{"id":107819,"date":"2018-11-09T08:15:08","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T12:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=107819"},"modified":"2018-11-09T08:20:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T12:20:50","slug":"the-2018-election-cycle-is-about-much-more-than-flipping-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=107819","title":{"rendered":"The 2018 election cycle is about much more than flipping the House"},"content":{"rendered":"

What This Election Is About<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Paul Craig Roberts<\/span><\/p>\n

I never cease to be amazed at the insouciance of Americans. Readers send me emails asking why I ever supported Trump when he was the Establishment\u2019s candidate. If Trump was the Establishment\u2019s candidate, why has the Establishment spent two years trying to destroy him?<\/span><\/p>\n

The failure to put two and two together is extraordinary. Trump declared war on the Establishment throughout the presidential campaign and in his inaugural address.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I wrote at the time, Trump vastly over-estimates the power of the president. He expected the Establishment, like his employees, to jump to his will, and he did not know Washington or who to appoint to support his goals. He has been totally defeated in his intention to normalize relations with Russia. Instead, we are faced with both Russia and China preparing for war.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, the same outcome that Hillary would have achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump has been so harassed by the Establishment that he is having trouble thinking straight. He was elected by \u201cthe deplorables\u201d as the first non-Establishment candidate since when? You have to go back in history to find one. Perhaps Andrew Jackson. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were not the choice of the Democratic and Republican establishments, and the ruling establishments moved quickly to constrain both presidencies. The Democratic Establishment framed and removed both Carter\u2019s budget director and chief of staff, depriving Carter of the kind of commitment he needed for his agenda. The Bush people that the Republican Establishment insisted be put in positions of power in the Reagan administration succeeded in blunting his reformist economic program and his determination to end the cold war. I fought both battles for Reagan, and I still have the bruises.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump is an outsider elected by \u201cthe deplorables\u201d whose middle class jobs were offshored by America\u2019s global corporations for the benefit only of the executives and large shareholders. A few people sold out the American middle class, which is shrinking away.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the rest of the world, Trump\u2019s true allies are the presidents of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the former president of Ecuador, and the former president of Honduras, who was overthrown by \u201cAmerica\u2019s First Black President,\u201d the consequences of which are the caravan moving toward the US border. The Establishment has succeeded in so confusing Trump that he has declared the Establishment\u2019s war against the non-establishment leaders in Latin America.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what is this midterm US election about?<\/span><\/p>\n

It is about whether \u201cthe deplorables\u201d have been brainwashed by the Establishment\u2019s media whores and fail to support Trump in the House and Senate elections. If the Democrats, whose politics is Identity Politics, get the House and\/or Senate, Trump will be completely impotent. The Establishment hopes to drive the lesson home to every future presidential candidate to never again appeal to the people over the vested interests of the Establishment.<\/span><\/p>\n

In America democracy is a scam. The oligarchy rules, and the people, no matter how they suffer under the oligarch\u2019s rule, must submit and accept. No more presidential candidates, please, who represent the people. This is the lesson that the Establishment hopes to teach the rabble in the midterm elections.<\/span><\/p>\n

What should this election be about? If America had an independent media, the election would be about the dangerous situation created by Washington that has caused two militarily powerful countries to prepare for war with the US. This is the most serious development of my lifetime. Everything President Reagan worked for has been overthrown for the material interests of the power and profit of the military\/security complex.<\/span><\/p>\n

If America had an independent media, the election would be about the American police state that, based on the 9\/11 lie, the weapons of mass destruction lie, the use of chemical weapons lie, the Iranian nukes lie, the Russian invasion of Ukraine lie, was accepted by the insouciant Americans. Those responsible for these lies, which have caused massive war crimes, for which US administrations should be indicted, are feted and rich. The rest of us have experienced the loss of civil liberty and privacy. Any individual in the way of the police state is mowed down.<\/span><\/p>\n

