Did Trump Get Thumped … or Supporters Get Dumped?
Trump’s supporters are increasingly alarmed, outspoken and feeling betrayed as their champion rolls over and plays lap dog for the political establishment. Even Rush Limbaugh, Trump’s golfing buddy and longtime advocate, said this week that what is happening with Trump and the Republicans is a “sellout” and “betrayal.”
With the US economy sinking in the first quarter toward the netherlands of recession (GDP growth of 0.7%), my prediction that the the economy will really start to fall apart in the early summer — in spite of Trump’s victory and the Trump Rally in stocks — looks increasingly likely with each passing week. Meanwhile my warning last year that Trump would likely prove to be a Trojan horse for the establishment is, as of this week, finally proven. Consider the following analysis of Trump’s acquiescence to every failure of his purported agenda:
Trump gets thumped on Obamacare and spending bill
Trump’s Obamacare Repeal 2.0 is teetering on the edge of defeat. Even if it gets approved, it has already retreated on Trump’s promises about things like pre-existing conditions, which he swore repeatedly during his campaign would remain as they are. If Trump was ever serious about making sure certain provisions of Obamacare that the majority of Americans like remain, why doesn’t he tell Republicans now that, if the bill passes without his campaign promises safeguarded, he will veto it? He is making no attempt at strong-arming in the safeguards he swore he’d protect. No attempt.
Trump talked tough like that in the Repeal 1.0 round, saying it would be the Republicans one and only chance to do this right, and then he caved in by starting Repeal 2.0. In this round, he’s not talking at all. The veto threat is notably absent. While that’s a win for arch conservatives, it is still a breach of Trump’s promise, which he doesn’t seem to hold very dear at this point.
On all other matters, conservatives lose, and Trump still doesn’t defend his promises. The 2017 spending bill looks like it will give Trump a big fat goose egg. If it passes as is, Trump gets nothing he wanted (nothing he promised anyway), and he already appears to be willing to accept that as he has Mike Pence dressing the present draft up as a great victory. Here is a list of the campaign promises broken in this bill:
- No money for a border wall, and no apparent withholding of funds from Mexico so they can pay for the wall either. So, no wall this year.
- No funding of a “special deportation task force†that Trump promised would remove millions of illegal immigrants right away as an immediate security threat.
- No elimination of funding for Planned Parenthood.
- No reduction in government spending or in funding for agencies like the EPA that Trump has said he wants to pare down. Even non-defense spending rises by billions.
- No apparent reduction of funding for sanctuary cities to help pay for his other increases.
- 160 Republican riders were flushed by the Democrats, including those that were part of Trump’s promised deregulation.
Comments tea party Republican Art Halvorson,
It’s no different than if Hillary was elected; it’s a huge loss, and I’m livid. Paul Ryan’s House is a not conservative House. (McClatchy)
Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler says,
This bill reflects little more than a desire to kick the can down the road with the promise of a real fight — a winning fight — in September.
While conservatives are writhing over the promise that “we’ll start trying to win in September,” Democrats are celebrating and using their victory to give Trump a good drubbing for his complete failure to get anything out of this deal. Lead Democrat Chuck Schumer felt exuberant over the results and used them to taunt Trump over his losses:
I think we had a strategy and it worked. Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate were closer to one another than Republicans were to Donald Trump.
Of course, they are closer to one another! As I’ve said countless times, Republicans and Democrats are Frick and Frack. When will people learn that the Republicrats and Demicans are both “the establishment?” They work for the moneyed interests in our economy. Clearly, Democrats got far more out of Republicans than Trump, who got nothing! And he’s just rolling over and accepting that! This ought to tell you all you need to know about the establishment owning both parties — being both parties. Meanwhile, all Trump does about it is make more empty tweets, threatening bolder actions far down the road, which ought to tell you all you need to know about Trump. It’s all mouth.
His lack of actual battle against this plan shows that he stands with the establishment. Trump will spend an inordinate amount of time fighting for his reputation in the press — for his ego — but he isn’t spending much time or effort fighting this spending bill. If he were, he would threaten a veto and government shutdown now, not just tweet about the possibility of doing that in September. (September will come and go with its own ready-made excuses. Even now, he doesn’t say he will go that far in September, just that congress may deserve it.)
It’s not only Democrats who see Trump as a total loser on this one. Rush Limbaugh spent his program on Tuesday lamenting how the losses are stacking up and how Trump seems to be simply rolling over and accepting those losses, in spite of the fact that Republicans own all branches of government:
I’m just coming up with new ways to explain what a sellout, disaster, betrayal — whatever you want to call this — it is.
