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Trump's attack on the Postal Service is yet another attempt by a Republican to destroy government in order to consolidate power and expedite profit.
There's a disturbing history of this.
Here's what I learned writing AMERICAN RULE.
1/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/american-rule-by-jared-yates-sexton/
There's a disturbing history of this.
Here's what I learned writing AMERICAN RULE.
1/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/american-rule-by-jared-yates-sexton/
We have to make something clear: Donald Trump is not a president in any traditional sense.
He is an anti-president, a destroyer with a mission of dealing a death blow to governance and oversight in order to finish an anti-democratic project.
2/ https://www.themuckrake.com/main/postal
He is an anti-president, a destroyer with a mission of dealing a death blow to governance and oversight in order to finish an anti-democratic project.
2/ https://www.themuckrake.com/main/postal
Already, Trump has said, in no uncertain terms, that he is attacking the Postal Service explicitly to try and steal the 2020 Election.
There is no argument about this. He is an authoritarian willing to destroy any democratic institution if it means maintaining power.
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There is no argument about this. He is an authoritarian willing to destroy any democratic institution if it means maintaining power.
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It is an intentional implosion of government that Trump is carrying out, and this is how authoritarian movements work.
Once they come into power they twist and pervert the system of government until it is dysfunctional, toxic, and serves their purpose.
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Once they come into power they twist and pervert the system of government until it is dysfunctional, toxic, and serves their purpose.
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There is no Trump Administration or Trump Presidency.
There is an illusion, a shadow dance that presents a veneer of governance while systematically disabling government as a means of public good and oversight.
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There is an illusion, a shadow dance that presents a veneer of governance while systematically disabling government as a means of public good and oversight.
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This is why there has been no response or attempt to fight the pandemic.
To marshal a federal opposition it would mean using resources for public good and invigorating government.
That is the antithesis of what Trump is doing. It would be counterproductive for the project.
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To marshal a federal opposition it would mean using resources for public good and invigorating government.
That is the antithesis of what Trump is doing. It would be counterproductive for the project.
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To understand Trump's presidency, we must examine the illusion that is presented, the history of how the GOP came to be an anti-government body, and how this veneer hides an explicitly anti-government, anti-public good project.
We have to start with the Wall.
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We have to start with the Wall.
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The Wall was never real.
There was never an intention to really build a Wall. It was a metaphor, an image, a matter of faith his supporters could believe in and inject with their energy.
It was fictitious, a crusade they could support while Trump disabled government.
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There was never an intention to really build a Wall. It was a metaphor, an image, a matter of faith his supporters could believe in and inject with their energy.
It was fictitious, a crusade they could support while Trump disabled government.
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It's much easier to understand that Trump's promise to "drain the swamp" was a lie, something he never intended to do. It was a crusade without actual energy or intention.
The Wall and the Swamp are calls to action that hide a presidency that is dedicated to destruction.
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The Wall and the Swamp are calls to action that hide a presidency that is dedicated to destruction.
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The true purpose of the Republican Party for decades now has been to shrink the government, vilify it, create crises wherein public trust of government erodes, and then replace public governance with privatized opportunities for profit and expedited power.
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This iteration of the Republican Party has its roots in the desegregation of American institutions, a moment wherein the GOP saw an opportunity to marshal white supremacist support to win elections and consolidate power.
It's this drive to white supremacy that defines them.
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It's this drive to white supremacy that defines them.
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It is the marriage between segregationists, white-identity evangelicals, and reckless hypercapitalists that animates the GOP.
Jerry Falwell was one of the facilitators of this amalgamation, a Neo-Confederate preacher who warned that segregation was God's plan.
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Jerry Falwell was one of the facilitators of this amalgamation, a Neo-Confederate preacher who warned that segregation was God's plan.
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Segregated America was the ideal laboratory for consistent and unimpeded power and hierarchies necessary for the Right to maintain and consolidate control.
The federal interruption of this system is what spurred on our current moment and worsening crisis.
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The federal interruption of this system is what spurred on our current moment and worsening crisis.
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In the wake of desegregation, the Right decided that privatization was the only means by which federal power could be curtailed and institutionalized racism, misogyny, and profitable hierarchies could be maintained.
This is the essence of the modern Right.
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This is the essence of the modern Right.
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This white supremacist pursuit of wealth and power has been hidden by tested political cudgels, including anti-choice and Second Amendment crusades, all of them carefully designed to win elections, increase profit and control, and hide patriarchal white supremacy.
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With this new partnership between Neo-Confederates, white supremacists, and hypercapitalists, the 1980's saw the rise of a new anti-government, pro-privatization movement helmed by Ronald Reagan, who was the embodiment of these ideals.
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While Reagan was explicitly in office to destroy the federal government as a means of public good and to use it as a massive redistribution of wealth and power, he presented a potent, tested illusion of a president with good public intentions.
