Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept discusses Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit
Greenwald understands what took place and why, as the Democratic mainstream media still scrambles to understand what took place.
Hillary herself was so confident she planned a monster big party in a glass ceiling room supposedly symbolic of her becoming the first woman president.
Fireworks on Ice
The New York Post discusses Hillary’s Giant Victory Celebration.
Law enforcement officials and the FDNY have been told to prepare for a barge-launched pyrotechnic display off Manhattan’s Javits Center, where Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine will join their supporters for the Nov. 8 vote count, sources said.
The aerial detonations would last for two minutes, with the triumphal celebration permitted to start as early as 9:30 p.m. — a mere half-hour after the polls close in New York, sources said.
Cops and firefighters were blown away by Clinton’s hubris in planning the fireworks display, which would eclipse the shower of blazing sparkles that preceded the balloon drop at July’s Democratic National Convention.
“It’s a little presumptuous of her to plan on winning. I guess she put in for this before Friday,” one NYPD detective said.
Others said the actual election results could put a damper on things, but one firefighter raised the specter of a 2000-style recount and added, “So what’s she going to do, put the fireworks on ice?”
Glass Ceiling Collision
Time Magazine reports Hillary Clinton Collides Again With Highest Glass Ceiling.
Other than the bit about a collision with a glass ceiling, Time magazine blames the “stench of sexism”.
Let’s tune into Greenwald in a lengthy but important snip.
The parallels between the U.K.’s shocking approval of the Brexit referendum in June and the U.S.’ even more shocking election of Donald Trump as president last night are overwhelming. Elites (outside of populist right-wing circles) aggressively unified across ideological lines in opposition to both. Supporters of Brexit and Trump were continually maligned by the dominant media narrative (validly or otherwise) as primitive, stupid, racist, xenophobic, and irrational. In each case, journalists who spend all day chatting with one another on Twitter and congregating in exclusive social circles in national capitals — constantly re-affirming their own wisdom in an endless feedback loop — were certain of victory. Afterward, the elites whose entitlement to prevail was crushed devoted their energies to blaming everyone they could find except for themselves, while doubling down on their unbridled contempt for those who defied them, steadfastly refusing to examine what drove their insubordination.
The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades, have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security of hundreds of millions of people. While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade, Wall Street casino gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the perpetrators and sent the poorest and most marginalized to bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much — when they caused a ruckus — and were then scornfully condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious, global game of meritocracy.
That message was heard loud and clear. The institutions and elite factions that have spent years mocking, maligning, and pillaging large portions of the population — all while compiling their own long record of failure and corruption and destruction — are now shocked that their dictates and decrees go unheeded. But human beings are not going to follow and obey the exact people they most blame for their suffering. They’re going to do exactly the opposite: purposely defy them and try to impose punishment in retaliation. Their instruments for retaliation are Brexit and Trump. Those are their agents, dispatched on a mission of destruction: aimed at a system and culture they regard — not without reason — as rife with corruption and, above all else, contempt for them and their welfare.
For those who tried to remove themselves from the self-affirming, vehemently pro-Clinton elite echo chamber of 2016, the warning signs that Brexit screechingly announced were not hard to see. Two short passages from a Slate interview I gave in July summarized those grave dangers: that opinion-making elites were so clustered, so incestuous, so far removed from the people who would decide this election — so contemptuous of them — that they were not only incapable of seeing the trends toward Trump but were unwittingly accelerating those trends with their own condescending, self-glorifying behavior.
1. Democrats have already begun flailing around trying to blame anyone and everyone they can find — everyone except themselves — for last night’s crushing defeat of their party.
Put simply, Democrats knowingly chose to nominate a deeply unpopular, extremely vulnerable, scandal-plagued candidate, who — for very good reason — was widely perceived to be a protector and beneficiary of all the worst components of status quo elite corruption. It’s astonishing that those of us who tried frantically to warn Democrats that nominating Hillary Clinton was a huge and scary gamble — that all empirical evidence showed that she could lose to anyone and Bernie Sanders would be a much stronger candidate, especially in this climate — are now the ones being blamed: by the very same people who insisted on ignoring all that data and nominating her anyway.
It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate. But, just as Obama did so powerfully in 2008, he could credibly run as an enemy of the D.C. and Wall Street system that has steamrolled over so many people, while Hillary Clinton is its loyal guardian, its consummate beneficiary.
2. That racism, misogyny, and xenophobia are pervasive in all sectors of America is indisputable from even a casual glance at its history, both distant and recent.
There are reasons why all presidents until 2008 were white and all 45 elected presidents have been men. There can be no doubt that those pathologies played a substantial role in last night’s outcome. But that fact answers very few questions and begs many critical ones.