“Sellout” and “betrayal” — pretty rough language that is not likely to get Limbaugh another invitation to golf at Mar-A-Lago. If Republicans ever really intended to change things, they would do so now. The fact is, they just talked bold action when they new Obama would veto them anyway.
In an interview with Vice President Pence, Limbaugh asked,
What is the point of voting Republican if the Democrats are gonna continue to win practically 95% of their objectives, such as in this last budget deal?
The fact that the Democrats are celebrating tells you clearly who won. The only answer that Pence could give repeatedly as to what Trump’s supporters got in this deal was that they got a $21 billion increase in military spending. (Trump had sought $30 billion.) Limbaugh didn’t accept that answer and responded,
If I’m the Democrats, $21 billion, 15 billion for defense that was not originally authorized, that’s a small price to pay for continuing to fund refugee resettlement, continuing to fund Planned Parenthood, continuing to fund sanctuary cities, continuing to fund the EPA, and not build the wall. The Democrats clearly think this is a big win, and they’re confident they can block Trump’s agenda after this spending bill for the rest of Trump’s term. There isn’t anything of the president’s agenda in this budget, and people are beginning to ask, when’s that gonna happen? If you’re gonna shut it down in September, why not now?
Why not now? That’s exactly the question that popped into my mind when I heard Trump threaten big action down the road. Pence had no answer for “why not now?” Rush repeated the question and still got no answer. Like a typical politician, Pence just kept prevaricating to other ground and applying window dressing to this bill that accomplished none of Trump’s objectives. Not a one, and that’s with owning both branches of congress! Reagan did better than that even when he faced Democrat control of congress.  Trump’s complete capitulation to Democrats in this bill is astounding proof that Trump isn’t willing to fight for any of his campaign promises.
The bill still has to be voted on by the full House and Senate, or the government will shut down on Friday, but Trump isn’t putting out any apparent effort to stop the spending bill from going forward as is, just as he is making no effort to stop the Obamacare Repeal in its present form, in spite of his guarantees that the provisions for pre-existing conditions will be better than under Obamacare, not worse.
Because conservatives are enraged by the spending bill, it will have to pass with Democrat votes, which it is sure to get since even Schumer celebrates it as a great victory for the Democrats, saying it embodies their principles. This is reminiscent of the kinds of deals struck by House Speaker Boehner that joined cause with Democrats and enraged conservatives, causing Boehner to lose his place in the House. Even though this spending bill is a solid win for the establishment …
Former GOP Chairman Michael Steele didn’t think Ryan will face the conservative revolt that Boehner did because “he’s got the blessing of the White House…. A lot of core things the party has promoted, and the administration promoted, just aren’t happening.†(McClatchy)
Kicking the can down the road … again.
Indeed, Trump’s outrage looked pretend when he tweeted that it looks like congress needs to be whacked with a government shutdown in September. Really? September? Why not now? If Trump truly believes congress needs to be whacked and if he really has the guts and desire to fight the establishment, he’d do something now when he needs a victory more than ever! He’d do what Ronald Reagan was excellent at doing and veto the present spending bill so that government shuts down this Friday, not on some far distant horizon, which will present its own opportune excuses.
In fact, threatening that he might shut down government in September actually telegraphs to congress that Trump has no intention of vetoing the bill and shutting down government now. Given that he desperately needs a win for his supporters now after so many fails with congress and so many flip-flops on his promises, why should any of his supporters believe he’ll have the combination of boldness and desire and political capital needed to do it later?
And, indeed, Speaker Paul Ryan has the blessings of the White House. Trump’s immediate cozying up to Paul Ryan, after all their campaign battles, was a tell-tale sign I pointed to in my earlier warnings last year about where all of this is headed and how those battles were just hot air — a coliseum show for the masses.
If Trump’s a Trojan horse, as I said was likely well before the election, his September threat is just one more way to keep his supporters on board a little longer (to forestall the mutiny that he deserves). When even his good friend Rush Limbaugh judges it as a “betrayal,” the conclusion must be considered as good as proven. Trump’s own friends and biggest supporters deem this plan a betrayal and a disaster.
As I’ve warned many times, Trump is a buffoon who is all talk. Have you seen him actually proposing anything that will strip money away from Mexico so they wind up reimbursing us for the cost of the wall? No. Just big talk. Trump is aptly named for loving to blow his own horn, but he’s not sounding a battle cry on your behalf. He’s just sounding off. In fact, it sounds like he’s playing “Taps” on your behalf.
Remember that Trump has less than two years before the next big election. If he doesn’t accomplish most of what he wants to in these two years, it’s not likely he’s going to be handed the keys to congress again. He’ll lose his ownership of congress and his mandate. And two years after that, he’ll be playing “Taps” on his own behalf and for the entire Republican party.
