The cult of Trump and the dangerous hypocrisy of Republicans

So the Republicans are up in arms at the fact that Trump has been indicted 4 times now, facing dozens of counts. What you can’t talk to your friends or allies anymore, they ask. What happened to free speech? While free speech is protected, there is a difference between expressing your views e.g. “I think all banks are run by thieves” and conspiring to, or committing a crime. e.g. walking into a bank and saying “empty the register and put all the money in this bag or someone’s going to get hurt” is NOT protected free speech. Nor, for that matter, is “asking” a governor to “find” more votes so you can commit electoral fraud. Nor is it legal to impersonate electoral officials. If only there was a way to decide if someone was guilty or not? Oh, wait there is, its called a “trial“.

But the authorities are biased against Trump, his supporters say. Actually, its been quite apparent how he’s being treated like royalty, compared to your average American’s experience of the criminal justice system. For most suspects in the US, you are looking at being hauled in while cuffed (assuming the cops didn’t just shoot you), being booked into jail (strip searched, full cavity body search, put in an orange jump suit, locked up till your arraignment, etc.), finger printed and having your mug shot taken. In most cases he’s sailed through this process, or skipped large parts of it entirely. He’s also gotten bail, while many suspects (in particular those at the lower end of the income spectrum) end up incarcerated until trial. He still gets to plead not guilty, when many suspects get pressured into a plea deal. He’s got the presumption of innocence, when again many minority or poorer suspects are often treated as guilty from the point of arrest onwards.

For some interesting parallels, this same week a teenager was arrested & handcuffed in America while taking out the garbage (I think you can probably guess why that happened). And a few weeks ago police raided a newspaper office because they heard the paper was going to do a negative story about them (republicans being of course the ultimate snowflakes). And predictably, while everyone else was shocked by these stories, the Trumpers were saying, oh surely the police just made a mistake, no harm done. Republicans don’t understand the concept of hypocrisy. Trump’s arrest is the ultimate expression of white privilege.

Some on the left seem to think its a slam dunk. However, this ignores how US justice is very much a pay to win system. They also might not be considering the possibility that one of his fanatical supporters ends up on the Jury who then disrupts the process. Or a pro-Trump judge just gives him a free pass (as is happening in Florida). Never mind the possibility that he just throws his co-conspirators under the bus and they take the fall for him. You can’t be the cult of Trump without a Trump.

More worryingly is the racial charged attacks by Trump against court officials, the doxxing of grand jury members and how several leading republicans are talking up the idea of civil war, when they should be trying to calm things down. This is dangerous talk, given how well armed and crazy many of his supporters are. And its not just Trump supporters, many on the left or minorities have taken to arming themselves and forming their own militia since Trump took office. So its not too difficult to see how things could kick off.

Hence, one has to ask the question, why aren’t any of these provocateurs also being arrested? Why isn’t Trump being denied bail and issued with a gag order? After all, what would happen if Bernie or Ilhan Omar called for civil war?…how many seconds would go by before they got arrested by a hundred FBI agents? Why are republicans being given a free pass? And they have the nerve to claim the justice system is biased against them.

As for civil war, such a conflict would also be pointless. To what end are you going to fight a civil war? To ensure president’s are above the law and don’t have to suffer any consequences for their actions? Given the various hair-brained attempts by Republicans to impeach Biden, the Clintons & Obama, this would be the supreme irony. Are republicans going to apologise for wasting everyone’s time? How about reimbursing the rest of the country for the costs of those campaigns? And if president’s are effectively de-facto dictators from now on, let me know how that works out once a hard left president takes over (which actually becomes more likely in a post-civil war scenario).

And who are you proposing to fight? Biden? He’s got little to do with this, as these indictments are either a justice department issue, or have been issued at the state level. Even if you could overthrow Biden (you’ve got your AR-15’s, trouble is the US army have tanks, fighter aircraft and nuclear weapons), that won’t change anything. You could try overthrowing the entire US criminal justice system, but then who is going to enforce the law in the US? Are you just going to let all the other criminals and suspects (such as Hunter Biden) off the hook as well?

Then there’s the idea that the red states should just break away and form their own country….presumably called Jesusland (then again Jesus was kind of woke). Well aside from the fact that such a civil war would bankrupt America, as much of its wealth comes from overseas investors, who see America as a safe place to store their wealth (which would hurt pensioners & America’s wealthy the worst…i.e. the people who vote republican). But the real problem for Trumpers is that the bulk of America’s population is concentrated in blue states, which includes most of its wealth (specifically the wealth that can’t be easily moved out of the country). Indeed most blue states are net contributors to federal taxes (they send to DC more than they get back), while red states are net receivers of federal money (benefit’s scroungers to use republican terminology). In fact, even with in red states, many cities, which represent most of the wealth and tax revenue, lean left.

So such a split would leave Jesusland in a precarious financial situation, where they simply won’t be able to afford current spending commitments, requiring either massive tax increases, or significant spending cuts, or probably both. So you’d be fighting a war to abolish generous farm subsidies, state pensions, veteran benefits, medicare/medicaid, military spending, cut funding to police & prisons, while simultaneously pushing up taxes. And the bulk of what revenue and wealth that remained in Jesusland, would be dependant on those left leaning cities, who would literally control the purse strings. In short, for Trump supporters the world would suddenly become very fair very quickly. And that’s exactly what republicans don’t want to happen.

