During the pandemic, I watched the news with the alarming rates of infections and deaths from COVID 19 affecting African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans disproportionately. Why? Are these groups genetically predisposed? Are they more exposed because of their jobs of the “essential worker status”? Are they affected more because of the food desert climate they inhabit? Is it because of the lack of medical facilities within their neighborhoods? So it is either socioeconomic or genetic, but it became clear that socioeconomic inequalities were the dominant factor.
The fundamental biological fact is that genetic variability among humans is less than any other species on earth and is approximate 0.1 per cent. Also, there are more DNA variations between black Africans than between black Africans and white Europeans. The popular superficial characteristics that define race, e.g. hair texture, skin color and facial features, only represent a few of the thousands of traits that define us as a species. These superficial traits are tied to migratory patterns, population histories and gene to environment interactions. Therefore complete genetic segmentation of populations is complex and non-discrete, and on a gradient.
These scientific facts irrevocably end the fallacy of race as biological but simply a political-economic-social construct. But through time, geneticists, archaeologists and anthropologists either willfully or naively “mold” genetic data to justify the idea of racial biodiversity. Even clear-eyed antiracist scientists often fall into the trap of studying genetic data and end up actualizing such racial differences. For example, highly-educated scientists in academia in Europe, the US and India hold on to biased old ideologies of racialized genetic pre-determination despite lack of biological evidence for racial difference in humans. The scientific method is simply corrupted as these scientists start with illogical conclusions of the existence of a racial hierarchy of biological racial differences and walk backwards into theory, experiments, hypothesis and observations to validate their “prior racialized bias”. It is “subjective and mythologized” scientific inquiry; science in this frame is influenced by time, culture and place. It also goes against the scientific standard that “correlation is not causality”. These pseudoscientific beliefs have implications in today’s culture, medicine, science, education, religion, social policy and foreign relations.
Angela Saini writes a historical, personal, sociological and journalistic piece on the origins of the pseudoscientific concept of “race” and its resilience through time till today. She adds a tone of humorous-cynicism confronting fallacies in the logic of scientists, anthropologists and academics. The roots of the ideas of “race” ironically began in the “Age of Enlightenment”, prominently including Voltaire, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm, Fredrich Hegel, which coincided with Europeans colonizing the world and particularly transporting enslaved Africans to the Western Hemisphere. It resorted to setting European civilization as the benchmark to define other non-Europeans. Colonialization, slavery, Holocaust, Jim Crow, apartheid and imperialism were, therefore, justifiable means of engagement in dealing with “nonwhites” since they were “biologically inferior” by their irrational European standards and pseudoscience. So, any civilization outside of “white” was seen as “savage or inferior” even though societies in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and America existed thousands of years ago with cultures, trade, religion, science, language, urbanization and governments.
Europeans met Native Americans, saw and were amazed by the advanced agriculture, bigger cities, gold, many subcultures, trade by barter based on needs, weak social hierarchy, non-taxation and simplified government structure. So who is truly a “savage”?
Race is wrongly defined as innate, genetic and biologically deterministic of certain groups, thereby deadening the truth of a “universal human race or Homo sapiens” but instead “predisposed traits within certain populations headed to fateful racial destiny”. “Socioeconomics”, “history”, “lifestyle”, and “nurture” are non-genetic casualties that are commonly willfully neglected in investigating differences within the human species.
The reductionist view of tying intelligence and behaviors to race and wealth of nations has been a tool to promote racial hierarchy through time. There is a choice of neglecting the consequences of colonialization, slavery, genocide, Jim Crow, apartheid and imperialism, which have caused non-white populations to have suffered rampant inequalities. This counters the argument of genetic inferiority. These pseudoscientific ideas led to the rise of KKK, Eugenics, Nazism, Pioneer Fund-Mankind Quarterly publications, Richard Herrnstein’s and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve and political right-wing extremist movements. It is no surprise that people of European descent either directly or indirectly participate in the social ideology of “whiteness” based on the pseudoscientific notion of superior intelligence relative to others.
There is a thin wall separating the eugenics of pre-World War 2 from the genetics of Post World War 2. Even the scientifically respected field of genetics found its roots in Eugenics. Angela exposed the celebrated James Watson of the “double helix structure of DNA” discovery was a racist. The need for categorization resonating from non-human species research in works of Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin extended into human beings led to “scientific racism” then “eugenics and quietly rebranded into genetics. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science, a staple for eugenics research during the Nazi regime, was rebranded into Max Plank Society, the perfect example of this historical whitewashing. Otmar von Verschuer and his infamous diabolical protégé, Josef Mengele, were part of the Kaiser Wilhelm eugenics research group.
The horrid examples in the book about the cruelty that “Ota Benga” and “Sarartjie Baartman” faced is a testament to how the indoctrination of “superiority” made those white spectators become inhumane and vacuous entities akin to barbarism.
One comical part of the book was how “race” was expanded for superior racial talents to selectively pick “Dante, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo and Da Vinci” to be of “Nordic descent” despite their origins from southern European ancestry, which had been stereotyped as “unintelligent”. Another ludicrous pseudoscientific claim on enslaved Africans called the “slavery hypertension hypothesis” from Clarence Grim suggests that Black Americans are genetically predisposed to retain more salt because of an accelerated natural selection process during the Middle Passage voyage. So salt-driven evolutionary process protected the surviving Africans on the ships. Still, it retrograded them into a medical predisposition for hypertension. It is beyond humorous. Race categorization is regressive and a terrible proxy for human variation in the space of medical research. Grouping people of different ethnicities into the race columns in conducting medical research by assuming genetic differences fail to account for dietary, socioeconomic and environmental underlying causes. For example, lumping Middle Easterners, North Africans and Europeans as “whites” or African Americans and Africans as “black” in studying patterns and prevalence of certain diseases renders such research highly flawed.
Race inherently can be reconstituted, expanded or even abandoned since it is tied to sociological framing rather than scientific facts. Race was solely built for “social hierarchy/caste system”. In human history, no civilization is dominant, but instead, it is tidally short-lived. Finally, we refuse to realize that humans are more ethnically mixed but “genetically singular” than the artificial walls of race.
My only critique of her book is that the racial hierarchy concept had its roots before the Age of Enlightenment. The Post Constantine era and dark to medieval times in Europe where rampant antisemitism and islamophobia was a function of “religious superiority” worked similarly to race. English church and state created laws calling for the surveillance, herding, incarceration, legal murder, and expulsion of English Jews. Muslims were seen as “subhumans and evil”, so their murder was justified. This racist principle also justified the Spanish Inquisition sanctioned by the church and Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand to “cleanse” Spain from “Muslims and Jews”. This “supremacist” ideology in conjunction with religious superiority and pursuit of economic imperialism was also used as a predicate for military invasion and/or Christian Crusade to claim/steal Jerusalem from the “heathens and subhumans who were seen as unchristian by the joint European amalgam of “Western Christendom” which includes the Holy Roman Empire, English Kingdom, Spanish Kingdom and other European mini kingdoms “.
The fallout of the Tulip mania of the mid 1600s remains to be learnt, as the Dutch markets suffered decay. Old Dutch and modern economies in industrialized nations evolved to a system of credit driven speculative valorization of capital and assets independent of production and resources, which explicit deviates from an intrinsic value of labor, wage growth and average standard of living. As photons are to electromagnetism, derivatives, futures, options, CDS, MBS, CLO, and so on, are all capitalization carriers of fictitious capital. Lending from Karl Marx’s description of “fictitious capital”, Cédric Durand’s authoritative venture uses quantitative and qualitative tools in analyzing the growth of modern financialization at the expense of industrialization and fundamental-productive economics (since 1970’s) in industrialized nations. Financialization is the finality of an economic decline emanating from the “insatiable growth model of capital”. Capital begetting capital through speculative financialization placed on the stock markets resulting in accrued wealth and revenue to those who already own capital, funded by secured debt from central banks through the legality of government within the bounds of a neoliberal economy. Asset inflation becomes the tenet of this predatory capitalism. Aggregate demand with respect to industrialization including wage growth, consumer spending, social welfare and infrastructure becomes arbitrarily diminished in this neoliberal economy. Financialization are basically pervasive legalized extrapolations of property law, trust law, collateral law, bankruptcy law and contract law enforced by the nation-state and supranational bodies . These bets or financialized products can be made with small to large amounts, whose value derives from the capitalization of anticipated revenues, which is inherently “fictitious” but can be “actualized in excess return” as long as a buyer is in the market, as seen in today’s stock market. Recessions and Depressions are not necessarily market correction junctures but instead dominantly consequences of sudden drop in demand for financialization products from buyers causing “market paralysis” especially in a tightening monetary space (in anticipated fear of inflation from Central Banks). But with time, the market is restored again by the “put” option set by Central Banks through pumping credit into financial institutions and corporations (interest rates cut, quantitative easing, bailouts, lending to primary financial institutions, funding repurchase agreement markets, relaxation of leverage ratio/capital requirement limit, bond purchasing programs and expanding international swap lines), which inevitably feeds back into speculative assets again. Bailouts get bigger with each burst of the financialization bubble. Debt financed assets either as stock buybacks, low-interest loans or securitization becomes increasingly the engine of the economy rather than productivity or industrialization. This feedback loop keeps wealth within 10% of the population either pre-economic crisis or post-economic crisis while leaving behind “losses” to the lower 90%. The dead carcasses from an economic crisis are then transferred to the labor class and manifested as “austerity measures” including unemployment, wages cuts, reduction in social welfare, bankruptcies, privatization of social services and so on. This iterative sequence, whimsically called “business cycle”, increases the malignant financialization relative to industrialization of the economic system creating a “zombified corporate ecosystem“. Financialization is unequivocally a devolution of an economy from industrialization. The fatalistic decoupling of “production” from the economy creates credit driven speculative valorization of future actualization of gains of capital. This creates plutocracy, sprawling debt and vast social inequalities that renders a society unstable, anti-meritocratic, “anti common-good” and most especially “rigged”. This business cycle privatizes the profits but transfers the losses of financialization to the public. Even Adam Smith of “Wealth of Nations” was very cognizant of the imbalance of labor with capital due to capital’s inordinate buying power of the “law and government”. History can attest to this predicament: The political-socioeconomic evolution from gold standard based financialization in early 20th century crashed in 1929 which consequentially led to the Great Depression, fascism and World War II. The Bretton Woods-Keynesian-Social democratic system of post World War II was disrupted by the 1970’s stagflation and fiat currency establishment (Nixon shock) was introduced. In the early 1980’s till today, the neoliberal financialization created plutocracy, deconstruction of the administrative state, stagnant wages, decline in collective bargaining, cyclical unemployment, loss of economic growth, rentier capitalism and the inevitable rise of illiberal-ethnonationalistic democracies to autocracy. The asymmetrical bailout response by the Trump administration, Congress to direct the Federal Reserve to overwhelmingly favor the “plutocratic circles of corporations” towards the voracious COVID-19 pandemic was built on the the facetious narrative of a “trickle-down effect of capital investment”.Instead asset inflation through stock buybacks and savings by securities purchases ensued. This created a “K shaped economy of a decoupled stock market from labor, economy and productivity” and envelopes what this book repudiates.
This is Corey Robin’s scholastic polemic on the philosophical, historical and sociological incision into the minds of intellectual conservatives, slavery apologists, neoliberals, fascists, nativists, theocratic tyrants, white supremacists, libertarians, authoritarians, imperialists, neoconservatives, ethnonationalists, free-market ideologues and absolute monarchists. It emphasizes the political theory of reactionary forces through examining its upstarts, pitfalls, deviations and contradictions. Conservatives have a narrowed and selective view into history where their actions are seen as epistemological and rightful while the costs are naturally ordained on others. Conservative intellectualism finds its voice in recreating and eulogizing a revisionist past devoid of any past ills to bring into the present. It is an anti-progress and contradictory enterprise insipid of political, scientific and socioeconomic intellectualism. It defines the “social” in human existence to be “static institutions” irrespective of the innate human need for “progress, freedom and equality”. There are common threads through history that defines the reactionary mind and its prerogatives including social hierarchy, absolute power, economic exploitation, obsessive disgust of societal progress condemned as decadant decay, blind loyalty in the form of nationalism, rejection of modernity, mythologized violence, singular identity for a designated will, disdain for critical thinking, utmost economic inequality, intolerance of the tolerant, rugged individualism for the submissive majority in contrast to the bequeathed few, mythologized and romanticized view of the past, masculine virality, obscure-divide–obfuscate tactics to coral the masses in the form of democratic feudalism, abstract to apocalyptic sense of violence, an exaggerated sense of dispossession, shameless adaptability through hypocrisy (absorbing the energy of rising revolution) appealing to the masses by redirecting the anger of societal socioeconomic inequalities towards “external actors and/or domestic agitators” and condemnation of the “decadent, weak and cowardly” old regime then building a new power structure that whimsically mimics the old regime. Essentially, aristocracy, tyranny, social darwinism, nihilism, obliteration of knowledge, immoral interpretation of traditionalism, theocracy, the subjectivity of capital/class, the adovocation of markets, devaluation of labor, quantification of humanity as utility, pseudo-scientific racism/eugenics, hubris, social control and paternalism are the reactionary ideologies evoked to stave off their perception of civilization decline through rising calls for egalitarianism of opportunities. These are their dogmatic virtues in the pursuit of the so-called “sublime”. Positioning on the rigid hierarchy is defined by class, gender, capital, military ranks, labor, race, and education. This caste system provides different access to liberty, capital, civil-human rights, freedom and state protection. Therefore, it is socio-economic-political feudalism for absolute order and submission at all costs. This power structure stretches from the public to the private parts of society.
Policies aren’t their animated vehicle for action but instead instigated to act “unequally and oppositely to any rising egalitarian democratic forces and focusing on their disgust against the societal change of their old order of social mores”. Freedom to oppress, subjugate or dominate not the freedom from wants nor inhumanity is the governing principle of a reflexive conservatives. The usurpation of the hierarchical order of the private to the public square evokes fear that evokes melodramatic scenes of an anarchic, defanged, dystopic and lackluster society in the mind of reactionaries. Therefore such usurpation needs to be quenched through by any means necessary. Simply, the reactionary mind is the defined by the “polity of a melodramatic fear and victimhood”. “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely and such attained corrupted power becomes a source of incoherence, delusional statis and contradictions“ should be a bumper sticker of the reactionary movement. The pursuit of reinstituting power over an insurgent left bereft of understanding its implications is the sole vigor for the rise of counterrevolutionaries. They mimic the mass movements of the left but arm their following with delusional, immaterial and superfical power to oppress the “others” and protect the dominating power. Upon achieving success with the annihilation of the left, the precipitation of incoherence, inertness and incompetence comes to bear. It is therefore apparent that the counterrevolutionary movement is cynically “quixotic”. In dealing with the incoherence and contradictions in its philosophies and governance, they choose to become insincere, bored, visceral, apathetic, and non-reflective; in a short form, they resort to “gaslighting”. This inability of ideological self reflection nor policy advocation could lead into the downward spiral of evolving from megalomania into cultish-fanatic nihilism. This is a predicate for spectacular mass violence of the fascistic order devoid of humanism, liberty, progress and rationality”. Thus an an Orwellian state is born.
William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is “boring,” said the founding father of the American right. “Devoting your life to it,” as conservatives do, “is horrifying if only because it’s so repetitious. It’s like sex.”
This hierarchy is manifest destiny for reactionaries because the “others and lessers” lack personal virtue, have a poor work ethic, culturally deficient, lack discipline, unintelligent, show weak competitive animal spirits, biologically inferior and are easily captured by personal vices. Social hierarchy is therefore a natural order of which opportunities, wealth, capital and status should always be given, taken, owned and protected for the professional-managerial class, aristocrats, whites, elites and monopolists. Edmund Burke, Georges Sorel, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ayn Rand, Joseph de Maistre, Thomas Hobbes, Ludwig von Mises, Antonin Scalia, John Calhoun, Winston Churchill, Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Nixon, Irving Kristol and Francis Fukuyama are some of the reactionary figures of which Corey Robin builds his coherent political theory. It is unusual that he didn’t delve into William F. Buckley, Newt Gringrich, Southern Strategy practitioners and white Christian evangelicals. It is the top ten best political books I have ever read.
This book affirms my belief that Donald Trump is not heterodox from the conservative toolbox but instead, another bombastic machination of the arc of counterrevolutionaries. Trump simply is an incoherent and incompetent neo-fascistic vulgarian.
The difference is—-more malignant narcissism, more blatant white nationalist appeal, more willful incongruence to science and truth, and more rampant incompetence. The keyword is “more”. Trump is simply an accelerant to an already burning fire. Trump in my view is the perfect conservative; the hybrid of white identity politics, conspiratorial theories, melodramatic cultural resentment, megalomania, bottomless unscrupulousness, plutocracy and authoritarianism. Robin pointendelty stated that caveat to his strain of conservatism is that he openly exposes how rigged, vacuous and casino-like capitalism is, moral emptiness in politics, the fake bravado of the elites and foreign relations is centred on economical transactions not humanitarinism.