The Republicans are squandering the one rare moment when they have solid control over all of congress and the executive branch. On this bill, they sold out to Democrats, rather than supported their president. (The truth is they never intended to change anything for your betterment. Dems, Repubs, and Trump all serve the wealthy establishment — that top ten-percent club — for whom Trump’s Tax Plan is the most enormous gift they’ve ever seen.)
And, no, Hillary is not ever going to be locked up. She never was going to be! That was just more big mouth to wind up the crowd. What Trump really delivered for her was an immediate gold star as “good people” and a public sympathy card, signed by Trump, himself, who said she had suffered enough, and he didn’t want to hurt her. As a prize he appointment an AG who shows no signs of going after her — probably part of the deal before Trump appointed him. She’s effectively been pardoned.
Is Trump dumping his supporters?
It seems to me, there are only two possible conclusions from this “disaster,” as Limbaugh described it: One is that Trump is actually a terrible negotiator — I mean bad beyond belief — because his party controls congress, and yet he still can’t negotiate a single thing he really wants! Nada. Because that truly is bad beyond belief, I’m much more inclined to believe the other forced conclusion — Trump has no intention of fulfilling his campaign promises. He can’t possibly have made it as far as he did in real estate deals by being this bad as a negotiator. He didn’t even raise such basic and obvious tools of resistance as a veto threat to steer congress in the direction of his campaign promises. Reagan pulled hard on those reins all the time. Trump just tweets and twitters about how hard things are!
According to the Donald, being president is really, really hard — a lot harder than he ever thought it would be — and negotiating Obamacare’s repeal is a lot harder than he ever thought. I see a couple of obvious conclusions from that observation, too: Either 1) Trump is far more naive than the average voter who knows that negotiating anything through congress is extremely difficult, especially in these years when our nation is so sharply divided; or 2) Trump is a 240-pound weakling who is totally inept at negotiating with his own party. Either he was naive about how hard the job is, or he overstated his ability to negotiate.
I’m sure the rest of us have all noticed that presidents typically enter the office with hair the color of their youth, and leave gray. How could Trump not have realized how hard the most important job in the world is? So, there is a third possible conclusion, which is the one that is unfortunately the hardest on those who hoped there was a small chance of overturning the globalist establishment: Trump never planned to deliver in the first place, and when he talks about how hard it is, he is just attempting to exit those promises without stirring a peasant revolt.
Trump also said this week that he is “a nationalist and a globalist.” Notice how he is beginning to shift the rhetoric now that he has secured the power of the presidency and its prestige (which is what he really wanted as the feather in his narcissistic cap). He is a Trojan horse — whether wittingly or unwittingly — and is just coaxing his supporters along for the ride by trying to convince them he’s really trying, but it’s just really, really hard.
Cry me a puddle of soup.
He also made a Freudian slip when pressed by CBS reporter John Dickerson this week about his claims that former President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower. Asked whether he stood by his claims that the former president was “bad” and “sick,” Trump barked, “I don’t stand by anything,†and walked briskly away.
There is more truth in that than Trump really intended to admit. It’s a statement that should encapsulate everything that is happening this week and that happened in the last two weeks, which I wrote about extensively.
What is an anti-globalist to do now that Trump is a let-down?
If you are willing to believe Trump will do in September what he didn’t lift a finger to do right now, ask yourself if it really makes sense to think Trump is going to have more strength and more resolve in September than he has exhibited with congress so far when he is already whining about how hard the job has turned out to be?
The swamp’s solution is always to kick the can down the road (put the hard and undesirable work off for later), as Boehner always did and then complained that it was getting kicked down the road, even as he voted for the kick. Trump will protest and then sign the bills anyway. I’m saying it in advance so you can watch it happen. Mark my words.
I think it doesn’t make sense to believe September Trump is going to be stronger than Spring Trump, given that he’s already sounding like he’s exhausted. If he was ever serious about being a swamp drainer, Trump must have thought being president meant he’d simply raise his kingly finger to issue dictates while being wined and dined and eating chocolate cake.
When his new tax plan hands the final crumbs of wealth over to the Top-Ten-Percent Club (where Trump has been a lifetime member) while his supporters complain that they can no longer afford bread, Trump will look up from his cake with brown lips, dusted in crumbs and white sugar. He will pause, as did President Xi Jinping, and then shrug and say, ala Marie Antoinette, “Then let them eat cake.” The wine will again be passed around the table at Marie-A-Lago and Trump will go back to gorging himself.
