Title: Not Surprised Trump Won

Sub-title: Never Voted Republican in My Life

Headlines across the United States and the world used the same words to describe Hillary Clinton’s defeat: ‘shocking’ and ‘stunning’. I vehemently opposed Trump. I never voted Republican in my life. But I was not stunned or shocked at all that Trump won.

First let’s follow the money. Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, median earnings are lower today than they were in the 1970’s. Made in America by Wall Street commercial banks and investment banks, the financial crises that began in Q3 of 2007 quickly spread around the world. Iceland and Ireland were bankrupted. The crises hit the American middle class and the poor particularly hard and are still wreaking havoc. Over 23-million people lost their jobs between Q3 2007 and Q4 2009, when the Great Recession supposedly ended. In 2008, foreclosure filings jumped 81% over an already high rate of foreclosures in 2007. Between 2007 and 2015, there were over 23,300,000 foreclosure filings, with all-time historic highs that approached four million in 2010 and 2011. Jobs, health insurance (if any), homes and life savings were lost. The middle class and the poor have not yet made up their losses. Those citizens have seen on various media the reports that, since the supposed recovery officially began in 2009, 100% of the economic gains have gone to the top 10% wealthiest Americans, with 95% going to the top 0.01%. Thus, we as a nation were and are experiencing a supposed ‘upturn’ but the vast majority of Americans are in fact worse off than they were before 2000. This is American Plutocracy.

Angry? Yes, millions were angry right up to the 2016 presidential election.

On the other hand, the U.S. government showered the banks that caused the crises with money beginning, under the George Bush regime, with the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed into law in Q4 2008. Barack Obama’s regime continued the TARP, with Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary. Although the TARP legislation required mortgage relief, Geithner called that part of the law “window dressing” and ignored it -- thus making himself a felon – in favor of “foaming the runway” (his words) for the banks. Further, the Federal Reserve opened up its coffers. It bought up all the banks’ troubled assets except for those of Lehman Brothers. The Fed also began lending money at zero percent interest to U.S. and international banks – even the Libyan Central Bank. Final tally: over $2.2-trillion dollars, with none directly loaned to the Main Street firms or homeowners who suffered the greatest harm. Today, the banks are bigger than ever due to the consolidation that took place during and after the financial crises; they wield enormous economic and political power. None of the bankers who caused the crises are in prison despite the proven felonies committed before, during and after the crises. (Check out the Levin-Coburn Report filed in April 2011. Link below.)

Were voters angry? Oh yeah. Rightfully so. Read the Levin Report or The Economist. Or read Martin Wolf at The Financial Times, 30 November 2010: “Why the Irish crisis is such a huge test for the eurozone” His key words are, “Private debt cannot be public debt.”

Second, let’s look at the legacy of the U.S. “Establishment” so loathed by the Millennials and the Trump voters. Starting with Reagan and right up to the current Obama regime, establishment Republicans and Democrats went all-in for deregulation, globalization, and the supposed benefits of free trade. They enabled American firms to “outsource” or “offshore” operations in search of enhanced profits, primarily through lower labor and regulatory costs (like environmental regs). Of course, Republicans and Democrats in government are equally to blame. Bush the Elder, Bill Clinton, Bush II (Shrub), and Obama promoted globalization. From 2001 to 2009, America lost 42,400 factories as manufacturing firms moved offshore, with a reduction of over 30% of all manufacturing jobs to 11.7 million – the lowest level since America entered World War II in 1941. (Thank you, Prof. Robert Reich.)

But the Democrats have been in the White House for sixteen of the past 24 years. Yes, Bill Clinton balanced the U.S. budget. But Bill Clinton is known as the “outsourcer in chief” president by Millenials and the legions of Trump voters and others. He signed, on 8 December 1993, the amended NAFTA treaty first signed by George H.W. Bush on 17 December 1992. Many U.S. firms then promptly moved their manufacturing operations south to just over the border in Mexico, where they established the notorious maquiladoras. This truly boosted the Mexican economy but left previous American employees jobless. Next, in 1995 Billary Clinton signed the World Trade Agreement, yet another supposed free trade treaty that actually suborns sovereignty in favor of corporate entities in any country that signed. I read every word of the treaty; I was appalled. China became the home of supposedly American manufacturers.

Then, in 1999, Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act into law. This law rescinded the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separating commercial banks from investment banks. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley law allowed and enabled the merging of commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance firms. It thereby allowed U.S. banks and other financial institutions to gamble with the savings of depositors on risky new financial instruments – credit default swaps; collateralized debt obligations, etc. – that were dreamt up by the likes of the ‘Morgan Mafia’ at J.P. Morgan and elsewhere. These exotic financial instruments were principal causes of the global 2007-2009 financial crises; they still exist in new forms.

Barack Obama did nothing effective to halt foreclosures nor did he prosecute the proven felons on Wall Street. Note that the Princeton University scholar Cornell West, himself an Afro-American, early on called Obama a “black mascot for Wall Street” – a much politer way to say ‘House Negro’ or worse. Throughout his first four years in the Oval Office, Obama was willing to bargain away any and perhaps all social safety net laws to reach a budget consensus with the Republicans. Plus he was the principal U.S. agent behind the ultra-secret Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiated by corporate lawyers, U.S. politicians both Republican and Democrat, and their counterparts in other nations. Like the World Trade Organization, the TPP would have suborned sovereignty in favor of corporate interests. (Yes, I read every leaked word.) Hillary never offered alternatives. She was for the TPP before she was against it.