If America had an independent media, the election would be about the de-industrialization of the United States. Today, as this article makes clear\u2014http:\/\/thesaker.is\/the-pentagon-realised-what-it-has-done-the-chinese-put-the-us-army-on-its-knees\/ <\/span><\/a>\u2014the offshoring of American manufacturing and industry has reduced the US military to dependence on Chinese suppliers.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the Trump administration starts trouble with China!<\/span><\/p>\n

If America had an independent media, the election would be about the 20 years of US and NATO\/EU war crimes against Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen, and US and NATO support for Israel\u2019s war crimes against the remnants of the Palestinian people, and US and NATO\/EU support for the neo-nazi regime established by the Obama regime in Ukraine to commit war crimes against the breakaway Russian provinces, the populations of which refuse to become victims of Washington\u2019s overthrow of the democratic elected Ukrainian government and installation by \u201cAmerica\u2019s first black president\u201d of a neo-nazi regime.<\/span><\/p>\n

If America had an independent media, the election would be about the orchestrated demonization of Iran. The completely stupid dope that Trump appointed Secretary of State just declared (the utter fool should not be permitted to open his mouth) that Washington was going to drive Iran into the ground unless the government agreed to behave like a normal state.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does Pompeo mean by a \u201cnormal state.\u201d He means a state that takes its marching orders from Washington. Iran has not invaded any country. The government in power is the continuation of the government that overthrew the Shah, a dictator imposed on Iran by Washington when Washington and London overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

What the despicable Pompeo is really saying is that Iran has to go, because Iran, like Syria, is in the way of Israel\u2019s expansion into southern Lebanon, because Iran and Syria supply the Hezbollah militia, which has twice defeated Israeli invasions of southern Lebanon. The vaunted Israeli army is only good for murdering women and children in the disarmed Gaza ghetto.<\/span><\/p>\n

If America had an independent media, someone would ask Pompeo precisely what Iran is doing that warrants Washington unilaterally, in the face of opposition of the European, Russian, and Chinese signatures to the Iran Nuclear Agreement, pulling out of the agreement and imposing sanctions that no other country on the planet, except Israel, supports?<\/span><\/p>\n

But, of course, America has no independent media. It has a collection of whores known as NPR, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, MSCBS, Fox News, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without an honest and independent media, there is no accountability of government. America has no honest and independent media. Therefore, in America there is no accountability of government.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe deplorables\u201d are faced with a dilemma. The president they elected has been overcome by the establishment and cannot represent them. Instead, Trump gives his supporters warmonger John Bolton as National Security Advisor and warmonger Pompeo as US Secretary of State. He might as well have appointed Adolf Hitler. In fact, Hitler was a more reasonable person.<\/span><\/p>\n

So again, America is having an election in which nothing of any importance is discussed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unless the American people rise up in armed rebellion, they are finished as a free people, and, of course, they cannot rise up in armed rebellion. Not so much because the police and every agency of the government has been militarized as because Jewish cultural Marxism and the Democratic Party\u2019s Identity Politics have the American people disorganized and at one another\u2019s throats. Cultural Marxism and Identity Politics have divided the American population into victims and victimizers. The true victimizers and true victims are not part of the picture, which is a construction that serves ideological agendas. It is not the oligarchy that is the victimizer, but the Trump-voting white male. It is not the multi-billionaires, but the marginalized former manufacturing and industrial work force that is the source of oppression. This former work force is black and white, but the Democratic Party\u2019s Identity Politics has blacks and whites at each other\u2019s throats.<\/span><\/p>\n

My conclusion is that America is doomed. The people, with few exceptions, are not smart enough to continue to exist. Perhaps the outcome of the elections tomorrow will change my mind. If the vote goes to the Establishment, all is lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

___
\nhttp:\/\/www.paulcraigroberts.org\/2018\/11\/05\/what-this-election-is-about\/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=what_this_election_is_about&utm_term=2018-11-08<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What This Election Is About Paul Craig Roberts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}