If you voted for Trump to be your champion in overthrowing the globalist establishment, you had better shout out now or forever accept your losses under Trump as being your own fault for continuing to believe he will fight for you in the face of clear proof that he is not fighting for you. We’re at the point where continuing in that hope is starting to look like classic denial now that even Limbaugh can see how bad this looks. Trump is not even using his most basic presidential tool, the veto, on his own party to herd the cats into place. Unless citizens revolt now, they will get to sit and watch the biggest tax gifts to the wealthy in US history take shape as the new reality.
If you want to speak out, pass this article around to as many Trump supporters as you can. I can’t fault anyone for voting for an anti-establishment candidate. I hoped Trump would turn out to be better than I thought he would and all that he claimed he was, but he is not. Our economy is stuck in a rut because we denied the serious problems of debt and corruption that needed to be fixed. Clearly Trump is not going to fix any of that.
It’s time to realize we have to fight for ourselves. The billionaire is not going to do it for us unless you roast the corns off his feet. Trump thrives on the adulation of his fans. He will feel the pain if they revolt and let him know that they expect him to do exactly as he said he would in all of his promises and now, not later! Don’t give him that latitude. It’s time to press hard. No more kicking the can down the road. Later never comes, so it’s now or never.
You can start pushing him by sharing this article to help create the realization that Trump’s supporters need to fight hard now if they want their candidate to carry out his promises. He’s going to have to feel the heat of their rage on the back of his neck before he’ll start to fight for them. Even then, I’m not sure he will. He needs to know that his promises are expected to be serious business and that there is no waffling on them. He has a huge mouth; so, he has a lot of fulfilling to do. Make that his problem. Keep the onus on him to be the one to make change happen and make America great again.
Don’t let him cop out with, “Gee, this is a lot tougher than I thought, and we’ll get done what we can.” No, he told you it would be “easy” and it would be “great” — that you’d be “amazed” at how fast it happened and at “what a thing of beauty” the results would be. Force him to own those promises every day for the next four years. If he’s going to disappoint you by not living up to his big mouth, he deserves to feel intense pressure the whole time he disappoints. It was his big mouth, not yours, that put him in this spot.
Saturday, May 13th 2017 at 1:33 pm |
Ask for obama care there is a very little noted part of the bill that really kills its funding mechanism, ie no more mandates to buy insurance for individuals or businesses. All I ask for is the option to opt out – just like at the airport. I choose not to participate and don’t want to get govt penalties for not participating.
Well done Trump in a under the radar move!!!
Tuesday, May 9th 2017 at 4:31 pm |
Trump fired comey today, what do you think this means dave. Im still suspicious, but it seems that if he had to fire just one person, he couldn’t have picked a better person. Think he will let someone honest fill the top dawg position and let them loose on the corrupt?
Tuesday, May 9th 2017 at 10:30 pm |
Two possibilities present themselves right off — both worthy of becoming conspiracy theories. The one that isn’t true will become the conspiracy theory for the next year:
1) Trump did the right thing. Even though he benefited from Comey’s interference in the election, he recognizes that Comey had seen NOTHING in the emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer that merited sounding such loud alarm bells that it upset the election. He recognizes (or Jeff Sessions, who recommended the move recognizes) that there is ZERO possibility that Comey, as long as he’s been in Washington, wouldn’t know that bringing up a scandal AGAIN would hurt Clinton’s ratings. Come had to have known that he should not be risking swinging an election on his sole word based on mere suspicions that there might be something in those Wiener emails. A week later, damage done, Comey announces, “Sorry folks. nothing here. Just a precaution. Keep moving.” It’s like yelling fire in a theater as a precaution just in case there really is one. Naturally, everyone thought, “Wow, there must be something the head of the FBI saw in a preliminary scan through the documents that raised major red flags for him, or he wouldn’t bite off this fight!” Even many in the FBI think Comey’s decision was peculiar. Sessions is going after him, and told Trump he needs to get Comey out of the administration because all hell is about to break lose on Comey. Trump agreed that, whether Comey benefited him or not, one man should not upset an election, and Comey knew better.
2) Comey is as determined to dig into the claims that Trump conspired with Russia as he was to dig into Hillary’s emails on Anthony’s computer JUST IN CASE HE COULD FIND SOMETHING, and Comey was head of that investigation. Trump knows there is something to find, and recognized that all his public flattery about having full confidence in his FBI head buy him any influence over the, dogged Comey, who feels honor-bound to stay on the trail and pursue justice. So, Trump is ditching Comey in order to appoint someone into the position that he knows he can control. Even if Trump needed Democrats to approve the next appointment (which he doesn’t), it wouldn’t matter because the more Democrats drag out the appointment of a new FBI head, the more that benefits Trump, too, by keeping the FBI in disarray.
You pick. Your guess is as good as mine, but this is really going to heat things up because Trump just threw red meat to the dogs on both sides of the aisle, who will see the same two possibilities (or maybe some other possibility) and will fasten on to whichever one pleases their biases the most.
