The power of trends

Why am I skeptical of Trump’s ability to implement an actual change in America?

Let’s go down my personal memory lane regarding American elections. First there was Carter, who was stale and incompetent and people wanted change, so they elected a dynamic, forceful outsider, a Trump-like figure by the name of Ronald Reagan. He was widely ridiculed for being an incompetent senile idiot who leads with his mouth, doesn’t know how things are done and will most likely stumble into a nuclear war with his blunders. The “progressives” of the time even made a “Spitting image” music video mocking him. What he did was stir things up, make a deal with the General Secretary Gorbachev and the cold war ended. After his two terms, the voters elected his vice-president, the Bush Sr., because they thought they are voting for the continuation of good policies. This, however, did not materialize and the next thing they elected the young, Kennedy-like, energetic, optimistic Bill Clinton, to represent the new generation born after the second world war. During his presidency, Yugoslavia fell apart in a bloody war, misery, crime and corruption flourished in the former Soviet Union, the CIA-financed Mujahideen in Afghanistan made their own state and started planing world domination of Islam, and Bill Clinton was fucking his intern, playing sax and projecting his Kennedy-like smile to the camera. Nevertheless, America then had money, things were good and nothing directly threatened them, so people were generally pleased with him, but still chose to elect a Republican as a follow-up, because they were tired of Kennedy-like presidents who, like Kennedy, fucked everything that met the prerequisites of being female and being left unattended. They elected Bush Jr., who was an idiot, but since they thought they had no pressing issues to solve, they thought a benevolent idiot playing golf and not fucking interns was exactly what they needed in the white house. However, Al Qaeda then actually managed to succeed with their plans of striking at American symbols, from the second attempt. People seem to have forgotten that there was a first attempt, with an explosive-filled truck in the WTC basement. That was very close to structurally compromising the building, and unfortunately the engineers actually said how close, on TV. Bin Laden paid attention and the second attempt worked. Unfortunately, it seems that he also had inside help – the plot was allowed to succeed by some elements within the FBI and probably other American institutions, because the plotters were known, they were followed, but nothing was done to hinder them. The doors just seemed to open magically in front of them, because those same elements needed something that would galvanize the population, to threaten it enough to be willing to surrender its freedoms for the sake of security. The president, stupid and incompetent as he was, simply nodded to all such proposals and signed off on everything, including the two stupid wars that the military-industrial complex required to get the military machine going and moving the economy. This massive spending without the additional war taxation to pay for it collapsed the American economy, and by the end of Bush Jr.’s first term, it was in complete shambles. People were tired of endless war, they were tired of their healthcare not working, they were tired of the economy that’s wrecked, and they wanted change, so they elected a young, dynamic, optimistic black guy who promised all kinds of stuff that basically said nothing but sounded good. That’s how we ended up with Obama as president. In his first term, he didn’t do jack shit, because he’s a demagogue and an ideologue who doesn’t compromise, but people were marginally willing to give him a second chance, to finish what he started. As a result, he did more of the same, which is to say, nothing, except trying to look and sound hip on TV.

The problem is, the new post-cold war generation was all about bullshit posturing and not much about getting things done efficiently, so they thought that electing an oppression Olympics champion would solve the “diversity” and “equality” problems that America was supposedly having. They seem to think that the world’s problems add up to some kind of “bigotry” and if they managed to put a black transsexual gay Muslim female in power, that would mean they solved all the problems. This does show what idiots teach at the American universities, producing more idiots with degrees every year, because those idiots can’t find a normal job anywhere in the economy except on the universities, in NGOs and in the media, where they spout their worthless diversity/equality drivel. Since this generation of idiots has a significant voting power, they managed to elect Obama. The only Pokemon they were missing was a female president, and so they attempted to elect probably the most corrupt, egocentric and wicked person in the world as the next one, because it’s not like America has any problems other than diversity/equality posturing. Oh no, their economy is working great, they have no international problems such as a looming nuclear conflict with Russia and China, or immigration of the Muslims, who are the worst culture in the world and are opposite to everything good in every conceivable way. No, the only thing they needed is a vagina-in-chief.

That’s how I see the trends. Obviously, Reagan is an example that you can elect a disruptive candidate, supremely disliked by the “progressives” in the media, who can actually do good things for both America and the world. The similarities with Donald Trump are striking. So, why am I skeptical?

First of all, I am skeptical because a democracy includes powerful checks and balances that prevent one-sided policies. You need to have systemic support in order to implement anything radical. The parliament needs to agree, the courts need to agree, the major parties need to be in consensus regarding the issue, the military must support it, the banks must support it, the industry must support it, and the people in general must support it. Reagan could end the cold war because he had the military that was aware of how closely matched they are with the Soviets and how bad it actually is, he had the people who were genuinely scared of the nuclear war and wanted the threat to end, and he had the Russians on the other side, who were purely defensive, and all it took to end the war was to convince them that America isn’t going to kill them all.

Now, the situation is different. Both the people and the politicians in America can’t agree on the color of shit. Media no longer has an informative role, it’s purely propagandistic and became completely untrustworthy. Due to this, nobody really believes anything or anyone anymore, and all sorts of conspiracy theories float on the Internet, collecting brainless followers. This makes it extremely difficult for anyone to implement anything useful, because every potentially useful project will encounter enormous opposition from various “activists” and “progressives”. Also, all sorts of interest groups will attempt to “earmark” the project with all kinds of pork-barrel spending as a pre-condition for their support. This will all serve to re-enforce the public skepticism of Washington.

Worldwide, the situation changed as well, because America deceived and betrayed Russia after the cold war. I could go into details but this is not the place – basically, what would be necessary in order for trust to be re-established is America to abolish NATO and remove the military assets not only from the Russian borders, but to establish a buffer zone of militarily neutral countries between the Russian borders and France. Everything that took place since the 1990 and now, regarding NATO expansion, should be rolled back. Furthermore, America needs to stop having a military presence at China’s doorstep, and let the regional countries make peace with each other on their own terms. Sure, they can keep Japan and South Korea under a nuclear umbrella in case some idiot in the North Korea gets ideas, but essentially the situation there needs to be unlocked, and it will only be unlocked once China no longer feels pressured by the American military presence on its doorstep. China will then be able to make graceful concessions to its neighbors instead of being forced into strength-posturing.

So, having in mind what it would take for things to normalize, and having in mind how the people are thinking and behaving in the recent years, I am skeptical of Trump’s chances, especially since he’s the second outsider president who’s supposed to bring radical change to the system. Obama was all about hope and change, and the trends just kept rolling. Trump is all about hope and change, and my expectation is that the trends will again determine the result.