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In the previous memo I posted an op ed from Newt explaining why it could be a mistake to count Trump out for a second term.
I would like to add a few of my thoughts.
First of all, most of my elite "cocoon" friends do not understand Trump's attraction to us "deplorables" because they are the very things that turn them off .
They say he is a crook. We know he fought his way back from some tough times and declared several bankruptcies. To us that makes him a fighter and someone who does not give up and knows how to overcome adversity. We like a fighter who believes in America and wants to make us first again.
We were turned off by the president who apologized for America and was not a fighter but a fraud.
Bankruptcy allows one to have a fresh start and is a lawful part of our judicial system. My son reminds me that Hershey went bankrupt several times. "How sweet it is."
My elite "cocoon" friends remind me how vulgar Trump is and talks about grabbing women etc.
Though we deplorables do not condone such physical behaviour we do engage in coarse and vulgar language. TV programs are immersed in such language, "rappers" cannot rap without resorting to such language and if you watch "Homeland" the entire script is littered with the "F" word and it is no longer exclusive to males. We understand Trump is a brash New York developer "mogul-man" who dealt with corrupt city and union officials all his life. That qualifies him for dealing with Putin and all the other world politicos who wear pin stripe suits and uniforms and are blatantly corrupt. And by the way, most mean us harm or will do anything to take advantage of America.
Most "deplorables" no longer shave with Gillette products.
Then my elitist "cocoon" friends tell me what a liar Trump is and how he stretches the truth and I remind them so did Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton and Obama, They then tell me, I always bring up the past and I tell them the past is today's prologue. Some even go to the length of telling me Obama never lied and I then ask them about their doctor.
Yes, Trump sure stretches the truth and tortures facts. It is almost as if he once worked for The New York Times, Buzzfeed and CNN which my "cocoons" read and watch all the time.
They attack Trump because he allegedly cheats on his income taxes, is not a politician and thus is incapable of being president, continues to engage in deficit spending while cutting taxes for the rich and worst of all is a certified racist.
He has never been convicted of income tax evasion. Tax avoidance is everyone 's responsibility unless they believe Uncle Sam can spend their money better than they can.
Trump wants to drain the swamp and he relishes in not being cast as a political type.
There is no way Democrats would allow cuts in "entitlement" spending and Obama ran our military into the ground so Trump is going to incur deficits until revenue builds as a result of the improved economy and growth in GDP which the "cocoons" said would not happen.
When it comes to personal expenses, over which he has some control, The White House Staff has been reduced, his wife's staff is exceedingly small relative to her predecessor's (3 instead of 21) and Trump contributes his own salary to various agencies.
As for cutting taxes, when 80% of tax revenue is paid by 10% and 50% pay no taxes, tax cuts , logically speaking, go to those who pay taxes. Again, this is a sound bite and ploy used by Democrats to appeal to the unwashed but it is a bunch of garbage. Furthermore, the poor cannot be made rich by giving them money, the poor have nothing to invest to raise economic levels. Thus, it is the rich who are the ones who can afford to drive the economy and impact employment levels.
Yes, Trump blew an opportunity to handle the Charlottesville incident better but until he became president, and a Republican in name, no one ever accused him of being a racist. In fact he employed blacks to some of the highest positions in his organization, contributed to black charities and promised to help those in the lower socio-economic levels by getting the economy back on track which, again, naysayers stated would not rise above the pitiful 1 1/2% level Obama accomplished.
I could go on and on about "cocoon bias and blindness" but I hope you get the idea how hatred and misguided liberality distort one's views. Being politically incorrect, I also state that using the word "cocoon" is meant to convey/describe where one chooses to live and not the language of racists, many of whom are black when they are not using the "N" word..
Trump is "true-American" warts and all. "Deplorables" can relate to him something "cocooner's" cannot. This is why, as long as America remains a nation of people who believe hard work is preferable to welfare, take pride in their independence, are patriotic, have solid core values, believe in what The Founding Fathers sought to achieve, think capitalism preferable to socialism, accept the fact that America has made mistakes but also has done more to correct them than any nation on this earth and that we are a generous nation but do not like to be "tread upon," Trump has a good chance of being re-elected.
What my 'cocoon" friends do not grasp is that progressive radical messaging sounds good but is impractical, unrealistic, impossibly costly and does not resonate. Deplorables believe it is designed to create a dependent citizenry which will destroy America as it has the black community and anyone who rejects education and embraces all the worthless values espoused by the new crop of Casio's who favor socialism and believe lunches are free and there for the asking/taking.
Finally we come to the wall and Trump's claim Mexico would pay for it. This boast has turned out to be a political mistake as was his comment that he would gladly own the government shut-down.
