How Donald
Trump Will Follow the Money
Behind all the noise and theater of the Trump
campaign is the banal logic of a businesman
By Pepe Escobar
July 20, 2016
"Information
Clearing House"
- "RT"
- Imagine hordes of American theocrats, white
supremacists, nativists, NRA worshippers, all in an
'open carry' orgy, descending on the Republican
convention in Cleveland in the wake of Orlando,
Dallas, Nice and Baton Rouge.
What could
possibly go wrong?
Welcome to
a fully armed and dangerous spectacular
featuring, for instance, the
Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) – allied
with the Golden State Skinheads (GSS) - sending
a posse to the GOP show to“make sure that
the Donald Trump supporters are defended from
the leftist thugs.” Cleveland’s courts are
ready to process up to 1,000 arrestees daily,
and stay open 20 hours a day. Strip
clubs are “pumped for Trump”.
Certified mayhem overall is bound to add another
meaning to the rock 'n' roll mantra“Cleveland
Rocks”.
Trouble at
the Trumpence joint
Compounding
the mayhem, there’s the Trump-Pence (Trumpence)
fracas. Donald Trump remains visibly frustrated by
his own appointment of Indiana governor Mike Pence
as his running mate. He reportedly spent last
Thursday night frantically trying to back down. He
was furious that the news leaked before he had a
chance to personally tell his double-trouble
favorites – pompous twat Newt Gingrich and
over-sized blowhard Chris Christie – about his
decision.
And even in
the first Trumpence joint interview this past
Sunday, the best exchange was actually this one:
PENCE: Donald
Trump, this good man...will be a great president of
the United States.
TRUMP: I
love what he just said.
It’s
been fascinating to watch how Trump is visibly bored
to tears with his dull as a stale cheeseburger new
friend, who has called himself “a
Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that
order.”
'Lil’
Mikey', as he’s widely known, is not exactly the
brightest bulb in the room – any room. The fact that
he was a member of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee does not exactly give him foreign-policy
cred. After all, what really matters to Lil’ Mikey
is to install an
evangelical Sharia in the United States of America.
Pence was
imposed on Trump by his Richelieu, Paul Manafort, as
well as Trump’s family, for purely realpolitik
reasons. The small town boy from Indiana will do
well in the Rust Belt states; allegedly transfer Ted
Cruz voters to Trump; appease Republican right-wing
fanatics who see The Donald as a depraved,
gay-hugging, pro-choice, end of days hedonist New
Yorker; and if the ticket makes it, teach The Donald
about Washington’s beyond-byzantine ways.
Trump
though couldn’t care less about all these alleged
pluses because he’s governed by
his guts, not realpolitik.
A much
juicier Trump appointment would have been retired
Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who was fired as Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief (2012-2014) because
- correctly – he predicted that Obama’s covert war
in Syria would spawn the ISIS/ISIL/Daesh
Frankenstein. And then he doubled down, saying that
the flourishing of Daesh was in fact a “willful
decision” taken by the White House.
Not only
Flynn was against Team Obama’s obsession in
weaponizing “moderate rebels” in Syria but
he had warned that getting rid of Gaddafi via NATO
would open a Northern African Pandora’s box.
The problem
with Flynn is that he is not a Paleolithic supporter
of evangelical Sharia; the GOP badly needs those
millions of evangelical Christian votes.
Additionally, he’s in favor of a partnership of
interests with Russia – spanning all hot spots from
Ukraine to the Middle East. This, of course, is
anathema in the Beltway.
Yet Flynn
also did himself no favors, when, promoting his new
book The Field of Fight, he insisted that, “We’re
in a global war, facing an enemy alliance that runs
from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Havana, Cuba, and
Caracas, Venezuela. Along the way, the alliance
picks up radical Muslim countries and organizations
such as Iran, al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic
State.That’s a formidable coalition, and nobody
should be shocked to discover that we are losing the
war.” This mind-boggling nonsense was penned by
his mentor and co-writer, neocon nullity Michael
Ledeen.