It is not a coincidence that social democratic societies ooze of the egalitarianism of opportunities not an outcome, radical economics, dynamic pluralism, symbiotic relationship of citizenry/society with the state, intellectualism and morality within the bounds of contextual rationality while conservative-totalitarian-fascistic societies bathe in the pool of visceral, incoherent, amoral, anti-democratic, plutocratic/oligarchic, repressively hierarchal and nihilistic characteristics in a loop of incoherence.
Racism is not just prejudice, bigotry, or de facto; it is simply prejudiced plus “power”. This exclusive “power” was stolen by people of European descent to collectively form a club called “white” across the globe. Power comes in different forms, from militaristic, legal, economic, political, civil, and cultural to educational. The vile video of George Floyd’s fatality reflected the state-sanctioned patronage for 400 years of racialized and class systemic injustice. It harkens back to slavery, lynching and police brutality. The “protect and serve” emblem worn by the police is only executed in white America. In Black America, the police are seen with skepticism, distrust, fear and a constant reminder of repressive history. There is a profoundly antagonistic relationship of black America with the police throughout history. Starting with its roots from the Slave Catchers, fascistic viciousness from Bull Connor, Jim Clark, Daryl Gates, Frank Rizzo and Walter E. Headley of the police command, stop and frisk policing of Commissioner William Bratton, crime and mass incarceration bills co-written by Joe Biden to the ongoing non-prosecutable police brutality cases. The narrowed focus on solving criminality, not its cause, has decimated black and poor people writ large. The causes of crime including poverty, lack of education, limited employment opportunities, the decline in state funding for social programs, lack of medical facilities, food deserts, gutted worker pensions, weak labor unions, environmental racism, gentrification, discriminatory housing policies, and American gun culture of which effective policies could ameliorate remains unresolved and neglected. Policing Black America is perceived as “preemptive strikes of fear and disenfranchisement to maintain a power structure” against Black America. This fear within the black community has ingrained a “psychological state of insecurity” towards police and whites writ large. This fear is not driven by hate but by caution, self-defense and self-preservation. This fear is often matched by psychological resilience within Black American culture expressed by activism to avoid falling into the box of despair to perpetual victimhood. The historical continuation of black life denigration made George Floyd a martyr despite his prior criminal acts. The systemic carriage of institutionalized injustice and economic deprivation “cleansed him of any prior acts”, unfortunately as Officer Chauvin knelt on his neck. Was a $20 counterfeit bill worth his death? Poverty, over-policing, and race caused his demise. George Floyd became an unintentional symbol of systemic racism and class warfare. The hollowing effect of guilt and empathy washed some whites while anguish, exasperation and despondency flowed in blacks as such inhumanity splashed on every television, phone and computer screen. The societal bubble of “whiteness” basked in indifference, utmost value, proactive bias and wishful thinking were cracked. This bubble has afforded white America righteous indignation of being self-ascribed “Americans”. Black people projected themselves onto dying George Floyd. This metaphysical projection reminded them of the continual devaluation of black America or “the Unamerican”. Solemn and righteous rage filled the streets as protesters marched across the United States and even extending to other countries. The air was thick with an unquenchable thirst for change in the face of militarized aggressive police, unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and its associated acute economic depression, media mischaracterization (conservative media’s focus on looting and vandalism) and the apathetic and melodramatic styled authoritarianism of Donald Trump. The resulting riots from George Floyd’s death are another thread in the American flag, including Perry Race Riot, Rosewood massacre, Atlanta riot, Tulsa race massacre, Emmet Till lynching and many more. These were reactions to unresolved underbellies of systemic discrimination, the evisceration of dignity, poverty and other draconian measures. These causes are not new; there are historical reverberations through American history. It is safe to say; managing black existence is American history and its politics. But there is something strikingly unprecedented about George Floyd’s protests, the array of races, particularly whites and dominantly below the ages of 40 in a coalition, protesting across the United States and the globe. This struck a chord within me and had me postulating, “Is there a chance of hope? Has a memorable historical juncture been reached? Time will tell.
The modern-day whites who are genuinely sympathetic to the plight of African Americans recognize the anti-blackness created by their forefathers. This anti-blackness has explicitly and inexplicitly benefited whites and filled the halls of white privilege. Historically, poor and middle-class whites were offered limited economic well-being while symbolically given the cultural whiteness of faux aristocracy in a society. This privilege has afforded some whites disingenuous victimhood expressed as “White genocide is racial equality” or “All lives matter” in response to the challenge to white supremacy or “Blacks lives matter”. This victimhood is wrapped in an “entitlement of predestined superiority”. The pursuit to share social class, rights, spheres of influence and political capital in an “agency” becomes warped as massive mistreatment, inconvenience and invasion to whiteness. My mum once said that “you can’t cry more than an already grieving soul”, white symbolizes “you” and African Americans personifies “grieved soul” in the idiom. The unrealistic cry of dispossession within whites far outweighs any gains for the already downtrodden blacks. These visceral and hyperbolized feelings of “dispossession” within some whites spark a nostalgic pursuit of a “newly reimagined past” which often fuels right-wing populism to rescind gains made by blacks. The quixotic white Americanism is expressed in cultural heritage, Christian fundamentalist identity (white Christian evangelism and Protestantism) and economic security are full tenets of white identity politics. In America, dispossessed whites are triggered by an economic loss but instead triangulate Christian identity and cultural heritage as the true dispossession. The economic loss should be their primary cause, but cultural virtues have become blinders against a more egalitarian tomorrow. Since 1980, meaningful material and economic gains, especially among the white working-class, have been marginal. Instead, the “cultural feeling of being white” becomes their primary refuge to restore their economic dignity. Culture wars are their moshpit for cultural restoration, not economics (of which blacks could be their rightful ally for a majoritarian movement). Automation, neoliberalism, globalization, oligarchy, opioid crisis, de-industrialization, environmental deregulation, inadequate coverage of healthcare and corporate monopolies all personify the true “grim reaper scythe” that decimated the white working class, not the loss of white cultural identity. Simply, American elites have weaponized race to gain political power and amass wealth aided by politicians, especially Republicans, by separating black and white working-class.
In recent memory, the Obama presidency, coinciding with the onset of the 2008 recession, evoked a cry from the bellies of white conservatives because he represented “a diverse, secular, cosmopolitan and younger America” rather than the “white, Christian and rural America”. “I want my country back” was and is still their rallying cry. It spurned a racially tinged and anti-establishment counterrevolution that was sponsored by conservative elites and propagated by social media and conservative media outlets (Fox News and Breitbart) using racism, conspiracy theories, culture wars, and legislative obstructionism. Sarah Palin, Tea party movement, Birther movement, 2nd Amendment protectionists, All lives matter, Alt-right, Make America Great Again, Donald Trump presidency and rise of 5 horsemen of Trumpocalypse (Jeanine Pirro a.k.a Clara Petacci, Laura Ingraham a.k.a Ava Braun, Tucker Carlson a.k.a Joseph Goebbels, Sean Hannity a.k.a Heinrich Himmler and Lou Dobbs a.k.a Hermann Göring) are not mere signs of polarization but are reactionary measures against racial demographic changes, Black lives matter, America’s reckoning with Confederate monuments, government bureaucracy a.k.a Deep State, science expertise, Obama’s presidency, globalization, Iraq war and 2008 recession. The latter is considered the “The Heartland” or “Real America”. The other is an obscene invasion of their social order, privilege and heritage.
White privilege has benefited from the “intentional misrepresentation of oppressive racial history” into generational amnesia implicitly or explicitly by whites for an ascent, belonging and protection of “cultural whiteness” while falsely claiming pure meritocracy, individualism, enlightenment and historical objectivity. Presumed innocence before guilt, redlining, voter rights protection, employment opportunities, white flight, industrialization into white areas from black areas, gentrification, better-funded education, less polluted neighborhoods, well-funded hospitals, favorable mortgage rates, police’s communal protection and so on are historical consequences of unconstitutional de jure segregation interpreted from laws for white privilege. It stretches from the New Deal, Federal Housing policy of the War on poverty till today. Modern-day white privilege and supremacy have taken a masqueraded “method of guile” in every facet of American life. This guile expressed in cultural heritage, insulated awareness and law and order manifests modern conservatism and is colloquially called “white resentment”. The American story is often misrepresented as only meritocratic. The true story is, it is first racialized, strongly favorable to ownership to capital, thirdly inherited wealth, then meritocratic. Therefore the American story is “rigged”.
Systemic racism isn’t merely day to day prejudice or bigotry. It is prejudice exercised with legal, socioeconomic and authoritative power. It is institutionalized in the constitution, laws, education, property rights, culture, media, civil rights, voting rights, basic healthcare, capital and employment. These are written, exercised and enacted based on skin/cultural/ethnic discrimination.
These are the central tenets to white supremacy:
Fear, disgust and apathy are their spirit animal
Strong disdain for modernity
A revisionist and nostalgic call for a reimagined past; a static era of white utopian antiquity e.g. “Make America great again” and “the Lost Cause of the Confederacy” are both negationist calls for the “glorious past” of the white hierarchy of racial fascism.
“Born to rule” philosophy as a form of entitlement for dominium over “others”.
An “us versus them” cultural identity based on racial purity and wrapped in ethno-nationalistic iconography e.g. Confederate flag, Swastika, Qanon and KKK hood.
A call for “traditional Christian morality” againstracial equality, secularism, gender equality and miscegenation
Rigid societal hierarchy
Weaponized “coded words” or dog whistles evoked to stoke white resentment with a transparent veneer of plausible deniability of “typical political discourse” e.g. “welfare queens”, “takers”, “state rights”, “young bucks”, ” aggressive black women” and “predators”.
Fervent authoritarianism/fascism is modus operandi
Anti-science and anti-truths
Pseudoscientific and paranoid societal propaganda
Apathy-filled insulated bubble: A belief that sole individualism and free will is societal consequences for inequalities not de jure actions by the white nation-state and/or institutions against black’s existence. White existence however is quietly excluded from this rugged individualism rationale. “Black America problems are Black Americans problems but white America’s problem is America’s problems.
Melodramatic sense of victimhood from an exaggerated sense of cultural dispossession expressed as a recall of a “forgotten era of white utopia”
Violent to non-violent measures for economic exclusivity
False apocalyptic perception in the form of “state-sanctioned” social engineering against whiteness e.g. white genocide or the Great Replacement propaganda.
Amoral Christian fundamentalist-nationalism for their ideal white-theocratic nation-state.
Societal nihilism and Social Darwinism
Protection and/or restoration of white order by any means using the power of the government and vigilante militias (Law and order messaging).
Societal progress and equality is painted as “unfair, intrusive and special rights for blacks”.
Animated by culture wars.
There is a chicken and egg argument regarding systemic racism and societal prejudice. Did the system create prejudice or did prejudice create systemic racism? I am of the former question.
Let’s start a thought experiment:
The system is a societal structure with “a democratic structure” on the ideas of an elitist “selected” within a majoritarian constituency, then subjugates the rest of the populace. The majoritarian, the second level of the social hierarchy, share cultural, ancestral and ethnic lineages with the “selected” but are lower in class, economics, education and capital. The majoritarian is given a narrow corridor for social mobility into the “selected” class. The system was built by the “selected” as a managerial entity of the social hierarchy. They use divisive politics, law and property to propagandize the superiority of the “selected” to insulate themselves from any dissent. The majoritarian populace gains a sense of societal power by practicing democratic feudalism. They are dominated by the selected but dominate the rest but have limited access to “true power”. The oppressed are at the bottom of the social strata and deprived of civility, liberty, freedom, humanity and economic status. This breeds a dogmatic societal construct of superiority, prejudice, entitlement and apathy unified by ethnonationalism against the oppressed. This elevated sense of being is filtered through in every aspect of society, from social, economic, political to cultural structures. There is only an economic gap separating “the selected” from the “majoritarian class” but there is a depraved human value gap separating “the selected” and “majoritarian class” from the “downtrodden”; this is the societal system in place. This institutionalized structure outflows the stereotypes, prejudices, bigotry to explain and defend the pervasive social hierarchy. It paves the way of the “ethnic warrior mindset of the majoritarian” against the “invading degenerate subclass”. This dogma often has a pervasive effect on the psyche of the oppressed as their liberty, self-sufficiency and dignity are stripped. They become ripe for continual exploitation, dehumanization and even mortality. The oppressed become wrapped in a regressive rationale that to “look” or “behave” like the majoritarian is their only righteous path to humanity. Self-hate, defeatism and despair begin to fester. This is a lie because laws of genetics cannot be defiled for a phenotypic change, nor are the downtrodden inherently culturally defective. This isn’t an underlying genetic nor cultural defect to the state of the downtrodden; it is systemic dispossession, a will of men with power. Hierarchy justified by violence is instituted. This is the ethnic Utopian construct of the selected-master class, majoritarian-ethnically related class and downtrodden-slave class. It is a script for a “civilization of amorality in the pursuit of transcendence”. But alas, the downtrodden always regains a sense of collective conscience of being and revolt through moral violence or moral non-violence for a democratic society. It is a matter of time for breaking the chains of subjugation; a redistribution of power, pursuit of dignity and upending the socio-economical hierarchy. It cannot be permanent poverty for the oppressed. Democracy is always a threat to social hierarchy, particularly a repressive version; Democracy is then treated as an anarchic revolt against the social order in place. Democracy always gives room for “agency”. This threat of an ascending democracy always falls to the ebbs. It flows against reactionary countermeasures from the selected and the majoritarian. Any pursuit of justice by the oppressed and its allies within the majoritarian call is maligned as “snowflake”, “political correctness”, “reverse racism”, “infringement of status quo and privacy”, “ungodly”, “tyrannical” and even akin to “totalitarianism.”
It isn’t a coincidence that the capitalist, colonial and imperial systems were integrated with slavery and justified pseudoscientific racism and dehumanization. The ideology of white supremacy was born out of a construct of systematic capitalistic exploitation (imperialism, genocide, slavery and colonialism); it was empirically supported by pseudoscience and eugenics, which drips in the societal consciousness as socially engineered hate, xenophobia and civilizational superiority. White supremacy is a hierarchical structure of socioeconomic, pseudoscientific, reactionary and philosophical construct that advocates white civilization as superior, managerial, imperialistic and advanced, so any violent to non-violent action for preservation is justified. This creates an overzealous impetus for white entitlement boundless from time and space but “genetically inherited”. It is a societal template that reshapes, adjusts, and retools itself against blacks’ growing cries for dignity. It never leaves; it can take a more subtle form but has episodic vapid spasms. White supremacy isn’t empirically scientific nor innately born with; it is power stolen, power protected, and power justified for a societal superiority of the ideology of “whiteness”. Homo-sapiens is our race, not black, red, yellow, nor white. It is an engineered political hubris of social hierarchy. The concept of race is used as a weaponized tool to advocate for the pseudoscientific belief of genetic superiority or deficiency manifested in “rightful” economic status regardless of inhumane man-made historical causes (slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, and imperialism). Therefore racism is not simply prejudiced, hate nor ignorance. It is a pseudoscientific idea of ethnic, intellectual and physical traits that define a social hierarchy. So the “uncivilized” has to be “civilized” as a favor by the “whites”. Dehumanization of the so-called savages is justified, and Western Civilization is the rightful vehicle for their emancipation. Black bodies were seen as commodities for sale, experiments and extortion because they were supposedly naturally inferior. Forced black subjugation is not the problem but their “inferiority”; therefore, the social caste system is justified. The system birthed the culture of not “Europeanism” but “whiteness”. To them, history, culture and progress only started in Europe, nothing before. This pseudoscience, philosophy and practice emanated since Christopher Columbus entered the Bahamas in 1492 through the Age of Enlightenment, Jim Crow and persist today, although to a more minor degree. The exploitative political and economic structure armed with the pseudoscientific belief of “race” culminated in causing racial-socioeconomic injustice since 1492.
In a nutshell, race shouldn’t be real. Still, the ideology, politics, economics and social hierarchy of racial categorization are “actualized” as “racism/racial caste”.
The global society that benefits from modern capitalism owe its worth to enslaved Africans’ torture, abuse, dehumanization into commodities and financial instruments (they often became collateral for financial bonds) and financialization of unpaid labor. How? You might ask. The genocidal savagery on Native Americans produced expropriated lands that enslaved Africans toiled on, particularly in the American South, to produce cotton with the aid of the cotton gin. Cotton was the primary raw material harvested through enslaved Africans’ inhumanity for the gargantuan textile industry, which institutionalized the Slave Power or Slaveocracy of the American South, built the emerging American economic Empire, a major propellant for the First Industrial Revolution (the late 1700s to 1850) and implemented the writings of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” making a pathway for the modern global capitalist system.
