The surprise POTUS election of Donald Trump is indicative of a revolt on the inequity of wealth distribution, coupled with xenophobia amongst certain sections of the electorate. However, the agenda of the majority Republican Legislatures differs in many aspects from the populist Trump campaign swagger and it remains to be seen whether The Donald will be able to deliver. While the chasms in the Republican Party have been papered over in the post election euphoria, there is no evidence that the long standing differences between their factions have been bridged.
THE REVOLUTION OF THE UNDERDOG
It should not be difficult to recognize revolution when one is slap bang right in the middle of one. The current political convulsion, in what the sixties economist Lady Barbara Ward Jackson called the "North Atlantics",is just that. While blood is not flowing in the streets and armies are all safely in their barracks, conventional politics as we all understand them to be has been turned upside down. Whether this cataclysmic event will be a passing phenomenon like the Arab Spring or result in paradigm changes in government is yet to be seen.
Like all transformations it doesn't take a majority of the population to effect the shift, just a key group within society that successfully agitates and voila! Like in all revolutions the actions taken by the frustrated aggrieved may be irrational and in the end will not redress their perceived injustices.
Currently sweeping through Europe and North America is a concerted revolt against what has been labelled the one percent who have garnered or plundered the riches that globalization has wrought. The belief of the agitators is the this group is aided and abetted by government who represent their and not the electorate’s interests.
THE ONE PERCENTERS
Those who control companies and their and everyone else's wages earn obscene sums of money - some 300 times the amount of the median wage of their employees. They have achieved this disproportionate share of the gains at the expense of the ninety-nine percent who in the process have either lost their jobs, are earning less or have had stagnant wages throughout. To add salt to the wounds the one percenters as represented by the bankers and financiers and the like have been responsible for devastating losses of the plebs as witnessed by the housing crisis in the USA. The perpetrators for the large part have got off scot free and even been made whole by the powers that be. (It is irrelevant that some of the governmental actions avoided even more pain of the workers).
THE LEADERS OF THE REVOLUTION
In the normal cause of events in modern democracies the politicians respond to the needs of their electorate. The reality is that the gap of individual countries' societal needs and the elected policymakers has widened to such an extent that there is now open revolt at the ballot box. The two starkest examples resulted in Britain exiting the European Union and in the United States the election of Donald Trump.
All these insurrections require charismatic leaders. While Trump sees this as a worldwide movement of which is the natural leader he fails to recognize that the rhetoric of protagonists vary markedly. For example, several of the European parties, in seeking the scapegoat to blame for the mess, because there has to be one for the movement to offer a solution, have returned to the time honored traditional pariahs - the Jews as well as the immigrants. Trump has rather concentrated on the immigrants and Muslims even though the anti semites flocked to him. All the "revolutionaries" including Trump are the champions of the "disenfranchised" workers.
THE RESPONSE TO AMERICAN DISCONTENT
Now in America there have been more than rumblings against the status quo as represented by the established political parties. Eight years ago the Tea Party was formed whose philosophy has spit the Republican Party. The Democrats as their Presidential pick opted for change candidate Obama over Hillary in 2008. So the Democratic Party have not escaped this upheaval unscathed but their Establishment has been more adept in keeping in touch with these changes and that is why the Party Establishment’s candidate Clinton ultimately got the nod.
In the 2016 Presidential election of the three candidates that had a major following, Trump and Sanders were openly anti establishment. Hillary the only traditional candidate also made major adaptations to adapt to the fury of sections of the electorate. All three for example, against bipartisan political wisdom, went against the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement as the perception was that this trade pact would result on job loss.
Trump, in spite of disasters that would normally sink a political campaign convinced vital sections of the electorate that he would right all wrongs. The charismatic icon and master salesman produced a number of disconnected populist positions that did enough to switch key voters in the traditionally mining and industrialized Mid West that has been hardest hit by globalization, automation and climate change. It is interesting to note that both he and Sanders the "revolutionary" candidates did not form new parties but rather utilized the bizarre rules in American politics whereby anyone can run for a Party Presidential nomination regardless of whether they adhere to current Party policy.
(Clinton was axed as she was successfully smeared as being the epitome of the accursed Establishment, first by Bernie Sanders and then Donald Trump. Ironically as a seasoned politician and representative of the Democratic Party she would have been most likely to be able to effect change).
And therein lies the rub as the Republican Legislative majorities are hardly ad idem with their new leader. Leaving aside the fact that Trump has disappointed all those that hoped that he would magically metamorphasize from a paranoid, infantile, narcissistic, xenophobic, megalomaniacal, bullying, tweeter into a Presidential leader, can he effect his promises to the electorate who surprisingly delivered him the WhiteHouse?
TRUMP'S PROMISES VERSUS GOP DOCTRINE.
As Jay H. Ell has blogged both Republican factions are agreed about axing Obamacare. However, Trump, whose opposition is mainly polemical wants to retain all its key features. He also is in favor of maintaining Social Security and Medicare which are key features of Speaker Ryan's chopping block. Trump wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure - a Democratic priority. This with Social Security and Medicare continuation and axing Obamacare will increase the deficit by trillions. Now instead of increasing taxation to pay for these efforts, both Trump and the GOP legislative leadership are agreed that both personal and corporate taxes must be decreased. This will increase the deficit through the roof. This not even to mention the cost of “that beautiful wall”. Trump’s belief is that the whole shortfall will be dramatically increased by the economy stimulation. The GOP Establishment would rather not take such a big chance and dispense with the costly medical goodies and other expenditures.
Then Trump’s isolationist policies on trade is against Republican doctrine not to mention his dictating to companies, the engine of American prosperity, as to what they should or should not do. Trump’s threat to take on the Drug Companies and insist on bulk buying for Medicare and Medicaid is bound to meet massive resistance from the Party faithful who still insist in the teeth of rising Medical costs that the free market will sort it all out.
Then Trump’s obsession with Putin and Russia does not sit well with Congress and even his Cabinet nominees………
AT THE END OF THE DAY.
So all bets are off with regard as to what is really going to come out of the Trump revolution because the Republican Party have yet to sign on. If anything if the Dems get working they can reclaim the populist agenda as they have the votes to deliver it without the albatrosses of a bizarre foreign policy and xenophobic insanity.
Of course all this can change starting with the inauguration speech!
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