10-10-2016, 01:16 PM
I have refrained for some time now from commenting on the 2016 presidential campaign, because some posters can't seem to get out of the way of their own naked partisanship. That and, as both MordecaiK (Where have you gone?) and I maintained on the old forum, the 2016 presidential cycle will not be the change election that this Fourth Turning calls for, indeed what both the 2008 and 2012 elections desperately cried out for, but we didn't get.
Since 1976 I have watched every presidential (and vice-presidential) debate, but I simply could not bear to watch the "debates" this time around. I can read the transcripts, fact-checking, and political commentary the next day. After the first two "debates" between Clinton and Trump, and the one-off between Kaine and Pence, Lincoln and Douglas must be spinning in their graves faster than a rotary engine. Here are just a few of the headlines summarizing last night's farce:
"Debate #2: Breaking the Bottom of the Barrel"
"Ugliest Debate Ever"
"29 More Days in the Mud" (I would say "in the shit," with all apologies to combat veterans who know all too well what that military slang means.)
In a country of more than 300 million people, are these two political hairballs--Clinton and Trump--the best we can cough up as potential leaders of the free world? I'm not ordinarily given to rank pessimism, but it is hard to believe that either Clinton or Trump will prove out as the Gray Champion. I just don't see it. (More on that, after the election.)
Every Monday morning, I check out the blog of author and commentator James Howard Kunstler. He's a loveable old crank who has a way of peering around the corner and summing up the public mood and political landscape of America. (I should say that I generally ignore his predictions about Peak Oil or imminent market crashes, as he is wildly off the mark on those scores.) Nevertheless, his post today squares with my own bleak assessment of what lies ahead after this Campaign Carnival of 2016 has concluded.
"Wounded Elephant"
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/wounded-elephant/#.V_ujFP8JdpQ.email
Last night’s debate raises some interesting questions, such as: would the Romans have elected Caligula if given the chance to vote? Can the Republican party recover from Donald Trump? If the party poobahs “pull the plug” on Trump, as some are threatening to do (that is, cut off funds to his campaign), will they go down the drain with him anyway? Is the USA a nation or just the world’s biggest comedy club? Where is the Deep State when you really need it?
That odor wafting across the land is the smell of Republicans with their hair on fire. Yet the gloat of astonishment on Hillary’s face as she witnesses the Queeg-like crack-up of her rival will eventually fade as she discerns the wreckage awaiting her in the Oval Office. Weep for your country!
The only good to come out of this sordid election is the certainty that a lot of political debris will be swept away in the Fourth Turning underway. Out of the miasma of idiocy and posture that is this election campaign, the hard-edged realities of our time will emerge and the TV audience will come to the stark recognition that it is not just another mere entertainment.
The other major nations of the world are not so much ganging up on America, as Hillary would have it, but reasonably attempting to ring-fence the mad bull that the USA has become — as the two candidates vie to start World War Three with China and Russia respectively. The last resort of the scoundrels in today’s version of the “yellow press” is to blame Russia for attempting to meddle in our election. War, children, it’s just a shot away.
It is getting to be too late to sort out all the confusion sown by this horrific campaign. From here on it's really more a matter of the dust settling. In the background of it all looms the train-wreck of global finance, which will be the true determinant of what the American people will have to do in the years ahead. During the weeks of the election distraction, the European banks struggle to conceal their insolvency while the politicians of Euro-land desperately try to paper over the cracks in these fracturing institutions. Few can tell what is actually happening in China’s banking system, but it’s sending out ominous tremors that are hard to ignore. But be sure it is all daisy-chained right into Wall Street and the US banks. The potential for wrecking markets and currencies around the world is extreme at this moment. It may only be a matter of whether it happens before or after the election.
[I have maintained in previous posts on the old 4T forum that the next shoe falls after the election, beginning sometime next year, when I expect the current bull market in stocks to peak.]
Then we’ll see what happens when financial institutions can’t trust each other. Trade stops. Economies crumble. Pretenses evaporate. If it gets bad enough, the shelves of the supermarkets go bare in three days and you’re living in a permanent hurricane disaster without the wind and rain. Believe me, that will be bad enough. Hillary, if elected, will not get to play FDR-2. Rather, she’ll be stuck in the role of [i]Hoover, the Return, presiding over a freight elevator of an economy with a broken cable. Expect problems with the US dollar. Expect “emergency” actions. Expect the unintended consequences of those actions.[/i]
If there is one outstanding upshot of these “debates” it must be their staggering failure to reassure the American public that they can expect effective leadership through the hardships ahead. There must be many others out there like myself wondering who will emerge from the rubble? I suspect it will be someone we haven’t heard of before, just as Bonaparte was unheard of in France in 1792. This is not entirely a nation of clowns, though it feels like that lately.
Note: the parenthetical expressions and boldface above are my own.
The only real change agent in the presidential primaries was marginalized from the outset by the DNC with a strong assist from the mainstream press, especially the New York Times, Washington Post, and NBC.
So now our "false choice" comes down to the two most unpopular contestants in modern American political history, which at least one pundit has characterized as the "Tyranny of the Known versus the Terror of the Unknown." (I'll let you suss out which is which.)