There are three schools of thought addressing race, criminal law and predatory capitalism within the “left political aisle”. First, solving racism is primarily economical, so removing predatory capitalism for a social democracy will fundamentally remove systemic racism. Therefore it is mainly the incentive of “government” to remove all the structures of institutional racism and predatory capitalism. Secondarily, they call for a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system to remove racialized injustice, discretionary measures for white-collar and elites crimes and overprotected law enforcement. Democratic socialism with equal opportunity for all is the central theme. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led progressive activists, social justice advocates, and Marxists collectively called the “Democratic Socialist-progressive liberals”. Secondly, removing systemic racism should be the incentive of a “good government” working with “well-regulated markets”. Well regulated capitalism with equal opportunity for all is the central theme. They call for well regulated and structural policies towards law enforcement This is the position of Elizabeth Warren’s led “Brahmin (educated) left”, Progressive Capitalists, liberal technocrats, social democrats, liberal social activists collectively called the “Polanyi-Keynesian liberals”. The third is to infuse racial statistical proportionality in wealth or social distribution in the neoliberal order, e.g. Black Americans are 13% of the US population; therefore, they should be 13% of the 1%. The third faction uses an illusionary statistical tool or a form of racial financialization claiming to fix sociological problems. The so-called “lift all boats through incrementalism” platitudes fills the air. They call for weak reforms of the criminal justice system. It increases racial representation with vacuous broadband economic reformation. It is essentially throwing money at police but invariably leads to more militarization and continued qualified police immunity. They posit that access to neoliberalism to essentially fit into the meritocratic order is what African Americans are denied. Therefore meritocratic racial representation, not economic restructuring and criminal justice overhaul, is their prescription. Neoliberalism infused with race deconstructionism is the central theme. This is the position of Obama and Clinton led center-leftists, coastal elites, mainstream liberal media, liberal billionaire class, educated class, liberal monopolists and a professional-managerial class called “Mises-Hayek-Freidman liberal-neoliberals”.
The first two have very valid persuasive agendas. The third self-deluded themselves by suggesting full restorative justice could lead to leftist’s authoritarianism or the “scary socialism”. Therefore incrementalism is the ideal. They forget that most plutocrats will pursue maximalist power by “owning” through financing even if it is far-right authoritarianism by aligning with anti-secularists, anti-egalitarians, white militia, Christian fundamentalists to redefine what “American” is. Democracy and morality is not their goal, but “capital” is. Americanism will always be susceptible to cultural, Christian and white nationalism as it plunges into the depths of societal nihilism even if the plutocrats aren’t necessarily racially regressive. The owners of “unfettered capital” will inevitably sabotage the social progressiveness of Obama and Clinton led center-leftists-Mises-Hayek-Freidman neoliberals. Socioeconomic freedom for “labor” is focused on racial, civil, political and economic. Obama-Clinton neoliberals focuses on ‘”political”, marginally focuses on “racial” and “civil” but forgets “economic”. Therefore the third faction doesn’t eliminate the ills of predatory capitalism, and it indirectly reinvigorates racism through “white resentment”. It is a racial representation within the existing social hierarchy of “whiteness” without any vast economic restructuring.” A seen not heard approach”. They focus on “studying the problem” over and over without “actualizing the inevitable conclusions” or “whitewashing the answers”. Capital and its friendly liberal-neoliberals favor financing the perpetual investigation of a socioeconomic problem but refuse to implement its solutions. They create “workforce or “committees” to investigate as a diversion tactic and ends up in rhetoric affirmation and marginal reforms; this is the faux socioeconomic change that dominates the Obama-Clinton liberal-neoliberals. It cements repressive and unstable classism and breeds stronger discontent within economically dispossessed whites. This discontent will be channelled by an opportunistic conservative ecosystem into resentment, anti-intellectualism, anti-secularism culminating into a flair for anti-democracy . This gives room for the rise of a demagogue to capitalize from.
How can it be so?
This approach creates the seeds for regressive democratic standards of an “unresponsive government except to the plutocrats, racialized police state and military-industrial complex” and a “majority of the working class in despair”. This third faction’s choice of unresponsiveness due to its allegiance to “capital” creates a societal paralysis mimicking the “Weimar Republic” for which civil rights gains in America become a target. The rise of a demagogue of neo-fascist, racist, patriarchal, authoritarian, conspiratorial, the theocrat and ultra-capitalist ideology will eventually take power. Just as Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic opened the door for Dictator Augustus Caesar of the Roman Empire, the Neoliberal Democrats will eventually play a part in opening the door for a more competent and machiavellian “Donald Trump”.
Racial representation within the neoliberal order serves as a pacifier for plutocrats against the loud calls for economic, political and civil restructuring that the first two factions aims for in dealing with Black Americans and Americans writ large. Instead, it creates an “opaque bubble” of ineffectiveness.
I think the first is focused on the “manifestation of the corrupt social hierarchy”. In contrast, the second is the “tool, mechanism and delivery of an unregulated social hierarchy” and the third is focused on “racial technocracy within the insulated social hierarchy” I am torn between the first two approaches. Still, I believe an amalgamation of the two can be met. These two approaches provide egalitarian opportunities for most relative to the third approach.
Bernie approach is “restructuring” the system to allow for egalitarian opportunities independent of race, Warren’s approach is “reforming” the system for black inclusion, and Obama’s approach is “inclusion” of black America into the system’s status quo.
Racism and classism are socially engineered systems within an exploitative socioeconomic hierarchy, so the amelioration to both problems should be socially engineered. The overarching and intersectional fix to American ills is a “bill of economic rights” as stated by Franklin Roosevelt, to break away from the flawed neoliberal consensus. The neoliberal/Washington consensus ascribes the unitary value of humanity as a technocratic-atomized “market utility” which is supposedly independent of national sovereignty, race and gender due to its mythologized propaganda of a meritocratic and self-regulatory ecosystem. Therefore individualism armed with some unalienable rights “should” have the world as their oyster. The neoliberalist project from 1980 to the present has a dismal record by further exacerbating economic disparities from class to race, and worse; it culminates in an anti-democratic system. Education has not been the primary tool to reduce racial-economic disparities; these disparities increase with income level. The inherent logic of this ideology is that failure to achieve the capitalistic dream of “choice, freedom and wealth” through social mobility are consequences of cultural-racial indiscipline, individual laziness and regressive social welfare programs. So the false paradigm that Blacks are disproportionately poor is because they are uncivilized, do not prioritize education and are lazy becomes self-evident. Poverty and lower-class status are natural consequences primarily from individual choices used as a sociological defense of neoliberalism. Black poverty is worse; it is both a sociological and cultural consequence for their intrinsic status in a social hierarchy through modern-day neoliberalism. This revolves around the idea of an “apathetic meritocracy enveloped in historic plutocracy” that stretches from corporate/Limousine Democrats to Log Cabin Republicans. This logic fails to acknowledge “history and its intended consequences”. In essence, individual prerogatives are a factor, which is independent of race, which fails in comparison to the dominant factor of a choice of “American antidemocracy” expressed in social hierarchy throughout its history towards African Americans. To be pointedly clear, the viability of a foundational democratic nation-state should be extrapolated into self-reliance, which inherently generates innovation but not at the expense of the “common good” of which a deracialized social hierarchy and plutocracy ceases. The common good should be vested in equal opportunities to pursue self-reliance by not emphasizing equal results nor rugged individualism. Still, the common good is then needed to restrain unfair power dynamics. The cyclicity of the system achieves balance to restrain cultural and marketplace nihilism, which results from unregulated individualism. This social ladder in this society focuses on eliminating poverty, repairing racial inequalities, reimagining a better racial mosaic, and restoring the dignity of any work independent of class. Perfection is not the panacea, but fairness and justice are.
Dignity for lower-wage jobs is ridiculed, shunned and caricatured in neoliberal space. Hubris becomes the virtue of elites. In modern times, this has been the mandate programmed to neoliberalism from modern conservatism since 1964 Barry Goldwater’s Presidential Republican platform. History and oppressive institutionalized hierarchies are supposedly independent of the precarious state of Black America on the neoliberal platform. Proletarian issues are moral, revolutionary and “intersectional-economical”. This is not to dismiss the amoral and economic plight of racial injustice. Still, the majority of whites, especially ones with power, will show some symbolic solidarity but remain steadfastly against the genuine, nuanced amelioration, which is reparations. Blacks have to strategically fuse race as an essential subtext under the political umbrella of “economic revolution”. Why is that, you might ask? Black are disproportionately affected in every measure of economics, so mathematically, they will be advantaged in a universal socioeconomic restructuring. The deployment of vital resources will be based on the deficiencies of an established standard. The disadvantaged blacks will overwhelmingly benefit. In such a restorative world, time corrects pre-existing conditions of injustice. It is fair to say race issues are essential, but class issues are “important and intersectional”.
Within this socioeconomic bill of rights, a subtext must also be written; in the form of a structural plan or race-conscious policy customized for African Americans. The term “reparations” comes to bear. Reparations for slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration, educational non-investment, environmental racism and the New Deal program exclusions. This should be wrapped in a documented and historical apology for the atrocities unduly inflicted on African Americans. The truth is “choice and freedom” is only provided for those who hold capital and those born of certain skin color. Capital can be constructed, extracted, leveraged, inherited and relocated but can equally be insidiously exclusionary. Today’s history is testaments to this “omnipotent” rationale in insulated market dynamics independent from labor demands and democracy, ultimately manifested as oligarchy or plutocracy.
Socioeconomic reoperations cannot wholly solve the toxicity of cultural racism, but it is a good conversation starter for a cultural shift of relations between African Americans and European Americans.
July 4th, 1776 marked American Independence from the British which constitutionally recognizes white America. The pursuit of independence was a violent and virtuous insurrection filled with looting and vandalism against the British colonization of America. This day has no relation to Africans who were still enslaved in America. So why are Americans shocked by the few cases of looting and vandalism during the George Floyd protest? Leftist revolutions either American, French, or Russian has not been peaceful. The black civil rights movement has been relatively peaceful since the Reconstruction years.
The advent of the now known “Juneteenth” or Friday 19th June 1865 is the true independence for Black America from the chains of slavery despite the prior “limited implemented” Emancipation Proclamation of 1862. The American civil war from 1863 to 1865 had to be fought to recognize Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. An incisive look into American history showed Abraham Lincoln’s ambivalence to ending slavery, white supremacist ideology in his younger years and his white ethnostate rhetoric (deporting all freed blacks) but made the singular goal of keeping the Union, his prerogative, so the abolition of slavery and keeping the Union were not necessarily co-dependent. From the words of Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army on 19th June 1865 marching into Galveston, Texas:
“The people of Texas are informed that, by a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor”.
The key phrase in this order is “absolute equality”, but George Floyd’s death is a testament to America’s failure. The reconstruction Amendments, civil rights bill and voting rights bill, anti-discriminatory laws have not entirely wiped the despair of black America; therefore, vestiges of absolute inequality remain. The derailment of the Reconstruction program owed to the freed African slaves was expedient for the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to be accepted by the Southern Democrats and Southern populace as the President of the USA due to the controversial election results. This opened the doors to the regressive Jim Crow era. The Jim Crow era notably was the least politically polarizing because of the political and economic abandonment of Black America. The polarization began to build again Post 1968 till today. In a way, the North won the civil war, but the South won the societal ideology and its dynamics.
Post-1968, every non-white immigrant owes their existence and rights in white America to the civil rights movement of black America. These non-white immigrants are subtly judged based on a racial polarity scale as in “How anti-black are you”. This subtle question of manifest destiny defines societal acceptance to privileges of whiteness or invariably to selected Americanism. This scale preempts or opens economic opportunities, education and housing. For example, the Italians, Eastern Europeans and Irish immigration into America primarily in the early 1800s to 1920s were perceived as lesser but not black; this gave them some not all to the socioeconomics of white privilege. Soon after, they assimilated into the white identity and accessed its associated socioeconomic benefits especially post World War II. This historical passage into whiteness affirms that race is societally dynamic. Therefore white identity and its institutions can recategorize any other ethnicities and nationalities for assimilation. Consequently, it is more than skin color. It is a history and societal structure based on dehumanization, exploitation, disenfranchisement, economic exclusivity bounded by de jure biases and laws; it is a caste system. This societal vice creates ascribed “qualities” to specific subsets of people to establish a social hierarchy where order not justice nor equality, reigns. At its roots, the race is inherently vacuous, visceral and unrealistic propaganda because it is detached from biology, but the institutions built on racialized caste system or racism are true. The delusionary theory of favorable cultural values are descendants from biologically natural selection of superiors race’s characteristics is utterly immoral, inhumane and pseudoscientific. There are only one human species!
From slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow to modern-day Jim Crow, a theme seems to arise. The black civil rights movement isn’t victimhood nor placates at the expense of white fragility. It is rather survival, awakening conscientious objection to white supremacy, humanitarian, anti-fascist, democratic, populist, revolutionary, moral, persistence for absolute equality, cultural dignifying and undeterred individual to collective black economic progress. The burden of fixing white supremacy and systemic racism is on white America, but Black America should rightfully raise the awareness of its ills and immorality; together could restructure society. Performative acts of solidarity, hashtag activism and anecdotal media messaging are annoyingly superficial, unbankable, tone-deaf, elitist, corporate-diluted, and patronizing but not emancipatory for blacks. It only weakens or, worse, obfuscate from the cause of the black civil rights movement. This is not a cause for black supremacy over whites but a fight for racial equality and an end to the divisive-social construct of “race”. This is not cause financed by liberal elites or a project of the anti-Semitic conspiracy by “George Soros”; it is a grassroots cause fueled by anathema towards an American facade of equality. This is not a cause for racialized nationalism but a case for patriotism and constitutionality. This isn’t a cause for an egalitarian economic class but reformative reparation for equalized opportunities, protections and dignity under the law. Therefore, the economic disparity should be resolved only by redistribution of resources in racially equitable quotas but instead, an economic restructuring across social class.
Holocaust survivors, Japanese internment campers and even former white slave owners received financial reparations for the economic distress and inhumanity endured. Are there monuments of Hitler, Pinochet, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Sukarno, Milošević, Pol Pot or Abdul Hamid II? Not all history is celebrated, particularly the callous, oppressive, insidious and unrepentant parts, but it should be remembered and learned. So heed, and historical-cultural-cognitive re-framing should be taken to the 1,500 US Confederate monuments and other oppressive public memorabilia. These statues are symbols of historical oppression. I agree with the takedown of those statues and their symbolism, but they are still shallow acts of morality, not an economic revolution, reckoning and repentance. It is symbolically appreciative but doesn’t repair the rotten roots of the institutions and “causes” that erected those statues in place. There is a clear distinction between historical figures with acute immorality, e.g. Thomas Jefferson, John D. Rockefeller, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and George Washington from morally bankrupt figures of arbitrary terror, e.g. Nazis, Winston Churchill, John Calhoun, US Confederate army, Christopher Columbus, Andrew Jackson, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Leopold II of Belgium. Human consciousness and history shouldn’t view these people under the apocryphal auspice of clinical veneration. The former should be seen as complex figures of juxtaposed unscrupulousness with minimalist virtues, while the latter should be seen in the dark shadows of disdain and savagery. Conservatives, especially white conservatives who melodramatically decry the removal of statutes as “erasure of all history ” and equate it with fascism, ironically validates that “history is plagued with racism”. It forces critics into an illusionary lie that “such evil parts in history embodied in these statues” will be justified. So are these statues the part of history that the national identity is wrapped around? Such controversial statutes are intentionally myopically upheld by conservatives as either “a call or jubilance for white supremacy or white ethnostate”. Museums are very suitable for such controversial figures as a “lesson of oppression” instead of a statue. Therefore, history is still maintained but contextualized with such appropriate measures. The question I posit to white conservatives is “Should I put up a figure of someone who raped your mother? It is history! A blanked face of anguish washes their faces.
This is not a cause to siege white cultural heritage but for a sober, accurate, moral and constructive look into American heritage. This is virtuous radicalism to upend the white hierarchical and unfair class structure by upholding the “We the people are created equal…” in the United States Constitution.
Equality, dignity, liberty, morality, perseverance and solidarity are pillars of the black civil rights movement. Adherence to these righteous revolt’s posts has been peaceful. Still, it is naivete to be presumptuous on future guaranteed tranquillity, especially with the increasingly alarming possibility of an American dictatorship, the co-opting of white nationalist propaganda openly, the continual ascendancy of far-right Christian fundamentalism into government and growing economic inequalities.
Has America changed since 1865? Yes, but not enough; there is a consensus for major reform for black America. The American Civil War didn’t just end in the battleground but rather transmuted into the premeditated marginalization of black America till today. It has become self-evident that economic prowess is the only virtue America truly respects. It was becoming a “need” for America signals societal and political leverage. Black America needs to strategize and organize for a new paradigm shift in creating a grander “Greenwood District or Little Africa”; a self-resourcing movement for a better tomorrow through focusing on STEM education, ownership of housing, black entrepreneurship, black manufacturing base, proactive and frugal individual spending, mentorship programs, black banking and up and down-ballot voting for the right politician with meaningful policies not just on skin color. The church, politics, organized black labor, black businessmen, black intellectuals and black civil rights groups can be used to stress the consequences of racial-economic inequality in every media platform and the grounds of government. Also African Americans needs to reimagine themselves outside of “America-state construct” and reconnect with Africa. For Africa is for you and you are Africans.
