CIRCUS AMERICA

 

CIRCUS AMERICA

The price we pay for electing clowns to the highest offices.

 

In this article I am going to draw comparisons between Trump and Hitler, not only to illustrate how nations can get stuck with some deplorable leaders (it happens all too often and history is rife with questionable heads of state), but how similar these two are in their psychological profiles.  We’re finding ourselves in troubling times and we’re faced with complex issues.  Any sane leader would concentrate on attempts to solve these problems, rather than spent an inordinate amount of time erecting monuments to gratify the leader’s ego.  Tacky displays.  Statues (in gold of course).  Marches.  Military parades.  Plastering your face and name on buildings and renaming some in your own honor.  A UFC contest on the lawn of the White House, demolishing part of this national symbol to make room for a billion dollar ballroom, turning a rose garden into a putting green.  On the political and financial front his ‘presidential’ actions are as erratic and unpredictable, a lot of it motivated once more by an out-of-control ego that is rooted in a dysfunctional childhood and an overbearing father figure; fostering a level of insecurity that has led to a constant need to overcompensate and prove his worth: power, control, wealth.

Who in his right mind would start a global trade war with outrageous tariffs and economic sanctions?  CUSMA, once praised and negotiated by Trump to replace NAFTA, he now describes as an absolute disaster and valued neighbors and trading partners—Canada and Mexico—are now derided as parasites as if their close ties fostered over decades of integrated, mutual trade, have come solely at the expense of the United States.  Fact and figures point at the opposite but the volatile nature of unpredictable leaders saddled with a psychotic mindset will ignore anything that contradicts their aspirations.  Hitler’s political ideology was one of resentment and perverted by racism and a desire for Germany to dominate the world. 

No control mechanisms.

There is nothing in our political and legal arsenal that can protect us from out-of-control psychopathic leaders.  Sane leaders abide by convention and negotiated agreements and treaties: led by and motivated by an expectation of respectful and thoughtful behavior.  Both Trump’s and Hitler’s tenure has been tainted by vindictive vendettas towards political opponents and critics.  Both displayed a desire to comment on anything and everything as if their opinion matters.  Trump from the onset has denounced and belittled friends and foes alike.  Praise one minute and ridicule the next.  A behavioral pattern similar as to what he displayed in his company’s boardroom.  Control freaks excel at this kind of destructive approach to governing and ruling; building up and breaking down, keeping underlings on their toes and as a result they all go out of their way pleasing the boss.  It creates an unhealthy and pathetic working environment.  Policies that please the leader, accompanied by a flourishing signature and the lackeys applauding in the background.  Smiles all around.  Hitler employed the same tactics!

They keep pushing to see what they can get away with.

Bad leaders also engage in questionable tactics and they constantly probe and poke to identify weaknesses as in; what can I get away with!  Kidnapping a president.  Military strikes against suspected drug runners.  Embargos on “sanctioned oil ships”, leaving Cuba in the dark.  Oddly enough the world’s worst nations when it comes to illegal drugs and drug cartels—Mexico and Columbia—are thus far left alone!  A unilateral war against Iran and nobody can figure out why this was initiated in the first place, although between Israel and the US an illusion is kept alive that somehow they can control the Middle East and the flow of oil.  Hitler learned to his chagrin that an army runs on oil.

Desperation breeds contempt. 

And then there is the mystery surrounding Ukraine and Trump’s rather vague explanation that “Ukraine is not our war.”  Soft pedaling Russian aggression and refusing to back up NATO with tougher sanctions against Russia.  All of a sudden North Korea’s nuclear capabilities are ignored while Iran is being crucified for attempting the same, attempts that have been consistently bombed into oblivion by the US and Israel.  Trump’s flip flopping on many issues couldn’t be expressed more acutely than in the way he has dealt with US-China trade relations.  His divide and conquer approach hasn’t worked out well. 

Hitler was just as erratic.  As he steadily rose to power and expanded his control his true nature came to the fore with a messianic, savior complex combined with a level of aggression that proved frightening in scope.  Outrageous displays of flags, parades, and thousands of people in uniform.  All saluting each other and the leader with the infamous Hitler salute: Heil Hitler.  He unleashed an incredible building frenzy, from monuments and planned museums to his personal retreat in the mountains.  His image and presence were everywhere.  What he and his acolytes crafted was a cult status that placed Hitler and the state above anything else.  And it came with enforced compliance.  His secret state police, the SS and the Gestapo were omni present and ruled with impunity.  The black uniforms, the lightning bolt epaulets, the silver skulls on their caps.  Everything was designed to invoke power and to intimidate.  So-called subversives were incarcerated in concentration camps and judges presided over kangaroo trials.

