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Kunstler: Trumptopia
For years, it was easy to see the political storm clouds gather over Europe with its fractious coalitions and its ancient babble of conflicts. Marine Le Pen’s Daddy, severe old Jean-Marie, was on the scene in France decades before Donald Trump ascended to glory on the noxious clouds of America’s crapified culture, attended by heavenly hosts of Kardashian angels and the cherub Honey BooBoo.
For all the strains in recent American life, the two-party system had seemed as solid as the granite towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. Not even the estimable Teddy Roosevelt could blow up the system when he tried in 1912 — though his Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party carried California, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, and he far out-polled the incumbent Republican President Taft, who garnered a measly 8 electoral votes (Democrat Woodrow Wilson won). Ross Perot made an impact in 1992 — he certainly had a good point about NAFTA and “the giant sucking sound” of jobs draining out of the USA. But his popinjay manner didn’t go over so well, and at the critical moment in the general election he lost his nerve and withdrew, only to foolishly re-enter weeks later. Then there was the Ralph Nader in 2000, whose egoistic crusade arguably put George W. Bush in the White House.
Since then, the country see-sawed between the long tenures of two Deep State errand boys from each major party, putting both parties in such a bad odor that Trump now rises on their mephitic fumes. Which raises the question, of course: what exactly is this Deep State? Answer: A leviathan of symbiotic rackets producing maximum incompetence affecting adversely the majority of citizens. It’s a blood-sucking beast of a hundred-thousand heads draining the USA of its dwindling vitality, lying about its intentions while it advertises the pietistic certainties of the Left and superstitious shibboleths of the Right, leaving a smoking hole in the middle where the practical problems of everyday life used to be worked out by practical means.
The Deep State is also the sum of unintended consequences and diminishing returns of a late-stage, bureaucratic, techno-industrial economy cannibalizing itself to stay alive. One obvious conclusion is that this economy has got to change before there is nothing left to eat, and no political figure on the scene, including Trump and Bernie Sanders, has a plausible vision of where this takes us. Both really just assume that the engine keeps chugging down the track of ever more material wealth that can be distributed differently. The truth is, there will be a lot less material wealth of the kind we’re used to, and a lot less capital representation in the things we call “money.” In fact, the scene at hand today is just a spectacle of the shrewdest and biggest rodents scarfing up the table-scraps of a 200-year-long banquet.
Hillary Clinton, of course, is the Deep State incarnate, which is the real reason so few citizens trust her. Every poor schnook getting shaken down for a $90,000 appendectomy bill looks at Hillary and knows exactly what she represents. Every 25-year-old jobless, couch-surfing millennial carrying fifty-grand in college debt sees the face of the Deep State in her self-satisfied demi-smile. Mainly, she has gulled the diversity pimps — because they are wards of the Deep State — and women, because it’s Mommy’s “turn” to direct the Deep State. Writer, financier, and Deep State rogue operative Jim Rickards keeps insisting that Uncle Joe Biden will end up as the Democratic nominee. (He said so in a Tweet just the other day). You have to wonder what this guy knows. Don’t suppose that Uncle Joe is the knight on a white horse you’ve been waiting for. After all, he’s vice-president of the Deep State.
Voters seem attracted to Trump because he’s so eager to give the finger to the Deep State. It deserves the finger, but it also needs to be carefully disassembled without blowing up what remains of this country. Trump already has a good start on blowing up the Republican Party. Never before have so many party officials dissociated themselves from the (so far) presumptive nominee. I expect to see more extreme measures against Trump to be yet attempted by the party mandarins in the two months before the convention. I doubt you will hear about them before they happen.
In the face of that, Trump’s behavior only gets more childish. His speech after the Indiana primary was a masterpiece of incoherence. Everything that reflected on the magnificence of his victory was “incredible.” Interestingly, that was exactly the right word. He’s tuned in to the national nervous breakdown underway. From time to time, when he’s not speaking emptily about how much he is loved, Trump voices some legitimate concern of the Deep State’s victims. There are few decent jobs outside the Deep State’s own rackets. We’re not obliged to take in a limitless stream of immigrants. Nation-building by military means has been a dismal failure. The national debt is a problem. The country’s infrastructure is decrepit. Trump says he can negotiate a fix to all this: the art of the deal. Blowing smoke up the Deep State’s ass is not a plan.
The tragedy is that no other serious, grown-up figures stepped forward in this dangerous moment of history. The party that Trump purports to represent lost itself in wilderness of grift, jingoism, and supernatural pettifoggery. The rival Democratic Party is high on the fumes of “diversity and inclusion,” kindergarten politics that only corrode what’s left of our tattered common culture. Hillary’s Deep State couldn’t have found a better diversionary subterfuge. Both parties are close to blowing up altogether. I’m not convinced that they’ll survive their own conventionas this summer. Then what?
11 Comments on "Kunstler: Trumptopia"
jjhman on Mon, 9th May 2016 12:06 pm
Whining is Kunstler’s specialty but I don’t think he has ever had a constuctive suggestion on how to change course.