Therefore build independent black institutions of power from economic to intellectual spheres, build foreign bridges with Africans on the continent to Latin America and Caribbeans and build constructive-defensive engagement with non-Africans. Which is the essence of Pan-Africanism.
This will not entirely solve all the ills of systemic racism, but it creates an awareness of economic focus while pushing for economic reparations, which is the other half of the resolution. But I expect a fiery backlash to such precipitating understanding of anti-blackness in America. The test of this reformist revolutionary movement will be judged by the ascendency or denunciation of the upcoming revanchist reactionary countermeasures. For freedom from slavery through abolition and civil war came Jim Crow. The end of Jim Crow through the civil rights movement came mass incarceration, weakening of voting rights, weakening of organized labor, militarized police departments and cutting into the welfare state. So what awaits Black lives matter is a question of time, not a condition.
The gains from civil and political enfranchisement only attain political power; free will within the bounds of the democratically instituted constitution, but economic power attains true personal freedom and/or sovereignty, large financial infrastructures, improved standard of living, sharing of the public sphere, increased educational output, increased productivity and collective bargaining-purchasing power. Economic power is actual progress. Freed blacks gained political power post- post Civil War (13th, 14th and 15th Constitutional Amendments) but failed to regain economic power by building capital from the clutches of white society, so their freedom was incomplete. This laid the ground for those political power gains to be slowly relinquished. Hence, owning capital always protects political power and civil rights, especially in this neoliberal capitalistic structure.
The tide of tolerance and advocation for black Americans has swayed Republicans to Democrats, so allegiance should be conditional, not absolute. Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Plessy vs. Ferguson, the rise of politically active Ku Klux Klan, Daughters of the Confederacy, Birth of the Nation-Ku Klux Klan resurgence, Lily-white movement, New Deal programs, Board vs. Board of Education, Dixiecrats, Confederate flag resurrection-Southern Manifesto, Civil rights movement, Southern Strategy, War on poverty, Silent majority, Law and Order, War on drugs, Modern-day discrimination, New Jim Crow, Will Horton and Neoliberalism were some the critical political pendulums that rocked the ongoing plight of Black America. Reconstruction, New Deal, civil rights movement, and Neoliberalism failed to convey financial restitution for slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. Due to de jure implementations of laws and social programs, it was clear that whites afforded “good credit” for white neighborhoods and “bad credit” to black neighborhoods. Property rights, a constitutional entity and capitalistic entity for equity and access to credit for economic development were only legally protected for whites so economic violence against blacks’ property was seen as “kosher”. This financial differentiation leads to racialized economics manifested as “racial wealth inequality” still. The legitimacy of the black civil rights movement cannot be judged by changing all the hearts of white America into acknowledging black America but by advocating more economic investment and policies to reimburse Black America’s just due to progressively form a more absolute equal union for the United States of America.
The crux of the Black Lives Matter movement is while white lives always matter in America, black lives are not guaranteed in America. This signifies an illiberal democratic or a nascent Orwellian nation. Equality, not supremacy, should be the societal contract of a citizenry. My fear is the agency of Black Lives Matter does not become whitewashed, adulterated, corporatized and performative as the eyes and ears of the world have perked up. In some ways, it already is.
This is not a pièce de résistance to dump all black people’s problems as consequences from whites, but a philosophical and sociological foray to the inevitability of generational systemic racism and associated continually failed economics either de jure or de facto. It is an aggregated outcome, not an anecdote. Some whites haven’t fared well in the system and are caught in-between the economic cracks, to which I lend sympathy. The key is, it has been historically and continually disproportionately detrimental to blacks. To sound reductionist, “Some not all black problems, but enough to be rectified” is the contextual doctrine. It is an unjust system to Blacks and it is psychologically taxing to the already proverbially persevering Black America.
There has been a tactical effort to switch from mouth-foaming racist rhetoric of old into a modern-age “subtle Machiavellian malevolence” to discriminate against most blacks economically. The former tactic has become socially unacceptable and put on the fringes of the body politic. The critical thing is the tactics changed, but the viciousness was restructured but not removed. This new age “subtle Machiavellian malevolence” is cloaked in softer-toned dehumanizing rhetoric and actions. This is the predominant mindset called white grievance or resentment. Any issue affecting Black America is seen as a collective cultural defect, and its consequences are well deserved. It purports the construct of dominium of whites over blacks in a racial hierarchy as a natural outcome of the blacks’ ineptitude. Worse, elites can use this switch for nefarious policies by dividing class solidarity for economic exploitation through weaponizing race.
Lee Atwater who was George Bush Sr’s campaign manager before becoming Republican party chairman, infamously discussed the “reinvented Southern strategy” and he stated:
Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger”. By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this”, is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger”. So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner.
This shift has become the political platform of the Republican Party since Nixon’s 1968 campaign in dealing with socioeconomics. However, it still carries the hallmark of its historical ill intent even if some whites are caught in its web of economic deprivation. Statistically and historically, blacks are more underprivileged than whites, so defunding the welfare state attacks more blacks than whites. The corporatist Democrats focus on using racial quota for marginal economic gains to suitably fit into the ultra-capitalistic machine and often perform sentimental-performative solidarity to weakly appear “in unison with the black working class the working class as a whole”. This approach has found strange bedfellows with corporate Democrats and most Republican politicians lining together to form the Neoliberal Structure, financed and controlled by the wealthy. This unification is the biggest stumbling block to economic progress for Blacks and poor-middle class whites. It began with Reagan, continued to Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama and now Trump. Republicans incite cultural and white identity politics while Democrats focus on maintaining the status quo and become relatively socially inclusive of obscuring from both allegiances to the wealthy. Marginal incrementalism and austerity measures for the working class and expansive Laffer-curve supply-side economics for elites, not revolutionary economic reforms, become their ideology. They both protect the societal institutions created by the ultra-capitalistic machine, which has eviscerated the poor and middle class since the 1980s. Reactionary whites fall into a nativist, conspiratorial, xenophobic and cultural moshpit to cause their economic problems. Generally, liberal whites become more socially conscious, not proactive while being class inactive. Generally, Blacks fall into a state of choosing “lesser of two evils” or “which candidate and/or policy would white prefer in avoiding a backlash or applying white filter” and singularly focusing on reforms in rhetorical, cultural and symbolic racism, not focusing on the grander economic imprint in systemic racism.
This is an economically asymmetrical system against poor-middle class whites but a racialized economically asymmetrical system against blacks. Therefore, it is fair to say that white identity politics “in part” and black identity, and “in part” politics are proletariat labor politics at its root, so intersectionality should be made. The harbinger to such solidarity is that white identity politics is blinded by its hubris, visceral sense of apathy, racial paranoia, exaggerated cultural dispossession and faux cultural aristocracy, which has degraded possibilities for true class solidarity across racial lines. Black progress outside of economics is hampered by voter suppression, mass incarceration, food insecurity, healthcare inequalities, educational divestment, environmental injustice and gentrification, which are consequences of de jure historical institutionalism. I am not a class reductionist, but I am a “realist” on the dynamics of race and labor. The power dynamic of white identity over black identity through history is why “political realism” should exist. Still, whites choose to be willfully revisionist, immoral, intransigent, reactionary and superfluous by being “solely cultural identitarians”. They are assiduously steadfast in upholding white supremacy either implicitly or explicitly regardless of ethics, logic, morality, religion, nor constitutionality. This has the being a significant pitfall of racial-class solidarity. This is why radical restructuring and reckoning must be made to facilitate the past ills for a better future in every facet of society. It is a generational defect of the ideology of “whiteness” within white America.
Since 1980, the economy has shifted from industrialization to a financialization economy, and in such space, social polarization ensued. This bore fruits of societal dissonance as Antonio Gramsci’s idea of “cultural hegemony” began to break, culminating in the “age of Trumpism”. The age of Trumpism is the output of failed neoliberalism promise of shared prosperity but instead created an “apathetic aristocracy resembling King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s court”. Trumpism attacks the liberal side of neoliberalism (dominantly Democrats) by being socio-culturally regressive, protectionist, anti-cosmopolitan, anti-military foreign adventurism (most rhetorical), anti-immigrant, pro-industrialization (mostly rhetorical) and anti-elitist. It also attacks the conservative side of neoliberalism (Republicans) by being protectionist, pro-national sovereignty, and loose on monetary policy. Despite these differences, Trumpism still affirms the Neoliberal consensus of deregulation, anti-unionism, fiscal austerity, predatory capitalism, supply-side economics, expansion of the military-industrial complex and financialization. Therefore Trumpism still protects “capital” over “workers” just as neoliberalism posits. The difference is Trumpism uses a far-right cultural-nationalistic platform as a veneer for its autocratic, white supremacist, theocratic and plutocratic agenda by introducing the tool of “neofascism/illiberalism” as seen in Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Norms, institutions, proletarian power, racial progress and democracy are at stake in the age of Trumpism and the foreseeable future because of America’s “choice” of neoliberalism and refusal to reckon with its racist history. Trumpism, liberal neoliberalism and conservative neoliberalism are social hierarchies inherently antithetical to the concept of class solidarity and true racial reckoning. The path into unresolved issues with race and class resides in the rightful co-existence of democracy, the welfare state, national sovereignty, politics through egalitarian measures.
Trumpism is the bombastic, chaotic and abominable lovechild of these two dysfunctional factions. It is defined as “Archie-Bunker reactionary neoliberalism or autocratic neoliberalism”. In simple terms, he is a idiotic bludgeon at the spear-tip of an insurgent neofascism . In my view, Trump is the perfect “Frankenstein” autocratic Republican, Clinton is a “smoother” Reaganite and Obama is a “soft” Rockefeller Republican. The question is effectiveness and Trump was completely incompetent among his fellow modern predecessors. Trump is a vehicle for Republican elitist cause for plutocracy, unitary executive powers, corporatized and vehemently socially conservative judiciary, military-industrial complex and authoritarian megalomania. His voracious corruption knows no bounds as he absconds every norm, ethics and law bounded by the Constitution. He is above reproach, he is above “law and order” and he is “law and order”. He has a parasitic and predatory relationship with the populace while an absolute loyalty clause from the populace is instituted. Trump is the Cultural President of a “nostalgic American Southern Confederacy” through white militia movement and white identity grievance. Trump, the amoral political actor has become an “anointed” vanguard of Christian values and “western civilization” for white evangelism and to a smaller degree white Catholicism collectively under the umbrella of “Christian nationalism/Dominionism/Radical Calvinism”, a sort of biblical prophet like King David leading them to the promised land of theocracy, patriarchy, anti-secularism, xenophobia and illiberalism. The keyword is “King”, which denotes an appeal for white absolute autocratic power above any human law. Such a religious sect is fundamentally driven by “political whiteness” but wants to exercise and/or retain their power for “White Christian freedom” using a pervasively grotesque interpretation of the Bible. The spirit of “Christian freedom” is a tool for antiblackness in the de jure to de facto social, political and economic order which inspired the “Religious right in the 1970s against the civil rights, voting rights and anti-segregation movements of the late 1950s to late 1960s which cemented to the today’s white Christian fundamentalism today. Trump also embodies the visceral, cultist, anti-critical thinking and conspiratorial vigor substituting for “real” economic despair primarily resonating from highly brainwashed poor to working-class whites. These constitute the “authoritarian, theocratic and nihilistic plutocracy” aided by the megalomaniacal Republicans and “smokes and mirrors” Democrats. Trump is not the age-old class populist, he actually is a “working-class charlatan” and “white cultural populist”. Trumpism’s birth also serves as an answer to the illogicalities of Milton Freidman’s postulate that “market society assures freedom regardless of race, which is achieved through government deconstruction” and Francis Fukuyama’s End of History assertion that “co-existence of market capitalism, globalization and democracy are human civilization’s endpoints “. Milton and Francis failed to see a paradox; an unfettered, unregulated and insulated market predicated on singular protection and growth of capital will bubble into a plutocracy and continue pre-existing plutocracy (secures “white-owned capital) which is unsurprisingly anti-democratic. Capital throughout history is also predicated on racialized subsidy from economic and political exploitation of blacks and even extending to poor and middle-class whites. Democracy, therefore, is secluded. This will inherently create a paralysis of incoherence from Milton’s idea of freedom. Also, the accrued capital from a history of disenfranchisement and exploitation insulates the ultra-capitalists from democracy which invariably ends its promise of social mobility for blacks. Simply, capital creates compounded capital over time for those already with capital by buying politics to rewrite laws, which translates to exclusionary power not justice for the majority. The common good embodied in a fair government should be the arbiter of justice in a society through a representative democracy, policies and law not the marketplace. Humanity cannot be quantized to unitary monetary value. Humans are social beings of a complex consciousness, which is far cry from financialization products as deduced by neoliberals. The markets always need to be “regulated” and “responsive” to the needs of both labor and consumers. Laissez-faire capitalism and/or Neoliberalism will eventually put the last nail in the coffin for democracy, for which any form of racial justice also gets buried. There is no separation of “political”, “economical” and “cultural” essences in society, there are all in a loop of reinforced influence on each other.
This friction of plutocracy and/or market capitalism against democracy causes societal disharmony and polarization either racially, economically, demographically, or politically for the masses. This friction allows for class populist charlatans e.g. Trump to use mass despair as a tool for illiberalism and racism and xenophobia but tinkering the edges of economic reform and continuing wealth redistribution towards corporations and the wealthy. At such point, the stream of fascism gushes into the political, economic and governing sphere. A systemic chain reaction of failure starts from Neoliberalism to Trumpism to Chinese authoritarian capitalism to Mussolini’s Italy and finally NaziGermany.
In a nutshell, America is currently more representative democracy for whites, more fascism for blacks, more plutocracy for the corporations, more propaganda by the media, the more military-industrial complex, more oligarchic power for the wealthy and more rugged capitalism for the poor. Democracy should be at the consent of all people; the great political tool for equality. Racialized fascistic republic began in 1789 but a racial representative democracy started in 1968 but in the past two decades there has been a backsliding to an “illiberal plutocratic constitutional federal republic”. This timeline emphasizes the fact that America isn’t, wasn’t and not yet “democratic”. The constitution was intentionally written to protect a minority; a minority of the opulent property-owning white men or the “Enlightened”. The battle of race, labor and capital was settled in favor of this minority as written by this minority. This constitutional system was set up to shield from the “unenlightened dēmos” including enslaved Africans and Native Americans as of 1789.
Racism is interwoven with classism, classism is interwoven with capitalism, capitalism is interwoven with neoliberal globalization and neoliberal globalization is interwoven with military adventurism or liberal hegemony. These threads are the “modern-day World Order” that has supports racial and social inequalities in the world. Politics, economics, government and law are gears in a system of which capital and property rights are maximally protected over workers and race within neoliberalism and its twin “plutocracy”. The infusion of race into this plutocratic order creates a plutocratic caste system. The plutocratic caste system exacerbates the prior and creates new inequalities of race and class.
History has shown that neoliberalism, totalitarian communism, feudalism, mercantilism, colonialism and slavery are failed projects to manage race, class and government. It is therefore a prerogative of a new political economy that amalgamates both class and race to prevent a further descent into full-blown fascism. The model of Democratic Socialism/Progressive capitalism in Scandinavian countries and Uruguay, is a system that allows for strong national sovereignty, a strong welfare state, vibrant well-regulated capitalist state, strong democracy can birth a strong society where racial reckoning can truly be addressed and ameliorated. It should be noted that racism and neoliberalism are systems created by man, it is not a natural order ordained by God nor intrinsically biological, so it can also be dismantled by man.
The deep gouge of the American social fabric from the “socio” which encompasses race, religion, sexuality and gender, and the “economic” which encompasses wealth, income, capital and labor and to the “political “which encompasses governance and law remains ever unresolved.
To define my political identity simply, I am an Afro-feminist-secularist-humanist democratic socialist/progressive capitalist. The bonds of this society should be built by egalitarian opportunities, cultural diversity and responsive institutions. My view is that until the day a person like Ilhan Omar (above) becomes free, then America is free. She embodies the bottom of the caste system that still captures America. America “chooses” to be in this regressive caste and neoliberal economy but it can also “choose” to reimagine a progressive future of egalitarian opportunities and racial equality. The “savages” became “criminals”, “plantations” became “prisons” and the “slave patrol” became the “police”. America has criminalized black disfranchisement and poverty, demonized Black, Muslim and Hispanic immigrants while it has ridiculed and uneducated white poverty. This is America.
To end, I am cynical as with all Black America, so time will tell if absolute equality of opportunities is a pipe dream.
Philosophical, economic, historical and sociological analysis of Silicon Valley’s business model of extracting data from oblivious human populace through internet platforms in the facade of being “free” but instead sold on undisclosed-unregulated behavioral markets to which buyers use the data to learn, shape and predict human behavior from commerce to politics at the expense of privacy, individualism, democracy and freedom.