Trump understands the mass media are not going to do him any favors and The Democrats seek his defeat and a return to power either over his impeached body or defeat in 2020, so why does he engage in these sui-generis mispeaks? Most deplorables are willing to give him a pass and understand but not his enemies. Unlike the mass media we do not take him literally.
He would be wise to stop sending the "cocooner's" red meat. Being a street fighter, ingested with a strong ego, I suspect this will not come to pass.
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Now there are many positive things going for Trump:
The Democrat Party, starting with President Wilson, began to flirt with radical socialism decades ago and now has swallowed this economic mirage hook line and sinker. Just look at their announced candidates.
Trump has an economy that has recovered from Obama's misery index levels and employment for all Americans is at record levels. Choice has returned to America.
Wages have also begun to rise moderately.
NATO allies have kicked in $100 billion more since Trump gave them a tongue lashing.
Radical Islamist Terrorism has been met with strength by allowing generals to dictate policy unlike Obama's feckless approach. Lamentably, Islamist Terrorism is something that is not going to be defeated. It is a condition The West must live with but it can be reduced, it can be met with force and intelligence and it need not always be allowed to become the tail wagging the dog.
In conjunction with the effort to meet and reduce Islamist Terrorism, Trump is seeking to reduce our costly military footprint in The Middle East as well as Afghanistan, while at the same time, he is rebuilding our military capability.
Making America Great Again is a slick slogan but Trump is trying to address trade issues that have been detrimental to our economy as well as theft of our intellectual and technological properties. He has also cut red tape, allowed frozen profits to be repatriated, accelerated depreciation write-offs and this is resulting in a corporate willingness to begin increased capital spending in our country.
Finally, Trump has shown a willingness to touch third rails and keep campaign promises. One of the stickiest has been his approach towards illegal immigration. His own party has been unwilling to go along with anything that smacks of allowing those in our country a path towards citizenship claiming it has been tried, it has failed and simply led to more illegal immigration.
Over the next three weeks, Trump and the nation will learn whether his willingness to break the ice can be accomplished within his own party and whether Pelosi led Democrats will meet him half way because doing so would give him another pre 2020 opportunity to claim victory over another knotty issue.
Stay tuned. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
This from one of my dear "cocoon" friends: https://www.washingtonpost.
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1) Trump's new name for Senator Blumenthal
President Trump issued a new nickname to Senator Blumenthal while questioning his ability to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee recently.
According to Town Hall:
President Trump knocked Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Twitter Monday night, questioning how “Da Nang Dick” can sit on the Judiciary Committee given that he lied about serving in Vietnam.
“How does Da Nang Dick (Blumenthal) serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee when he defrauded the American people about his so called War Hero status in Vietnam, only to later admit, with tears pouring down his face, that he was never in Vietnam,” Trump said. “An embarrassment to our Country!”
1a) The Russian Crisis
Vladimir Putin failed to keep his promise to create a modern economy. Now he has to pay the price.
By George Friedman
Geopolitical Futures
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trust rating has fallen to its lowest point in 13 years. According to a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, only 33 percent of Russians said they trusted the president. Polls can be unreliable and opinions fickle, but a survey like this in a country like Russia can be an indicator of deep discontent arising from significant social and economic problems.
Hope Fades
Over a quarter of a century ago, the Soviet Union fell because things stopped working. The state was the center of society and managed the economy. After Josef Stalin died, there was a sense of hope in Russian society about the economy – and that hope sustained the government, even when it failed to meet expectations. But by the 1980s, ordinary Russians’ belief that they could provide for their families and that the gulf between them and the nomenklatura (or bureaucratic elite) would diminish had faded. What changed their minds was not envy or anger – Russians had grown to expect a certain level of inequality – but a lack of hope. They had little and were not going to get more. Worst of all, they lacked hope for their children.
This situation was a result of four factors:
First, the inherent inefficiency of the Soviet apparatus, which could not build a modern economy.
Second, the divergence of available goods, not only to the elite but also to a thriving black market that frequently operated in foreign currencies, which most Russians lacked.
Third, the decline of oil prices, which shattered the state budget.
And finally, a surge in defense spending, designed to both match U.S. spending and convince Russians that although they might be poor, they still lived in a powerful country. This was not trivial for a nation that had lived through the German invasion.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no revolution. There was simply exhaustion. The elite were exhausted from trying to push the boulder of the Soviet economy and society up a steep hill.
And the people were exhausted from standing in lines for hours to buy basic necessities. The general sense of failure was apparent not only in faraway capitals but in Russians’ own lives.