To begin with, one must confront the fact that not only was Barack Obama elected twice, but he is poised to leave office as a highly popular president: now viewed more positively than Reagan.
3. Over the last six decades, and particularly over the last 15 years of the endless war on terror, both political parties have joined to construct a frightening and unprecedentedly invasive and destructive system of authoritarian power, accompanied by the unbridled authority vested in the executive branch to use it.
As a result, the president of the United States commands a vast nuclear arsenal that can destroy the planet many times over; the deadliest and most expensive military ever developed in human history; legal authorities that allow him to prosecute numerous secret wars at the same time, imprison people with no due process, and target people (including U.S. citizens) for assassination with no oversight; domestic law enforcement agencies that are constructed to appear and act as standing, para-militarized armies; a sprawling penal state that allows imprisonment far more easily than most Western countries; and a system of electronic surveillance purposely designed to be ubiquitous and limitless, including on U.S. soil.
It was only a matter of time before instability, backlash, and disruption resulted. Both Brexit and Trump unmistakably signal its arrival. The only question is whether those two cataclysmic events will be the peak of this process, or just the beginning. And that, in turn, will be determined by whether their crucial lessons are learned — truly internalized — or ignored in favor of self-exonerating campaigns to blame everyone else.
Celebration on Ice, Permanently
Hillary’s fireworks are on ice, permanently, and gratefully. The idea that women would or should vote for Hillary just because she is a woman is blatantly sexist in and of itself.
Time Magazine doesn’t get it. Nor does mainstream media in general, nor do all the phonies in Hollywood.
Glenn Greenwald explained in detail what happened and why. Here is my short version.
Social Mood Boils Over
Social mood finally boiled over. People are Fed up with inflation and their money buying less and less, they are fed up with perpetual war, they are Fed up with Fed policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. The masses do not understand the Fed is at the center of this, but they are angry. Hillary was the Wall Street greed candidate who promised more of the same. Sexism may have been in play, in some minor way, but this was about social mood, not sex.
Greenwald did make one small error. He stated the “message was heard loud and clear.”
He should have said the “message was delivered loud and clear”
Message delivered. Will it be heard?
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Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Was the message delivered loud and clear? I would have to say NO. More folks voted for Clinton than Trump. But for the design of the Electoral College, Trump would not be President. It is division with out a doubt. US will continue in crisis mode until our direction is resolved.
Paul, if you’d like to abolish the electoral college, please be my guest. I would *love* for career-crimminal democrats to lose their all-or-nothing ‘lock’ on stars like New York, California, etc.
Do so at your own party’s peril.
The Founding Fathers SPECIFICALLY set up the system of Electoral College to elect the President. They wrote it into the US Constitution.
The did this SPECIFICALLY so elections didn’t boil down to a few large cities solely deciding the path of this country. That all states mattered. That rural areas matter. Etc.
You can CHANGE this. Amend the US Constitution.
But please STOP complaining about it.
Please STOP insinuating that Trump is somehow not the legitimate President elect.
Please STOP saying that this is somehow a crisis.
This is the DESIGN of the US Constitution.
Yep. They wanted a president who represented the entire country. Not someone who was extremely popular in limited regions.
yes, great wisdom from the founders. Australia is in a worse position with all policy determined by manic, compliant and busy city dwellers (supermarket hunters) so rural and remote areas and industries (where wealth is created and from where supermarkets are stocked) are left to go to rack and ruin.
“More folks voted for Clinton than Trump. But for the design of the Electoral College, Trump would not be President.”
Only if everything else remained the same. Trump’s campaign would have been different, if the goal was to win the popular vote.
Thus you don’t know that Trump would not have been President, if only popular vote was the determiner.
Not sure that Paul’s post was a criticism of the electoral college. He has a good point about the message not being heard. Trump won unexpectedly, but not overwhelmingly. I’m not sure that makes a difference, you’re still the president whether you win by 1 vote or 537.
Folks are now saying that once Utah is properly counted, the popular vote will be Trumps. I don’t know whether there is any truth in this. BUT given that the difference seems at best to have been as low as 0.2% of the voting population, could you imagine the acrimony and endless recounts that would be taking place RIGHT NOW to settle the matter one way or the other if you were acting on a simple majority basis? It would be utter chaos. The markets would be tanking by the hour and the country would likely implode in bitterness. The USA isn’t Belgium fercrissakes! Here in Britain the wishy washy Liberals have been banging on about proportional representarion in parliament for years. Thank God we don’t have it. The country would be stuck in a permanent rut of nothingness. Nothing would get done. No one would agree. No one would be in charge. We would be going nowhere, (and especially NOT out of Europe!). Sometimes the old time honoured ways are best, even though they may not be perfect.
