Vocal Voices

Today, in America, we see the discontented starting to descend on Washington. The LGBT lobby, the "you can't do that to us" lobby and the analyses which say that they could impeach Trump because he won't sell off all his business dealings.

This, to me, is very reminiscent of the actions immediately following the Brexit vote and following May's PM's appointment when she crushed all hope by saying she would do what the people want.

Then there was the end of Davos speeches ripping into the UK for being "hopelessly optimistic" about the consequences of leaving the EU.

I must admit that for those who like conspiracy theories it all has a fairly consistent sound. A layer of people who had taken control of governments and key businesses totally out of depth at the speed and ferocity of change. Change driven not by themselves but by those insignificant sheeple who are just supposed to mark X in the right box and go away again for 4/5/6 years.

I know I talked about the noises coming out of Washington as potential to "impeach" trump; as the only way the elite were going to get rid of him. But I read a Washington Post article last night which clearly came out and said it.

I'm guessing that within 6 months to a year, should Trump carry on with his agenda and not bend to the will of the politicians, he'll face and impeachment challenge.

As for the inevitable bleating at Davos and the noises coming from George Soros, claimed as the man who broke the bank of England over the Euro, all I have to say is this.

Payback's a bitch.

Soros should have backed the Euro and fast tracked the UK in, if he wanted the UK to remain in the EU. If we had been in the Euro Project Fear would almost certainly have worked. Instead he made billions out of keeping us out of the Euro. Whoops!

What fantastic news from the USA.

Trump is certainly a character, and one who you either like or hate.

I have mixed feelings, but think that there is a very good chance that
the UK will benefit in the long run, providing he can weather the storm.

Whether he has committed crimes, or will commit crimes, for which impeachment proceedings can be enacted is open for debate.

I tend to think that the Washington swamp will suck him in. It will not completely immerse him, but it will hold him in one place while the rest of the pond life goes about its normal business.

While out shopping I heard someone say they thought that many people watching the parade hoped for his assassination. It is a sick thought, but I guess that there is an element of truth in it. Given all the protests, not just in the US but around the world, it would not surprise me if attempts were made.

Trump will be one of the most physically protected Presidents in US history.

I hope he puts usa back on its feet
It's the same the world over do any politician have the guts to follow it through
Obama didn't seem to do much although they were a perfect family but the look on there faces yesterday certainly didn't do them any flavours and as for the Clintons always hit by scandal

saundra wrote:I hope he puts usa back on its feet

The irony, Saundra, is that the US is already back on it's feet. Growing faster than most other G8 countries, strong currency, good inflation, unemployment falling, good wage growth. If the EU were growing like the US, they would be spinning cartwheels and telling the world about it whilst preening themselves.

Obama did a good job of recovering the US from the financial crisis, far better than the idiots in Brussels did. However he did it in a Blair style rather than an open style. Leaving the people feeling ignored and put upon.

I admit, guilty, to watching the inauguration to see if someone did "have a go". I was pretty sure that the secret service would have covered all angles. I also did some quick angle calculations on the 3" thick bullet proof screen at the podium and worked out that anyone with an angle to cause a problem would have to be at least 2 miles away. Whilst I wasn't really tuning in to see the shortest rule of a president, I also wanted to see a bit of history happening and listen to some of the speech.

Now the political games will begin in earnest.

The world has gone mad. Trump may be an awful person or he may not, but he won the election. We seem to be cursed with lots of people who will not accept any verdict that goes against their wishes, whether it be Brexit or Trump getting elected. Their brains seem to have been programmed to blank out any evidence they don't like.

For instance George W. Bush is portrayed as a moron and Obama as a truly wonderful human being. So why did Obama carry on Bush's foreign policy? Smash up the middle east, starting war after war and leaving previously working countries broken?

The policy is exactly the same - so why is one man a cretin and the other the most wonderful man in the world?

Or again, take deportations from the USA. Obama has been quoted as being opposed to Trump "deporting children". Do you know which American President has deported more people than any other? Barack Obama. 2.5 million undocumented immigrants were deported when he was President, were none of them children?

I think because Trump is an outsider, the Washington machine doesn't want him.

Trump may turn out good or bad but everyone deserves a fair chance, but the media is obviously not going to give him one.

One irony I noticed about all this in the news was the interview the Pope gave to El Pais of Spain.

In it he breaks the world record for invoking Godwin's Law - in any conversation Hitler will be brought up. In it he conflates Trump's election and the new-found phenomenon of populism in the West (Brexit and all that) with Hitler's Germany of the 1930s.

Another is that there is bad populism and good populism.

Brexit, Trump's Election, the rise of right wing parties at the expense of socialist ones, are bad populism. However, yesterday's worldwide marches against Trump, populism in action if ever there was a case, were good populism - blessed be the marchers!

It is all media driven, and it is dangerous.

The Americans have a really good phrase for what is going on.

"You're Reaching".

Conflating the rise of the Nazi's in 1930's Germany with Trump Populism is, in short, either madness or the worst kind of lies.

So let's fact check it.

1030's Germany:

The great Depression still holds sway
Massive war reparations still weighing on the German economy
Huge swathes of German property and business being bought wholesale by French interests due to the depreciation of the currency
Hyperinflation holds sway (25% to thousands of %)
Massive unemployment and no social systems to backstop the people who simply don't have the money to live
People see no way out of the trap.
The blame game with the Jews begins

2016 America under Trump:

The Financial crisis is, essentially, over in the US
US has strong growth
US has growing (<3%) inflation and wages are growing too
Business is still globalising and jobs are moving to the cheaper parts of the world, but still the globalisation tends to spread out _from_ the US
People are fairly comfortable but showing irritation at being ignored when they vote for change
The immigration blame game is beginning, but it is about stopping people from getting in, not about abusing citizens who were born in the country
Most of the Populists are comfortable but wishing to be more comfortable with a visible future which gets better.

Personally I'm seeing about 0% parallel between the two. If that is the case then any claims to the contrary are an attempt to lie the people back under control!

Workingman wrote:It is all media driven, and it is dangerous.

True, but we do have twitter and Farcebook to rip that apart nowadays. It does help redress the balance a bit.

What I see most is people with "vested interests" being incredibly afraid of conspicuous democracy and others who shout about democracy then wind up decrying it when democracy gives an answer they don't like.

Was it not a Labour MP who was quoted as saying "We've asked the people what they wanted and they have told us. The Bastards"???

There is an interesting quote from Disraeli..

The Conservative Party should be the party of change but change that goes along with the customs and manners and traditions and sentiments of the people rather than change according to some grand plan

The problem, today, is that the press and political parties are invested in changing the customs, manners, traditions and sentiments of the people instead of listening to them.

Populism, in a democratic system, is an inevitable result. More is the pity that it has taken so long and such a contentious issue.

Suff wrote:

Workingman wrote:It is all media driven, and it is dangerous.

True, but we do have twitter and Farcebook to rip that apart nowadays. It does help redress the balance a bit.

Except that things work both ways.

A lot of campaigns are now organised on (un)social media. The 'good' campaigns, as with those we saw yesterday, are supported by the lamestream media and given air time. Anything that is not part of their chosen 'good causes' agendas are trashed and the only air time they get is in interviews with those who are against them.

Social media might be new, but the tactics of the traditional media are as old as the hills.

Who will eventually win out is debatable. At present the media's 'unpopular' populists seem to have the upper hand despite all attempts to keep them quiet.