Still,
Flynn is now on Trump’s shortlist for head of the
Pentagon. At least, unlike The
Three Harpies (Clinton, Flournoy and Nuland), he
won’t be gunning to start a simultaneous war against
Russia and China.
What makes
Donald run
Some
powerful, well-connected business interests
supporting Trump from New York to the Midwest have
outlined their reasons to me, off the record. The
fact that their reasons run completely opposite to
the Beltway consensus speaks volumes.
Why
Russia? “Because Russia
does not rig their currency against us to destroy
our industries, and is therefore a natural ally
rather then Germany and Japan, who still rig their
currencies against the United States and have
destroyed much of our industrial power.”
These
self-described American patriots are adamant that, “We
should repatriate our industries that support the
weapons for our military industrial complex and all
other industries lost to currency rigging. This is
doubly necessary as Russian and Chinese advanced
submarines can disrupt the mainland production of
our weaponry by blocking shipping from Asia of our
components. The United States weapons production
could, therefore, collapse in a war.”
For these
business interests, illegal immigration, rigged
currencies, and the “unnecessary war” against
Russia are the biggest issues of the presidential
campaign.
So,
in a nutshell, why the support for Trump? “We
need a fresh look at these problems that Donald J.
Trump brings to the table. Our problem with Mitt
Romney was that he made his money taking advantage
of the tax treatment for takeovers and currency
rigging that shifted so much of our industry abroad.
If anything, favorable tax treatment should
encourage the building of productive investment as
we repatriate our industries lost to currency
rigging and not the creation of debt to finance
speculative takeovers or speculation in general.
Speculative profits should face the highest form of
taxation.”
This
business crowd is distinctly anti-war: “When Mr.
Trump talks about war having to have rational profit
and loss expectation, he is sounding as a logical
businessman.” They also stress that, “the
war against Russia is also destroying our oil
industry as the US ordered the Gulf States to dump
their shut-in oil production capacity on the oil
market to bankrupt Russia.”
It should
be noted here that oil happens to be a large
component of the multibillionaire Koch brothers’
wealth; Charles and David Koch control the $115
billion-a-year energy and industrial behemoth Koch
Industries. And that brings us back – not
unexpectedly - to Lil’ Mikey.
Follow the
Money
It’s been a
while since the Koch brothers promised to
spend nearly $1 billion to get the “right” man at
the White House.
Now, with
his nomination in the bag, Trump the consummate
businessman obviously smells blood. It’s no accident
that Lil’ Mikey later this month will be a prominent
guest at a monster donor semiannual policy and
fundraising retreat in Colorado hosted by, who else,
the Koch brothers.
He’s done
it before. In 2014, in Palm Springs, Pence
effusively explained how states such as his own,
Indiana, can be the perfect labs for the GOP (and
Koch) dream of small-to-non-existent government,
ultra-low taxes and total deregulation. Arguably,
this is what Trumplandia would also be about.
Adding to
the multi-billionaire front, another close pal of
Lil’ Mikey happens to be casino schemer Sheldon
Adelson, who was backing New Gingrich as Trump’s
running mate. Yet as soon as Lil’ Mikey was
confirmed, the Republican Jewish Coalition –
financed by Adelson – totally endorsed him,
describing him as a “critical leader and
important voice regarding Israel.” Adelson has
been on the record saying he will shell out as much
as $100 million to get Trump into the White House.
And he happens to be one of those Koch monster
donors as well.
So here’s
how the playing field is shaping up: the neocon/neoliberal/Wall
Street candidate, Hillary Clinton, featuring The
Three Harpies itching for a war, against the
wall-to-wall multibillionaire Four Amigos - Trump,
Charles and David Koch, and Adelson. This, in the
US, is what passes for “democracy”. Those
who are about to die of despair – we salute you.
Meanwhile, Cleveland rocks.
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