According to Greenwald “racism, misogyny, and xenophobia are pervasive in all sectors of America”
Laugh out laud! It’s only pervasive in Greenwald’s sector!
He made a dumb statement. I visit the US and see no more examples of those characteristics than anywhere else on the planet. Most places are not even as diverse so can’t be compared anyway. Certainly, as an outsider, there appears a problem with guns and some ghettoisation (if there is such a word) but the vast majority are OK with race, gender, orientation and nationality.
I just hope Trump remembers the message that put him in office.
Btw… Newsweek had to recall 125,000 copies of their President Hillary edition.
A few copies got out, some sellers are asking $2000:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Madam-President-Hillary-Clinton-Newsweek-Magazine-Edition-RARE-/252630585668?hash=item3ad1f4d144:g:5QMAAOSwXeJYJKlY
Both sides would likely want to have one, either to “wish it was so” or to sneer at, and leave on the coffee table when their liberal friends come to visit.
Dewey Wins!!!
Why does Nate Silver still have a job? Maybe he does serve a purpose. If democrats believe him maybe they won’t work that hard.
I like the Investors Business Daily poll. I feel like I wrote ever editorial myself so I know I may be swallowing the Kool-Aid by wanting to believe them. The LA Times poll deserve a serious look and rewrites the convention wisdom.
Look forward to seeing an article on this.
Sincerely,
Charles P. Crawford Personal Financial Representative Allstate
I really think a lot of the criticism of Silver is unjust. When he’s being partisan he makes that clear. If the polls were flawed that’s not his fault, he makes it clear he does the best with the data thats out there and it’s not infallible. Also, he had Trump at about a 28% chance to win, and it happened, like it would three times in ten, assuming the poll information was good. It’s not like he was cooking the data to make it look like Hillary was a shoo-in.
If the polls were flawed, that’s not Nate Silver’s fault? He’s cracked up to be a fricking genius. It’s not too much to ask of him that he be somewhat skeptical of D+12 and D+16 polls in a year when republican turnout in the primaries was basically the same as dem turnout. That kind of poll composition, D+12 (meaning, perhaps the respondents of a poll were, say, 40% dems, 28% reps and the rest independents and others) wasn’t even appropriate for 2008 when the dems turned out in huge numbers in the general election giving a D+7 composition to it. Anyone could see that Trump’s turnout at rallies was massively greater than Clinton’s. But the Einstein of polling couldn’t see any reason for skepticism?
Bull. At best he refused to think about what was going on. He’s not stupid.
Or at worst, he intended to show via the polls that Trump had zero chance of winning, thereby discouraging voters from voting. I think that is probably the more likely scenario.
This is only the first whisper of a message. If it is unheeded or unimplemented it will evolve into a deafening roar. Zioglobalist obstructionists beware.
I agree with most of it except one thing in point three. But he’s correct in assessing that the Dems are living in their own cognitive dissonance.
He should have said the “message was delivered loud and clear”
Good one Mish
People at work are whining like crazy and look distraught. Like they’ve been diagnosed with a deadly disease. I voted for Trump, but if Hillary won. No big deal.
That is because they believe the narrative the MSM gave them about Trump wholeheartedly.
Other than the bit about a collision with a glass ceiling, Time magazine blames the “stench of sexism”.
Time Magazine is a propaganda operation. The sexists were those who voted for Clinton just because she was a woman.
Who cares what Time or Newsweek print? The only time I ever see them is when waiting at the Doctors office and the issues are months old.
Suckers. Go listen to The Who sing “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
So, you’re saying Trump is just like Obama.
No, that song was written about Hillary. Everyone knows Hillary was planning on being Obama’s third term, on steroids.
Aw c’mon! Everyone knows that Trump was born in Kenya and is a covert Muslim!
Well, to be fair, not all democrats voted for Hillary in the primaries. If the DNC hadn’t worked behind the scenes to poison his run, Bernie Sanders might have pulled it off. Bernie and Trump were the only two people running who realize that the US has deep, serious, and systemic problems with its economy which are killing the middle class. This is something the elites of both parties somehow fail to see, obvious though it is. It’s a bit ironic, Hillary was bought and paid for by Wall Street, something you associate with the republican party, while Trump is against free trade agreements, etc., something you’d associate with traditional democrats.
Just another example of the lack of substantial difference between the 2 parties, MQ. Also why Donald was hated by the Political Establishment.
