Approximately two months before the election on September 10th we locked-down the final draft of Trumped! In the opening sentence we ventured the following opinion, which was most certainly not in the mainstream at the time:
FIRST THERE WERE 17. THEN LITTLE MARCO, LOW ENERGY JEB AND LYIN’ Ted were gone. At length, there was one. And now there is even a chance he may become President.
That he did, and contrary to all expectations, too. But now there is an excellent chance that Mike Pence will become the 46th occupant of that office.
This time the pundits do see it coming. That's because
they are complicit----functioning as self-appointed magistrates of an ad hoc recount of the 2016 election.
Indeed, the mainstream media is no longer even in the news business; it's conducting a grand witch hunt and venomous prosecution that will not be sated until the Donald vacates the Oval Office-----one way or another, probably via a threatened invocation of the 25th Amendment by the GOP elders on Capitol Hill.
Yes, it sounds a tad far fetched. But the key to what comes next is hiding in plain sight.
To wit, the Donald is exceedingly vulnerable because he is an insurgent outsider who will eventually end up alone in the Swamp in helpless isolation. And length, the hammer of fiscal crisis and a crashing stock market will break the tepid loyalty of the GOP elders as they smell the 2018 elections turning into a replay of the rout of 1974.
And then the Donald will be gone, and well before August 2018, too. That much the elephant learned---and has never forgotten-----from the Nixon fiasco 43 years ago.
So our purpose in the next while is to ruminate upon why the Swamp is so undrainable and how it will end up making such short shrift of Donald Trump.
Needless to say, the ultimate causes of his demise are anchored deep in the failing status quo. America is so addicted to war, debt and central bank driven faux prosperity that even the most resourceful and focussed challenger would be taken down by its sheer entropic decay.
But the Donald is so undisciplined, naïve, out-of-touch, thin-skinned, unfocussed and megalomaniacal that he is making it far easier for the Swamp critters than they deserve. To a very considerable extent, in fact, he is filling out his own bill of indictment.
Trump's impetuous tweeting is a case in point, and this morning's latest is a doozy. That is, it was essentially on point, but amounted to waving a red cape in the face of the already enraged establishment bull:
We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change.
Twenty-six years after the end of the cold war NATO is still sacrosanct, when there is actually no reason for its existence at all. In fact, it is useless in the battle against jihadi terrorism because the latter is a public safety not a military menace, while its provocations on Russia's borders undermine the peace of Europe, to say nothing of the entire world.
So we sincerely hope that Trump's unauthorized missives have provoked an "era-defining" change in European and German attitudes, as per the establishment punditry's sanctimonious gumming over the weekend. The sooner the NATO alliance disintegrates and disappears from its over-stayed chapter of history, the safer America will be.
But changing the course of history for the better was not exactly the Donald's purpose in today's tweet. He was just venting----apparently miffed by Angela Merkel's weekend observations about the fallout from the G-7 summit. In essence, she did say that NATO is obsolete, albeit because the Donald has made it so----not owing to the objective fact of the matter.
Either way, however, what will now become a festering point of discord between the White House and the only NATO country that really matters---Germany---will provide the Atlanticist establishment yet another reason to bring the Donald down.
"The times in which [Germany] could fully rely on others are partly over. I have experienced this in the last few days" and that Europe "must take its fate into its own hands".
We hope it does. Among other things, the faltering socialist states of Europe will learn that Washington's endless nagging about spending 2% of GDP on defense had nothing to do with peace and security, and everything to do with raising sales, earnings and stock prices in the Atlantic-area's military industrial complex.
In the end, they will make peace with Putin, who needs European financial capital and export markets far more than the drain of escalating military expenses on his mite-seized economy. And, yes, Putin is no slouch at chess or history: The last thing he would want to occupy is Poland and the only people obsessed with Lithuanian security are the petty politicians of Vilnius goaded-on by Washington's NATO apparatchiks.
In this vein, we are also looking forward to a tweet this week on why the Donald is pulling America out of the Paris Climate Accords. If he had been inclined to capitulate on this establishment totem, he surely would have done so at the G-7 confab in the face of the chorus of tongue-wagging and harrumphing he faced in Taormina.
Needless to say, "climate denialism" is about as offensive to establishment verities as is "creationism", which legitimately is beyond the pale. So the shrieks of outraged disbelief will reach ear-splitting decibels if the Donald is not blocked from his pro-jobs convictions at the last minute by a flying wedge of Javanka (Jared and Ivanka) and the Goldmanite fifth column around the Oval Office.
For our part, we are hoping the Donald takes on the greatest "environmental hoax" of the modern era---even if it does accelerate his downfall. That's because it is based on a statist will to political power and control that knows no limits---including the deliberate and systematic distortion and massaging of the data to fit a threadbare theory that defies common sense and a decent regard for the known facts of the planet's history.
Among these are the span between 980AD and 1750AD which clearly encompassed a pre-industrial era. The beginning of this span saw Eric the Red name and settle "Greenland" not because he was color blind or wished to starve to death on a sheet of ice; and the latter marked the waning days of the Thames Frost Festivals, which did not occur annually because the Londoners of the time were foolish enough to try ice skating on cold water.