And least we forget, who is going to benefit the most from a civil unrest? Well, America’s enemies. Champagne corks will be flying in Moscow and Pyongyang if that ever happened. Hence why I’m totally sure they aren’t secretly manipulating things behind the scenes with their large armies of twitter trolls and bots.

Now I’d like to say it won’t happen, but we are in the post-truth and dark enlightenment era. Plenty of other train wrecks the right have pushed for have happened, be it brexit, Trump’s presidency, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, revoking Roe v Wade, all with predictable results. So unfortunately, I don’t think we can rule it out.

So this sort of dangerous rhetoric needs to have consequences (as in more republicans arrested). After all, we only got here thanks to Trump’s constant provocative, corrupt and illegal actions in office, without any push back. Republicans had the chance to impeach him after January 6th, bar him from office and draw a line under this, but they didn’t.

Largely because republican politicians don’t want to represent their constituents. They want to rule them. From their large mansions and secure gated communities, they see this whole circus as another manufactured controversy, like woke, anti-trans, Obamacare, etc. Its just a way to rile up the base. So what if people get hurt. So long as its not us or our wealthy donors, we don’t care. But its the sort of thing that could so easily run out of their control.

How British exceptionalism caused brexit and makes it so hard to reverse

The are many reasons why brexit happened in the UK. Euroskepticism isn’t uniquely British, there are factors that are led the country to take the leap into the dark. Some of these relate to the weakness of British democracy, with few checks and balances. And those that do exist seem to assume those in power are all gentlemen, scholars and a good judge of whisky. By contrast, other EU countries distrust their politicians (probably for good reasons). They have these things called “constitutions” and a willingness of the police to arrest corrupt politicians and sling them in jail.

But in the UK its a different story. The arrogance and self entitlement of many British, means they see themselves as the exception to the rules (the number of times I’ve seen brits try and use the EU queue at airports while waving their blue passports). As well as an elite class of politicians and plutocrats who hold themselves above the law. It was this mentality that led down the path to brexit and its many consequences.

Take for example the campaign to “save British farming” from the damaging effects of brexit, which will mean the phase out of nearly all farm subsidies, places massive barriers to trade with Europe, while seeing the UK market flooded with cheap produce from overseas (which benefits supermarkets yes, but not consumers). Well there’s just one small niggle, a majority of farmers voted leave. Some polls suggest by a two thirds ratio. Farm gates were plastered with leave signs for months. In fact I recall calling out their absurd claims of exchanging trade with the largest trading block in the world for “emerging markets” (on Pluto I assume!).

And its not like the extreme neo-liberal version of brexit we’ve seen implemented has come out of the blue. Several leading Tories were openly talking with glee about turning the UK into Singapore on the Thames for decades beforehand (even thought its worked out more like Pyongyang on the Thames). Since the 1980’s its been the mantra of the Tories to burn down everything except the city of london and turn the country into a playground for yuppies, tax exiles and Russian oligarchs.

And despite this being open knowledge, the safest of safe Tory seats have been in rural areas. ….you know….where farmers live. But no we are told by the save British farming campaign, farmers didn’t vote for brexit. And neither did any farmers vote for the Tories, ever. How they keep getting elected is a mystery to us. And we shouldn’t blame those who voted leave for brexit (so if some yob burns your barn down, are you going to argue he’s not to blame, we should blame they guy who sold him the matches?). So basically they are resorting to gaslighting the public, because that worked out so well for everyone in the referendum.

In reality farmers voted for the Tories and brexit, for the very same reasons the rest of the Tory cargo cult voted that way. Bigotry, greed, tribalism, sticking it to townies and the working class, etc. They didn’t mind one bit when it was the miners or the factory workers who were loosing their jobs. Nor did they mind when the poor, the disabled or migrants suffered under the Tories. Their arrogance just led them to believe that they’d never been tossed into the Tory mincer too. And now that its time for them to get their comeuppance, they have the nerve to complain.

But you may say, at least they’ve learnt their lesson, surely now the NFU (national farmers union) will turn on the Tories and advise its members never to vote Tory again. Actually no, the NFU claims its politically neutral and its not going to oppose policies that will destroy their own industry.

Actually, its worse. The NFU knows that most farmers are massively pro-Tory (something to do with fox hunting and, as mentioned, a dislike of townies), so it really matters diddly squat what they say (in a rare moment of clarity they advised members not to vote leave & that made little difference). When labour were in power, farmers booed or egged labour ministers. They organised massive protests against labour governments over one issue or the other, most notably the fox hunting ban (which the Tories promised to repeal, but surprise, surprise it turns out that was a lie as well). They even once infiltrated the floor of the house of commons (imagine if any lefties did that, their would be martial law the next day!). So they were willing to show up in the hundreds of thousands to be allowed have dogs tear life foxes cubs apart, but aren’t willing to protests in similar numbers to save their own industry, go figure.