I was surprised Bernie and his followers were not more pissed at Crooked Hillary for stabbing him in the back. They remind me of dogs trained to sit up or roll over on command.
“Bernie and Trump were the only two people running who realize that the US has deep, serious, and systemic problems with its economy which are killing the middle class. This is something the elites of both parties somehow fail to see, obvious though it is.”
They “fail to see” it, because they are not looking. Nor caring. The one and only way they can enrich themselves, is to loot the middle class, which is always and everywhere the producers of the vast majority of value.
Nobody needs a bunch of banksters, lawyers, regulation protected realtors, politicians, bureaucrats, tax accountants, corporate departments full of drones doing nothing more than trying to navigate regulations. None of them produce any value at all. Yet are consuming an ever larger share of the economy’s output. And are comprising an ever larger share of the so called “elites.” All on account of a system set up to allow them to steal more and more of the value created by others.
Trump is a 1950s Republican. Nationalist. In favor of protecting American business and American workers. Against regulation except for banks. Hates on monopolistic behavior. Against war and interventionism. Likes seeing the country get wealthier. May have a tinge of white male patriarchy and can hold his scotch.
The modern GOP left that behind with Nixon.
Hopefully true, Jon, except one thing: Trump is a teetotaler. That’s the only thing that makes me wonder if he can be trusted.
MQ is right. In this election, the Democrats lost the working class, blue collar voters. Trump has four years to reverse the loss of middle class jobs. It was always about jobs. If he can do it, the Republicans will own that demographic for a generation.
Professional politicians spend a great deal of time polishing their image and trying to appear to be what they think their voters want to see & hear. What they really are is much more like the non-politician Donald. After the wikileaks disclosures, Hillary had to admit her public image was not the same as her real self. However the MSM continued to bash Trump for a few inappropriate remarks he made years ago, while the real Hillary went unreported.
Another benefit to the End of Hillary: All the DNC trolls got fired.
“Message delivered. Will it be heard?”
Obviously NOT fully as indicated by his snide, condescending comment which implies that only ignorant, easily fooled rubes voted for Trump:
“It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden.”
It’s obvious Winston, you are an ignorant, easily fooled rube.
I resemble that remark.
and, you are also “deplorable”.
Anyone know where I can buy a “Deplorable and Proud of It” tee shirt?
Do you know how to use a search engine? D’oh.
It was a rhetorical question, Joe. Duh
“It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate.”
Anyone care to comment?
We will just have to see. However I think he intends to be a good president, leaving a legacy of doing well for the country as a whole. He already has achieved wealth, he doesn’t need any more. What he needs now is respect and admiration. It will take a lot to get the democrat lap dogs to like him even if he does do well.
“You can’t get rich in politics unless you’re a crook.” ~ Harry Truman
So we don’t have to worry about that with Donald, and the Clintons already proved it is true.
So then why did he say it ???
Obvious, from obviam, in the way.
Debate, from debattre, beat down.
Contradiction in terms, what is clearly in the way of a nation gets beaten down. The media tried and failed to place Trump that way.
All politicians are “… sociopathic con artist(s) obsessed with personal enrichment…”
They’re all narcissists. They all lie. They all cheat. They all steal.
Their biggest flaw is their own personal belief that they know better how to live your life than you do and they have no qualms using guns to force their beliefs on others.
Which is why Trump resonated with so many people – He wasn’t a “politician” in the sense of the nineteen people he was running against to get nominated, or the one he ran against to win.
The big question now: Can he keep himself clean in a city made of filth?
We’ll see.
Trump is probably a sociopathic con artist. But he already has money. He already has fame. Now he is working on history. If done well, it can work for the rest of us.
I am praying that Trump follows through on his agenda and promptly makes abortion illegal, repeals gay marriage and Obamacare, enacts huge tariffs and trade barriers on China, and starts deporting the millions of illegals living here. Don’t just talk about it, do it! Also good luck on getting the steel mills back in Ohio.
[lol]. Keep praying. Don’t forget that Trump has been both a Democrat and an Independent. He used the Republicans to get elected president. But he really don’t believe in most of the crap you mention above. Sucker.
Joe the Mind Reader: knows exactly what Donald is really thinking. Amazing.
The hubris of the Clinton hag’s planned firework display is equaled only by the sense of entitlement that the taxpayers will pick up the tab for the NYPD and FDNY.
No problem, the Clinton Foundation will pay for it, just like it paid for Chelsea’s wedding.
“It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate.”
“I’m failing to find it so obvious as Greenwald wants me to believe.
He was called not a serious candidate. He was called a Clinton plant who would throw the election to Hillary. He actually was a serious candidate all along and he didn’t throw the election to Hillary. He barnstormed to numerous states in the last days, in an effort to win. He was his own surrogate.
