by GARRY BURKE – WHY would 75 million Americans vote for Donald Trump?
Why would 15,000 “extreme American patriots” storm the Capitol building in Washington to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power?
Donald Trump is, and always has been, an appalling human being. Granted he did a handful of good things as president but overall his presidency has been an unprecedented political failure.
- Trumpism was triggered by workplace automation & the success of the globalist Left.
- Many people feel betrayed by this New World order in which they have no place.
- Feeling powerless they buy guns, knowing they won't be ignored with an assault rifle in hand.
That is as it is and the history of the past four years cannot be rewritten.
What is important now is to understand what has happened in the United States and what is happening in the so-called western democracies that has engendered such cultish support for Trumpism.
The support for Trump should tell us that something is seriously wrong in our societies, that there is a movement away from the democratic norms by a significant sector of the community.
We ignore it or brush it aside at our peril. This is no longer the looney fringe and we should try to understand how it came to be and what we need to do to restore cohesion in our societies.
Clearly, this emerging situation has been brought about by change. It did not exist before, so what has happened to cause it to exist now?
Two things stand out: Automation and the success of the political Left over the past 60 or 70 years.
Automation, artificial intelligence, digitisation – call it what you will – is perhaps the greatest present threat to cohesion in societies such as America and Australia.
For some reason which is not apparent, it occupies almost no attention among politicians and the media. Many studies have been done but they attract little interest.
ROBOTS
Hundreds of thousands of jobs – soon to be millions of jobs in Australia – are being done by machines, by robots, by computers.
Car construction, food processing, banking, online shopping, off-road vehicle driving – the list is seemingly endless – are all areas where artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over because it is better and cheaper.
Studies indicate that industries such as transport and storage will see up to 52 per cent of current jobs replaced by automation by 2030. Losses in manufacturing are projected to be only slightly lower.
The prediction is that 600,000 jobs will be lost to AI in Australia this year and by 2030, 2.7 million jobs that now exist here will not. The “feel good” prediction is that twice as many jobs will be created by AI as are lost.
But the people taking up those new jobs will certainly not be the people losing them.
Today’s losers are the under-educated people now driving trucks, tractors and taxis. They are the people who work on production lines doing dull, repetitive work because they do not have the educational qualifications to do much else.
These people have neither the ability nor the facility to re-skill as quickly as is necessary.
They are losing their employment, their income, their ability to support their families, their self-respect and their sense of power.
BOTTOM
Largely they are the non-tertiary educated white males. The Blacks and Hispanics have not lost anything because historically they had nothing anyway. They have always been on the bottom of the heap.
America is ahead of the curve so it has more of these victims than Australia. Tens of millions have had their lives turned upside down by automation and globalisation which took highly-paid American and Australian jobs and gave them to lowly-paid workers in emerging economies such as China.
You could argue that militant unions demanding and achieving unrealistically high wages in western economies created a situation where industries moved to the low-cost emerging nations. The now non-existent Australian car manufacturing industry is a case in point.
Overall, it has been the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.
In America, these people live in “rust-belt” regions where factories are closed and there is absolutely no hope of a job. They own or are paying off houses that they have no hope of selling.
Their past was good. They were the hard-working, God-fearing, law-abiding backbone of society that made America great. Their future is both bleak and hopeless.
And it gets worse.
Their former champions, the union-based political parties that were formed to protect their interests, have been high-jacked.
They have become the parties of the inner-city elites. The cappuccino set. The woke people.
They see their parties, the Democratic Party and the ALP, fixated on issues such as affirmative action which to them just means that a lesser qualified person with darker skin will get a job ahead of them.
RELIGIOUS
They see their children’s chances of a university education being diminished because entry requirements for “minority” students are much lower, thus filling available places.
They see their Rugby Union hero being banned from the game for mentioning his honestly-held religious beliefs. They see Anti-Discrimination Boards becoming thought police.
They see their parties fighting the fight for Aborigines and African Americans, the gay community, for refugees, for the transgender people. Not for them.
They see unbridled abortion financed by tax dollars, excessive sexual harassment laws, attacks on beloved national institutions such as Australia Day and ANZAC day ad infinitum.
And they hear the leader of their party, the Democratic Party in 2016 describe them as “deplorables”.
They can hardly recognise this New World order in which they have no place.
So they react. They feel powerless so they buy a gun. They know that with a military assault rifle in their hand they will not be ignored.
Donald Trump comes along and tells them he understands their problems and he will fix them. He is rich, powerful and, like them, he doesn’t like Mexicans or Blacks.
It’s a con of course. He has no idea of their problems and even less interest or ability to do anything about it. But in the absence of anyone else, he wins them over.