–David
Wednesday, May 10th 2017 at 5:20 pm |
Nice. I like your third option, disarray. Maybe he’ll just bog everything down because he actually can’t do what he wants THE WAY he wants too. No matter what, it looks like we are no better off.
Wednesday, May 10th 2017 at 7:02 pm |
Indeed. So, the most important thing we can do is be prepared in reasonable ways ourselves, expect no major salvation from the Team Trump and recognize that in the US things are still moving inexorably toward globalism … as in France and most parts of the world.
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 2:57 pm |
You liked the kike now take a hike
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 12:30 pm |
Instead of draining the swamp, he enlarged it. It is not just economics, but the MIC also. He hasn’t seen a war he hasn’t liked either, since he entered office.It won’t be long, and the real WWIII is going to kick off.Like, putting sanctions on Russia, China, and Iran’s harbors, with the U.S military enforcing them all in their harbors. Fools all!
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 10:41 am |
KEEPING the USA in CHAOS and POVERTY is NOT NICE for the CITIZENS of the USA!
The PRICE will be HIGH and BRUTAL.
IT is called TREASON and carries the DEATH PENALTY during a WAR!
USA is TIRED of being SLAVES!
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 10:38 am |
Limbaugh is a POS drug addict and IS the establishment and shoved all the RINO’s on us for 25 years. all the GOP cares about is Israel that is why they are happy with just more money for the military to fight and continue the 1000 year war for isreal. without the other POS Reagan who made legal 4 millions messicans with them chain migrating average of 5 others which means 20 million added to that tens of millions of more illegals waiting for the next traitor president to amnesty them. one gop guy did state that Reagans amnesty led to yobama being elected twice
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 9:39 am |
Love the Male Dominated GOP fixation on “defunding Planned Parenthood”. Kinda like all the fuss over videos made by Felon J.O’Qeeuf dressed up like the Huggy Bear the Pimp from Starsky & Hutch. Fool me once: ACORN, ah, uh, can’t get fooled again! If Men got pregnant PP would have Clinics on every corner, like McDonalds. Ask John Fund, he knows about abortions. Abortion is just a small part of the Tremendous number of Health care services PP provides. Let the Women of this country decide.
That being said, Trump has definitely betrayed Us. No question.
Thursday, May 4th 2017 at 5:25 pm |
David, wanted to send this link your way in case you hadn’t seen it.
Perhaps you can incorporate it into an article.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/05/04/gop-propose-american-workers-replacement-bill-amnesty-immigration/
Thursday, May 4th 2017 at 9:13 pm |
Oh my gosh. Talk about sick suck-up service to the mega-rich corporate owners. I used to vote GOP more often than Democrat by a fairly wide margin, but they’ve become so all-out disgusting in recent years that I’m not sure I’ll ever vote GOP again. That is truly disgusting! I’ve earmarked it for a possible article down the road.
Thursday, May 4th 2017 at 7:58 am |
David, your articles calling Trump out for failure to perform his campaign “promises” are pertinent at this time and extremely important, imo.
Some say you have strayed from economic articles, yet I believe Trump is a major aspect of the economy as he said many things about correcting the economy. We all are aware the economy is run by a private banking cartel, absolutely unconstitutional, and should be dismantled many yesterdays ago, nonetheless, if Trump was such the outsider, “one of the people,” he obviously knows this, and should attempt to topple this beast.
Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you to continue to shine the light on Trump without concern you are moving away from your original intent. Until the people realize there is no correcting the mess, the criminals in DC have made, by continuing to vote, this country will continue on the path of destruction. This will absolutely require you and I to drive them out as they will not leave on their own. Keep up the great writing!
Thursday, May 4th 2017 at 9:41 am |
Well, thanks a lot, Kate. That’s certainly the reason I’ve written so much on Trump. He’s made big statements about what he’s going to do for the economy, and I just don’t see it happening. He’ll make a bigger push for his tax cuts because those are an enormous gift to himself and his cronies; but even there he’s going to face lots of resistance.
Thursday, May 4th 2017 at 10:23 am |
Absolutely, this is about the billionaire club continuing to make record profits at the expense and complete disregard for the owners of this country, you and I. Consider Trumps administration as a fire sale of our natural resources to the highest bidder, regardless of what nationality they are. Trump is the new Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc..
Wednesday, May 3rd 2017 at 4:54 pm |
Dave
I agree with you +90% of the time. I think you do a good job in your research and writing of you posts. Now comes the slam. I believe we can all get a little obcessed in what we talk and write about. I know I have done it many times in the past. If you could hear my friends say oh there he goes again. I guess my gripe is you were right for sure on Trump and all that goes with hime but let’s move along and revisit some other themes like the economy or world banks and debt. I will always read your articles just trying to thank you along.
