The next Presidential election: a meaningful choice for the first time?

I don’t vote.  For one thing – I don’t want to acquire the US citizenship.  But even if I had a US passport I would not vote for the following reasons: First, the choice between the two parties is like Pepsi-Cola vs Coca-Cola: both are toxic and impossible to tell apart.  Second, every time the American people voted to support one policy, they got the exact opposite, from Bush’s “read my lips no new taxes” to Obama’s “change you can believe in”. 

 Third, what the USA needs is not a change of Administrations but “regime change”: changing the puppets and keep the same puppeteers makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Fourth, to win you need huge amounts of money: instead of one man one vote it is one dollar one vote.  Hence the top 1% matter more than the bottom 99%.  The American ‘democracy’ is, indeed, the best ‘democracy money can buy’.  Fifth, voting is morally wrong because it takes away from you the option of saying “not in my name”.  For all these reasons, I have been paying no attention at all to the circus of the US Presidential election.  Well, that’s not quite true, I would say “almost no attention at all”.  What could always happen is the “Frankenstein/Golem phenomenon”: the creators lose control of the creature which ends up revolting against them.  So no matter how slim the chance of that happening, sometimes a change of puppets can result in a dramatic change of puppeteers.

The other reason why I was keeping an eye on the Presidential race was the possibility of a real nightmare happening: Hillary in the White House, this time as POTUS.  Her I truly fear.  I strongly believe that she is one of the most toxic and outright evil people ever produced by the American system and I have come to the conclusion that she is dumb enough to think that she can bully Russia into submission.  Every single issue she tried to deal with ended up in abject failure and she has something to prove.  That makes her especially dangerous.  So while I had no interest in US politics other than “anybody but Hillary”.

Which puppet will win this time?

And then Trump happened.

My first hunch was that Trump was “created” to scare people into voting for Hillary.  Only a clown looking like an out of control loose-cannon could make the Republicrats lose the next Presidential election to the Demoblicans, right?  Maybe.

But now I am starting to get the feeling that the Neocons are really freaking out, and that Trump, possibly to his own surprise, is starting to believe that he might make it.  Well, what if?

Ron Unz, in a recent column, gave a very accurate description of what appears to be happening: (source)

Over the last few months I’ve been much too preoccupied with my Harvard University Overseer project to pay much attention to the unfolding saga of the presidential race; I’ve closely read my morning newspapers as I always do, but not watched a single one of the endless debates. Still, even out of the corner of my mind’s-eye, the rise of Donald Trump certainly seems the political story of the decade or even the half-century, with the loud-mouthed Reality TV star now having a good chance of seizing the Republican Party nomination against the ferocious opposition of nearly every significant Republican faction and pundit.

But although I’ve been just as surprised at this remarkable development as anyone else, in hindsight perhaps my astonishment was more than it should have been. Based on absolutely everything I’ve read in my daily NYT+WSJ, Trump certainly seems an ignorant buffoon and a loose cannon, but being a loose cannon, he rolls around randomly, not infrequently in the correct direction, which is more than I can say for nearly all of his Republican rivals.

Consider the Iraq War and its aftermath, surely one of the central geopolitical developments of the last few decades. In the mid-2000s, my old friend Bill Odom, the three-star general who ran the NSA for Ronald Reagan, accurately characterized the war as “the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.” Yet today that calamitous legacy and its five trillion dollar total cost is warmly embraced by many of the top Republican leaders and publicly criticized by almost none of them.

However, just a couple of weeks ago, Trump blasted the war and the Bush Administration lies behind it on nationwide television during a Republican debate, inducing total shock within the Republican commentariat, shock that turned into apoplexy when he immediately afterward won a landslide victory in ultra-rightwing and pro-military South Carolina. Sometimes a single bold and honest statement delivered on national television can cut through endless layers of media lies and propaganda, and I only regret that Gen. Odom was no longer around to witness it.

Earlier this year, an ardent Trump supporter declared that his favored candidate was 95% a clown but 5% a patriot, and therefore stood head-and-shoulders above his Republican rivals, and this sounds about right to me.

I agree with Unz.  Trump does, indeed,  appear to be “rolling around randomly, not infrequently in the correct direction” and he sure does present himself as a “95% a clown but 5% a patriot, and therefore stood head-and-shoulders above his Republican rivals“.  In fact, I am pretty sure that those who support Trump will gladly provide a long list of quotes which will make a good case that Trump is right much more than on 5% of cases.  Most amazingly, Trump seems to suggest a radical change of US policies towards Russia and Israel: Trump wants peace with Russia and he wants to USA to be an “honest broker” in Israel.  The latter is enough for (even the putatively Left-leaning Ha’aretz) to list not one, but “Six Reasons Trump Would Be Disaster for U.S. Jews, Israel and the Middle East“.

Trump – candidate for peace?

Could it be that the “Trump project” is getting out of control and that a supposed “puppet” refuses to stick to its role?

Maybe.  I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is that on the Demoblican side Hillary’s nomination appears to be a done deal.  And, besides, it’s not like Sanders is a viable option.  While the Occupy Wall Street supporters might like him (especially if he teams up with Tulsi Gabbard), the “Socialist” stigma makes the man unelectable in a viscerally anti-Socialist USA (especially since most Americans have no idea whatsoever of what Socialism is all about).  By the way, Sanders is a loyal Zionist anyway, so even if he was elected you would imagine that the Neocons could sleep in peace knowing that “their man” is in the White House.  But clearly, Sanders is not bloodthirsty enough for them, they want Hillary and only Hillary.  Only she can really guarantee the bloodbath the Neocons want.

Does that then make Trump the proverbial “lesser evil”?

Compared to Hillary, almost anybody would, so I suppose Trump qualifies.  And, who knows, maybe all the nonsense Trump regularly spews is only electoral politics and not a foretaste of what a Trump Presidency would look like.

At this point in time all I can say is that I have come to no conclusion beyond two very basic ideas:

• Axiom: Hillary is by far the worst option
• A Trump Presidency might be interesting to observe.  Maybe.

This is about as much enthusiasm as this entire topic can elicit in me.

The Saker