3. Post Civil rights backlash: political realignment and the birth of the modern-day conservatism.
Martin Luther King led Selma march in 1965
Malcolm X at his Brooklyn rally, New York
George Wallace: Democrat Governor of Alabama
Lewis Powell Jr: Supreme Court Justice from 1971 to 1987
Burger Court at the helm of a swing to judicial conservatism
Nixon at his Georgia rally for his 1972 reelection campaign to gain Southern Dixiecrat votes.
Evolution of Nixon’s voting bloc in capturing white voters in 1972 through Southern Strategy
The principles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were on the 1964 Presidential ballot culminating in the overwhelming win by Democrat Lyndon Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964. The 1964 election and subsequent passage of progressive policies for African Americans on the foundation of the Civil rights movement led by polar opposites of Marin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, was the final monumental phase of political realignment where southern white Dixiecrats aligned with Republicans and African Americans (formerly majority Republicans) realigned with Democrats. The realignment started in Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency and finalized during Lyndon Johnson’s tenure. This realignment was the foundation of the Southern Strategy of politics built from the roots of George Wallace’s racist and southern states’ rights populism which appealed to the white resentment, especially in the South as Jim Crow laws started to disintegrate. The passage of the Civil Rights laws solidified the Reconstruction Amendments which has been abused under the racist guise of States Rights and the War on Poverty agenda legislation (Medicare, Medicaid, and increased education funding) all under the Greater Society by Lyndon Johnson’s agenda in alleviating racial and economic societal problems. This was the height of domestic liberalism in America which was hampered by the antipathetic view of the Vietnam war by liberals. The modern-day conservatism was tooted from the platform of Barry Goldwater’s failed bid for the 1964 presidency.
The infamous philosophical template of modern-day American conservatism in the Republican party sparked from the Lewis Powell Jr’s memorandum in 1971 titled the “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” as a backlash to the rapid and widespread liberalism and/or liberal intellectualism, Ralph Nader’s consumer rights, social justice, middle-class quasi-socialist policies and 1964 election loss.It called for the union of all corporate interests to dominate American democracy using media, think tanks, political lobbying, schools, legal centers, and academic journals inherently to create an ultra capitalistic utopia by removing any public perceptions on any institutionalized socio-economic egalitarian construct in United states. This gave rise to Heritage think tank and Cato Institute of today. Lewis Powell within Burger Court was part of the conservative tilt that abandoned the liberal Warren’s Court of workers’ rights, social welfare and civil rights for a more corporatist, elitist and white-centered advocation which continued till to the present Robert’s Court.
In 1968, Nixon ran on the platform of the spurious “Law and order” which was a dog whistle for criminalizing the Black panther party, black civil rights groups, Anti-Vietnam war protesters, women rights advocates and gay rights advocates. It was built on the historical precedent of white supremacy, Christian fundamentalism and white-male chauvinistic patriarchy which is aligned with Powell’s memo to fight against any form “liberty for all”, especially against African Americans.
Nixon built on the environmentalism of Theodore Roosevelt to set up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970. Richard Nixon in his reelection bid in 1972 assimilated a segment of the free enterprise principles of the Lewis Powell memo, the George Wallace’s Southern Strategy, rural and conservative values, anti-liberal intellectualism and support for Vietnam War support in his highly polarized voting bloc called “The Silent majority”. This became the platform of the Republican Party which gave him a 49 states win over George McGovern, the Democratic Presidential candidate.
Nixon shifted his economic ideals from the traditional Republican position of austerity and the Austrian school of economic thought to the Keynesian school of economic thought to stimulate economic growth, reduce unemployment and curb cost pull inflation associated with rising oil prices through increased federal spending. In 1971, Nixon took the monetarist economic theory approach by disengaging the dollar from gold which was the global monetary standard established at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference to primarily curb global inflation of which dollar money supply was pegged to the finite amount of gold reserves. Nixon committed these economic engagements in the face of a recession, reduced market liquidity, rising costs of War on Poverty programs, rising trade imbalance, rising costs of Vietnam war and rising inflation. This created the current fiat monetary system with the dollar as the reserve currency. It immediately devalued the dollar causing US exports to be attractively cheaper consequently adding to GDP growth rate. The hybrid approach of Keynesian fiscal policy, wage-price control mechanism, and Monetarism monetary policy saved the US economy in the short term. In the long run, it created large deficits, high inflation with corresponding interest rates hikes, the rise of unemployment, accrued debt from the increased money supply, slow to negative economic growth all culminating in the economic stagflation of the 1970s. The Watergate scandal and its cover-up derailed the Republican conservative movement as Richard Nixon’s resigned. Nixon’s presidency defined the final phase of the socio-economic, political and racial domestic shift into modern-day conservatism.
4. Modern conservative movement: Ultra-conservative Christians, Reaganomics, Fox News, NRA, and legislative gridlock.
Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority
Ralph Reed of the Christian coalition
Ayn Rand: Author of Atlas Shrugged.
William F. Buckley J. and Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan: 40th President of USA (1981-1989).
Charles Heston of NRA
Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch
Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist
Newt Gingrich and his “Contract of America” political platform
The insertion of Milton Friedman’s monetarism, William F. Buckley Jr’s conservative intellectualism, revised Southern strategy, and Jerry Falwell ‘s Moral majority catapulted Ronald Reagan’s landslide victories over Jimmy Carter at the backdrop of 1979 Iran hostage crisis and Walter Mondale in 1984. Ronald Reagan’s presidency completed the unfinished momentum of the Nixon Presidency revising into the “The New Right” which combined social conservatism, pro-business, anti-union, anti-welfare state, neoconservative foreign policy, and anti-communism.
Ronald Reagan seized on the racial and social backlash to liberal movements of the late 1960s to 1970s. The fight primarily against desegregation, affirmative action, 1973’s Supreme court decision on Roe vs. Wade favoring abortion, anti-school prayer, drugs, and the sexual revolution was the essence of Jerry Falwell’s Moral majority to restore Christian religiosity into the American society. This was the first time social conservatism became political establishing itself cornerstone of the New conservatism within the Republican party. It is also seen that the Republican party evolved from constitutional religious secularism into ultrafundamentalist Christian sectarianism. This instituted a base of white working-class whites and southern white Evangelicals. The moral majority evolved at the end of Reagan’s tenure into Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition. Ronald Reagan used racially coded diction including ” states rights”, “welfare queens”, “affirmative action” , to “busing” and launching his campaign in the racially controversial Philadelphia, Mississippi in raising white resentment under a revised Southern strategy of being racially poignant.
The National Rifle Association (NSA); the gun rights advocacy and lobby group took an unprecedented step into the political arena by backing Ronald Reagan 1980 in response to the Gun Control Act of 1968 of which they previously supported but changed tune with the influx of funding from gun manufacturers. They evolved from a gun safety advocacy group to a politically driven lobbying group for unhindered gun rights at the backstop of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. They became an arm of the “New Right” of the Republican party.
Reaganomics was the economic doctrine rooted in the objectivity philosophy of individualism and laissez-faire capitalism inspired by Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley Jr’s classical liberalism and supply-side economics of Arthur Laffer’s Laffer curve (an extension of Milton’s Friedman’s monetarism). The famous quote of Ronald Reagan, “Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem” defined the era of Reaganomics. Small government and states rights became the cornerstone of modern Republicanism. It built on the principles of reducing tax rates (federal, marginal, income, corporate), of top income earners and wealth holders, reducing federal spending through constraining entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid and Social security), deregulating from capital markets, banking, fossil fuels, telecommunications to the environment, expansive free trade and increasing interest rates (reducing money supply). This was set in motion to counter the economic stagflation of the 1970s. Reaganomics had an average 3% GDP growth rate, unemployment dropped to 5% and inflation dropped below 3%. It was set to unlock economic growth using free markets in alleviating the socioeconomic status of the populace by solving societal problems. This economic doctrine nicknamed “voodoo economics by George Bush or trickle-down economics” expected massive reinvestment into means of production, human capital, and financial capital but such expectations were limited. The following criticisms were raised with Reaganomics including it shifted the tax burden to middle to lower class causing a wealth and income distribution remain at the top 1%, accrued massive debt of high interest and deficit spending due to tax relief for the wealthy, encouraged government bailouts of banking sector due to their unregulated speculations, weakened the collective bargaining power of unions, increase in poverty levels and tax avoidance schemes using international tax shelters began. Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times on middle to lower-income families especially on social security to cover up for the deficit spending and growing debt.
Newt Gingrich came into Congress in 1979 and started an ideological conservative crusade with his egotistical, bombastic and divisive rhetoric in cleansing any “moderates” or “Republicans in name only” or “Rockefeller Republicans” within the Republican party. He became a major core of the “New Right” on the Congressional floor with aim of creating a Republican majority in the House since 1954. This became the template of legislative intransigence leading to congressional gridlock. The dogmatic test was on the principles of Reaganomics and social conservatism of which Republicans had to make a public position. Grover Norquist under the American for Tax reform advocacy promoted and lobbied for reduction of tax revenues especially for higher-income earners to all prospective and incumbent Republicans. He even created the “Taxpayer Protection pledge” that bonded all signatures of Republicans to an uncompromising position with taxes in 1986. Even Newt Gingrich supported the independent candidacy of Ross Perot over George Bush due to his stance for bipartisanship primarily over increased taxes on the wealthy, massive debt and deficit spending from the Reagan years. The propagandist hysteria became front stage as Gingrich and his cohorts derided any liberal legislation using subjectively colorful colloquialism e.g. Clinton national health care plan diminished as Democrats vote-buying of primary minorities, expanding social welfare became government takeover of hard work, useful domestic investment became American bankruptcy, domestic violence prevention diminished to the massive federal bureaucracy, strengthening teachers unions became liberal indoctrination, expanding public schools diminished became to school choice primarily institutionalizing private schools, affirmative action became reverse discrimination, separation of church and state became losing our Judeo-Christian lineage and gun control became infringement on the 2nd Amendment of US Constitution. It was apparent that the appeal used elements of Southern strategy and Reaganomics to coalesce primarily “angry working-class white men”. This agenda, an extension of the Norquist pledge culminated in the “Contract of America” legislative promise of Grover Norquist in the 1994 midterm elections which ushered in a Republican majority in the House with newt as Speaker of the House. It consequentially shifted the Republican party farther to the right. Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio host was instrumental in delivering the “Contract of America” to his large viewership with which he became an “Honorary member” of Congress when the Republican takeover occurred.
Roger Ailes, a small television producer turned aide under Richard Nixon co-wrote a manifesto called “A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News” in 1970 to plainly use staged spectacles and grandiosity to convey conservative viewpoints on television in the form of propaganda as a backlash to the “liberal establishment media” and the “Walter Cronkite’s model of objectivity”. This was at this premise, was to be paid for and broadcasted by the Nixon’s’ White House. This was the blueprint finally reached its fruition in 1996 with the formation of Fox News network at the helm of Roger Ailes as the brainchild and Rupert Murdoch as owner. The network under the previous guise of “Fair and balanced” moniker sent sarcastic tremors through the world with its hyper-partisanship, ultra-nationalistic rhetoric, name-calling, racially-tinged diction and trivialization of scientific to historical facts. The sensationalized coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal by Fox News, 9/11, Obama years to Trump years made it clear that FOX news is a political arm of the Republican agenda. The tactics of Fox News has spread into the society that has percolated into other “alternative” conservative media outlets including Breitbart, Drudge Report, and son on unfortunately making them pertinent in politics
5. The continual devolution of Trumpism.
With the demonization of government under the tutelage of Cold War hysterics, Reaganomics advocates and neoliberal acolytes within the Democratic party, society has shifted from a more egalitarian socio-economic group-think or functional collective consciousnesses to a self-defeating short-sighted individualism of which fruits of the average worker’s productivity are stingily soaked up by plutocrats. Corporations from fossil fuel, technology to banking live in their facade of capitalism. They collect yearly subsidies aka corporate welfare, stash profits in tax havens, lobby for light-touch regulation and tax reductions while blaming the remaining populace as “lazy” and deems themselves as “successful”. The sad irony is major corporations are highly subsidized and receive tremendous tax incentives which are hypocritical to their dogmatic market libertarianism. Corporations are primarily motivated to profit from nature and human beings while the government is of a primary motive to serving the populace for a higher standard of living. It is not natural for corporations to mitigate societal problems for humanitarianism, that is the government’s job. Plutocrats want socialism for themselves combined with bottomless tax relief but austerity for the 99%. This societal self-defeating misinformed dogma especially within Republicans in the age of anti-intellectualism consequently catalyzes xenophobia, cynical distrust in societal norms, sexism, susceptibility to propaganda, and racism as the basis of economic and political correction. This phenomenon was replicated through time including the Glided Age, Roaring Twenties, End of the Century and the New Millennium. The misguided far-right populism of Trump nicknamed Trumpism which has been lurking finally surfaced at the aftermath of the Great Recession and election of the “first African American” president with the emergence of the Tea party movement. It is quite clear that the reactionary impulses of the Republican Party of the past till present cause fissures in the American fabric in the name of retaining political power at all levels of government especially from the Nixonian era. With Trump, Republican establishment made a Faustian bargain with Trump for passing their legislation, retaining a political majority, appointing judges and deconstructing the state bureaucracy in exchange for his mercurial, abhorrent, divisive, pseudo-fascist and amoral leadership. The safeguards within the Republican party through the establishment has been weakening and finally upended because of their adjudication of screening extremist views in their party. Consequentially, they ideologically locked themselves into “Alex Jones conspiratorial wing”, “alt-right”, “Christian right” and the “far-right” in comparison to Democrats who range from “Manchin: Pure-Centrist”, “Obama-Clinton: Thirdway” to “Bernie Sanders: Democratic socialism”. The far-right John Birch society who were regarded as “far right-libertarian ideologues” and extreme relative to the before the 1990’s Republicanism under the stewardship of the billionaires Koch Brothers and their plutocratic circles have funded the magnetic pull of Republicans further to the right. They built a network of legal centers, scientists, universities, political action committees, lobbying, private education advocacy, and think tanks to disseminate their philosophy reciprocally made them stalwarts of the modern-day Republicanism. Therefore “Moderate republicans” are almost extinct. This inherently makes the political polarization asymmetrical. This is what Obama, Centrist Democrats, and the other neoliberals failed to realize in their disastrous attempts to purse centrist policies that further dragged them outside of “Franklin Roosevelt-JFK idealism” into “Reaganomics” but the current ascending Progressive Democrats have always understood.
The antagonism to government, science, racial diversity and collective progress of which they pride themselves has devolved them into an extreme version of Senator Jesse Helms legislative philosophy of “No”, reactionary, “social Darwinism”, “conservative Christian sectarianism, summing up their pursuit of intransigent political ideology and intellectual dishonesty instead of “what is possible?” or “How can we progress?” or “How do we fix?”. Whereas, the inherent political trait of “progress” and “reform” within the liberal space has churned ideas for debate in resolving American problems concerning time from race to socio-economics. Liberals understand four philosophical and sequential rationale that are indiscernible to most Republicans which are “learn from the past”, “time moves forward”, “the world and people evolve” and “what type of future do we want”. Therefore the tenets of economic progress and technological advances of which conservatives overwhelmingly support through market capitalism irrevocably produce reciprocally dynamic changes in a society breaking their rigid traditionalism.The world cannot be stuck in 1776 or 1864 or 1950. The tools of science, regulated markets, objective facts, ethics, history, democracy, civics, the accountable justice system, collective empathy, cultural integration, secularism, intellectualism, education, human rights, and government accountability should be the crux of a productive society in the inevitable future. The acceptance of neoliberalism in the form the “The Thirdway” in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama stifled the essence of reform in liberalism by supporting more unregulated markets, expansive military imperialism, globalization, market monopolization for an exchange in social and racial inclusion. They feel the Republican delusion that unregulated financial markets are the only tools in resolving social progress encapsulated in the infamous 80’s “Greed is good” moniker. The essence of a great society is the massive spending power of the middle class in a high aggregate standard of living. The unregulated corrupting influence of chronic accumulation of wealth within a few hands proceeds to concentrated power diminishes human welfare, social institutions, social mobility and democracy which progressive liberals including Theodore Roosevelt (to an extent), Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Bernie Sanders understood.
Republicans have become deficient to use such tools to build a future. Therefore, Republicans are funding the “uneducation” of America through reduced federal spending and the spread of non-factual propaganda to retain their political and plutocratic power. Generally, Americans are approaching a point of resigned cynicism with the current system with the window for an accelerant of change to accommodate the present and project for the future particularly with race and socioeconomics slowly closing. But there are two types of change namely positive or negative. Trump as an authoritative populist against Bernie Sanders as a Progressive populist were ying-yang of the American populism movement. Unfortunately, America chose a marketing charlatan of negativity, Donald Trump who demonizes immigrants and minorities as the reason for the economic despair of middle-class whites. Rather than reducing the power of plutocrats of which he belongs to, push for more democracy, retooling and regulating the consequences and rules of globalization for the people rather than for corporate bodies (automation of assembly lines, job outsourcing, cheaper-streamlined supply chains, and more computerized-algorithmic workplace) and use immigration as a tool for humanitarianism and economic growth. The lines of propaganda, conspiracy theories, racism, regressive intellectual punditry, and journalism became blurred in the ensuing years on Fox news. With the death of Roger Ailes, Donald Trump has assumed the informal role as both “President of United States and CEO of FOX news” as the “Foxification” of the White House continues.