Thanks Chris
Wednesday, May 3rd 2017 at 6:53 pm |
I think you’re right, Chris. In fact, I came back by the article just now and read you comment because I thought I’d tone the article down a little. I’ve also been thinking that part of the reason for my loss of readership may not just be that people don’t like hearing that Trump is not what he claims to be but that, in spending as much time on Trump as I have, I’ve strayed away from the economics focus that most people came here for originally. There is a strong economic connection with much of it, but it’s still been more political than economic.
Thanks for saying it like it is and doing so kindly.
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 2:45 am |
Carry on Dave. I voted for Trump because I thought he had the best chance that any single man alone could have at “draining the swamp.” But I am also a realist. I have always known that powerful interests run things in Washington. But I did expect more support by his own party than he has had. Not withstanding Ryan”s clear intent. But for the rest of them, expected a public face of collective support. Instead we have an in your face exposay of voter hate by our elected officials on both sides of the isle. I will not give up hope until the mid-terms. We will see if the American people will wipe the slate clean and vote some actual “representatives” into office. If not I hope the Libertarians can front someone better than Johnson next go around.
I would like to see Trump fighting more for his promises by taking his fight to the people directly, with prime time broadcasts. It is clear we need a grass root uprising in support of this president to get anything done. Millions of us writing and phoning our representatives to do what we want if they want to keep their jobs.
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 9:43 am |
Thanks, Don.
A tell-tale sign of how much his own party was going to fight him came when several Republican Reps. and senators announced they would be voting for Hillary. Must be the first time in history that Republican congressmen voted for a Democrat for president over their own Republican choice.
Friday, May 5th 2017 at 10:54 pm |
I respect Chris’s view and give him 100% for criticising you with politeness rather than nastiness (sadly the latter appears to be the norm these days when folk don’t agree on something). However I disagree with him wholeheartedly!
How on God’s earth can you just skip the elephant in the room, Trump, and merrily go back to only talking economics and central bankster monetary policy (or rather what it should be termed, ‘Central bankster monetary fraud’). Trump is now the next spider at the heart of the web (this after conning so many down trodden and betrayed by previous administrations, US citizens into thinking he was a lion). He has the fake comb over, dyed orange mane and that’s it. In fact he is starting to look more like a cornered, fat rat. He comes across as completely out of his depth when it comes to the minutia of politics (as in the often boring and tedious long slog of getting policies mandated by Congress). Trump is nothing but a showman, a guy who knows how to work a crowd by throwing out cheap and meaningless words: ‘Yuuuge’, ‘Awesome’, ‘Simple’, ‘Beautiful’, ‘Biggly’. I think he is actually a stupid man (but very crafty). Notice how the minute he got into the Oval Office he loved issuing Executive Orders. He couldn’t get enough of the cameras flashing and clicking as he signed his name on these. It went spectacularly wrong and someone obviously had to explain to him that being US President is not the same as being God, that there is this little ‘ol thing called, ‘Congress’ down the road and no, it isn’t a hotel that belongs to a rival. I truly think that is when The Donald lost all interest in being President, as in when he realised it wasn’t, ‘The Apprentice’ on a larger scale, with him dictating morning noon and night to nodding dogs whom he could then fire at will. For his recent moaning about his new job being, ‘harder’ than he imagined, read, ‘far more boring’ than he imagined. This is a guy who is a thrill seeker; he likes audiences who clap, and that’s it really. This is a guy who loves money, power and people clapping at him. He isn’t vaguely interested in anything else. I am sure his main handlers (Kushner, Goldman and the CIA) fall over laughing behind his back at just what a big, orange ball of arrogant stupidity he is.
David, you keep referring to loss of readership. It obviously hurt and still is hurting. You have to ask yourself, ‘Do readership numbers matter more than me speaking from my heart and soul, as in the absolute truth as I see it?’. At the end of the day would you rather educate 5 people on the now stinking Corporatocracy running the US, (with its UK and EU partners doing likewise in Europe), or please 10 people because you didn’t expose Trump? Most people who read alternative sites do so because they are sick of the Neo Lib status quo MSM in the US, UK and EU. The MSM are the bought out echo chambers of the parasitical bankster lead Corporatocracy and their puppet politicians. So there are many millions of Westerners looking for strong Conservative/Republican values that have been missing for at least two decades. That is what Trump realised and that is why he talked the talk and in turn won the Presidency. He hasn’t walked the walk but for many of his supporters it is just too terrible to accept that reality so soon after he gave then false hopes. They will in time see they have been duped, but it is too early for many of them. Your biting and brilliant satire along with your rapier like perception is simply too painful for the average Joe who really did believe the garbage that spilled from Trump’s big mouth. When we support someone and they dump on us we feel humiliated as well as let down. That is how more and more Trump supporters are starting to feel. So some who read your brilliant and accurate accounts of Trump and what an idiot he has been so far, find it hurts too much so they feel you are in turn humiliating them.
