As you've noted before, there seems to be an endless supply of these power-hungry super-villains (my phrase, not yours) and they are restless in their drive to re-shape the world in their image.
I've seen a gradual slide to the right in Britain over the last 45+ years. Since Thatcher was enthroned in the UK and Reagan in the US. The process has been gradual.
Even during the one period of Labour control we've had since then - New Labour wasn't really Labour. They accelerated privatisation on the quiet.
Whether 'they' (the products of the Eton-Oxbridge entitlement engines) are consciously trying to bring back feudalism, or if that's just a side-effect of their inability to see beyond the next financial quarter and their personal share portfolio, is a mystery.
But it all went up a gear and moved over to the fast lane in 2016 - with the lose-lose double-tap of Trump #1 and Brexit.
Now, with Trump #2, it feels like the break-lines have snapped and we're just speeding up with no way to slow down again.
So, Trump and Farrago are, I suppose, an inevitable symptom of a chronic illness which has been metastasizing through our culture and infrastructure or decades.
They are the visible tip of the neo-liberal, alt-right iceberg. I fear that means we're all passangers on the Titanic. The difference being, we know the iceberg is there, and we're steaming towards it anyway. Faster and faster.
Great piece of writing and spot on. America is doomed to lose it’s democracy, it’s reputation is in tatters. Trump has managed to alienate the allies of the US, has broken international law as well as supporting genocide in Israel.( The UK is also guilty too). He is corrupt, immoral, arrogant, economically illiterate and is on the psychopathic spectrum. I alternate between feeling sad for Americans to feeling they have bought it all on themselves as they are really stupid.
At least the “late great Hannibal Lecter” was an educated man with sophisticated tastes (aside from his problematic tastes, of course).
As such, he’d make a far better POTUS than anyone already part of the existing regime … and threatening to kill & eat the Speaker of the House might not be a wholly bad incentive either 😹
I suspect that we may avoid the Abyss, because Trump isn't an organised psychopath, but a disorganised one. The chaos that results, each day, might cripple the whole aim of enslaving the world, and turning it into a meat-grinding machine.
I hope so, but it’s Miller, Vought, and the Yarvinites that truly worry me: actually *competent* fascists of various stripes … who have used the cover of Trumpism to advance their respective goals, whether those be Nazism, Xian Dominionism, or technofeudalism imposed by the techbroligarchy.
Regardless which of those visions for the future wins out on the other side, we’ve got to be prepared to defend against, and eventually root out for good, each of these adjacent strains of autocratic wet dreams.
You are absolutely right. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance". After the end of the Cold War, we took our eye off the ball, and now we have arrived at a place of peril. There does need to a great rooting out; but Japanese knotweed cannot match the persistence of these autocrats.
An excellent analysis!
As you've noted before, there seems to be an endless supply of these power-hungry super-villains (my phrase, not yours) and they are restless in their drive to re-shape the world in their image.
I've seen a gradual slide to the right in Britain over the last 45+ years. Since Thatcher was enthroned in the UK and Reagan in the US. The process has been gradual.
Even during the one period of Labour control we've had since then - New Labour wasn't really Labour. They accelerated privatisation on the quiet.
Whether 'they' (the products of the Eton-Oxbridge entitlement engines) are consciously trying to bring back feudalism, or if that's just a side-effect of their inability to see beyond the next financial quarter and their personal share portfolio, is a mystery.
But it all went up a gear and moved over to the fast lane in 2016 - with the lose-lose double-tap of Trump #1 and Brexit.
Now, with Trump #2, it feels like the break-lines have snapped and we're just speeding up with no way to slow down again.
So, Trump and Farrago are, I suppose, an inevitable symptom of a chronic illness which has been metastasizing through our culture and infrastructure or decades.
They are the visible tip of the neo-liberal, alt-right iceberg. I fear that means we're all passangers on the Titanic. The difference being, we know the iceberg is there, and we're steaming towards it anyway. Faster and faster.
Well said!
Great piece of writing and spot on. America is doomed to lose it’s democracy, it’s reputation is in tatters. Trump has managed to alienate the allies of the US, has broken international law as well as supporting genocide in Israel.( The UK is also guilty too). He is corrupt, immoral, arrogant, economically illiterate and is on the psychopathic spectrum. I alternate between feeling sad for Americans to feeling they have bought it all on themselves as they are really stupid.
At least the “late great Hannibal Lecter” was an educated man with sophisticated tastes (aside from his problematic tastes, of course).
As such, he’d make a far better POTUS than anyone already part of the existing regime … and threatening to kill & eat the Speaker of the House might not be a wholly bad incentive either 😹
😂 Cannot disagree.
I suspect that we may avoid the Abyss, because Trump isn't an organised psychopath, but a disorganised one. The chaos that results, each day, might cripple the whole aim of enslaving the world, and turning it into a meat-grinding machine.
I hope so, but it’s Miller, Vought, and the Yarvinites that truly worry me: actually *competent* fascists of various stripes … who have used the cover of Trumpism to advance their respective goals, whether those be Nazism, Xian Dominionism, or technofeudalism imposed by the techbroligarchy.
Regardless which of those visions for the future wins out on the other side, we’ve got to be prepared to defend against, and eventually root out for good, each of these adjacent strains of autocratic wet dreams.
You are absolutely right. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance". After the end of the Cold War, we took our eye off the ball, and now we have arrived at a place of peril. There does need to a great rooting out; but Japanese knotweed cannot match the persistence of these autocrats.