Shades of Pauline Hanson. Or perhaps more like Hitler in post-war depression-ravaged Germany. Many parallels.
So now the United States has tens of thousands of heavily armed Trump cultists threatening a civil war.
HARDLY RELATE
It has a Republican Party fuelling the fire and a Democratic Party that has spent so many years removing itself from its base that it can hardly relate to them.
On top of that the jobs for the under-skilled are vanishing at an alarming pace and we have absolutely no plans for how society is going to provide for these people.
How are we going to give them a meaningful life when we can produce all the goods and services society needs without their input?
It is an issue to which Australian and American leaders should be giving much more attention than they now are.PC
Can’t disagree with any of it. The white working class need someone to represent them and find solutions to the automation disaster. One solution in blue collar opportunities will be the boom infrastructure projects tackling climate change. Billions in contracts potentially. Trump is a liability and so are the senate loonies that support him. Their way lies ruin.
Donald Trump has many personal failings as most of us who supported him would readily agree. But as Nick Bury and others have acknowledged, he did some great things during his short period in office. All I can say to those who hate Trump for his character defects is they must REALLY hate John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton – a couple of sleaze-bags who cheated on their wives and, in the case of Clinton, brazenly lied to the American people under oath.
Hey Garry,
I just re-read your article and cripes, – you are so incredibly pessimistic!
Nick Bury’s reply is incredibly true! He writes so well, is able to précis Trump’s achievements so rationally, with truthful detail.
And yes, like all of us, Trump has a few faults, but they fade into insignificance beside all the positives of what he achieved in three short years.
SO WHAT if he was a Game Show Host; SO WHAT if he produced Beauty Pageants; SO WHAT if he made stacks of money from shrewd Real Estate Deals and SO WHAT if he built many golf courses and regularly used them. Moreover – SO WHAT if he changed wives twice and SO WHAT if he had a low tolerance for any signs of disloyalty amongst those around him! SO B————Y WHAT!
None of his past pursuits warrants anyone calling him cruel names and denigrating his very real, Presidential and Life achievements. Nobody should dismiss Trump’s particularly agile, business brain, whose amazing deployment led to its owner rubbing up against all sorts of people, from every strata of society and from many walks of life. That makes for a very aware and well-rounded character and that has to be a great plus!
I have three words for people with this level of Trump Derangement Syndrome – INCREDIBLY BLIND SNOBS! They can easily outstrip the ingrained, entrenched snobbery of good old Blighty where it has always thrived!
DISGRACEFUL!
And already the Washington elite’s ??? puppet, the old Socialist Biden, is undoing most of the good Trump initiated, facilitated and ensured. NOW THAT IS A HUGE WORRY!
Just a question or two:
Automation won’t be cheap. It will cost us our way of life. That’s a big price, isn’t it?
Both USA and we depend on rural people for our food supply. We currently don’t value them sufficiently to control the supermarket monopolies that are driving them into poverty. The primary producers are gobsmacked that they are poor because they can’t get value for their produce and yet the wealthy eat their labour. Fair? Monopoly has never been fair.
So it is no longer their country in their eyes.
Wealth distribution won’t be skewed – it will be off the chart. USA people may starve by the millions.
I T people will hold all the wealth. It is already happening.
Already the ultra wealthy are building unassailable bunkers and storing preserved food and arsenals. And not from nuclear attack. From attacks from people. True.
What will happen? The supermarkets will own the farms and use automation to provide the labour?
The stores will be run by robots? Already happening. Robot checkouts. Robot pallets. Robot trucks.
Oops – who are they going to sell the food to if nobody can afford to buy it? Or pay the rent to live in cities to be customers?
So – do we need the big RE-SET? On that score, to prevent the total collapse of the world economy, it can’t come fast enough.
On the other hand, if that happens – will we then be bound by a global dollar?
Will the unplanned, completely random pandemic continue to wipe us out? Or was it – er – you know – unplanned?
Will there be a world government? Will currency cease to have value as we know it? Already money is only an electronic entry. Will hacking and scamming then be treated as capital crimes? Soon computers will unravel a 25 character encryption.
A final question: If all Western Governments are in serious debt, who is holding the chips?
Maybe we should all start working with our hands again.
Oops! Then we would be supporters of crazy Donald, who said he was trying to save his people and didn’t know what he was doing.
Or did he?
The article opens up with the statement
“Donald Trump is, and always has been, an appalling human being”
This can only be a biased opinion packaged up as a statement of fact. This is disappointing and only displays an agenda that fails in the reasonableness test. There is an agenda wrapped in the article and it is likely not truthful.
