Skip to: site menu | section menu | main content
- Albert Einstein
There is no doubt that the state of the economy shapes people’s minds and forces them to react against the situation which is not inline with their subsistence and well-beings.
The imperialists’ policy of Neoliberalism has ruined the lives of millions and millions of peoples in the West, especially in the United States of America since its almost full implementation more than 30 years ego.
Privatization of national assets and resources, deregulations and decreasing the role of governments in supporting the vulnerable groups, cutting social spending, suppressing unions, shifting jobs to the low-wage countries, and widespread tax-cuts for the rich have been part of Neoliberal policies that destroyed the lives of workers, working peoples, and the lower layers of the middle-class.
As a result, unemployment, evictions, bankruptcy, hunger and homelessness rose across the U.S. cities (Reuters, Dec. 20, 2012).
The gap between rich and poor is growing, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer and that is likely to continue (Pew research center, December 5, 2013). The top 1% now owns half the world wealth (fortune.com, October 14, 2015). And finally 20 people now own as much wealth as half of all Americans (The Nation, December 3, 2015).
In these circumstances the United States entered the presidential election campaign of 2016. Donald Trump an outsider billionaire with the ticket of Republicans easily phased-out establishment rivals in the primary season and became the presidential nominee of that Party.
Famous for being a Washington outsider and anti-establishment, and a candidate for change, with the slogan of “Make America Great Again”, helped him and his campaign to be perceived as the new champion to fulfil the elusive American dream.
Donald Trump promised to renegotiate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (1994), withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership, and opposed to the current conditions of other free trade agreements, making him a symbol of the will of U.S. Bourgeoisie, and the protector of middle sized domestic industries. Saying that “trade pacts are no good for us and no good for our workers” (Feb. 2016) was hailed by the conservative blue collar workers of the rural and urban areas with economic decline, and growing poverty plagued by the Neoliberal policies.
On Sep. 2016, Trump said that: U.S. cannot afford to be the world’s police; let NATO allies pay, NATO failed to tackle ISIS and other terrorists’ organization, Russia and Syrian governments are fighting ISIS, we can cooperate with them, and not act against them.
These words were welcomed by Russia, China, and anti-terrorist peace-loving nations and all the people around the world.
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton was eventually “elected” by all means of fraud, delegate & super-delegate bias and discrimination against the other candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders.
Ex-First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a well known establishment candidate, blatantly pursuing the painful economic Neoliberal policies, regime changing, and destructive imperialists’ wars of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
Her campaign was marred by email scandal, Clinton Foundation squander, paid speeches and questionable fundraising events which were exposed by Wikileaks.
She used a private server for her official email during her term as the secretary of state. Some emails were classified correspondents which many believed jeopardized national security. It is also remarkable that she deleted about thirty thousand emails just after receiving an FBI subpoena.
The misuse of Clinton Foundation funds, tax evasion, and many other illegal activities have to be proven.
The Benghazi terrorists’ attack on September 11, 2012, in which four Americans including the US Ambassador to Libya were killed, rise continued questions about the role of the then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in this attack – or rather, a potential failure to do anything about it. However, is Clinton complicit in the Benghazi attack? (Yahoo News, January 26, 2016).
The catalyst role of Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State, in the 2011 Libya war was exposed while more than 50 officials from the US, Europe, and Libya spoke out to the New York Times (rt.com, March 3, 2016); A bloody regime change which led to the lynching of President Muammar Gaddafi, destruction of that Country, and the rising of ISIS and other terrorist groups in Libya. Many of these terrorists then-exported to Syria by imperialists are causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, casualties, displacement, enormous suffering of the people and nearly total destruction of that country. Another failed regime change that resulted in the influx of millions of refugees to Europe and other parts of the world.
Unlike H. Clinton, the other Democratic Party runner, Senator Bernie Sanders was a progressive candidate with a history of advocating economic and social reforms since joining the Liberty Union Party in 1971. The LUP was founded in the State of Vermont as an anti-war, anti-capitalist, and socialist party. As the mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981- 89, as a member of the House of Representatives in 1991-2007 and since January 2007 as the Senator of Vermont he has always introduced himself as a socialist and a democratic socialist supporting the rights of workers, working people, students, minorities, oppressed, and deprived people of the United States.