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By design, Reagan's propagandists positioned him as the embodiment of mythical America, planting the idea that Reagan and America were inseparable and anything he did was in the interest of the country's health and progress.
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As an actor, Reagan played the smiling, cheerful role of a president right out of movie or TV casting, presenting to the press carefully-scripted photo-ops and manufactured "moments."
It was all designed to hide and disguise a truly awful and cruel project.
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It was all designed to hide and disguise a truly awful and cruel project.
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Just like Trump, Reagan had no interest in briefings or details or even knowing what he was pushing. He sold America a completely restructured economy that was intended to disable government as a public good while redistributing wealth and power to the already-powerful.
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Reagan redistributed wealth at an alarming pace, stripping public programs of all their funding, literally tossing thousands of Americans into the streets and creating an epidemic of homelessness, crime, and despair.
It was a planned implosion of government.
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It was a planned implosion of government.
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Reagan and successive presidents used this intentional erosion of government to farm out public functions to private corporations, redistributing the public wealth to private individuals, ensuring the government was weakened and the public interest forgotten completely.
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Like Reagan, Trump is surrounded by individuals using him and his presidency for their own goals.
People like Mike Pence are looking to push radical white-identity evangelicalism and reestablish white patriarchal control by using government as a weapon of oppression.
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People like Mike Pence are looking to push radical white-identity evangelicalism and reestablish white patriarchal control by using government as a weapon of oppression.
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Bill Barr, as attorney general, is pursuing his dream project of using the rule of law to shape American society via extreme Christian doctrine and turning "justice" into a malleable force that can serve the powerful while oppressing the "other."
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Barr's recent comments reveal what has been hidden, that he is part of a white-identity Christian project that goes back to Falwell and the 1970's.
His belief is that a society must adhere to Christian doctrine in order to survive, and his role as AG is in that pursuit.
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His belief is that a society must adhere to Christian doctrine in order to survive, and his role as AG is in that pursuit.
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Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, is a champion of privatization and the expedited redistribution project.
She has fought public education her entire career and attempted to dismantle that democratic institution. Now, she's in charge of it.
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She has fought public education her entire career and attempted to dismantle that democratic institution. Now, she's in charge of it.
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There's a reason there's no plan to return America's schoolchildren in the Fall. There's a reason it's unsafe and chaotic.
Again. Any attempt to use government for public good is antithetical to the intentional dismantling of government. There's no motivation there.
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Again. Any attempt to use government for public good is antithetical to the intentional dismantling of government. There's no motivation there.
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The Trump Administration is, to a person, an assembly of people put in charge of public governance who are expressly opposed to the department they oversee.
It's not a coincidence a coal lobbyist runs the Environmental Protection Agency.
It is a dismantling.
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It's not a coincidence a coal lobbyist runs the Environmental Protection Agency.
It is a dismantling.
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There is a reason the new Postmaster General immediately began dismantling the Postal Service.
This is a stripping of the government for parts, a purposeful execution to expedite privatization, further profit, and ensure blatant corruption and consolidation of power.
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This is a stripping of the government for parts, a purposeful execution to expedite privatization, further profit, and ensure blatant corruption and consolidation of power.
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The Postal Service situation is emblematic of this plan.
It is both dying because it is a means of stealing an election but also because there is profit to be made by privatizing government functions.
This is how our country is being destroyed. Through synergy.
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It is both dying because it is a means of stealing an election but also because there is profit to be made by privatizing government functions.
This is how our country is being destroyed. Through synergy.
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People miss the point when they try and approach Trump through the lens of incompetence or maliciousness.
It's both. This anti-democratic project is an amalgamation of things, it is both clumsy and precise, a movement that is based on shared motivations.
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It's both. This anti-democratic project is an amalgamation of things, it is both clumsy and precise, a movement that is based on shared motivations.
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This isn't just about Trump, it's about the Republican Movement dedicated to ending government for public good.
But Trump's own personal authoritarian instincts and total vacuousness and poisonous nature expedites it, makes the project more dangerous. It's gathering speed.
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But Trump's own personal authoritarian instincts and total vacuousness and poisonous nature expedites it, makes the project more dangerous. It's gathering speed.
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Remember: Trump isn't the disease, he's the symptom.
This has been happening for decades now behind a smiling, polite veneer. But Trump's own fascistic, authoritarian nature is making it worse and is putting us in grave, gathering danger.
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This has been happening for decades now behind a smiling, polite veneer. But Trump's own fascistic, authoritarian nature is making it worse and is putting us in grave, gathering danger.
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We have to relearn our history, reject that smiling veneer and conventional understanding.
This project has used our ignorance and complacency against us, and now Trump and his cronies are ready to change this country in permanent, terrifying ways.
We can't let it happen
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This project has used our ignorance and complacency against us, and now Trump and his cronies are ready to change this country in permanent, terrifying ways.
We can't let it happen
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