Maybe there isn’t one. We will just have to blow up and put the pieces back together.
It certainly is a pitiful state when the two major (only) political parties can’t come up with candidates better that the Hillary and the Donald.
Being in California it has been true for a long time that the candidates have been chosen before the primary arrived here so our votes have been no more that symbolic.
However today there may be a real reason to vote, and that is to vote for Bernie. Sure Hillary is going to win the nomination and probably the general election but a vote for Bernie at least gives the biggest state in the union an opportunity to say that the status quo doesn’t cut it.
penury on Mon, 9th May 2016 12:15 pm
Perhaps the truth is that this system needs to destroy itself in order to save its self. Like the mythical “Phoeniz the nation will arise from the ashes stronger and better than ever. Right after the first flight of pigs arrive from China. Unicorns will repair the water systems of the nation and the good witch (not H) will provide happiness and wealth upon all the good little people of US
baptized on Mon, 9th May 2016 12:20 pm
Then what? USA is going back to native Americans. You cannot draw a line on the earth and call one side (Mexicans,central&south American) and the other native Americans. Whites & blacks have realized it is easier to raise 1 or 2 children, rather than 12 to 15. But I must give it to native Americans for the sacrifices to live 20 to 30 per house and all that goes with that hard, but family oriented lifestyle.
Apneaman on Mon, 9th May 2016 12:45 pm
jjhman, kunstler has had a shit load of constructive suggestions on how to change course going back over a decade. Investing in passenger rail, for one. Me thinks whining about kunstler whining is your specialty, since I have noticed you do it every time his articles are posted here. About the only time you pop in. What’s your constructive suggestions on how to change course? Vote Trump? Besides it’s a little late. There is no changing course after the cancer has gone terminal.
Boat on Mon, 9th May 2016 2:46 pm
ape,
Don’t you attempt an equally scathing report of any suggestion to change course. In your mind the world is soon dead and any other opinion is only deserving a profanity laced tirade. Lol, unlike some others I enjoy your backwoods spirit.
apneaman on Mon, 9th May 2016 3:16 pm
Boat, not any opinion, just the ones from retards and there isn’t any FUCKING profanity at all in the above tirade btw. I did suggest to change course or at least slow the ship down for many many years and I still suggest to slow down, in spite of the fact that our exit from the world stage is baked in (physics). BAU guarantees the maximum amount of suffering in the quickest possible time frame – AKA killing the kids. It’s unlikely there will be any intentional slowing down, since we are in the late (degenerate) stage of a global civilization.
makati1 on Mon, 9th May 2016 5:47 pm
Many, if not most, intelligent, informed, humans realize that the SS Humanity has hit the iceberg called Climate Change and is sinking. Some are still shuffling the deck chairs and thinking that (“if we can only …”) they are going to be saved. Others are still at the bar enjoying the last minutes until it becomes too difficult to stand and then they will go down with a smile on their face. Which are you?
Me? I’m the guy munching a pretzel and enjoying a nice 12 year old scotch on the rocks while watching the guys pushing the deck chairs around and telling each other fairy tales about ways to stop the water coming in thru the huge gash in the side of the ship. Very entertaining, but unrealistic.
Pass the pretzels. LMAO
Anonymous on Tue, 10th May 2016 12:30 am
Wonder what JHK obsession with Europe is all about. The EU is totally under the uS’s thumb these days. And has little independence or freedom of action from Tel Aviv, and washingdumb. He cant seem to stop talking about them for whatever reason. If the EU is acting stupid these days, just look at who is pulling their strings. He should let it go and do what he does best. Rage against his own kind. Europe isnt going to decide americas fate one way or the other. Fairly smart and perceptive, for an american, he has the all the usual ignorance of the world outside his nation’s borders his people are famous for.
Davy on Tue, 10th May 2016 6:28 am
Anonymous, have you ever been to Europe? I doubt it only being in your early 20’s. If you have then you would have a better picture of what Europe is. Europe is another vital cog in the global machine. It is an economic powerhouse. It is using the US as much as the US uses Europe. The Americans are stupid to be spending the money we do on Europe. The real issue is the global arms industry and NATO the cash cow. This benefits the Russian arms industry too. It is one big pig trough of pork barrel spending by global MIC. Europeans are very smart and manipulative to treat them as imbeciles attests to your misplaced agenda. You are just a 20 something barely with hair on your balls trying to act like a mature man. Go over to Europe and get an education and then report back to us.
JuanP on Tue, 10th May 2016 7:47 am
Anon, Davy is living proof that age, traveling, and an education are completely wasted on most people. None of these things can make you any wiser if you have an insane mind. I have never met a person who was better thanks to his travels or schooling. You can put a lot of lipstick on a pig, but it will remain a pig, just a colored one. If you are born a prick, schooling will just make you a DAVY.
Davy on Tue, 10th May 2016 9:38 am
Poor Juan, are you still pissed because I bitched slapped you yesterday. If you would not act like a puss you wouldn’t put yourself in that position. Grow some pussy.