Democratic Party Floats Proposal for a
Palace Coup
By
Andre Damon
March 23, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- On Wednesday, New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman addressed an
open letter to a group of generals, deep
state operatives and a corporate
executive in President Trump’s cabinet,
effectively calling on them to organize
a palace coup.
The recipients of Friedman’s letter,
code-named “Calling On a Few Good Men,”
are three generals—Secretary of Defense
James Mattis, National Security Adviser
H. R. McMaster and Secretary of Homeland
Security John Kelly—along with CIA
Director Mike Pompeo and the former oil
tycoon and current Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson.
Using the language of a political toady,
Friedman’s column begins: “Dear Sirs, I
am writing you today as the five adults
with the most integrity in the Trump
administration. Mattis, McMaster and
Kelly, you all served our nation as
generals in battle. Pompeo, you
graduated first in your class at West
Point and served as a cavalry officer.”
He
continues, “I am writing you directly
because I believe you are the last ‘few
good men’ who can stand up” to Trump.
Referring to the impeachment of Richard
Nixon, Friedman declares, “The last time
our country faced such a cancer on the
presidency, the Republican Party’s
leadership stood up and put country
before party to get to the truth.” But
today’s Republican Party has “declared
moral bankruptcy” and “abdicated its
responsibility.”
Combining flattery with self-abasement,
he continues, “I ask those of you who
honored our country as military officers
how you would have reacted if your
commanding officer had charged his
predecessor with a high crime that
violated his constitutional oath… Would
you military men have simply said,
‘Sorry, I just do artillery’ or ‘I’m
just staying in my lane?’ Knowing some
of you, I’d like to think not.”
Friedman reveals the completely
reactionary character of the opposition
of the Democratic Party to the Trump
administration. Trump and his band of
fascists, generals and billionaires have
provoked the hatred of tens of millions
in the US who oppose the
administration’s attacks on democratic
rights, its police state persecution of
immigrants, and its appeals to
chauvinism, racism and militarism. But
the opposition of Friedman and the
Democratic Party on whose behalf he
speaks has nothing to do with these
democratic sentiments.
Friedman gives voice to tendencies in
and around the Democratic Party that are
prepared, in pursuit of their
McCarthyite-style demonization of
Russia, to welcome a palace coup that
would impose a
military/intelligence/corporate junta on
the American people. The wealthy and
corrupt social layers for whom the
millionaire columnist speaks are
motivated by two primary concerns.
First, that Trump is threatening US
imperialist interests around the world
by backing away from the Obama
administration’s war-mongering policies
toward Russia, and at the same time
undermining the image of the US
internationally with his overt lying and
bullying of Washington’s allies. He
makes this clear in his column, pointing
to discussions in the United Arab
Emirates and polls in Germany showing
declining support for the US, and
warning that “the world is watching.”
He
cites US imperialist strategist Richard
Haass, president of the Council on
Foreign Relations, who warns that
without an urgent course correction, the
US could find itself “not with America
first, but with America alone.”
The second major concern is that Trump
is stoking popular discontent at home
that could spiral out of control and
threaten the entire economic and
political system. Far from appealing to
the broad popular opposition to Trump
that began to erupt in the days after
his inauguration, the Democratic Party
is fixated on avoiding at all costs the
emergence of a movement of the working
masses. That is why it appeals to the
military/intelligence apparatus and the
corporate aristocracy in its struggle
with the faction of the ruling class
represented by Trump.
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The war between the two is a war of
liars between two deeply reactionary
factions of the same capitalist elite.
The Trump camp seeks to pursue a
different approach in the drive of US
imperialism for global hegemony—putting
off for now war plans against Russia in
order to focus US aggression first on
China.
Both factions would drag the people of
the United States and the world into a
third world war, with the prospect of
nuclear annihilation. And there is no
difference between the two on the need
to escalate the war against the working
class.
Those opposed to Trump’s policies of
anti-immigrant racism, the destruction
of social programs and war must reject
the efforts of the Democrats to corral
popular anti-Trump sentiment behind
their own program of war and social
reaction. What is necessary, and what is
being fought for by the Socialist
Equality Party and the World
Socialist Web Site, is the
development of a working class
opposition based on a socialist program
to put an end to capitalism and
imperialism.
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