At the Al Smith dinner, an L.A. Times reporter noted that Trump’s comments were not so much about Clinton, but his resentment toward the elites. There is more going on than meets Greenwald’s eyes.
I don’t expect Democrats to ever get the message. The party has always been founded on envy, entitlement, and vanity and that will never change.
I sure hope REPUBLICANS get the message. An outsider took over the party. They need to stop being the party of greed and phony morality and return to their roots of actual representation and restraint. I hope Trump uses his outsider status to give more say to the likes of Amash, Paul, and Flake than to bureaucrats like Christie and Giuliani. I expect Trump to make the country worse, like every POTUS in my lifetime, but hoping that he at least slows the rate of decline..
The repub party is presently composed mostly of RINOs, with a few exceptions. Let’s hope Donald can get the party back on track: smaller government, less taxes and regulations, less interfering in other country’s business. He’s been talking the talk, pretty soon we’ll see if he can walk it through.
I voted to save what is left of this nation. Don’t really care for Trump the man but would be thrilled if he gets even half his agenda done. If he picks 2 or 3 good Supreme Court Justices he will be better than the last 16 years. A vote for Hillary would be a vote to end the USA forever.
Too much blame is put on one party which lost. In reality, they all merged into one party system which is euphemistically called the establishment. And they cross national boundaries just as easily.
I’m laughing my ass off after reading that Trump plans to make Jamie Dimon Treasury secretary. So much for the steeple voting against the hold of the big banks on Washington! These four years are going to be great watching the American people get exactly what they deserve. Bend over!!!!!
I would have loved to have heard him suggest David Stockman. That way, we can get back on the right track after the huge market crash to reality that will allow me to get back into the market.
Well, at least Dimon has the right cufflinks!
The DNC and Hillary created Trump because they thought he would be easy to beat.
They thought they had succeeded in rigging the election and did not listen to their opposition.
Even Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were bought off or blackmailed by the Clinton machine after they rigged the game against Bernie. Thus they are both big losers. Many Bernie supporters did not vote for Hillary.
Meanwhile Trump’s campaign staff saw an opportunity and counted possible electoral votes and ignored the massive turnouts that would come from California and New York.
Thus the massive turnouts in California and New York gave the popular vote to Hillary but Trump saw that there was no way to get those two states, thus he campaigned where it did matter and not in states he had no chance.
The message was delivered but the riots demonstrate that it was not heard.
Hillary supporters do not respect democracy nor the Constitution.
Flyover country won.
“The message was delivered but the riots demonstrate that it was not heard.”
The DNC and Hillary campaign was heard and idiots bought it. That’s the reason for the riots. Didn’t you hear that Trump is Hitler and all of his followers are misogynist bigots?
“The message was delivered but the riots demonstrate that it was not heard.”
They only see & hear what they want to see & hear. No thinking required, in fact it is intentionally avoided. It’s called Confirmation Bias. Here in CA I have quite a few neighbors that are just that way. I tried to give the facts to some of them that I thought might still be able to think, but they told me they don’t want to hear it, even though they cannot deny it. Or maybe BECAUSE they cannot deny it.
Only when each improves themselves, if only a little, will a nation change for the better.
Each making the words of their mouth and meditations of their heart acceptable in the sight of the Almighty can achieve what no Government ever will.
Time to look in and improve ourselves.
Hi Mike, I think you can also buy a bunch of fireworks cheap that Hillary was supposed to shoot off in New York City on the night of the election………..George
Sent from my iPad
>
It would have been hilarious if the crew on the barge had not gotten the message, and they shot them off for – Donald! Who was only a couple blocks away.
“that they were not only incapable of seeing the trends toward Trump but were unwittingly accelerating those trends with their own condescending, self-glorifying behavior.”
Exactly. As long as the establishment refuses to acknowledge and understand the strength of this trend, this movement will gather strength and hopefully will engulf them one day. As long as this copulation, between the 1%, politicians, governments, regulators and bureaucrats, continues, common man (prudent people, savers, retirees, pensioners among them) continues to be pillaged, bailouts in the guise of doing good for the world or helping common man continues(it would have been worse – BS!), not bringing the criminals to justice (banksters, Corzine and the like) and letting them off with a slap on the wrist continues with a cheering media that is bought and can no longer be believed to be honest, fair and truthful, there cannot be an end to this movement. I just cannot wait for European countries to join this party.
The stench emanating from the existing system is so overwhelming that, but for the fear of law, exterminating the characters involved in this play does not seem like a bad idea. It is time to reclaim the system and I hope people get it!