From the beginning of his campaign, Senator Sanders attracted the attention of thousands and then millions of Americans who were desperate to see a positive change in their hopeless miserable lives; But 20,000 freshly leaked emails revealed the Democratic National Convention undermined and sabotaged the Sanders Campaign in favour of H. Clinton long before any votes were cast (Wikileaks, reported by Observer, July 22, 2016). Finally H. Clinton became the official nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2016 US Presidential Elections on July 25-28 by DNC.
It was under these circumstances that Americans went to cast their votes on November 8, 2016. An estimated 58.5 percent of eligible voters voted, and the results sent shockwaves here in the US and around the world. Contrary to all predictions, statistics and Main Stream Media propaganda, Donald Trump won the race with 304 Electoral College votes compared to 227 votes for Hillary Clinton.
During the campaign it was revealed that the oligarchy and the elite of the Republican Party, for instance the Bush family, were opposing Trumps’ election promises and declaring their overt support for H. Clinton’s Neoliberal and war-mongering policies, while many Republican Party grassroots and the majority of the blue-collar workers were in favour of Donald Trump.
On the Democratic side, disgusted by revealed DNC conspiracy, corruption, and deserting support for working people, many of the Sanders’ followers even voted for Trump or the Green Party Leader Jill Stein, or didn’t vote at all.
Here again, as it happened in the previous Presidential Elections, anxious people voted for the lesser of two evils, thus voted for Trump to dump H. Clinton.
The border between these two major Parties faded, the leadership and elite of both parties mostly were pro-Clinton, while grassroots mainly voted for Trump.
This unprecedented new political landscape requires the emergence of a powerful political party to represent workers, lower layers of middle-class and the entire disadvantaged people of the United States of America.
As Senator Bernie Sanders told CBS News the “Democratic Party needs profound change to stand with the working people, and promote progressive ideas in the Society and dealing with the concerns for Global warming and climate change.” (November 14, 2016).
Otherwise, the need for the presence of a powerful national Democratic Socialist Party is felt more than ever.
Now that President-elect Donald Trump is taking office on January 20, 2017, many of his appointees, possibly to appease hostile Republican majority in the Congress, don’t look promising to track his campaign’s rhetoric.
Donald Trump’s protectionist policy to build a wall on US-Mexico Border, to expel illegal immigrants, and to bring capital and factories back to the United States is not compatible with the greedy instinct of capitalists wanting to acquire maximum profit from cheap labour. Even the biggest tax break for manufacturers inside the US, or even imposing big border taxes for entering their outsourcing products could not match with their huge offshore profits.
To bring back home the jobs, you have to level salaries within the low wage countries; this will be in contradiction with the ousting of cheap labourer immigrants.
Lowering wages in the US reduces the purchasing power and results in severe recession and economic depression, while other low wage countries provide their customers with cheap affordable goods and services.
Lowering the wages to repatriate capital, will result in the ever rising of gig economy, which is suppressing and eliminating the remaining workers’ unions, part time jobs with no prospect for a decent life, and long hours of work for lesser salaries. In this atmosphere promising unprecedented tax cuts for wealthy would deepen this sickening gap between rich and poor in the country.
Pursuing the “America’s Infrastructure First policy”, will be helpful only if we engage public fund for the public interest, for instance building roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and affordable housing. Private investors are seeking profit, they build where they smell profit, it will neither alleviate the acute problems of the country, nor will it create considerable job opportunities.
The protectionist promises of President-elect Donald Trump under the slogan of, “America First” requires to turn the economic clock back. While we can not turn back capitalism to feudalism, we are similarly not able to turn back imperialism, the rule of finance-capital, to pure 19 Century capitalism.
This is the main reason behind all the hostility of the US and EU oligarchy against Trumps’ ideas of “putting up” bourgeois economy in the United States. Their huge profits and powers are at stake. The elite’s vast propaganda and the spreading fake news about Russia’s alleged hacking attacks and the meddling with the US Presidential Elections would all be to discredit Trump’s Presidency.
Avoiding future global conflicts, resolving the current tensions between the nations will be considered as positive elements of change for the people here and around the world. Of course these positive changes would not be in the interest of the elite.
In this regard, the success of Trump’s election promises of ending pre-emptive wars and “draining the swamp” in Washington DC, will herald a more humane and peaceful world to come.