Trumpism is a lesson to the human race, not just America. It may be our last chance to change course away from the looming disaster Neoliberalism is steering us toward. Those of us who have some ability to think critically have witnessed the Trump cult firsthand and now see clearly the sickness that caused so much destruction in the last century. Not that we fully understand it, but identifying the enemy is the first step.
George Santayana’s most famous quote is so often misquoted by conservatives it is important to revisit in this context:
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.“
Often the last sentence is used alone to justify burning a system to the ground and starting from nothing. Inferring that we must remember how bad this or that was and destroy it. In fact the meaning of the whole quote is exactly the opposite. The New Deal, Keynesian Imbedded Liberalism, from approximately 1930 to 1980, was the system of mixing capitalism and socialism that made America great. The history has been largely rewritten or taken off the library shelf regarding how The New Deal lifted the United States up and then how the “monied interests” finally brought it crashing down so they could once again attempt to install an autocratic oligarchy. Trumpism is the natural progression of Neoliberalism- as the originators of the ideology clearly leaned in the direction of fascism and promoted it in South America.
The numbers are fairly clear on letting the virus “wash over” the United States- around 6 million will die. Those who believe vaccines are “around the corner” and the pandemic is over are in for a big surprise.
Trumpism is sociopathy applied to politics- and nobody will ever forget what it has now done to the United States. The profound and unrealized damage will linger for decades.
Algorithms were used to steer the citizenry away from the truth, from the content that exposed and criticized the corporate oligarchy and inverted totalitarianism.
The Neoliberal fantasy is slavery- then your workers cannot cost you anything but the bare minimum you have to expend on food and shelter. When something generates a profit it no longer costs you anything and becomes “free.” So…everything must generate revenue and profit or it is useless. The extreme expression of this ideology is branding people as “useless eaters” and then exterminating them as in Nazi Germany. It is no coincidence.
Not-for-profit is the key term. Non-profits are the nightmare of the rich since it is the opposite of their ideology. Everything MUST generate a profit or be eliminated from the economic “gene pool.” It is actually their religion, the fundamental feature best summarized as social Darwinism: only the rich matter. Non-profit to Neoliberalism is as Satanism to Christianity. And the whole point of socialism is to do what is best for the public without regard for individual profit. Again, what is best for Neoliberals is what is best (profit) for the individual without regard to the public. See how that works?
That is the invisible war being fought and the Neoliberal frame this in terms of collectivism (as satanic socialism) vs individualism (the sacred free market). The Neoliberals consider the word freedom to be interchangeable with the word greed- they want no taxes, no regulation, and none from the lower classes able to sue them. In reality a mixed system like The New Deal is the only system that works without falling apart. The guillotine and totalitarianism and chaos is the inevitable consequence of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. Neoliberalism is an “inverted totalitarianism” that seeks wage slavery as the status quo. It is not working. Pray for The Green New Deal.
Ice on the Moon 