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DISPATCHES FROM STEPHEN LENDMAN
The Donald outraging his critics. [CC BY-SA by Michael Vadon]
His super-wealth, demagogic style, outlandish views, support for wealth and power, and likely business as usual agenda if elected president aside, Trump so far masterfully outwitted, outmaneuvered, and outfoxed other presidential aspirants, besting professional politicians, beating them at their own dirty game.
He’s no flash-in-the-pan. He proved he’s a force to reckoned with. Polls show he’s way ahead of Republican rivals, appearing unstoppable, party bosses and media scoundrels frantic to derail his campaign, their efforts futile so far.
He appeals to voters against politics they deplore, business as usual campaigning and governance, promising change, delivering betrayal, ignoring popular needs – even though don’t expect him to change things if elected.
He didn’t become super-rich by being a nice guy. People needs aren’t his concern. US policy won’t change with him in charge – notably its permanent war agenda, corporate favoritism, scorn for social justice, and intolerance of efforts to change things.
Efforts to dent his impregnability don’t quit. Media scoundrels relentlessly attack him. Last month, New York Times editors accused him of “br(inging) his party and its politics to the brink of fascism” – ignoring police state rule under Bush and Obama, state-sponsored ruthlessness, waging war on humanity at home and abroad.
Trump’s candidacy caused “serious damage…to the country, to its reputation overseas,” Times editors absurdly claimed. “The time to renounce (his) views was the day he entered the race,” they added – mindless of an array of deplorable Republican and Democrat aspirants all supporting endless wars, Israeli barbarism, corporate favoritism and harsh crackdowns on nonbelievers.
In late November, Washington Post editors urged Republicans “to stand up to Trump’s (so-called) Bullying,” saying:
“The growing ugliness of (his) campaign poses a challenge to us all. We have seen the likes of him before…spreading lies, appealing to fears and stoking hatred.”
“Such people are dangerous.” Post editors like their Times counterparts ignored longstanding bipartisan US wars on humanity – raping one country after another, turning US streets into battleground in Black and Latino communities, serving wealth and power interests exclusively.
Trump “lack(s) the qualifications, experience or knowledge to be president,” WaPo editors blustered. Bush I’s presidency was W’s only qualification, achieving at best a gentleman C average overall academically at Yale and Harvard, often skipping classes.
Obama was chosen solely as a front man for imperial adventurism, as well as Wall Street and other corporate interests at the expense of ordinary Americans who elected him. His only qualification was and remains following the agenda assigned him, causing more harm to more people than his predecessors.
“Republican leaders should speak up” against Trump, WaPo editors ranted. “The only way to beat a bully is to stand up to him.”
The American way involves endless global “bully(ing)” to achieve unchallenged worldwide dominance – an agenda WaPo editors wholeheartedly endorse without admitting it.
Last November, Wall Street Journal editors violated Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment about “not speak(ing) ill of any fellow Republican.”
They quoted Trump, calling himself “a free trader,” then blasted his criticism of the nightmarish Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), calling it a “terrible (trade) deal.”
Journal editors claim he doesn’t understand what’s in it, mischaracterizing TPP as a new “standard for trade under freer Western rules.”
TPP is a hugely one-sided corporate giveaway, nightmarishly anti-consumer, anti-labor, anti-environmental sanity. The full text revealed last November showed it’s worse than most critics feared.
Trump’s opposition has nothing to do with it’s handing business interests a huge bonanza. He expressed concern over its failure to deal with alleged Chinese currency manipulation, even though he knows Beijing isn’t part of the deal.
On January 21, the right-wing National Review published an anti-Trump issue – an effort to derail his campaign, featuring almost two dozen neocons and other hardliners bashing his candidacy.
Editor Rick Lowry is a notorious right-wing extremist. Contributors to his anti-Trump diatribe included Glenn Beck, Cruz supporter Brent Bozell, hawkish columnist Mona Charen, neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder William Kristol, Fox News favorite Dana Loesch, hard-right Club for Growth president David McIntosh, former Reagan attorney general Edwin Meese, former GW Bush attorney general Michael Mukasey, and notorious right-wing extremist John Podhoretz, among others.
Campaign season is in full swing, the Iowa caucus scheduled for February 1, followed by New Hampshire’s primary on February 9.
Regardless of individual contest outcomes, Trump’s lead looks insurmountable. He’s proved skillful in maintaining it, despite continued media flack targeting him.
STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.