We are reaching a climax of bubbling resentment in the West, a time when most people know we are being taken for a gigantic ride by vast and undemocratic forces that are out of control precisely because they are exerting huge power without being answerable to an electorate. Over here in the UK we are treated to daily lectures by the unelected EU President, Jean Claude Juncker (mocking the UK for Brexit, threatening us, and now over night doubling the exit fee they want to charge us for leaving their dictatorship to £100 billion). The UK has been the second biggest net contributor to the EU in all the 40 years since we first became ensnared by it. Only Germany pays more (and unlike Germany the UK has not had the benefit of a common currency, which as Martin Armstrong pointed out would result in making Germany super rich at the expense of Southern Europe and also give them the power to run the EU, which is exactly what has happened!). We get the nobody EU poodle Donald Tusk, lecturing us and threatening us too. This is some what ironic considering his impoverished little country, Poland, has only been in the EU for about a decade and pays nothing into it. In fact Poland gets the highest EU subsidies per year (€10 billion) and much of that is made up from the £16 billion the UK pays into this farce every year. Not only that, we now have 3 million Poles living in the UK thanks to the EU, Free Movement laws. Hundreds of thousands of them don’t work but claim all benefits including free housing. So Poland is doing very well out of the EU and most of all out of the UK.
The reason I talk about the EU is that it is a mirror of the Corporatocracy that has over taken USA politics. Just like the White House, UK and EU governments are also mired in ex Goldman banksters. Obama was flown over to the UK last year to try and frighten us out of voting to leave the EU. Obama has been appearing on French news channels, backing the little ex Rothschild multi millionaire bankster, Macron, for the French presidency. Macron was unknown in France a year ago. He has not a single member of his new party, ‘En Marche!’ in government because it didn’t even exist until recently. His campaign was massively funded but the MSM doesn’t ask by whom exactly? It is obvious he is a plant by the Western parasitical Corporatocracy. Why is Obama still trying to exert influence in UK and EU politics? He isn’t even the US President anymore and even when he was, he had no business flying over to threaten this nation with no trade deals if we dared to leave Eurocrat land. Can you begin to imagine how Americans would feel if a UK Prime Minister (which is our equivalent of the US President), flew over to America and was paraded on your most popular news channels telling you who and what you should vote for! Yet here is Obama, doing it yet again, this time with the French presidential campaign. That is appalling and another clear sign of this now fascist Western Corporatocracy calling all the shots for their own wealth and power interests while pretending to follow a Neo Lib agenda.
So how exactly, with now completely corrupted politics in the West can you just write about the economics of the West in some kind of isolation from the political and bankster fraternity that have so much power over modern economics?
Our economies are now completely at the mercy of our banskters. It is that simple. It is these banksters and their big corp. chums who run the West. Again, it really is that simple. It is as obvious as the Emperor with no clothes except the MSM won’t say it. They won’t say it, let alone investigate it and report on it because the Emperor owns them too! There would be no need for WikiLeaks, Zero Hedge and all the other alternative news sites if this wasn’t the case.
Trump can’t be ignored. He just happens to be the President of the most powerful nation on earth and one which is awash with all manner of weapons, including of course a vast nuclear arsenal. He needs to be monitored and called out on his lies, cowardice and utter hypocrisy and that is what you are doing!
If for fear of offending some readers and losing them you are going to dumb yourself down to, ‘appease’ rabid Trumpites, then you do a great disservice to both your own integrity and to those of us who hugely appreciate your articles and have told you so constantly. Don’t turn your site into just endless blogs about auto sub prime, the rigged S&P500, GDP figures, the endless garbage of Fed Policy statements, etc etc. There is site after site after site out there that does that. They avoid any criticism of Trump on the basis that he is not psycho Hillary. That isn’t the point though is it. Hillary isn’t President and Trump is and so far Trump is making a pig’s ear out of his presidency and in turn, far from making America, ‘Great Again’, he is making it look more and more like a Banana Republic. Worse still, by going back on his promises he is making the totally corrupt Dems more popular!
