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Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, it’s becoming clear that Donald Trump has not delivered on the promises that got him elected. Some still hope that he will “make America great again.” But the key promises that got him elected were these:
- Make America safe.
- Create jobs and get more people working.
- Replace Obamacare with a better health plan.
There is no evidence that he has delivered on these promises or that he intends to do so. What he has delivered on is his promise to enrich the CEOs of corporate America, starting with himself and his family.
I’m reading Naomi Klein’s new book, No is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. More than anyone I know, she helps us understand the Trump phenomenon, to place it in its proper historical context, and more importantly to show how to keep Trump’s brand of disaster politics from sucking the air out of our collective lungs.
When I read her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism it brought clarity to much of the chaos in the world that I felt unable to understand or make sense of. It became clear, for instance, that Hurricane Katrina was less a national disaster, than a Corporate opportunity to enrich itself. Following Katrina, New Orleans’s residents, many of them poor, were scattered throughout the country. Rather than seeing their communities rebuilt, they saw them being replaced. The rich got richer and the poor got removed.
This kind of “shock therapy” offers a simple, yet effective means for the 1% to get richer at the expense of the 99%. It’s as simple as 1,2,3.
- Create a crisis or series of crises (or be prepared to take advantage of any natural disasters that occur).
- While people are still reeling from the shock, step in take control.
- Take whatever is valuable from the public domain and give it to those who have private power.
Repeat, again and again (Until people recognize what is going on and change our collective response.)
When I think about this kind of “shock therapy,” I think back to the year I spent visiting my father at Camarillo State Mental Hospital. He had become increasingly irritable, angry, and depressed because he couldn’t find work as an actor and playwright in Hollywood. This was during the time of the “red scare” and McCarthy hearings where those on the political left were blacklisted and were unable to work in their chosen field. In despair, he took an overdose of sleeping pills and was committed to Camarillo for treatment.
Over a period of a year he was given electroshock treatments, supposedly to treat his depression. He never received any therapy that might have gotten to the root of his despair or to see the connection between his depression and what was going on in the work world. It took more than twenty years for the country to come to its senses and recognize that the danger to the country didn’t come from the creative artists on the progressive left, but from those who would restrict our freedoms, fan the flames of fear, and attack those who stand up for the 99%.
I watched my father get worse and worse, until he finally didn’t know who I was when I came to visit him. The treatment would have killed him, I’m sure, or ruined his brain as we saw depicted in the book and movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But my father fought back and finally escaped from those who wanted to control him. The fight goes on.
Donald Trump has sped up the collective shock treatments we all experience. Crises now happen every day and new ones are reported every time we turn on the news. We don’t even have to wait for the next news cycle, our brains are flooded with the next crazy tweet that arouses our fear. We are so overwhelmed attending to the next crisis, that lose the will to fight back. Meanwhile our country is being given away to the rich and venal.
“With every alleged ethics violation, with every brazen lie, with every deranged tweet,” says Naomi Klein, “this administration leaves the public sphere more broken and degraded.”
And what is the public sphere? It’s our collective wealth and wisdom. This is a time where those in power would have us divide the world into the “haves” and “have nots,” and then try and make us believe that the haves, have what they have because they are hard-working and deserve everything they get. They also want us to believe that the have nots, have not because they are lazy freeloaders trying to take the hard-earned money from the have’s. It’s time we spit out that the poison we are being fed.
So, how do we take back our country? For starters, we have to stop traumatizing ourselves by following the latest Trump craziness. His game is to keep our attention focused on him. He is a narcissist after all. And also to create one crisis after another until we’re so overwhelmed and numb that we just want to pretend it’s all a reality T.V. show that has nothing to do with our real lives.
What’s the one thing we can do to turn things around? Klein says that we need to “Jam the Trump Brand.” The Trump brand is “I’m the Boss” and you all are my celebrity apprentices. As the boss, he gets to fire anyone he doesn’t like and shame and blame anyone who opposes him. He wants us to believe there are only two choices in the world: “Become a winner like him or become a loser like the 99% who are not like him.” If you are a loser, the Trump brand has a four-word suggestion for what you can do: “Eat, shit, and die.” If we don’t go along, he is happy to give us a series of “shock treatments,” for our own good of course.
But the reality of the Trump brand is there’s nothing there but hot air. He is the personification of the emperor who is naked, while telling everyone he’s dressed for success. When we stop watching the show, buying his products, or staying in his hotels and towers (and boycotting those who do), his power will evaporate. Of course, it won’t be so easy to jam the Trump brand, but Naomi Klein offers important guidance. I highly recommend her book for all those who are ready for a real change.
As always, I look forward to your comments. Whether you agree or disagree I want to hear from you. And let’s remember we are all in this world together, so we need to be kind and respectful to each other, whether we agree or disagree. Stay tuned to www.MenAlive.com and learn about my new book coming out next year From Madness to Manhood: In Search of My Lost Father and Myself.
Previously published on Men Alive
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
And jesus jed. For you to think trump can get new jobs, economy, etc etc is really silly on your part gor him being there for 6 months, yet being hounded all the time by media and liberal pundits. Give it a rest and see what happens. But you won’t. You’ll continue to criticize and then say, see!
Wow can’t believe this, i just happened upon Naomi Klein today on YouTube and was shocked by how true what she was saying was. We need to get together and stop this enrichment of the 1% in all situations, In the USA you have Trump and his draining the swamp with his millionaire mates all in place for the main chance to rip off the rest of the country, the rich getting richer and the rest left to suffer, here in the UK we have the top 1% engineering a tough Brexit crisis so they can change our laws, get… Read more »
Bernie? You have no clue. But yes, it is the politicians that are lining their own pockets. YOU really don’t matter. You buy into their nonsense. Because it’s labour vs conservatives. Neither are anywhere near the truth. Bernie is a communist. The preferred word is socialist. Sounds better. But he’s communist. And that philosophy has failed, in merely 100 years, to give its masses food, or equality, or meaning. Not in one single experiment of it. It simply does not work. Those at the top got it all. Look around you can see its true. Brexit is about the UK… Read more »
Besides proposed reduction of White House staff he’s “Executive Order Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” “Expediting Environmental Reviews and Approvals for High-Priority Infrastructure Projects” “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” “Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Appointees” “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs” “Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System” “Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety” “Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers” “Enforcing Federal… Read more »
“Make America safe” Isn’t he sending 20 new ATF agents to Chicago?
He’ll. He’ll have his hands full just making Chicago reasonably safe again.