Next, add to this toxic brew the consolidation of essential American businesses into price-gouging oligopolies. For example, only three to five firms dominate U.S. banking, pharmaceuticals, health insurance, internet, food, high tech products, and communications, with airlines not much better. This market power enables American firms to charge higher prices for goods and services than other developed countries. Again: Thanks, Prof. Reich.)

Angry? Yes, millions were angry right up to the 2016 presidential election.

All these facts were known to Millennials who grew up over the past 24 years. Many follow the news very closely, especially on alternative media that do not lie regularly. Many also face crushing debt from student loans; they know the banks borrow at zero interest.

All these facts were known to the Trump voters; for instance, my two cousins from West by the grace of God Texas, plus a brother-in-law of one cousin. I spent a week with them in Watersmeet, on the Michigan Upper Peninsula, where we had gone for the fishing in September. They are truly decent men: solicitous and gallant toward my aged Mother; law-abiding, God-fearing, hard-working. My cousins are two of the most intelligent persons I know. But they said they would vote for Trump. We ranted and raved for five nights and five days over beers and shots; they showed me some of their guns. Nothing I could say against Trump – all the usual progressive arguments – changed their minds. They insisted that “The system is rigged,” that “We must drain the swamp” in D.C., and that “Only an outsider can do it.” Plus they were adamant that her failure to publish her speeches to Wall Street banks and investment firms like Goldman Sachs proved once again that Hillary – “like all the elected members of government” -- is untrustworthy, a mere pawn of the Establishment. They said they liked what Bernie had to say, but that he, too, “is Establishment”.

So! Hillary and all the other Democrats are now blaming other agents: Comey, the media, Putin, et. al. But Hillary Clinton lost the election all on her own. She deserved to lose. She was and is a part of the swamp, an heiress of the Establishment legacy that includes her husband and which left millions of Americans in penury. She should have listened to Michael Moore, who had been warning for months that Trump could win because Democrats were so out of touch with their traditional base.

Plus Hillary ran a truly moronic campaign. For instance, she took the traditionally Blue state of Wisconsin for granted; she never set foot there. Trump won even notoriously liberal Wisconsin because some 200,400 Democrats stayed home. Why? Because Hillary did not visit to rouse them out of their stupors. You cannot fire up your base if you do not campaign where they live -- and vote. Furthermore, Hillary’s campaign was a tone-deaf, traditional campaign when a revolutionary campaign was called for, like Bernie’s or The Donald’s. She and her minions foolishly followed the polls. But all the polls were wrong because they operate within the ideological confines of the clueless swamp in D.C. Foggy Bottom is aptly named. Hillary could not read her tea leaves yet played cretinous mind games with the Trump operation, thus squandering essential resources. Born loser.

The issue of corruption was just as urgent during the ranting and raving with my cousins, who said of Dems and Repubs alike: “They’re all bought and paid for.” This is true. I have studied this issue for years. (You will find a link below.) My cousins did not believe Trump, a very wealthy man, could be purchased by vested interests or super-wealthy patrons. We shall see. In any case, banks were among Obama’s largest contributors during the 2008 presidential campaign: Goldman Sachs ($1,013,019); JPMorgan Chase ($808,799); CitiGroup ($736,711); UBS AG ($532,674); Bank of America, ($421,242); Morgan Stanley ($425,502). In total, banks and related financial firms gave Obama over $15 million during his 2008 election campaign. That’s a huge amount of ‘quid pro quo’ owed by Obama to Wall Street, and explains why Obama never ordered his then Attorney General, Eric Holder, to initiate criminal investigation of the banks. (Note that Holder himself had intimate ties to both banks and lobbyists.)

Also, I am old enough to remember Tip O’Neil, a true Democrat, who was quoted often for his famous saying, “All politics are local.” Democrats like Tip used to represent the working class and the poor. Not any more. Bill Clinton is the “outsourcer in Chief.” Obama – who never found a banker guilty of proven felonies committed, and championed the TPP – was Hillary’s boss. Hillary is Bill’s wife. She was for the TPP before she was against it. She took money from Wall Street firms for campaign donations and her speeches. Today’s typical Democrat politician is a plutocrat or voted to enable plutocracy, a Republican in drag bought-and-sold by corporations for re-election funds.

QED: Hillary lost. I was not surprised. Only people inside the Beltway could be so blindly moronic. Cry me a river.

References:

http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/16194-corruption.

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/media/senate-investigations-subcommittee-releases-levin-coburn-report-on-the-financial-crisis

Partial list, publishing history::

http://onwardspoetry.blogspot.ae/2009/02/poetry-as-tool-to-pick-up-chicks.html

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/774732.shtml

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/770486.shtml

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/868700.shtml

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HC30Ad01.html

https://www.linkedin.com/in/synergy-educational-00038a91

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/devils-bargain-by-ned-boudreau/

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/oxymorons-by-ned-boudreau/

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/smoking-gun-by-ned-boudreau/

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/bush-by-ned-boudreau/