The 2016 did not prove that Big Money has lost its power. Maybe it showed that Big Money is more powerful than ever.
President-elect Trump is arranging his business affairs and selecting his top advisors.
One of the supposed lessons from the 2016 election was that a charismatic candidate can raise tens of millions of dollars in small amounts. Ted Cruz did it. Ben Carson did it. Bernie Sanders did it. Trump did it. Even Hillary did it, along with some big money donors mixed in. However, this was not necessarily the triumph of democracy against the forces of Big Money. The process elected Donald Trump.
This blog had urged then candidate Hillary Clinton to attempt a dramatic re-framing of her race by closing the Clinton Foundation and turning everything over to an independent charity and to give away all the Clinton personal money as well. Your money is suffocating you, this blog wrote. It buys you nothing and it damages the one thing you need: a well deserved reputation for selflessness. Do radical philanthropy.
Give to your country what every enlistee in the military gives: everything. They strip naked the recruit, give him a boot camp haircut and assign the recruit a uniform. He has nothing--except the clarity of service. She did not take my advice, as we know. Trump said she got rich selling influence and access and the prestige of her former office, which is true. It was also true that it was legal and it is what her predecessors did and others do. Trump called it "the swamp" and said he would drain it.
Hillary kept her money but Trump moves into the White House.
There is a lesson to be learned from this: even the power, prestige, and earning power of the presidency is not sufficient. Some people want wealth and more wealth as well. Even amid criticism of their cashing in, and in the midst of a political campaign, they kept the wealth.
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| Kleptocracy |
Trump is acutely aware of optics and message. He conspicuously said he does not want the presidential salary and he is closing down his Trump foundation. Both are tiny things--but visible. The magician's audience watches the beautiful assistant as she juggles the flashing knives so the important slight of hand can take place unnoticed. Trump, like Putin and like the top people in the Chinese government, blur the line between private and public.
Would overt conflicts of interest matter politically? Could this be a matter of "so what?" Very possibly that is exactly the attitude Americans will take.
There is a dated and charming old fashionedness to the JFK statement "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Mitt Romney said it was patriotic to pay as little taxes as possible. Trump did not hide from the fact that he was able to claim the losses other people experienced in his bankruptcy as carry-forward losses he could deduct against his own taxes. He said it proved he was a smart businessman.
Voters seemed OK with this. The new patriotism is personal wealth and using the laws to your advantage. The test is whether it is legal. Hillary Clinton had a TV ad comparing the public service of veterans to Trump shown on video saying his service to America was getting personally very rich. The ad did not appear to move the needle for her. Hillary was a poor messenger for that message. She got rich trading off the celebrity of her office, making speeches for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and she kept the money.
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| Clinton ad: He sacrificed by having "tremendous success." |
Trump will create opportunity for his opposition. He will have conflicts of interest and he will celebrate them as legal and job creating. In America as in China now: it is good to get rich. There may be a backlash against this. In each of the half dozen speeches I heard John Kasich give he said that young people and indeed all Americans want their lives to be part of something bigger than themselves. Yes, he lost to Trump. But perhaps there will be a backlash against this as the Trump presidency goes forward. There may be appetite for a patriotism of service. The question is whether the Democrat will be in a position to deliver that message persuasively, and whether Americans actually care about it anymore.
Two readers of this blog do care:
"Michael Tuba", a retired social worker in southern Oregon writes:
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| Dark Money review in the NY Times: Click Here |
Dark Money: "It seems to me that a lot of the pollyannas who so exuberantly voted for Trump are ignoring the dark forces working behind the scenes. Read Jane Mayer's book Dark Money. For these dark forces, Trump is a mouthpiece and distraction. He is their shield, and a handy tool. The pollyannas are celebrating the gutting of: environmental, financial, and commerce regulations while the dark forces are plotting the destruction of the American system. They control nearly 2/3 of the state legislatures and governors.
What they are waiting for is a major mistake by Trump. Then, undercover of disaster, and using the "shock doctrine" (defined ably by Naomi Klein) they will call for a constitutional convention, rewrite our framework document, and install a permanent oligarchy.
Our baby boomer generation has failed the world. I am sorry for this jeremiad, but I don't see much hope."
Thad Guyer, an attorney living in Vietnam currently, and a frequent guest post author writes:
“Trump and the Big League”
"Most Americans following politics by now have a good sense of Vladmir Putin’s objectives and methods in rising to autocratic power over Russia’s economy and foreign affairs. (See Foreign Policy, “The Resistible Rise of Vladimir Putin”, Apr. 2015, https://goo.gl/PfFzr3). But I doubt many of us have as good an understanding of Xi Jinping’s route and motives in doing so in China. A recent analysis by the Wall Street Journal contributes a lot. (See WSJ, Dec. 26, 2016, “Xi’s Power Play Foreshadows Historic Transformation of How China Is Ruled”, https://goo.gl/9n07bg). Jeremy Page and Lingling Wei argue that Xi has been heavily influenced by Putin’s model of holding and exercising power. Each has six things in common: (1) Reward loyalty and punish influential critics; (2) exert extraordinary power over the economy and global trade, using billionaire surrogates; (3) energize nationalist and patriotic zeal; (4) spend big on military expansion; (5) innovate and deploy cyber capability; and (6) neutralize internal Islamist terrorism by whatever means necessary. Trump shares all six.
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| From Vanity Fair: Click here |
Page and Wei assert that it was not until the eve of Trump’s election that Xi made it clear he has no intention of stepping down at the end of his presumptive 10 years term. He’s challenged by Trump. Powerful leaders like Putin, Xi and Trump savor brinksmanship and going face to face in the big league. Xi wants to make China great, Putin and Trump want to make Russia and America “great again”, respectively. Each is a globalists determined to maximum national wealth, reward billionaire allies, and project military muscle to protect it.
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| The Atlantic: Click Here |
While our media continues to distract us with its “feckless Trump” narrative, Putin and Xi know better. China is impressed that Trump deployed Henry Kissinger and South China Sea expert Peter Navarro for the Taiwan phone call. Putin understands Trump’s selection of Exxon’s globalist energy powerbroker Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Both know what it means that Trump appointed General Mike Flynn (former Defense Intelligence Agency director) to build out our cyber warfare capacity, and General Jim “Maddog Mattis” to manage a giant military expansion.
Donald Trump, Vladmir Putin and Xi Jinping, that’s the league. That’s the economic, cyber warfare and military theater of play, and it will inevitably drive American nationalism beyond anything we’ve seen since World War II, eclipsing even Regan’s cold war enthusiasm. Fasten your seatbelts as the Trump team takes center stage."
