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Tag Archives: Trump

The 1%? Try the 31%

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A lot has been made over the last decade of “The 1%”, the top wealth earners and owners in the nation. From Occupy Wall Street to the Sanders campaign there has been a call for a revolution of sorts to overthrown them and put the nation on the right path. The other 99%, the theory goes, cannot remain slaves forever.

As time has gone on, however, something strange happened to the calculus that went into describing the revolution. Those at the top of the wealth pyramid? They know there’s something wrong. Many are more than a little sympathetic, and most seem to be at least resigned to a more progressive system.

Meanwhile, genuine American fascism has risen in a boisterous and orange form. Who is the real enemy? Who do we need to rise up against? If you’re paying any attention it’s not necessarily the rich.

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On, Wisconsin!

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The big winner once this election is over will almost certainly be religious people, who will see their ranks swell by November. Nearly everyone in the nation will be saying, “Please, dear God, not Trump!” Some will even be on their knees, others will light candles at the cathedral. It will be a good time for religion everywhere as a cheeto-filled populace hooked on teevee pleads with the divine that they don’t get what they deserve.

Is that too harsh? Yes, it probably is. And it may not come to pass, either, if the good people of Wisconsin do their job. There is a good chance that they will be voting in large numbers for not-Trump, which will generally be Ted Cruz.

With their Democratic side up for grabs, the state that gave us Brett Favre’s NFL career might yet be the most exciting place in the nation, at least for a short time.

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How? the System? Works?

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If you’re paying attention to things like the Arizona primary, you probably wonder what could possibly go wrong next. This cluster-eff of an event featured 60 polling places where 200 were normal, creating miles-long lines and many hours of wait just to vote.

Of course, if you’re a cynic, you might say that the attempts at voter intimidation worked perfectly.

But that’s the strange miracle of an election cycle that has been so incredibly surprising that nothing, absolutely nothing has gone by the script. The systems we have are being strained to the point where we have to ask why we have them in the first place. The cynics? As always, it’s easy to point out places where our Democratic-Republic was deliberately designed to be less than open. Systems, as we know them, are hardly designed for today’s world – that much is true.

But today we have light shone on nearly everything in ways we never have before. The main reason that every gear in the machine of democracy seems more broken than ever is at least in part because we never knew how ugly it was before. And that’s reason enough to get ourselves to the point where the system is fixed.

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Racism

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The United States is still an amazing nation which attracts millions of people every year who want a better life. What they find when they come here, however, has to cause some dismay. As open as our society is it still has barriers, lines drawn in stark black and white. Racism remains at the core of nearly every aspect of public life.

Racism isn’t just a part of our culture – it seeps into everything. A discussion of public policy eventually degrades into “those people” who “take from the system”, a series of code words carefully intoned now that openly racist language has been purged from polite conversation. This year a certain demagogue has inflamed that speech into a violent public melee, and it horrifies us. Is this really America in 2016?

Yes, it is. Racism is at the core of everything. And we don’t know how to deal with it.

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Trade Deals – Bad Deals?

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Through this populist uprising standing in for an election, one issue unites all the candidates that are left. Sanders was always against free trade agreements, like the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Clinton is too, at least now she is. Cruz doesn’t seem to have much time for them, and after years of talking both ways Trump is now firmly against these “bad deals”.

It’s not about TPP or any new trade pacts, either – it’s about (supposed) horrors of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and our current deal with China.

Going over the past is a way to pin down the establishment, which is to say Clinton. But Trump, at least, once to re-negotiate the old deals and turn them back. Was free trade such a bad deal for the US? Is it worth going over old ground?

For all the noise on this issue this year it’s actually not a good issue outside of its value as a populist rallying cry.

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