No, what you're reading now is not the ranting of a hare-brained, politically correct, snowflake; a quiche-eating, progressive liberal whiner, a pinhead urban intellectual who doesn't know what he's talking about.
I'm a sergeant's son and Vietnam era veteran; former Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Africa; former Peace Corps country director in two African countries; former assistant immigration attaché and diplomat; retired Department of Homeland Security refugee resettlement manager; and an ethnographer who has studied people's beliefs, values and behavior for over forty years.
I have learned, lived through, and know something about the strengths and shortcomings of the US Left and Right, Democrats and Republicans, Marxists (African socialists) and capitalists, communists and libertarians, believers and atheists. I'm no self-righteous, egghead elitist who refuses to consider and give a fair hearing to other points of view.
In writing this I'm not trying to tell you how to think or act. I'm asking you to read and understand the ideas of the people now in power in the US, and the great and unnecessary risks Trump's ideas and actions pose for US society and Humankind. I hope doing so will convince you that the risks they are taking are too high. The return to greatness Trump promises is a falsehood for a society that is already great, and a cover for a broader global movement he sees himself leading.
No, blame for the shortcomings and unfinished business in the US and around the world are not equally or more blamable on the Democrats and progressive liberals than the Republicans and conservatives, as Trump and others have convinced many to believe. Granted the liberal progressive Democrats have made mistakes. But their positive results in making the Western Enlightenment a reality, overall, far outweigh their shortcomings and failures. Th e US humanistic society and world they have worked for is far from the carnage and hopelessness Trump has proclaimed in order to increase white fear and get himself elected.
On that note, talk about whining snowflakes, consider that many white Americans, whose votes made all the difference in November 2016, were and remain unhappy they are no longer getting what they think is their fair share - the lion's share - of US wealth, power and privilege. Trump's approach places Humankind at its greatest risk ever in history. For what, because many mostly white working class members in the US are now experiencing a bit of the hardships that blacks and other minorities have suffered in far greater proportion since our nation's beginning? But, you say, it was the white Christian working class who made this country great, and they therefore have a right to the privileges and prosperity they feel entitled to, and the right to share or not that wealth with non-whites!
No, America's success is not first and foremost the result of white working class effort. The success of the US was initiated primarily with the money of a wealthy, land-owning aristocracy and thereafter built using the wealth of industrial tycoons - in both instances on the land, resources and graves of Native Americans; and from the blood, sweat and tears of African slaves. Without these resources and efforts, white American workers would not have succeeded. Without the efforts of progressives such as Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and labor unionists, white US workers would still be laboring under late 19th, early 20th Century sweatshop conditions.
The division we now see between working whites and black and white liberals began during the earliest years of the American colonial period. The landed aristocracy, realizing that poor whites and black slaves were establishing a close economic and moral affinity, succeeded in convincing indentured and free working whites that they, primarily because of their race, were better and more deserving than the less-than-human slaves they toiled along side and were establishing a sense of unity with. Through racist propaganda and small economic incentives the wealthy made racial separation more attractive to working whites than economic solidarity with enslaved blacks.
Trump's campaign strategy and presidency are the latest effort to sow fear and divide the working class against itself, in order to retain wealthy, white-dominated power and privilege. Yes, liberals also helped create this working class division beginning in the late 1960s by discrediting patriotism during their anti-war efforts and thereby cutting themselves off from the patriotic labor unions. Their ignoring the Rust Belt during the 2016 presidential campaign was also an important factor.
The main point here is that the power Trump has been given, according to Bannon's vision and plan, will be used to: dismantle the federal government; reestablish white Christian supremacy in the US; stun the global financial system; and start foreign wars to try and win a global victory for Western Christian civilization with the US at the top, of course. Again, read Bannon's views and plans.
The Trump administration, inspired by Bannon, has a vision and strategy for achieving national and global grandeur using governance and military power. However, they have no plan for the high probability that their destructive actions and outcomes will not be fully within their control. What China, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Russia, and other nation-states and groups might do in response to Trump's provocations, encouragement and unpredictability are completely beyond his control.
Given the magnitude and time frame of power Trump has been given, there is little to nothing the people of the US and the world can do to stop the destructive, uncontrollable forces he and his leadership plan to unleash. Again, see the links below for the visions that guide them and the severe means they plan to use.
We must fight them to save the liberal Enlightenment project from destruction. But we will likely fail despite such an effort being just and noble. Do what you can but also prepare for severe damage to and violence in our society, and the bilateral and global wars that are coming.
You don't believe me or think I'm exaggerating? If you haven't read the following please do so and kindly come back and tell me how you think I am wrong. At the end of this list is a book and documentary that describe the Trump (Bannon) vision and plan in detail.
"What Steve Bannon Really Wants" by Gwynn Guilford
"Donald Trump and Steve Bannon's Coup in the Making" by Ruth Ben-Ghiat
"What Steve Bannon Wants You to Read" by Eliana Johnson and Eli Stokols
"The Flight 93 Election" by Publius Decius Mus
"Steve Bannon's Obsession with a Dark Theory of History Should be Worrisome"
"Is Steve Bannon the Second Mist Powerful Man in the World?" by David Von Drehle
"The LifeCourse Method: Introduction" by LifeCourse Associates
The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny by William Strauss and Neil Howe
Generation Zero, Full Documentary by Citizens United