And now look at the detention centers in the US, the separation of families, a lack of legal representation, deportations.  ICE arresting anyone suspected of being a potential illegal citizen.  And look at the color of their clothing and tactics used!  Former administrators like James Comey are charged and threatened with court action based on fabricated and frivolous accusations.  Even if acquitted and exonerated, it is all based on career destroying motives.

Persecution and threats.

In Nazi Germany the intelligentsia was persistently ‘cleansed’ of anyone not willing to adhere to Nazi policies and towing the party line.  It led to a national justification of hatred, bigotry and racism.  State-led, state-fed, political indoctrination through a process of relentless coercion

In Trump’s America we see a similar process taking place.  Intimidation of candidates that are not pro-Trump, condemnation of networks featuring programs that are deemed anti-Trump with bad jokes or taking potshots at his bungling, lies and distortion of facts.  They are trying to create a Trump-cult-America where you don’t achieve or rise up through the ranks unless you submit to their views.  MAGA or else!  Submission without question.  Smile instead of cringe.  Sell out rather than doing the right thing: serve your country with dignity and respect.  Honor and abide by the nation’s constitution and laws.

Tap into fear.  Create fear.

Hitler faced a nation that was defeated and humiliated in his eyes, although World War I was put in motion by a psychotic, delusional Kaiser Wilhelm.  Sane world leaders are not afraid of the psychopaths elected as heads of state, but of the insanity they will unleash once they are in power.  Not a single, global institution is designed or can cope with an out-of-control leader.  Germany was broke.  The population fractious and volatile.  All it takes is a determined psychopath to light the fire and keeping it fed.

America is broke and it won’t be fixed with tariffs and sanctions.  England’s economy was devastated by an on and off hundred year war with France (1337-1453) and when the king’s coffers were empty they often resorted to tariffs on imports.  It led to smuggling and tax evasion instead and with thousands of civil servants charged with trying to put a stop to it.  America’s impressive military complex and with an army of over a million people in uniform spread out across the globe has steadily eroded America’s financial stability.  A mighty army that is not backed up by an equally impressive and profitable private sector presence is a recipe for disaster.  Under the astute financial mismanagement of Trump and company America is well under way towards a forty trillion dollar federal debt.

Appeasement has never worked.

Hitler compensated for Germany’s impoverished state by invading other nations and stealing their resources and using slave labor.  Hitler started his expansion by annexations that appeared tolerated as the world around him contemplated how to best contain him.  Austria was annexed in a semi-friendly-hostile takeover and the excuse: well, we all speak the same language and therefore an ‘Anschluss’ makes perfect sense.

Trump and company have been equally eager for much needed resources and cash.  He has expressed a desire for Canada to roll over and play dead and join as the 51^st state.  And look at the size, the resources and the impressive workforce of Canada.  What a bargain that would be!  And let’s not forget that most of them speak the same language.  They are also eyeing Greenland, the oil of Venezuela and practicing the art of intimidation and military threats by putting Cuba in the dark and bombing boats out of the water that are ‘identified’ as potential drug running vessels.

Hitler kept pushing to see what the world would do in the face of his increasingly erratic behavior and early conquests: the Rhineland, Austria and Sudetenland.  He mistook the reluctance of the Allied powers for fear and that he could pursue his agenda of invading other nations with impunity.  Sane leaders don’t fear the person, but what they will unleash.  War has never produced a lasting result or an improvement in relationships with neighbors or adversaries (the conflict model continues to dominate international relations, as if we need enemies to justify trade and financial policies.  Culture, language, customs, traditions, religion and heritage continue to be abused as justifications to pursue war and animosity).

They crave attention.

Big egos love to draw attention to themselves and again, both Trump and Hitler are prime examples.  Hitler would hold forth for hours, claiming to be an expert on anything.  And of course, nobody was given a choice but to listen, nod in affirmation and applaud.  Ditto for Trump.  Put a microphone in front of him and he won’t shut up.  Claiming to know everything: I am the smartest man.  I could have been a professor.  And the accolades he heaps onto himself keep piling up.