“Make America Great Again”, the visceral slogan which personified the Trumpian era swept the political arena in 2016. It is in continuation of the American history of “white identity politics”. The fear of the immigrants and minorities in a climate of economic despair is a virulent strain in White America especially Republicanism. White identity politics is the backlash of a more egalitarian society. Republicans fail to realize that to end racial diversity in America and unify under the racially indiscriminate term of being “Americans” is to address structural-socioeconomic racism in its historical predicate and its ongoing evolution which continually denies minorities that ability to fully assimilate into the identity of being American. But what does it mean? What time is this greatness? This question evokes a symbolic “Ouroboros” response. Generally, Republicans point to the 1950s of perceived glorious times. Does it mean a time of well-regulated capitalism with reasonable wealth inequality and socialistic stopgaps but blacks were under apartheid? The search for recreating such a past is very subjective and nuanced. They choose a time that is particularly great economically for the race group but socially regressive for the other racial groups. The pursuit of such anachronism permeating within Trump supporters blinds them from reality. It is undoubtedly evident that the ebbs and flows of race, gender, theocracy, individual vs. collective philosophy, and socio-economics defines every grain of the Conservative movement. It is in continuation of the American history of “white identity politics”. The fear of the immigrants and minorities in a climate of economic despair is a virulent strain in White America especially Republicanism. White identity politics is the backlash to a more racially egalitarian society that is colloquially captured in the conspiratorial slogan of “racial equality is white genocide” and an incorrectly ascribed status of racial victimization. Republicans fail to realize that to end racial diversity in America and unify under the racially indiscriminate term of being “Americans” is to address structural-socioeconomic racism in its historical predicate and its ongoing evolution which continually denies minorities that ability to fully assimilate into the identity of being American. Trump exudes the personification of “strong man” identity, as he proclaims, in which all societal problems can be solved through him. The keyword “man” calls for a patriarchal homage that totalitarianism invigorates. This essence of absolute masculinity in a leader promulgates the societal acceptance for women to be submissive, subjugated and demure in the pursuit of gender traditionalist utopia. This concept is in line with the theocratic strain within the Republican party which commonly demeans demurred feminist concept as “uncouth” rather than a civil-economic rights issue. The innate narcissism in Trump captured in his “strong man” persona, invites the populace to reside their trust in him regardless of the truths and to the detriment of the other balances of power steals a page of the famous 1984 book. Therefore “Truth isn’t truth, believe in me instead”. This sociological blindspot has rendered most Republicans in a trance of “blind loyalty” in the adherence of the rotten seeds of authoritarianism. So conclusively, nationalism, racial supremacy, anti-intellectualism, absolute male patriarchy, singular religion, blind loyalty, limited press, asymmetrical power to the executive branch are all tenets of fascism. History never lies, ask Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Franco, Noriega, and Amin.
In Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s book called “How Democracies Die”, they stipulated four major totalitarian traits in a leader to which Donald Trump is performing exceptionally. I will edify and add a more up to date totalitarian characteristics of Trump. They include:
Rejection of the weak commitment to democratic rules of the game: Does Trump reject the Constitution or express a willingness to violate it? Does Trump suggest a need for anti-democratic measures e.g restricting to banning basic civil or political rights? Does Trump endorse the use of extraconstitutional means to change and/or retain his government such as armed mass protests? Does Trump attempt to undermine the legitimacy of elections by refusing to accept credible electoral results?
Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents: Does Trump describe Democrats as subversive or opposed or enemies to the existing constitutional order? Does Trump claim Democrats constitute an existential threat either to national security or the prevailing way of life? Does Trump describe Democrats as criminals whose supposed or intent in violating the law disqualifies them from full participation in the political arena?
Toleration or encouragement of violence: Has Trump tacitly endorsed violence by their supporters by refusing to unambiguously condemn it and punish it? Has Trump praised or refused to condemn other significant acts of political violence, either in the past or elsewhere in the world?
Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents including media: Has Trump supported laws pr policies that restrict civil liberties, such as expanded libel or defamation laws, laws restricting protests, criticism of the government, civic organizations or political organizations? Has Trump threatened to take legal or punitive action against critics in rival parties, civil society or the media? Has Trump praised repressive measures taken by other governments either in the past or elsewhere in the world?
“Yes” is the resounding answer to the above questions.
The self-inflicted wound from the past and the pursuit of the past continue to rotten society, manifesting into Trumpism. People look at Trump as an “aberration out of irrationality” but I see him as the “ripened Republican of sown rotten seeds in Republicanism”. His mercurial ways capture the devolution and hypocrisy of the Conservative movement from Nixon’s era. The more moderate Abraham Lincoln-Theodore-Roosevelt-Dwight Eisenhower strain within Republicans is nearly non-existent and shows itself more within the Democratic party. The Nixon-Reagan-Trump strain is the Republican party of which asymmetrical polarization exists in American politics. Republicans have become more conservative with time relative to the accommodating degree of freedom in liberal values within Democrats. Therefore, the sway between incrementalism to wholesale changes in society through government policy and well-regulated capitalism gives room for compromise or grand advancement rest mostly within Liberals and/or Progressives.
Trumpism=mercurial+anti immigration+ normalized racialized radicalism+Conservative courts weakening to evisceration of racial minorities, workers and poor people rights+white supremacy+ authoritative sycophants of a cult-like figure+ illiberal democarcy+ conspiracy theories+ever expanding unitary executive power+dteehimonization of the first African American president as an “other”, “illegitimate” “unAmerican”, “Muslim fanatic” and “Marxist” + Republican party’s disgusting tolerance for extremist views+ malignant narcissism+Nixon’s penchant for corruption and criminality+corrupt self enrichment in public office + Reaganomics+ rollback of civil liberties of minorities, women and gays+voter suppression laws+ news media turned reality tv+Southern strategy-white supremacy+choice to be stubbornly ignorant+Sarah Palin+ 2010 decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission+doorway to totalitarianism+Shelby County v. Holder (2013)+Newt Gingrich-Mitch McConnell’s case for ideological intransigence and breaking down congressional norms +two way mirror relationship of Trump with Fox News+conspiratorial far-right new sources equated as news.
It is self-evident the real socio-economic strains, opioid drug epidemic particularly with rural white men, degraded intellectual public sphere, reduction of an educated populace, lack of civic and corporate criminal accountability in past few years (Iraq War and Walstreet’s associated 2008 recession), adapted nationalistic-authoritarian dogma and fear of demographic changes in the society has caused an accelerated dive within the Republican Party into apathetic normalization of corruption, baseless conspiracy theories, amorality, “alternative facts”, demagoguery and neo-fascism in the name of “owning the libs”, “perceived existential threat”, “righteous incivility”, “short-sighted sense of individualism” and “overt-covert white supremacy” at the expense of a future democracy, informed civilization, empathy, and a fair social class stratum.
This epitomizes plutocracy, nepotism, cultural apathy, white privilege, aristocracy and crony capitalism at its best bridging into an Orwellian state to the detriment of meritocracy, trust in social institutions and shared prosperity.…. The idiosyncratic pursuit of knowledge, power, and authority that kept America as a hegemony has begun to crumble in utter shock, awe, caricature, and disbelief…
My mum eloquently said in addition to my iteration, “In Trump we trust, exudes the bad and ugly, America has been exposed as a fragile democracy, and the path to the future is either tyrannical or progressive”
The etched words in the constitution “We the people” have not been lived up to….the story of slavery, Jim Crow, Native American genocide, institutionalized-governmental racism, De-jure racialized laws, xenophobia, militarism, corruption and crony capitalism tear into the Jeffersonian penmanship of “We the people” leaving behind trails of facetiousness, resentment, societal disharmony, and hypocrisy.
Facing History is tough but learning from it, is easier and rewriting the lanes for the future is easiest.
“It cannot happen in America” is now an ironic statement that every third world citizen used to repeat in critiquing their countries particularly dictatorship. This is equivalent to the “American Dream” social mobility message within American society. Looking at the today’s scene, it should be rewritten as “It happened here, there and will happen in America too”. American exceptionalism was an effective public relations campaign to other nations to cover up its highly unstable and disjointed societal fabric. The belief was a successful self reinforcing myth until Donald Trump showed the true reality. The age of Demagogic Authoritarianism within vast socioeconomic disparities is here to stay in America.
Rich vs. poor, urban vs. rural, meritocracy vs. working class, black vs. white, racial diversity vs. whiteness, facts vs. conspiracy theories, plutocrats vs. 99.9%, representative democracy vs. authoritarianism, liberal vs. conservative, progressive vs. neoliberal, Liberal corporate media vs. conservative corporate media, Christian identity vs secularism, modernity vs. traditionalism, science vs. opinions, welfare state vs. unfettered feudal capitalism, patriarchy vs feminism, liberalist foreign policy vs realist foreign policy, globalization vs. protectionism and capital vs. labor.
Such aspirations has hit the wall of bewilderment, disgust and near obsolescence as the United States of America tapers off into a Shakespearean tragedy or worse, a foreboding dystopian glimpse of a civilization’s end mimicking the decaying Roman’s empire or personifying sun-burnt Icarus of Greek mythology. America has sold the world its societal purity of exceptionalism but time has unveiled an undeniable decaying foundation of a decadent feudal like uber- capitalistic class with air-filled meritocratic self aggrandizement and a growing economically deficient and uneducated populace in despair. This growing populace in despair are seduced by the allure of a revisionist past, conspiracy theories and apathy which sets the table for a demagogue to exploit.
Donald Trump, the orange and vulgar authoritarian, is not the source of American predilection for destructive discordance. He is the consequence and embodiment of a lurking societal virus with various tentacles through its history, a more “selected valorized history”. The societal virus is the construct of “whiteness” not European lineage but “whiteness”. This sets the inevitable path for a bleak hybridized corporatized-white nationalistic- overt totalitarian future. The name “neo-fascism” bears its ugly head.
America is under the auspice of immorality, hubris, megalomania, violent militancy, hypocrisy, legislative toxicity, antiscience, ill-informed conspiratorial psyche, uber-plutocracy, white Christian-ethnonationalism which is accelerating into the inevitable abyss of anarchical nihilism of future apartheid state or worse, civil war.
The nascent neo-fascism is built on the fear of losing the finite space of “power” from the grips of privileged whites ordained by exploitative history, privilege, media, culture, and socioeconomics to which present day most Republicans and some Democrats exploit to financially enrich the elites while excluding immigrants, gays, and minorities. Unsurprisingly this transaction adversely affects poor and middle-class whites through economics. But poor and middle-class whites’ blinded ignorance reinforces narrowed “visceral” feelings of basking in culturally being white” offered by rich white elites but marginal monetary gains. This entitlement also earns them the rights to absurd loop of victimhood to which immigrants, gays, and minorities are focus of their ire. They propagandizes the facetious adage of “Racial equality is white genocide”. Whites generally haven’t realized that African Americans are the vessels of which the constitution is expected to live up to. The founding fathers despite their choice to continue in the social economic exploitation of blacks through slavery left a hypocritical constitutional loophole of which African Americans based their existence on.
The lines
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”
or
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”
pushes for democracy, separation of church and state, equal citizenry and anti-white supremacy which is inspired by the enlightened philosophies of Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu. So inadvertently, African Americans’ plight is the true embodiment of what the “spirit of Americanism” should be. It took until 1968, for these ideals in those words to “start” bear fruit. But the days reactionary anti-democracy has begun.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people as Abraham Lincoln proclaimed in Gettysburg is unfortunately now reshaping to Government of the lobbyists, bought by the plutocrats, distorted and propagandized by the corporate media, protected for the oligarchy in the name of white Christian ethnonationalism with the consent of the governed.
The current state of affairs in American politics is a chaotic gumbo of political circus, governmental inefficiency, angry populace, political polarization, racial disharmony, surreal politicization of facts and media propaganda. The lines between lies and truths are becoming indiscernible. These affairs have been grown on a petri-dish of corporate greed, plutocratic lobbying, ultra Christian fundamentalism, government-sanctioned mass surveillance apparatus, expensive public healthcare, lack of public spending on infrastructure and education, expensive military-industrial complex, unscrupulous political campaign system leveraged by elite circles, unethical revolving door of private enterprise and governmental offices, outlandish wealth and income inequalities, corporate-friendly media, public ignorance and/or dissonance, selective memory on complex racial history and white driven nativism. Regardless of the aforementioned problems and the current appalling caricature, America’s hegemony with economic resources and influence still stands but its luster wrapped in American exceptionalism is drastically waning with the rise of multipolar world powers (especially China and Russia), far-right populism, trade protectionism and pessimistic views of globalization. These problems are compounded by the dysfunctional political parties with which Republicans have a major share of the blame. I will venture into five major historical episodes in the devolution of Republicanism namely:
Civil war: Abraham Lincoln era
Abraham Lincoln: Among the founding fathers of the Republican party and 16th (First Republican) President of the United States (1861-1865).
The ugliness, despair, subjugation, and terrors of slavery
The continuation of African American slavery was the underlying root of the American south’s decision to secede from United states resulting in the Civil war (1861-1865). The prior financial shocks in America which affected property ownership, bank liquidity, and employment hardened the resolve of Southerners in continuing free labor of slaves. The cultural divide of the educated Northern elites who were tolerant of black freedom but skeptical of black economic empowerment and social integration relative to rural southerners driven by utmost white supremacy widened. The Confederate soldiers led by General Robert Lee of the South lost to the Union soldiers led by General Ulysses Grant of the North which in essence supported the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. It also cemented the Reconstruction amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) to the Constitution that abolished slavery, established citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for African Americans and prohibited discrimination in voting rights of citizens on the basis of race respectively. Much to the dismay of history, Lincoln was driven more by consolidating political power rather than a moral prerogative in abolishing slavery to maintain the Union of States. Despite such national progress, the viral strain of white supremacy enveloped in the flag of the confederate rebel flag never died instead became part of the socio-economic, political, and cultural discriminatory fabric primarily in the American South through the reconstructionist Jim Crow and Black codes laws of which the infamous Ku Klux Klan arose. The Republicans, therefore, abandoned the black suffrage and the pursuit of racial equality in the Reconstruction era to reach a mutually tolerable relationship with Southern Democrats.
Abraham Lincoln instituted the early economic foundation of Republicanism; mercantilism and free-market capitalism within its borders built on subsidized domestic production by manufacturing and industrialization, trade protectionism, nationalized banking system, income tax, and progressive tax system and common fiat paper currency. These were instituted to invest in the poor-middle class, created social mobility climate, invest in infrastructure, integrated national markets and supply chains for a nationalized economy and reduce the shocks of past financial crisis but it consequently created a monopolistic and corrupt power of the few selected by a centralized government of which Republicans and their associates benefited which exacerbated wealth and income inequalities in the ensuing Gilded Age era.
2. Progressivism: Teddy Roosevelt era.
Crony capitalism, plutocracy, and corruption benefiting from the suffering of workers.
Theodore Roosevelt: Republican, 26th President of United States (1901-1919) and face of the Progressive era.
“White” Women suffrage
The Progressive-era starting in the late 1890s to 1920 was a political, scientific, socio-economic and moral pushback on the excesses of the prior Glided age. The societal rampant corruption of politicians, inefficient industrialization, urbanization, corporate monopolies, poverty-stricken working-class, hazardous working conditions, child labor, immorality, gender, massive income to wealth inequalities and contaminated foods and drugs were elements of the Glided age. Course corrective anti-Social Darwinist philosophy through regulation, incentives, scientific engineering, education, constitutional amendments, anti-trust and labor laws, preservation of natural resources, direct democracy and injection of religiosity were under the progressive umbrella.These principles were the revised platform of the new Republican party at the helm of Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt envisioned a well regulated capitalistic society with the coexistence of strong unions and competitive corporations within the confines of a non-corruptible sovereign democratic government. Despite such reforms, the progressive era still ended with the emergence of the Roaring Twenties era with which wealth and income inequalities worsened.