Is there honestly any way that Clinton can lose to Trump at this point? How utterly embarrassing it would be for her to somehow lose out to the Donald now. It would certainly be the biggest political upset in my lifetime, akin to the Cleveland Cavaliers falling to the Harlem Globetrotters. But, hey, in this most silly of political seasons, I suppose anything is possible.
PS: I'm still with the Other Her.
Since 1976 I have watched every presidential (and vice-presidential) debate, but I simply could not bear to watch the "debates" this time around. I can read the transcripts, fact-checking, and political commentary the next day. After the first two "debates" between Clinton and Trump, and the one-off between Kaine and Pence, Lincoln and Douglas must be spinning in their graves faster than a rotary engine. Here are just a few of the headlines summarizing last night's farce:
"Debate #2: Breaking the Bottom of the Barrel"
"Ugliest Debate Ever"
"29 More Days in the Mud" (I would say "in the shit," with all apologies to combat veterans who know all too well what that military slang means.)
In a country of more than 300 million people, are these two political hairballs--Clinton and Trump--the best we can cough up as potential leaders of the free world? I'm not ordinarily given to rank pessimism, but it is hard to believe that either Clinton or Trump will prove out as the Gray Champion. I just don't see it. (More on that, after the election.)
Every Monday morning, I check out the blog of author and commentator James Howard Kunstler. He's a loveable old crank who has a way of peering around the corner and summing up the public mood and political landscape of America. (I should say that I generally ignore his predictions about Peak Oil or imminent market crashes, as he is wildly off the mark on those scores.) Nevertheless, his post today squares with my own bleak assessment of what lies ahead after this Campaign Carnival of 2016 has concluded.
"Wounded Elephant"
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/wounded-elephant/#.V_ujFP8JdpQ.email
Last night’s debate raises some interesting questions, such as: would the Romans have elected Caligula if given the chance to vote? Can the Republican party recover from Donald Trump? If the party poobahs “pull the plug” on Trump, as some are threatening to do (that is, cut off funds to his campaign), will they go down the drain with him anyway? Is the USA a nation or just the world’s biggest comedy club? Where is the Deep State when you really need it?
That odor wafting across the land is the smell of Republicans with their hair on fire. Yet the gloat of astonishment on Hillary’s face as she witnesses the Queeg-like crack-up of her rival will eventually fade as she discerns the wreckage awaiting her in the Oval Office. Weep for your country!
The only good to come out of this sordid election is the certainty that a lot of political debris will be swept away in the Fourth Turning underway. Out of the miasma of idiocy and posture that is this election campaign, the hard-edged realities of our time will emerge and the TV audience will come to the stark recognition that it is not just another mere entertainment.
The other major nations of the world are not so much ganging up on America, as Hillary would have it, but reasonably attempting to ring-fence the mad bull that the USA has become — as the two candidates vie to start World War Three with China and Russia respectively. The last resort of the scoundrels in today’s version of the “yellow press” is to blame Russia for attempting to meddle in our election. War, children, it’s just a shot away.
It is getting to be too late to sort out all the confusion sown by this horrific campaign. From here on it's really more a matter of the dust settling. In the background of it all looms the train-wreck of global finance, which will be the true determinant of what the American people will have to do in the years ahead. During the weeks of the election distraction, the European banks struggle to conceal their insolvency while the politicians of Euro-land desperately try to paper over the cracks in these fracturing institutions. Few can tell what is actually happening in China’s banking system, but it’s sending out ominous tremors that are hard to ignore. But be sure it is all daisy-chained right into Wall Street and the US banks. The potential for wrecking markets and currencies around the world is extreme at this moment. It may only be a matter of whether it happens before or after the election.
[I have maintained in previous posts on the old 4T forum that the next shoe falls after the election, beginning sometime next year, when I expect the current bull market in stocks to peak.]
Then we’ll see what happens when financial institutions can’t trust each other. Trade stops. Economies crumble. Pretenses evaporate. If it gets bad enough, the shelves of the supermarkets go bare in three days and you’re living in a permanent hurricane disaster without the wind and rain. Believe me, that will be bad enough. Hillary, if elected, will not get to play FDR-2. Rather, she’ll be stuck in the role of [i]Hoover, the Return, presiding over a freight elevator of an economy with a broken cable. Expect problems with the US dollar. Expect “emergency” actions. Expect the unintended consequences of those actions.[/i]
If there is one outstanding upshot of these “debates” it must be their staggering failure to reassure the American public that they can expect effective leadership through the hardships ahead. There must be many others out there like myself wondering who will emerge from the rubble? I suspect it will be someone we haven’t heard of before, just as Bonaparte was unheard of in France in 1792. This is not entirely a nation of clowns, though it feels like that lately.
Note: the parenthetical expressions and boldface above are my own.
The only real change agent in the presidential primaries was marginalized from the outset by the DNC with a strong assist from the mainstream press, especially the New York Times, Washington Post, and NBC.
So now our "false choice" comes down to the two most unpopular contestants in modern American political history, which at least one pundit has characterized as the "Tyranny of the Known versus the Terror of the Unknown." (I'll let you suss out which is which.)
Is there honestly any way that Clinton can lose to Trump at this point? How utterly embarrassing it would be for her to somehow lose out to the Donald now. It would certainly be the biggest political upset in my lifetime, akin to the Cleveland Cavaliers falling to the Harlem Globetrotters. But, hey, in this most silly of political seasons, I suppose anything is possible.
PS: I'm still with the Other Her.