And why would the Tories even consider changing policy on brexit, if the farmers are going to all vote for them anyways? Once a Tory mug, always a mug. Farmers are the Tories doormat. And when was the last time you listed to the opinions of your doormat? The reality is that most farmers will sit and watch the Tories run their industry into the ground and likely blame labour and the EU for their fate. Such is the reality of being in the crazy Tory echo chamber.

But as for this save british farming lot, having realised they’ve screwed themselves over (just unwilling to admit it), what is their solution? Why just join the single market, via the EFTA. LOL. Ya like its a gym membership you can just sign up for. The EU would have to approve that and its unlikely to do so, until it sees a change in UK politics. i.e. the Tories getting tared, feathered and run out of their safe seats, labour running on a rejoin ticket, etc. Until that happens, they won’t give the UK the time of day.

Also, as I’ve pointed out before EFTA is really a club for smaller, mostly Nordic countries, who want to be part of the European trading bloc, but for one reason another don’t want to be official signed up members. This won’t work with the UK in the club, as it would become less an association of equals and more the England et al club – who will immediately start whinging about everything and trying to bully the other members (hence why the UK’s membership of EFTA will be black balled).

And it is kind of a silly idea. EFTA membership means you are a rule taker, not a rule maker. Now granted the UK is going to have to follow rules set by the EU anyways (such as the recent ruling on mobile phone batteries), as well as the rules of the other trading bloc’s its part of (the trans pacific partnership comes with a number of other rules, which the UK has to now follow). But why go for the value brand version of the EU when you can have the deluxe version for basically the same price. It would make far more sense to just rejoin instead. But that would mean farmers admitting that they were wrong to vote leave in the first place and their fragile ego’s, just can’t take that sort of a hit.

Which brings us on to labour. Every day Sir Kid Starver is more and more like Boris Johnson. Johnson sacrificed whatever principles he had by backing leave because he thought it would make him PM. Starmer has basically done the same thing. He knows brexit is extremely damaging to the country, he knows the vast majority of labour members and supporters want to rejoin, but he want to be PM and that takes priority over the interests of the country.

In order to become PM he reckons he needs to kiss Murdoch’s ass….although he’s been doing that for years even before he became labour leader (so one wonders if that’s just an excuse for his lurch to the right). Plus pensioners are the people who actually turn up to vote, unlike young people (who are too busy working to pay taxes to fund old people’s retirement). Smug, self entitled and protected by their generational wealth and the triple locked state pensions, pensioners also voted overwhelmingly for leave, for much the same reasons as the farmers (arrogance, greed, racism, hatred of the younger generations, etc.). But Starmer worries that if he questions this in the slightest, he’ll offend their fragile ego’s and they’ll vote against him (out of the same spite that drove them to vote leave). So he’s going to avoid even mentioning it.

Of course the trouble with this is, once he is PM, the Tories and their client media will immediately start blaming him for all of the problems the Tories created (cost of living crisis, NHS on its knees, brexit, etc.). And its not like the economy is going to magically start growing just because labour are in charge. He’s going to have to engage with the EU and at the very least get some sort of customs union.

I think he’s got it in his head, like most of the British elites, that he can just wander into Brussels and ask for what is effectively a customs union, just don’t call it a customs union. But, as noted, that’s not how the EU works (if he has no democratic mandate, they’ll worry it will just be overturned by the next Tory government, so he’s wasting their time). And inevitably the Tory press will catch him at it and call him out. Not least because any sort of customs arrangements will have an administration cost, which he’ll have to pay the EU to implement.

Now granted those costs will be chum change compared to what brexit is costing us now (all those customs agents don’t work for free, the costs to businesses, etc.). But it means putting an item in the UK budget, which the Tories press will label YOUR TAXES GOING TO BRUSSELS (probably next to an article discussing which upmarket Brussuels eatery the eurocrats will spend it in). The Tories will fight this tooth and nail, using their control over the house of lords, the courts and the monarchy to block it. So unless Starmer wants to turn every national budget into a blood bath, he’s out of luck.

In short, Starmer, a rich man, whose wealth and elite position shields him from the consequences of brexit, simply doesn’t care. Either he thinks can just ignore the consequences of it on ordinary folk, as they’ll jolly well just have to keep shovelling coal and keep quiet about it. Or he thinks he can just stroll into Monsieur Barnier’s continental delicatessen and demand a bespoke kebab and expect it to be served to him on a silver tray, and he’s not even going to have to pay for it. I don’t know which of the two is worse.

This the real problem with the UK. Many of its citizens are arrogant, selfish, lack any capacity for self criticism and see themselves as the exception to the rules. And it gets worse and worse the higher up the class system you go. Its these factors that led to brexit and its what will prevent brexit from being reversed any time soon.

Also, people need to realise that just because you are loyal to one party or another, doesn’t mean they are your friends. In fact, under First Past the Post, they more loyal you are to a party, the more likely they are to betray you, as they assume you’re too much of a mug to vote for the opposition (what are farmers going to do? Vote lib dem! LOL). While floating voters, who might switch their vote, tend to get treated a bit better. In short farmers need to learn the meaning of the phrase “you reap what you sow”.