Anti monopolistic laws (Sherman Act and the Clayton Act), Federal Trade Commission Act, lowered Tariffs, Pure Food and Drug Act, Meat Inspection Act, 16th Amendment instituted a graduated federal income tax, 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverage, Environmental protection executive orders, 17th amendment to the US Constitution allowed direct election of U.S. Senators, 19th amendment to the US Constitution allowed women to vote, rise of muckraking journalism exposing political and corporate corruption, scientific management, or “Taylorism for industries, settlement house movement for poor urban areas, expansion of child and veteran welfare, the reformative Social Gospel for churches and child labor laws were some the major progressive infrastructure through the presidencies of Republican Theodore Roosevelt, Republican Howard Taft to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Despite the great tenets of progressivism, there were ills that either not addressed or worsened. The social engineering concept of eugenics was promulgated by some progressives to produce a “more genetically superior society of white Anglo Saxons” in which racial minorities, poor people, immigrants and mentally-physically disabled were allowed to be legally sterilized, segregated, discriminated and barred from miscegenation. Immigration Act of 1917 and National Quota Law of 1921 limited immigration of Italians, Jews, Eastern Europeans, and Asians because of the xenophobic labor force attributing immigrants as the cause of the low wages and hazardous workplaces and maintaining a homogeneous Aryan-Scandinavian majority. The Progressive-era was particularly regressive to African Americans starting with the Plessy vs. Ferguson of Supreme Court decision of 1896 that called for racial segregation, the most expansive erection of confederate monuments in American history propelled by the inaccurate, glorified and revisionist “Lost Cause” propaganda, the mainstream resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan reaching 4.5 million at its peak, the “Great Migration” of some blacks from the South to the North for economic opportunities (faced workplace and housing discrimination, racial segregation on government offices, reinforced Jim Crow policies at voting booths through poll tax and literacy tests, and the progressive economic welfare package were limited to the black populace).
Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker journalist and former United States diplomat details the devolution of American diplomacy which are replaced by the tentacles of military industrial complex. From his personal account, key international figures, former United States Secretaries of State (Henry Kissinger to Rex Tillerson), famous diplomatic broker Richard Hollobroke and other bureaucratic diplomats, Ronan captures the policy misfortunes, neoconservatism, short sighted counterintelligence measures, budget cuts, macroscale Westernized political doctrine rather than regionalist political compromises, financial mismanagement, and Washington antagonism that envisaged the derailment of the global leadership of Unites States with time.
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present……This insightful book covers the African American exploration from slavery to present day of forgotten historically unethical, inhumane and horrid medical and/or scientific practices in which unlawful experiments, grave-robbing, eugenics, inferior care and unauthorized autopsies leaving behind a legacy till present of a reasonably paranoid and distrustful-dichotomous relationship between African Americans and the medical instructions, prisons, military and government………She warned that these tactics are being deployed in Africa under the guise of “humanitarianism and/or science”
The ongoing “reality show” of Trump (Trumpism) continually provides controversial shock value to Americans and by an large, the global community. The constant babbling, his exaggerated hyperbole(his coined phrase for lies), verbal assault on media and intelligence community, unintelligible domestic and foreign doctrine and presidential improprieties are now being given the vapid cover “political correctness”. While in other corners of human society, such attitudes are ascribed as a “slow decay of democratic fibers”. This platform of Trump has driven the Republican party into the business of defending his antics, playing fast and loose with facts and using his innate nature of ignorance as a vehicle to pass far-right conservative policies invariably choosing party over country. It has driven Democrats into the arms of being sometimes irrationally presumptuous with Russia-Trump collusion, resisting Trumpism, resisting Trump far right agenda. These attitudes arose after losing their economic messages, disconnecting with rural communities, losing political offices from county, state to presidential therefore deemed politically disheveled and/or insignificant. Reputation, decorum, dignity and leadership are on the downward spiral at the helm of Trump who is a global caricature as China, Russia, France and Germany are proactively filling up the leadership vacuum.
Trump’s personal twitter page has become official “Presidential statements” ranging from his untruthful rants, his oft-embellished accomplishments, incongruous personal attacks to his indescribable “covfefe”. Some Americans has ascribed his unconventionality as being strong or a middle finger to the political establishment and the last hope for primarily the white populace especially in poor and rural communities. The problem with such blind support is Trump cares only about Trump. Trump is not humbled by the his office, he feels apologetically entitled. Trump chooses to be naive about the details of policies and laws. He focuses on the unyielding loyalty of appointees, media and government to him rather than the populace and/or constitution. In his era of blatant disregard of transparency, he has refused to divest his financial interests or reveal his financial records causing a inevitable conflicts of interests from America to other parts of the constitution. These are not qualities that should be part of a democratically elected President but rather a pseudo-totalitarian. The American President is a person serving “all” people not the 30% populace (primarily his base).
Alas! all hope is not gone
There are ways to truly resist Trumpism and restore order and balance:
Focus and build on a progressive economic message: The country is ready and ripe for a “New Deal”. The income and wealth inequality has ravaged the country from the words from progressive and/or liberal economic minds from Joseph Stigilitz, Paul Krugman to Robert Reich. Democrats should resist the impulses to be “too” aligned with big corporations and Wallstreet. This is not as FOX news put it “class warfare” against the 1% , “welfare state creation”, “anti-capitalism” or “communism and/or socialism” but a restoration of fair and balanced economic platform defined by a truly “mixed economy of capitalism and socialism” which i define as “Progressive Capitalism” rather than the historically scary socialist label. Democrats have to design their message not as “takers from the wealthy” but “restoring economic fairness wrapped in the American flag”. They have go into their memory bank and restore themselves as “Franklin Delano Roosevelt party” rather then the “Clintonian party”. Americans are longing for politicians to be more “economically truthfulness and grassroot populism” not “hypocritical lapdogs to the 1%”. The age of “voodoo economics” or trickle down economics or supply side economics have created a pseudo plutocracy consequently exacerbating the economic health of most Americans. The progressive agenda should be wrapped around “Keynesian economics”. This message will resonate with the working class both poor and the middle regardless of race, age, gender or sexual orientation. The economic brand on positions on healthcare, minimum wage, Wallstreet regulation, social benefits, fair and reasonable taxation regardless of social class making education more cost-effective. The economic prowess of a nation is defined by the ease of the poor to migrate to the middle class not expanding the wealthy. The spending power of a massssive ive middle class has been historically and mathematically known to be have a direct relationship with yearly GDP growth rate.
The unusual separation of Trumpism from Conservatism/Republicanism: The media has fallen to the habit of trying to separate Trumpism from conservatism. The question that lingers in my head as I watch CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV to ABC is why commentators, liberals and even republicans dissociate Trump from Republican ideology? Trump is not passing or advocating for liberal, centrist nor progressive policies. From immigration, healthcare, regulation,economy, environment, education to law and order, the policies being rolled out are out of the “conservative playbook” specifically “far right and/or alt right”. Trump ran on far right populism not a centrist populist as Macron of France or Hilary Clinton nor a progressive populism as of Bernie Sanders. Trump should always be associated with Republicans conservatism. The Trump presidency which has been heaped with scandal, controversy and investigation to the detriment of conservatives but he is still carrying the banner of Republicans so it politically advisable to voters that they are reminded he is a Republican not some nontraditional, independent ad-hoc politician. Trump is the epitome of a perfect Republican. Someone might ask how? He has used the platform of far right conservative politics, pushed for corporate welfare while styling himself as a man for the poor and unforgotten, push for oligarchical society on the splendor of charisma wrapped with the overt and/or covert use of racial antagonism. In modern history, Republicans have used racial dog whistles and culture wars in shoring up white voters especially in the South . The infamous Southern strategy and Ayn Rand libertarian philosophy studied and covertly utilized by Goldwater, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich, Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan, George Bush I and II, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Jeff Sessions and Steve King meet its greatest overt believer….Donald Trump. Today, Trump has amplified the underlying racial resentment in some whites especially the poor ones towards the “others” accusing them of the economic, political, demographic and cultural shift that supposedly does not fit the 1950’s white America. Republicans show contempt for the vulgarity of Trump but share 99.9 percent of the ideology he pushes. So Republicans, don’t complain and cry about the fact you cannot control Trump….He is uncontrollable but a perfect conduit conveying the true message of modern day Republicanism…..The vagrant racial faction that have nested and occasionally been feed by the Republican party is out of the woodworks and sitting in the Oval office.
Resisting Trump’s quickbaits: The trolling diatribe that rolls out from Trump’s twitter feeds and lips shouldn’t be the primary focus of mainstream media, and Anti-Trumpists. Focus on the the policies and the ever-hypocritical message that he sold to the unfortunate populace. Trump is a man that is driven by what people think of him which feeds into his insatiable narcissism. Trump has mastered the art of distraction by showing one hands of his unconventional bloopers on social decorum or identity politics and hiding the real hand which proposes detrimental policies.
Resist the urge to looking for the Russia-Trump smoking gun and impeachment: The continual obsession of possible coordination between Trump campaign and Russia has been exhausting, overwhelming and almost mirroring conspiratorial theories out of “Alex Jones colorful mind”. There is cause to investigate the possibility of such treasonous act but the focus of should be on Trump’s policies which affects the everyday American. Robert Mueller, a man of bipartisan support and utmost integrity will perform a thorough inquiry so we should all sit back and wait. We should remember that the Watergate investigation took almost 2.5 yrs to approach a conclusion. Personally, I am more concerned of financial ties especially “supposed” Russian related money laundering during his run as Trump Organization business owner and current conflicts of interest rather than the electoral collusion. We s shouldn’t advocate for impeachment now for Trump because he has been a nightmarish enigma to Republicans which Democrats can rally around. Should we impeach a far right, implosive, self deprecating and hypocritical Trump for a straight laced far right Christian conservative Pence. I will take the first choice!!!!!
Campaign on Anti-Trump policies not Anti-Trump: Clinton ran on an Anti-Trump platform which ousted her to the woods. Running against Trump has to built on the policies that he is advocating and enacting that are detrimental to Americans. There should be effort in pointing out the hypocritical, incomprehensible and detrimental undertone to this policies. Trump has to be seen as for what he is… a man that is clueless about the details and consequences of his policies not his character flaws.
One sentence: Focus on economic message and avoid overplaying in the field of “identity politics”.…it is self explanatory that Trump himself will fall in an inconceivable trap of playing identity politics surrounding race, gender and sexual orientation and he get swallowed by his decrepitude which is his “callous lips” which will inevitably galvanize more opposition……Focus on solutions of racial, gender and sexual orientation inequalities backed with socioeconomic measures not the controversies.
Americans are looking for change to the status-quo establishment political-economic machinery the question is what type of change? Do you want a Trump change? or a Bernie change? ….The ball is in your court
Borrowing the writing style of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein report on the Watergate scandal , “All the President’s Men”, Johnathan Beaty and S.C Gywnne provide intricate details on the rise and fall of the corrupt laden, mysterious and sophisticated dark web of geopolitics in BCCI bank ( Bank of Credit and Commerce International) from 1973 to 1991…….
Donald Trump “Mr anti-political correctness”: Republican Presidential aspirant
Bernie Sanders “Mr middle class”: Democratic President aspirant.
The presidential race has heating up in the past few weeks by the emergence of Billionaire Donald Trump (Republican) and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (Democrat). They have raised eyebrows by their populist rhetoric that strikes a chord with people’s frustration with the stagnated partisan government thereby embracing the underdog persona.People are apprehensive towards dynasties of Bush and Clinton to clash again by setting the stage between Hilary Clinton and Jeb Bush so they are now persuaded by the populist voices of Trump and Sanders. This ever-growing political capitalization is mildly reminiscent of the past wave of Barack Obama (2008), Bill Clinton (93), Ronald Reagan (1980) or John F. Kennedy (1960). In comparison to other flash in the pan (populist) candidates in the past like Fred Thompson, Ralph Nader, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rand Paul, Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole, Ross Perot and so on, it seems that Trump and Sanders will be in the headlines for a substantive period. Trump is presently leading the Republican metaphoric clown car race with a 20-22 percent lead while Sanders has overtaken Hilary Clinton in New Hampshire which is a key primary battleground state. People are apprehensive towards dynasties of Bush and Clinton to clash again by setting the stage between Hilary Clinton and Jeb Bush. The present tidal wave of these candidates are likely to dim out before their respective party’s presidential nomination. I believe that Donald Trump emergence is less sustainable compared to Bernie Sanders and I will explain why.
Donald Trump; the bigger than life personality that exudes emotion, pride, charisma, witty and decisive politically-incorrect candor. He has rose to Republican stage by ruffling feathers with the establishment Republicans, making misguided accounts on Mexican illegal immigration, somewhat misogynistic banter with Megyn Kelly(Fox News) and Hilary Clinton and his quick to respond trigger fingered Twitter responses. He has shown great appeal and support from the Tea party faction of the Republican party who are tired of their representatives not conservative enough or aren’t sticking to their anti-Barack Obama stance. Donald Trump is a visual and auditory reminder for the dissent for the current Republican caucus. There is a growing dysfunction between the Tea party and the establishment because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump who is not been cuddled by the finances of Super-PAC and party’s contributions has openly pronounced his campaign could be personally resourced. Trump has stolen the hearts of Republicans who want a ” conservative man of the people” candidate with a blunt and honest tongue which are at the core of Barry Goldwater-era conservatism and Ronald Regan. The problem with Donald Trump is “Donald Trump”. Trump words will eventually catch up with him, his words not policies has been the foundation of his campaign. Trump will continue to ruffle feathers as time progresses and might run into a huge hole of controversy that he might not recover from. Soon, people might begin to wonder if this “Trumpmania” is a rouse for shock value that eventually spill to bigger business opportunities or set the stage for a new television show. Trump has followed the typical Republican script of “attack existing policies with no alternative ideas”. His bandwagon fans are more captivated about what he would say next not necessarily what he would for the America. In a short summary, Donald is surely flashy, controversial and commanding but with no ideological vigor and substance that can either last long enough for the final nomination or even face the eventual Democratic candidate.
Bernie is often seen as cranky, charismatic, talkative, intuitive and resourceful. Bernie Sanders often described as a democratic socialist (which is antithetic to 80’s Reganomics) has been a staunch advocate for stronger middle class economy, higher taxes on the extremely wealthy class, increased minimum wages,stronger unions regulation of Wall-street, de-monopolizing the banking sector,universal pre-kindergarten, free higher education, infrastructure development, anti-Super PAC and reducing corporations’ lobbying. He and Elizabeth Warren are the strongholds of the far left (progressive liberals). He has taken on the social and economic issues as his primary core of his campaign. He wants to reduce income and wealth inequality which is a pervasive economic condition hitting America. His has never been swayed from his ideology which often causes friction with some business friendly Democrats. Liberal progressives have wanted a voice against the now prominent center minded Democrats, which are prominent because of the emergence of the far-right winged Tea party who occasionally subverted government indirectly pulled Democrats to the center. His emergence is also attributed to America’s weariness of family dynasty of Clinton. Bill and Hilary Clinton have in the political spotlight for over 20 years and have been directly and indirectly involved in shaping the present day government. Finally, people gravitate towards Bernie fiery oratory that has provided a spark among in the hearts of Americans. Some moderate Republicans prefer Bernie to Hilary as seen in massive crowd turnout in conservative cities in Dallas (8000), Houston (5000), Phoenix (11,000). His populist agenda is garnering attention across party lines which might create stronger momentum relative to Trump. Bernie’s chances are limited by his inability to really connect with minority and women votes thereby expanding his base. He has been overshadowed by Clinton in those constituencies.Also, he has not fully used his current pedestal to inform his foreign policy stance. He has an good record in foreign policy voting which includes voted against Iraq war, voting against removal of Saddam Hussein, voted against reauthorizing troops in Iraq and voted for troops withdrawal in 2007. This election is going to be ultimately on foreign policy which Hilary has a leg up over him since she was a former Secretary of State. The economy has been resurrected from financial grave and heads upwards but still needs additional reforms to strengthen its trajectory but the electorate are infatuated with ISIS, Iran nuclear deal, NSA spying and Ukrainian crisis.
Bernie and Trump share a passion that is antagonistic towards the current mold of government in both parties and are generating a populist buzz that resonates with the American’s angst of the establishment which will keep them afloat in the polls for a while. Trump and Bernie are both emotional, astute and charismatic but Bernie has more ideological substance and resounding analytic agenda relative to Trump. Trump might inadvertently run as independent because of the growing resentfulness with the Republican establishment who deem him as “callous” which he will hurt them by stealing some of their caucus indirectly solidifying the Democrats (Bill Clinton) narrow win (Remember what Ross Perot did to George Bush in 1993 election). Trump is a controversial divider within the Republican party while Bernie is a economic mouthpiece of the forgotten progressives which is will surely cement the Democrats base even if he loses. Sanders’ progressive platform has started pulling Clinton closer to the left in order to win the Democratic nomination so by all means he has made impact. While Trump words are colloquially; “accidents that keeps happening” rendering establishment republicans, Tea party and Fox news to their ungoing embarrassment .Regardless both candidates are still faced with an uphill battle to reach the final nomination but Bernie has a better chance.
But how cool with it be if Trump won the Republican nomination which will surely deliver the next POTUS to Democrats………..We can only dream..