Hitler learned the hard way that armies run on oil.  All that impressive and expensive military hardware requires huge amounts of energy.  The Middle East is still the primary source and he who controls the oil spigot rules.  The unilateral decision by the US and Israel to provoke a war with Iran has little to do with Iran’s desire to enrich uranium for nuclear warheads, but with showing the world whose boss.  At the latest G7 meeting Trump was boasting to the leaders in attendance that “I’m the boss” as he took a seat at the table.

Israel has steadfast refused to reach a compromise deal with people of Arab descent living within its borders.  A land they shared for thousands of years.  They believe that by bombing the hell out of the remaining Palestinian enclaves that they can force them to move.  Accommodation and power sharing has deliberately been removed from any negotiations.  Psychotic leaders want it all and a lot of it hails from desperation.

Who needs America?

Once upon a time the world craved everything ‘made in America’.  We wanted their refrigerators and appliances, cars and machinery.  America’s manufacturing sector was booming.  Something peculiar started to happen in the 70s and 80s.  America as a nation started to trade in its manufacturing base for the pyrotechnics of stock speculation.  All part of the progress trap, which has been the undoing of nations past and present.  A few doing extremely well at the expense of the many.  Large corporations squeezing out the little guy.  Factory farming displacing thousands of farming families.  Profits and quantity before quality.  Supply management as practiced in Canada would have saved the livelihoods of thousands of farmers.  All economic practices, no matter how well intended at first, once in place, are extremely difficult to reverse.  America is now discovering to their chagrin that in the case of heavy industries like ship building and steel, they are now at the mercy for these items to foreign nations.  Some at the other end of the world.

America’s costly reliance on mega-sized defense industries—stuff that only gathers dust unless you use the stuff in profitable wars—has put its political masters in the poor house.  They have dug the costliest global financial hole.  I will illustrate this with one simple example.  A jet fighter, from the first bolt ordered until it is scrapped as junk at the end of its lifetime, is a cost factor.  Tax dollar wasted and spent from start to finish.  On the other hand, a commercial jetliner will earn its owners millions of dollars as it flies for years from destination to destination, ferrying millions of ‘paying’ passengers’.  This is how the private sector works and if the private sector doesn’t earn any money, there are no taxes to be levied.  A private sector-for-profit product doesn’t cost the taxpayer a single penny.  It actually produces tax dollars.

A little late at this stage of the game for Trump and company to attempt to turn back the clocks and reinvent the America of the 50s.  Don’t forget that America before, during and after World War II, started out as lenders of money.  A lot of it used to boost and reconstruct industries all around the globe destroyed by war.  Within record time they have become the world’s biggest borrowers of money and they’re only adding more each year.  Trump’s erratic trade policies are costly and counterproductive.

Out of control spending. 

The biggest millstone dangling around the neck of every American taxpayer is excessive military spending aimed at retaining a superpower status.  No other nation maintains as many costly security bureaucracies as the US, many of them born out of pure paranoia and fear and a lot of it hyped to justify the expense.  Get rid of heavy industries and manufacturing and millions of people previously working are now on the dole and need government assistance.  America is drowning in bureaucratic layers and many of them are rife with cronyism, corruption and fraud.  American insurance companies and health delivery services love to milk the taxpayer for all its worth.  Government contracts fail to deliver bank for buck and military contractors are the worst when it comes to cost overruns and overpricing.  Russia is a prime example of a nation bankrupted by its military spending.

Victims of the progress trap.

The progress trap is a typical example of how some of our best intentions end up costing us dearly.  The progress trap causes a progressive slide of disproportionate wealth division (haves and have-nots) that eventually places wealth and prosperity beyond the reach of the many and only increases government dependency (and henceforth the cost of government).  Economist John Kenneth Galbraith warned American presidents as early as 1954 that this was a recipe for economic and financial disaster.  Trump and company’s pathetic attempts to reverse this trend of economic and financial decline are laughable at best as most of them are the beneficiaries of what their predecessors and their families have created in the first place.

None of them will impose any controls or reversals on basic greed and excessive profit taking.  Using archaic tactics such as tariffs, sanctions and military escapades will only drive much needed investments away.  Even disgruntled Americans who have bought into Trump’s circus America will soon realize that what seemed originally harmless entertainment by putting a clown in the White House is swiftly turning into a nightmare.  It is one thing watching a circus, becoming part of the act is altogether different.

Only one blessing: he’s old!

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