629
    lasttwo
    Participant

    Raul. I just wanted to say thank you for this site. I have been reading it from time to time since before you changed sites. I often have found wisdom and knowledge in your words and insights. I just recently became a member. From you insight early on about disinflation and limits to growth to your art choices that for many years I paid no attention to but now look forward to seeing – Thank you

    #48646
    restless94111
    Participant

    It is absolutely ridiculous to claim that Trump has been especially vicious with these totalitarian lunatics. Trump called it correctly. The 4 have an agenda and will say literally anything to manipulate.

    Liars aren’t good people. And throw Kamala, and the other female candidates into that along with a most of the males. They are the embodiment of Hillary’s message in 2016. America is as “great” as it is ever gonna get, and it wasn’t that great amyway.

    How is that pro-American? It’s not. Trump called them out. Told them to go to another country, the country they or their ancestors came from, and try to make it better there and see what they find and then come back after experiencing that and use that new information to make America greater.

    But they will never do that. The prime example of why is that Somali journalist who went back to Somalia last week in order to show the world that Smalia was a great place and then was bombed in a hotel there last Friday.

    Trump called attention to their words, not their skin color, their sex, or their country of origin (or their ancestor’s origin). That is all.

    Stop reading some kind of issue you think you see in Trump which is not there.

    Again the message from Trump was: stop talking smack about our country and its people. Go back to the country your ancestors came from and see how you can make that better if you don’t like it here. Once you make it better over there or find out you can’t? Come back and use what you have learned.

    Muddying up the waters was the reaction from the 4, the MSM, and all the other stupid Democrats. Instead of just saying: that sounds about right. Stop complaining about white people and their privilege or their “racism” Do something constructive.

    I brought this angle to the fore, and I don’t think the MSM and the Dems can cloud it completely with the nonsense about Trump having a problem with them because female or skin color, though plenty of people who are otherwise rational and reasonable seem to have fallen for it.

    But there was no other way to do it than to speak plainly about it and Trump did that, letting the chips fall where they may. I don’t believe it was necessarily planned, more like it was instinctual and a very New York way of speaking.

    But they did take the bait and the destruction of the Dems should follow soon. None too soon if you ask many people. Who could possibly vote for Kamala Harris for anything. She even looks like an entitled arrogant tyrant. Is that not obvious from every video?

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