There are at least 75 million people, according to the writers own data, that consider the writer is incorrect, they voted for Trump and they did not think he is “Appalling” and it wasn’t Trump who rigged the election and stole votes. That is Appalling.
If this writer can’t even get an opening statement correct, then I for one am not bothered in hearing anything that writer has to say , whether he is right on the remaining article or not.
Firstly, Trump cut company tax, bureaucracy and red tape, and stayed away from the Paris agreement. What happened! Much more wealth was generated until covid hit, blacks and hispanics unemployment levels fell to record lows, and there were low electricity prices. Furthermore, manufacturing grew in the rust belt states, and as competition grew for labour at the bottom end, real wages started to rise. Many poor families were on average about USD7,000-00 better off per annum.
Trump was awake up to China from day one, knowing that they were not free traders at all. Basically the Chinese state would subsidise a company to produce whatever at half the cost of its US competitors. When the US competitors consequently went out of business the chinese would then double their prices anyway. He wasn’t going to wear it, and accompanying accusations of zenophobia etc made against him as a consequence were pathetic.
Trump used economic leverage instead of body bags to reduce middle east conflict, where he had started to achieve great success, as evidenced by Israel making peace with several Arab countries. Had he been re-elected he’d have probably also wrecked Iran’s terrorist business model in his next term.
He handled covid badly, and could both behave badly and be erratic, but he was effective and he’d certainly initially reduced the number of Americans sleeping rough, which was why the poor voted for him. He is not apparently a racist at all, as alleged.
LBJ was a dreadful person, but he greatly advanced the cause of civil rights. Previously, it was fine for African Americans to die for the US in a war, but they couldn’t sit next to whites on a bus, use the same bathroom, go to university, or eat at the same restaurant, which was a disgrace.
Jimmy Carter was/is one of America’s finest, but apparently he couldn’t even delegate the decision as to who was allowed to use the White House tennis court.
Trump was effective at getting worthwhile tasks done, despite being distracted by the left’s 4 years of disruptive fury. The article being commented on is too devoid of merit to have warranted posting on a site such as this.
Well you’ve had a pretty good record – everyone’s allowed a stinker of an article occasionally – even if it is shallow and lame.
What a stupid article focusing on leftism. Those who supported Trump are not a cult, they do not need de programming and are entitled to their conservative opinion. At least Trump was not keen on gender free toilets – just go where you like. This lot will end up flushed.
GARRY: a concise, well-thought article with which I mostly agree. HOWEVER:
TRUMP WAS REALLY TRYING – PUSHING BACK: He had started the difficult and necessary trade battle with China, had increased tariffs and was very gradually overturning the huge imbalance of trade that exists, not only with China, but also with many other Countries. He criticised China for flooding the World steel market – (but must say, presently good for our iron ore) – and he fervently promoted – ‘buy American’ – products at home.
HUGE PROBLEMS: Trump was acutely aware of the gargantuan problems festering in the ‘rust belt’; problems being caused by automation etc. etc. and problems which every advanced Nation now faces. He was facilitating the building of new factories and plants, encouraging innovation, new industry and business start-ups.
NO QUICK FIX: These problems were NEVER to be fixed quickly and with the Wuhan pandemic being the great disruptor, it’s an out and out tragedy that Trump was not given another term in Office to further his work. Yes, and in parts, the election WAS provably, undeniably fraudulent!
TRUMP THE FIXER: Trump had NOT BEEN BOGGED in politics for decades, he had fresh ideas, he possesses a very astute business brain and had gathered a wise team for intelligent counsel, which he took. He is – always has been – a heartfelt Patriot. His many decisions for prosperity and deals for peace would have continued pushing the U.S.A. along a good trajectory.
What MUST BE DISREGARDED is the 90% of the blatantly, left-leaning medias’ immoderate, often untrue and immature bias!
PROBLEM -SOCIALISM: Man faced – and overcame – gigantic problems after the first industrial revolution and I was hopeful that once again we would gradually conquer these new hurdles, BUT – WITHOUT overt socialism rearing it’s ugly head!
PROBLEM – THE BIDEN/HARRIS ADMINISTRATION: However, pessimism has now descended for many Conservatives as it’s not at all clear just how far down this perilous road to socialism the new administration will descend. Erroneous, illegitimate Socialism masquerades as a violently quick fix. Oh crikey!
Trump was
Trump
I agree entirely. There is a massive part of America now ignored. Bad times ahead. Time to stop exporting freedom and democracy and fixing the Homefront!
The President’s legacy, if he ever deserved one, will be destroyed by the media, but those angry Americans will only get more frustrated by woke and a move to the left.
Extraordinarily well reasoned. The big question is where does this all end?