General Muhammed Buhari-Incoming President of Nigeria
President Johnathan Goodluck-Outgoing President of Nigeria
This past year has been marred by economic downturn that will dictate the future of the Nigerian financial security. The oil price drop caused a snowball effect that has dampened the GDP growth from close to 7 percent to 4.8 percent for the 2015 year. The oil drop caused the Central Bank of Nigeria to remove its leverage of artificially supporting the naria with respect to the strong dollar by spending federal reserves leading to the dramatic drop of the naria by 10 percent, increasing fear of foreign and domestic investors’ confidence and downgrade in credit rating to BB minus. Regrettably, I still expect the currency to fall to 230-245 Naria to dollar in the coming months. Ratings downgrade is also attributed to the Boko Haram insurgency (which is on the dwindling recently) and election instability (relatively peaceful transition). Nigeria, Iran, Russia and Venezuela has been heavily hampered by the drop in oil prices, weak demand from Asian countries especially China and petroleum oversupply from United States. As the this coming year marks the return of Muhammed Buhari as a democratically elected president over the outgoing Johnathan Goodluck. Buhari has to debate either to apply three methods of resuscitating the economy either passing austerity measures, conducting Keynesian economics or implementing mixed economy policies. Here are some key facts, suggestions and insights:
1. Total debt in Nigeria ($67.73 billion) is summation of external debt ($9.71 billion), federal domestic debt ($47.05 billion) and states domestic debt ($10.97 billion) with Lagos state leading the charge of over $600 million. The numbers might look small in comparison to United states with total debt sitting close to $18 trillion. The fact is America although in a recessive economic state generated $16 trillion in GDP while Nigeria generated $526 billion in GDP in 2014. The American invariably can sustain and accumulate more debt than Nigeria because of the simple word called “diversification”. Nigerian economy has primarily focused its revenue generation from petroleum production (roughly 70 percent) which is showing the over-reliance of a certain commodity on the economy therefore the Nigerian economy should mirror the periodicity of oil prices. The American economy is diversified in retail markets,energy,tourism, mining markets, healthcare, military, food, entertainment, financial services, construction, agriculture that generate revenue internally and externally. Diversification encourages healthy competition, revenue generation, privatization, job employment, expansive and emerging markets and increase in foreign investments. The Nigerian debt to GDP ratio might be low sitting at 11% but its credit rating disallows Nigeria from borrowing and reduces yields from government bond in comparison to USA’s 102% debt to GDP ratio which is offset by diversified economic portfolio and strong Standard and Poor ratings (AAA).
2. Inflation rate – Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) controls both the monetary policy and the federal spending unlike the European countries that has European Union/European Central Bank (EU/ECB) control its monetary economy and its individual countries control its spending power. Nigerian system is advantageous because our debt policy can be managed concurrently with our government spending avoiding crisis similar to Greece. CBN currently runs an interest rate of 13% in comparison to USA Federal reserve rate close to zero percent (0.25%). At Nigerian current interest rate, it disallows loans and borrowings for small businesses and expansion of projects by current private companies. I am not advising that we should mimic American interest rate which is inappropriately too low that could cause another financial bubble that caused the 2000 tech crash and 2008 real-estate crash-globalized debt obligations (recession). An interest rate of about 2-8 percent is ideologically a safe bracket where the federal government keeps stimulates privatized sectors’ and public lending while encouraging a competitive capitalist atmosphere. The Nigerian inflation rate has been increasing rapidly over the past few years sitting currently at 8.7 percent and projected to sit around 11% this year compared to United States that hovers around -0.10%. Americas’ extremely low inflation rate is associated with weak demand from industrialized countries, low employment, weak exporting power and strong dollar. Nigerian inflation has been on the upswing unexpectedly due to the oil price drop with no direct effect on wage increment to match the inflation trend causing the middle class to decrease, reducing purchasing power, encourages public savings and poverty increase. If there is an increase in goods generated by the government as a result of diversification, it creates more demand with a reduction in money supply will minimize inflation rate thereby stabilizing the effects of the oil prices. It was expected the Nigeria to deflate with the worldwide oil glut and national currency drop but the internal and external demand has been stagnant, rising unemployment and stagnant wages growth produces a counter-effect of inflammatory and unexpected inflation. There has to be a balance set by the Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Nigeria between interest rates and inflation rate because lowering the interest rate might irrevocably cause inflation to increase rapidly.
3. Financial policies has to institutionalized to be passed and implemented to face the dire circumstances that coming in the facing years. We cannot adopt full austerity measures that will cripple federal spending, increase employment, increase tax cuts especially to the wealthy (trickle-down economics), lower interest rates, constrains structural microeconomics, private sector driven, stimulus deterrent,cutting social benefits and programs, crowding in financial phenomena but inadvertently expect debt reduction thereby reducing debt to GDP ratio. Taking Keynesian economic approach increases federal spending, lower interest rates, expands structural microeconomics, stimulus allocations, increases taxes, retains social benefits and programs, crowding in and increase in government regulation leading to market simulation and restoration of investors’ confidence but erodes the debt to GDP ratio by increase debt. Austerity measures are seen as “conservative” while Keynesian is seen as “liberal” approach to handling financial crisis. The common key for both financial policies is that they both increase demand but austerity causes economic strangulation and Keynesian policies increases debt and government over-dependence . It is evident that looking at the recovery from the 2008 world recession that America using more of a Keynesian approach outperformed the European austerity measures both are both still in financial strain. Nigerian can use this playbook to ply a more “mixed economy” approach that uses the best of austerity and Keynesian economics to simulate our economy in the upcoming months. Currently USA runs a mixed economy system which should be used in Nigeria. “Socialized capitalism” is my pseudonym that defines mixed economy. Nigeria runs a corrupt- laden and bloated federal system resembling a more socialist leaning capital economy. Nigeria has to become more capitalist, the government is bloated and privatization on the ideals of diversification is the key to economic growth. Nigeria has to create external aggregate demand from other countries to boost more exports and create a more balance of demand. Diversification and raw material exports under Keynesian principled financial policies are keys to gates of economic success.
In conclusion, Nigeria often deemed as an emerging market but corrupt has to appropriate its financial policy to mirror a more Keynesian-mixed economy that will encourage increased federal spending,marginal increase in taxes, closing tax loopholes, reducing wasteful expenditures on unscrupulous projects, reducing executive, legislative and states’ arms of Government’ salaries and benefits, encourage corporate profitability under government oversight on corruption, cutting pensions on past politicians, increase financial accountability on petroleum industry, promote trade unions, reduce interest rate, fight unexpected inflation, adopt socialized capitalism, encourage states revenue, increase oversight of federal financial allocation to states, create a surplus, invests in education and infrastructure, increase financial market liquidity with investors’ confidence, create a diversified financial portfolio, attract more domestic and foreign investors, avoid trickle-down economics and balanced federal oversight on increasing privatization. It is well quite ostensible to see Greece financial implosion and its domino effects on the fragile Eurozone without considering the economic model of Keynesian-mixed economy.CBN has to history match inflation rate, wage increase, employment rate and GDP growth in project a balance system to avoid excessive inflation, stagflation or excessive deflation.
Neither a free market capitalist state nor socialist state does not create a strong middle class but a socialized capitalist system does!!!
Yanis Varoufakis- Greek Financial Minister….a student of the Keynesian economics….He has been adamant about austerity measures stipulated by IMF, EU and ECB (Troika) and German chancellor Angela Merkel.
These critically acclaimed documentaries capture the systematic use of the American military industrial complex to unjustifiably cause somewhat irrevocable detriment to the world in the name of anti-terrorism, anti-communism, democracy, capitalism, globalization, pro-neoconservative,anti-islamic fascism since the 1950’s to present day. The first documentary called Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 Oscar award wining piece directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney details the effects of torture as a means to retrieve classified information from supposedly terror suspects under the inept jurisdiction of national security during the Iraq and Afghanistan War disregarding Geneva Convention’s stipulations and rewriting laws to absolve the White House administration of any wrongdoing. Why We fight directed by Eugene Jarecki, is a 2005 documentary film that shows the subversive use of the ever expanding American military to shape foreign policy and dictate itself as the strongest geopolitical power despite the dire warnings of Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1951.
I still contemplate whether the safety net that precludes our current geopolitical hostile climate is strong by the actions of controversial and sometimes unjustifiable American foreign ideologue and its impact in the foreseeable future.
Oil prices has been relatively stable hovering at $110 dollars/barrel for the past four years until the uneventful summer ( early July 2014) that saw the rapid 30% decline in prices. As of today, the price sits at $70 dollars per barrel which continues to weaken the already fragile world economic market. Austerity measures and supply/production cutbacks talks has been resonating among countries to counter and re-surge the oil prices. The falling import demand by United States; a major consumer and the onset of their domestic unconventional hydrocarbon production (hydraulic fracturing) and the decline of global demand (especially Asia) are the central ploy of the oil price fall therefore rendering the world market “over-saturated” with oil. Here are some of the effects of falling oil price on countries, investors and global market.
OPEC: The 12 member “oil” cartel that includes Libya, Ecuador, Angola Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Venezuela, United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Kuwait are center-stage players in the world oil market. They had a crucial meeting to discuss the current volatility of market and demand to supply ratio with its effects on individual incoming monetary deficits. They predictably agreed to continue with the current pace of production (30 million barrel/day) regardless of the oil price decline. OPEC Secretary-General Abdallah Salem el-Badri was quted saying “We will watch how the market will behave”. This action will further hurt the oil prices. It has been reported that a reduction of 2 million per day will increase the price per barrel. They are resilient because of the fear of losing oil market capitalization to competitors especially U.S. and Russia (although affected by NATO and/or European sanctions). They predict that OPEC will retain and win out the price war with non-OPEC competitors in the long run. OPEC produces a third of the world supply.
Abdallah Salem el-Badri- Secretary General of OPEC
United States : United States are one of the reasons why the oil prices are falling because of the boom of the “unconventional” shale hydrocarbon production on the past eight years. United States, a formerly top importer of oil and gas has sharply cut down due to the boom of shale oil. The production by United States will continue to grow regardless of oil prices. The self dependence will continue to dissociate U.S from the geopolitical instability for the Middle East and Europe thereby making the U.S oil market mutually exclusive. United Sates is well on its way to be the top hydrocarbon producer in the world but the decline in oil price will curb a positional forecast. It is well known that shale oil is roughly three times more expensive to produce than conventional means. The short term effect will make United States a relative winner over OPEC but a continual decline of oil prices will cut down shale production for oil companies to retain and/or increase profit margin.
OPEC MEMBERS (Gulf states): Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait; de facto stalwarts that pushed for OPEC decision in retaining production supply thereby forcing United States to balk domestic shale production. They are all of one accord because they have strong monetary liquidity (combined more than $1 trillion in reserves) that could relatively support them if their economy runs into a deficit during the ongoing oil glut. Saudi Arabia; the top oil oil exporter promises other OPEC members to be patient and promises that in 6 months there will be rebound to $80-90 per barrel at the expense of United States’s reduction in shale production.
Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi
OPEC MEMBERS (Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela): These OPEC countries tried to push for cut in production to spike up the demand thereby increasing the oil price. This stance is accounted for their domestic budgets that cannot withstand the falling oil prices which could result in austerity measures to retain monetary value and meet its obligatory financial statues . In comparison to the Gulf states, this countries have a larger population that demands for a bigger domestic revenue from oil to run their economy (combined less than $200 billion in reserves). Nigeria has been forced this week to devalue its currency by 8% reducing Nigerian economy by $40 billion (oil revenue accounts for 80% of Nigerian spending power). In Angola, the monetary value fell about 3% since September reducing their economy by $15 billion. Venezuela currently undergoing strong inflation caused by government currency need a strong spike in oil prices to pay for its domestic welfare services. Iraq has recently recaptured some critical oil production areas from ISIS thereby cutting down ISIS sale of oil to the black markets from 70,000 barrel to 20,000 barrel a day with the aid of U.S airstrikes but are still on the cringe of suffering economic downturn. Iran (especially Ayotollah Ali Khamenei) have been open about their dismay of OPEC’s stance on continual optimal oil production especially Saudi Arabia.They accuse Saudi Arabia of using this glut as a template to further suppress the geopolitical-religious base of Shia (Iran have the most Shiate population in the world). They also point at United States for using the this economic price war to further to choke the nuclear negotiations in their favor because of the upcoming economic hardship at Iran’s horizon.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei- Supreme leader of Iran
Nigerian Minster for Oil and gas- Mrs Diezani Allison Madueke and OPEC President elect
Russia : Despite the imposed NATO sanctions and oil glut, Russia’s budget forecast is still relatively balanced. Russia; a major exporter of oil and gas which accounts for 70% of its revenue. Russian monetary value has hit record lows with respect to the euro and dollar (30% decline). It is reported that oil price decline is costing Russia roughly $100 billion a year and imposed sanctions accounts for $40 billion. Russia is currently discussing cutting down its production by 30, 000 barrel/day to offshoot the price and making budget cuts to sustain their economy.
Vladimir Putin-Prime Minster of Russia
Asia: Asia’s countries could benefit from the declining decrease in oil price because of its increasing demand for oil as a function of high population. China, the incumbent top oil importer stands to benefit from falling oil prices but it will not offset their slowing economy. Japan could use the cheaper oil imports to suppress the current inflation. India benefits from falling oil prices by reducing its current deficit.
Europe: Europe has been subjected to low inflation and weak growth and its fear of upcoming recession but cheaper oil could lessen such fears. Cheaper oil prices should boost the spending power of Europe’s consumers, who are still under high unemployment reins. However European Central Bank could sets it sights at inflation target at 2% due to falling oil prices.
My forecast: OPEC will win the price war with the American shale producers because their production costs($50-70 per barrel) are too high compared to OPEC($10-20 per barrel) and OPEC will regain and restore their dominance in market shares.But the question is when? To the everyday consumer, cheaper oil means cheaper fuel prices and more savings. Stronger multinational oil companies(ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and Total) will lose marginal market share due to falling prices in comparison to smaller American shale dependent producers (Continental resources,Anardarko, Devon energy, Newfield, Chesapeake) who are very susceptible to fall in investment, profit windfall, corporate buyout due to losses, or face dire company bankruptcy.
Steve Coll’s in-depth factual look into the historical, political and foreign sway on the World stage of ExxonMobil starting from United States , Indonesia, Nigeria,Russia, Middle East and Venezuela. The “ExxonMobil way” is the iron clad bible of modern day corporate culture. I was fascinated with the intricate network and policies that ExxonMobil corporation ensues of free market capitalism and big oil. Bewilderment is the only human expression that quantifies the turning pages of this book.
My favorite line in the book: “I’m not a U.S. company,” Raymond says, “and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.”- Former CEO Lee Raymond when asked on building more U.S. refineries as a form of corporate patriotism to offset future domestic gasoline shortages and international geopolitical crisis
American media has been captivated by the insurgence of #Bring back our girls.I am a Nigerian where I loved for 15 years before moving to USA. Boko Haram means “Western education is a sin”. The idea of western education, lifestyle, government and economy is deemed “evil”. The shock that resonates from the idea of kidnapping 300 girls in the name of terrorism is beyond human comprehension but this is what Nigeria is currently facing. Boko Haram has grown from a desolate group to a violent, ruthless, Islamic anarchists that has forever stained the image of Nigeria.
Boko Haram is a malignant cancer that has been growing since the inception of Nigerian independence of 1960. The British left the power of Nigeria favorably to the northerners which was the beginning of the problem. Boko Haram is a function of tribal history, Sharia laws, anti-American ideologue and anarchy. It is very improper to look through the lens of the present to understand Boko Haram. The fear that has held southern Nigerian (Igbos and Yorubas) in a contemplative mode on the foreseen instability of Nigeria.
Nigeria is an ideal country where religion and state should be entirely separated because of the polytheistic environment (Christianity+Islam+Traditional religions) thereby giving no favoritism towards any. The Northerners(mostly Muslim) have passed Sharia for their religious beliefs which the Southerners have agreed to as long as non-Muslims are not affected. Christians,Muslims and traditionalists have never imposed any their beliefs as a way of life on Nigeria and vice versa thereby separating religion from state affairs.
But Northern and West African Muslims since the advent of the Moor’s invasion of West Africa has envisioned an “Islamic African Continent”. Sudan(now separated to North and South), Somali Mali and Central African republic are facing religious conflicts recently due to the Muslims pushing for an Islamic state This idea has festered for centuries. Boko Haram has carried out the philosophy with tools of anarchy by kidnapping, murder, car bombings and suicide bombings. Thousands of people have died in the
Knowing Nigeria,I believe that Boko Haram is sponsored by some government officials, Islamic religious leaders, local sympathizers, Niger+Cameroon+Chad Muslim dissidents. I think Boko Haram is not directly linked with Al-Qaeda but more of a copycat group that even the evil Osama Bin Laden would be dismayed by the capture of the 300 girls.
America has be careful in coming into Nigeria because it is could result to Egypt , Libya and Syria ungovernable current situation. Boko Haram has caused havoc since the bombing of a United Nations building about four years ago. I think Nigeria should really consider the permanent solution of separating and forming two different countries and let Northern Nigeria live under their Sharia law while democracy continues in southern Nigeria. The oil wealth and financial institutions are situated in the south and that is the major reason why the Northerners will not agree to separation.
My analysis: Unprecedented, insightful, fundamental financial playbook in short to long term value investment independent of time that advocates disciplined decision making in achieving the insatiable goal of making money.
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