RT-TV’s Crosstalk Show of January 31, 2017 focused on the subject of whether there is such a thing as ‘Trumpology’. What does Trump represent and is the liberal media vs. Trump something new? As one of three participants on the show, I offered my view that Trump is both something old and something new. He reflects the resurrection of Nixon law and order, silent majority/forgotten Americans, confront the media, force foreign allies to give back conditions to advance US corporate interests, shake up global alignments, etc., taken to a more aggressive level. But he also reflects Reagan Neoliberal economic policies giving even bigger tax cuts to corporations and investors, deregulating business (ACA, Dodd-Frank and more), and he is a bilateral free trader, not a multilateralist. Threats of protectionism are tactical, to soften up the opposition as preparation to renegotiating free trade deals even more favorable to US business. Trump is old wine in new bottles, as they say. But a more ascerbic wine, a harsher form of neoliberalism, with an even stronger domestic policy emphasis of attacks on the ‘new jews’ (immigrants domestic and foreign), law and order (let’s punish the protestors), and an even greater threat to civil liberties, democratic rights, and even more income transfer to the rich than under the old elites in the Democrat-Republican wings of the party of the US elites. Unlike the other show participants, however, I argue Trump is not about to be impeached or removed, especially until he delivers to them the ‘big 3’ programs of bigger tax cuts, deregulation, and a rearrangement of free trade rules that benefit US business even more than before. His tweets and confrontation with media style is designed to keep his right wing base agitated. Steve Bannon is there to communicate directly to that base, and to mobilize it if and when necessary to more directly confront the elites in Congress, their party, the government bureaucracy, and their media.
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