In fact, during the Medieval Warm Period (850 to 1300 AD) Greenland was a swell spot for Norse farming colonies and the eventual flourishing of agricultural and fishing trade with the Norwegian fatherland, while during the Maunder Minimum ( 1645 to 1715 AD) or Little Ice Age giant "frost festivals", like the scene depicted below from 1685 were held on the Thames and most European rivers without fear of plunging into the icy drink.
In short, the Medieval Warm Period was far hotter than anything recorded today---while the winter colds of the Maunder Minimum have not been experienced in the northern latitudes for several centuries. What varied during that 800 year span, of course, was the solar cycle, not the level of industrial activity---of which there was none.
Indeed, the Maunder Minimum refers exactly to the lack of sunspot activity, as recorded by observers at the time. Likewise, core samples from Greenland's icy glaciers document clearly that levels of CO2 were far higher in 1017 than they are in 2017. That's because carbon levels follow the solar cycle driven planetary temperature variations rather than cause them.
In any event, the Donald's pending jail break from the Paris Accords will further isolate him in the Imperial City---even if it does win him plaudits in the Rust Belt.
But no matter. The Deep State's prosecution of his incumbency under the RussiaGate file is gaining intensity as it strikes at his son-in-law and chief confident, while a calamitous debt ceiling crisis is now less than 90 days away according to the lights of his own Treasury Secretary.
We will turn next to the facts and inevitability of the debt-ceiling crisis which will cause a thunderous panic among the clueless gamblers on Wall Street; and to why the resulting 40% plunge in the stock market will pave the way for the Donald's eventual demise.
But the heart of the matter is that the Washington-Wall Street establishment rests on a bipartisan political foundation that has no use for existential threats to their continued rule, respectively.
Notwithstanding three decades of network building and the accumulation of vast IOUs from his relentless politicking and campaigning, for example, the GOP establishment sent Nixon packing in August 1974 when the party's demise stood just around the corner.
By contrast, the Donald has no GOP network, friends, IOUs or even history. A mere twelve years ago he was cavorting with the Clinton's at Chelsea's wedding.
When the S&P 500 drops below 1500 there will be panic in the GOP precincts all around Capitol Hill. Then they will deputize their Al Haig to show him the way to the helicopter pad.
What is different this time, however, is that America is in no shape to weather the ensuring storm. That's our topic next.
The above originally appeared at David Stockman's Contra Corner.
David Stockman is the former Director of the Office of Management and Budget during part of the Reagan Administration, from 1981 to 1985. He is the author of The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.
This is a very good analysis of some of the dynamics at play.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that Trump would rather burn it down than abdicate gracefully. He has seen many of the dark and seedy corners of Mordor on the Potomac and will probably not go quietly into that good night.
Perhaps a President Trump under siege from all sides will be the silver lining to his presidency. If he decides to expose the vanity and hypocrisy of our ruling elite from the bully pulpit, he might actually do some good!!!
David Stockman believes that Donald Trump will not be president as of January 1st, 2018. I think Stockman is wrong. I would love it if Stockman were right. The more stable a US president the more trouble it gets into.
ReplyDeleteI believe there is a good chance that Trump will resign. Once it becomes clear to even his diehard supporters that he's an idiot, Trump will cry on national TV that the swamp just can't be drained, and he's not at fault, yet, ultimately, he has to say "screw you guys, I'm going home".
ReplyDeleteThis is nothing less than a soft coup against a duly elected President. If Trump is forced out, the federal government will have lost what little legitimacy it has left.
ReplyDeleteFrom www.skepticalscience:
ReplyDeleteOne of the most often cited arguments of those skeptical of global warming is that the Medieval Warm Period (800-1400 AD) was as warm as or warmer than today. Using this as proof to say that we cannot be causing current warming is a faulty notion based upon rhetoric rather than science. So what are the holes in this line of thinking?
Firstly, evidence suggests that the Medieval Warm Period may have been warmer than today in many parts of the globe such as in the North Atlantic. This warming thereby allowed Vikings to travel further north than had been previously possible because of reductions in sea ice and land ice in the Arctic. However, evidence also suggests that some places were very much cooler than today including the tropical pacific. All in all, when the warm places are averaged out with the cool places, it becomes clear that the overall warmth was likely similar to early to mid 20th century warming.
Since that early century warming, temperatures have risen well-beyond those achieved during the Medieval Warm Period across most of the globe. The National Academy of Sciences Report on Climate Reconstructions in 2006 found it plausible that current temperatures are hotter than during the Medieval Warm Period. Further evidence obtained since 2006 suggests that even in the Northern Hemisphere where the Medieval Warm Period was the most visible, temperatures are now beyond those experienced during Medieval times (Figure 1). This was also confirmed by a major paper from 78 scientists representing 60 scientific institutions around the world in 2013.
Secondly, the Medieval Warm Period has known causes which explain both the scale of the warmth and the pattern. It has now become clear to scientists that the Medieval Warm Period occurred during a time which had higher than average solar radiation and less volcanic activity (both resulting in warming). New evidence is also suggesting that changes in ocean circulation patterns played a very important role in bringing warmer seawater into the North Atlantic. This explains much of the extraordinary warmth in that region. These causes of warming contrast significantly with today's warming, which we know cannot be caused by the same mechanisms.
Overall, our conclusions are:
a) Globally temperatures are warmer than they have been during the last 2,000 years, and
b) the causes of Medieval warming are not the same as those causing late 20th century warming.