| Is it a surprise to you that I haven't fully encoded the current world order in one HN comment? Just as the press usurped our power to block us out of it. Trump usurped the media's power (through his own showmanship) to block them out of it (this was the only reason CNN libs were mad really). At the end of the day Trump did the bidding of the common backgrounds interests so he was allowed to play the part: - Sold $100s of billions of weapons to dictators (MIC)
- His anti-china policy was solely to stop their EVs from taking over the gas car market in the US (Oil & Gas)
- Escalated tensions in the middle east to keep netanyahu in power through the Abraham Weapons Deal and moving the US embassy illegally to Jerusalem (Foreign Interests) The politicians, the media, they fall over, and fight amongst, each other to be top slave to these same various lobbies. The public are only there insofar to keep the facade in-tact, every 4 years people stand in line to larp as casting directors in the great pantomime. Most western states do not live in free, representative democracies - all the ones with significant sway have been totally usurped (in other countries we'd call it coups). And unfortunately, the tech industry is now going in that direction (with YC now accepting MIC projects, lazy zero-alpha investors and VCs are crawling to the DoD infinite-money-glitch teat). Read "Silent Coup" by Matt Kennard & Claire Provost[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Silent_Coup/gjmvEAAAQ...] |
Feels like for each of these, you can weave an alternate story with another set of benefactors if the opposite action was taken. For instance, his being pro china would benefit corporate interests through globalization, allowing multinationals to bleed the rust belt even more. Or that signing the Iran deal actually means Russia benefits somehow (dunno, maybe so their client state/ally isn't sanctioned anymore?) and trump is in the pockets of Russian oligarchs. Point is, no matter what policies get enacted, there's going to be someone benefiting, which means you can accuse the people in charge for doing "the bidding of the common backgrounds interests". Even something that should be an unalloyed good (eg. FTC outlawing noncompetes) can be cynically written off as "that's just them throwing us a bone to keep us placated".
To put another way, what would convince you that your theory is false? A full socialist revolution?