The Politburo selected Mikhail Gorbachev to solve these problems. He promised openness and restructuring. But the openness only revealed the catastrophic condition of the economy, and the restructuring, carried out by those who had created the disaster in the first place, didn’t work. All Gorbachev did was legitimize the fears and fatigue that had festered in the Soviet Union and allow them to eat away at what was left.
Boris Yeltsin replaced him but did nothing to solve the lingering economic problems. The Soviet Union was gone, and many took advantage – from Western financiers, consultants and hustlers, to Russians who figured out, frequently with Western advisers, how to divert and appropriate what little wealth Russia had. Privatization requires some concept of the private. In a country that had lived for generations by the old socialist principle “money is theft,” the oligarchs embraced the concept with a vengeance. Russia’s nomenklatura was just as inefficient as the Soviet Union’s, and, as shown in Kosovo, other nations held it in contempt.
Yeltsin couldn’t last. His replacement was Vladimir Putin, who had roots in the old Soviet Union and in the new Russia. He had been an agent of the KGB, the Soviets’ main security service. (For a country as vast and poorly connected as Russia, a strong central government and secret police have always been key to holding the nation together.) And through his time as deputy to the mayor of St. Petersburg, he was enmeshed with the oligarchs who became the holders of Russia’s wealth.
Putin came to power because of these connections. After Yeltsin, Russians craved a strong leader, and they drew comfort from the fact that Putin had ties to the KGB. They accepted his links to the oligarchs as simply part of how the world works.
Putin’s Promises
Putin promised to make Russia prosperous and respected in the world. To do so, he had to build a modern economy. Russia was highly dependent on the export of raw materials, particularly oil and natural gas. Putin couldn’t control the price of these commodities, so Russia was always vulnerable to fluctuations in global supply and demand.
Putin had a choice: allow the economy to deteriorate and the country to descend into chaos, or centralize governance once more. He chose recentralization, concentrating power in Moscow and distributing funds from the state budget to the regions. When oil prices were over $100 per barrel, Putin had an opportunity to make massive investments in new industries. But he was beholden to the oligarchs, and they to him. Any economic reforms could have jeopardized this relationship. It’s not so much that Putin missed the chance to modernize but rather that his path to power prevented it.
Then, in 2014, oil prices plunged. Though they have recovered somewhat from their lowest point, they remain low. Western sanctions have also taken a toll. Until 2018, Russia had two reserve funds, stocked with profits from the oil boom. But following the collapse in energy prices, one fund was depleted, and since January 2018, only the National Wealth Fund remains. To try to replenish the state budget, Putin decided to reform the pension system. Just seven months after his re-election in March, he signed an unpopular bill into law that will gradually raise the age of retirement for women from 55 to 60 and for men from 60 to 65.
Hence the 33 percent trust rating. That rating is more socially significant in Russia than it would be elsewhere. Putin promised to make Russia a modern, powerful nation. He has failed to deliver on the first point, and his forays in Syria and elsewhere haven’t compensated for deteriorating economic conditions. Older Russians are reminded of what was and what had been abolished; younger Russians are encountering conditions similar to those their grandparents told them of.
There are two possible paths forward. One is the old Russian solution of empowering the secret police to crush the opposition, though it isn’t clear that today’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, has the same power its predecessor organizations had. I suspect that the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain is intended in part as a message to the FSB, not only to frighten it but also to tell its agents that they need to uphold the integrity of the Russian nation.
The other path is a re-enactment of the fall of the Soviet Union. Few are eager to relive the 1990s, but collapse is not always the result of a vote. If oil prices remain low, sanctions remain in place, reserves continue to dwindle, and the FSB is more interested in doing business than in sacrificing for the Russian state, then it’s hard to see an alternative scenario.
No foreign power can come to Russia’s aid. Each one demands too much and offers too little. There’s a fantasy in Russia about an alliance with China, but Moscow is far away from Beijing, and China’s problems at the moment are even more intense. The Kremlin could try engaging in a war to boost morale, but there’s the risk it could lose or that the conflict would last longer than those at the top anticipate.
Russia now faces conditions similar to those it faced in the 1980s: low oil prices and high defense costs. The people aren’t angry, but they are resentful, and in due course they may become simply exhausted, as they were in the 1980s. Russia is vast and needs a strong central government to hold it together, but central governments are not good at managing economies. Thus, the secret police must hold the country together. If it can’t or won’t, then a Gorbachev-type leader may rise up to reform the economy, and a Yeltsin-type leader may follow to preside over the nation’s revolutionizing.
Karl Marx once wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. How this maxim may play out in Russia is becoming clearer by the day.
1b)
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