In a reply to one of your recent Trump articles, I made the Marie Antoinette analogy in reference to Trump boasting about eating luxury chocolate cake with the Chinese leader, pointing out that it is always chocolate cake for the parasitical few and how it is all turning into little to nothing for the rest of us. I see you have used that same analogy in this recent and once again brilliant article. Your economy, the one I live in here in the UK and the ones millions in Europe live in are being gutted by the chocolate cake eaters of this world. You cannot simply examine the crumbs on the plate (our vanishing economies), it is vital to expose where the body of the cake has gone and why and that means keeping your blogs every bit as political as they are economic David.
Multum In Parvo
Saturday, May 6th 2017 at 7:05 am |
Hi Auld,
Let me give you a sense of the problem in real numbers (since I’m a full-disclosure kind of guy). For YEARS, readership wouldn’t move above 1,000 unique viewers per month. I kept writing, regardless of the fact that the site was making no money and gaining no ground in hopes that it would eventually become worth the time spent (either in some measure of influence or in money — either would have been fine). Suddenly in 2015, it looked like the years of effort were going to pay off, as readership shot up to about 30,000 unique visitors a month. That eventually climbed to 40,000 unique readers per month in November of 2016. However, from that date forward, each month has been worse than the month before until it has come down to 9,000 in March of 2017. So, from the time of Trump’s election until now, this site has consistently lost about 5,000 readers each month. That’s an enormous draining sound for a site that never had many readers at any point.
At the same time, earnings from all ad revenue have gone from an average of $11 per month for years to a peak last November of $84 per month and now back down to a mere $6 month (40% less than the terrible average that it had for years). That doesn’t even pay the rent for having the site hosted and keeping the domain name registered. I spend about 20 hours per week researching and writing and posting and commenting. So at the peak, I was making $1/hr for my 80 hours of work a month. (And I’m probably estimating the time on the light side.) Now, I’m working for less than ten cents an hour gross revenue. (After taking out the costs of hosting and registering the site, I’m paying out of pocket to do all that work.)
A similar pattern is true for all of the publication of these same articles that I distribute for free to other sites. After years of writing this blog, hoping that it would eventually build into something that would either make, in the very least, a tidy side income or, at least, show itself to have growing influence, I’m back to paying out of pocket just to keep the site running and seeing influence sharply wane. I never expected to get wealthy by taking as objective of an approach as I can in a world full of economic denial, but I did hope it would find a niche that would grow over time. I’ve now kept at it without reward for more than five years. So, to watch it slide backward that far after finally gaining some traction in the last two years forces me to say, “Is this REALLY worth my time at all?”
I could make as much writing poetry, which is how I got started writing decades ago, as I do writing on this topic. Writing in general has moved to where it pays far less for everyone. When I started thirty-five years ago, magazines typically paid me from five cents a word to ten cents a word. Most websites now pay only a penny a word IF THEY PAY AT ALL. Journalism has moved to being considered one of the BOTTOM-ten jobs in the US when measured in terms of financial reward and stress … as more output has been demanded, which comes with tighter deadlines (all to maintain daily deadlines for today’s more rapid online publishing rate versus how often print publications came out). At the same time, pay has dropped and the number of jobs available has avalanched. Go figure. You’d think the increase demand for the written word online would have caused and increase in jobs and pay, but it has done the opposite as there seems to be a swell of writers willing to work for a penny a word or for free just to get published.
I know one thing: I couldn’t do worse just being a poet, which used to be the lowest paid writing of all. (And ironically, I’m writing about economics and finance!) So, I’m seriously evaluating whether to plow another five years of my life into this for so little reward (in fact, at my own out-of-pocket expense again at this point.
I do appreciate your thoughts, and I’m not about to modulate my viewpoints just to become popular because that was never why I wrote on this topic. I wrote on it because it seemed like one of the most important topics in the world during the last decade. I now feel like I’ve done my part and can’t really justify continuing to pay out of pocket in order to keep sharing my opinions.
–David
Sunday, May 7th 2017 at 11:28 pm |
Dave, that is about the most depressing thing I’ve read for weeks, and I lap up the “gloom porn”. What this screwed up system values, by way of remuneration (bankster fraud) and doesn’t value (razor sharp analysis and brilliant writing) is a symptom of a broken and sick society. Many of my family and friends are brilliant musicians and artists and live hand to mouth because of it. I envy their talents, but am thankful I never had the same creative drive as them. I was blessed with rare mathematical gifts and an amygdala that doesn’t sense fear properly, so despite an engineering degree, I excelled at the big casino. Luckily I got out before 2008, as I saw the writing on the wall, and can now dedicate my life to being an inventor. It pays crap as well.
Monday, May 8th 2017 at 10:30 pm |
Thanks, Steve. it is sad. I’ve put years into this for nothing in return, and it’s been a very disciplined effort. It’s time to evaluate continuing. If it were continually, growing, the disciplined effort might be worth continuing, but with it going backward so quickly, I don’t know.