Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| My “take” on BIG-MONEY’s responsibility for today’s transformation of USA into a Banana Republic |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2025-04-13
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| This essay is mostly about the responsibility of BIG-MONEY (America’s billionaires and CEOs of big corporations) for this week’s (April 7-13, 2025) disastrous decline from world leader to banana republic. Let’s take a look, one stage at a time. I apologize for long-windedness. Being brief requires more discipline than I have today—and requires leaving things out that I believe are important. Please bear with me. My topics are: • The control of USA politics by BIG-MONEY • Why Biden/Harris lost the 2024 election • What Trump has done to destroy America’s formerly supreme place in the world • How BIG-MONEY caused Trump to be elected in 2024 • How BIG-MONEY has promoted genocide in Gaza and humanicide due to un-resisted climate change HOW TRUMP CAME INTO OFFICE AND HOW DESTRUCTIVE HIS GOVERNANCE HAS BEEN What has the USA come to? I’m sure many Americans are wondering why and how the USA, once proud of its democracy and also proud of its military might, has come to the point, today (April 13, 2025), where it is essentially bankrupt and undemocratically run by a pair of cruel, fascistic, courts-defying, billionaire, know-nothing & anti-intellectual mad-men and their fanatic crowd of rather stupid and uneducated yes-men. Yes, I’m referring to the Trump/Musk clown show. What is Trump and how did that contribute to the disaster? Because Trump is essentially ignorant, cruel, habituated to the use of threats, habituated to ignoring or distancing himself from the possibility of hearing wise counsel, habituated to seeing threats and enemies that don’t exist, and because he feels invulnerable, his very recent initiation of a tariffs-war against most of the world, which has upset an essentially tariffs-free system of mutually beneficial international trade, cannot be said to have been thought-through or wise. More likely it was instinctual, arising from someone’s telling him that something unfair was going on and urging him to fix it. Because he is an autocrat surrounded by ignorant yes-men, there was no-one to tell him not to do this—he would not in any case have asked for expert help and would not have listened to (or been close enough to hear) any contrary advice. Just as Trump’s initiation of this tariffs-war was unwise and necessarily not thought-through (because Trump has no intellectual ability to think about, to understand, or to predict such things), so too was the almost immediate (and entirely predictable) international backlash a surprise to Trump—not anticipated by this mindless man and his crew of yes-men sychophants. Trump’s unpredictability and the Fall of the USA Dollar Far more important for the USA and also not anticipated by Trump was the international reaction to the nature of his sudden, violent, unpredictable, unwise, and wild initiation (and then quick reversal of much) of his side of his tariffs-war. Much of the world, and importantly those countries holding large amounts of USA debt, saw all this as a sign of American instability, making the dollar (USD), which since 1945 had been seen as the rock of stability in international finance, seem suddenly unattractive as an investment. Trump and USA debt Trump is not himself responsible for the USA’s huge national debt, which arises largely from the USA’s borrowing to finance its succession of quite unsuccessful but charmingly expensive wars (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, [Syria]) —charmingly expensive, that is, for the weapons-production industry. But as his sponsorship of legislation to reduce taxes on the rich and corporations shows, Trump favors borrowing to finance wars (or anything else) rather than paying for them from higher taxes. BRICS and the Fall of the Dollar The USA has been able to borrow so heavily from many foreign countries over the years because the dollar (USD) has seemed so stable, so dependable. But American economic imperialism, illustrated by the USA’s wide-spread use of economic “sanctions” against many countries—such as Iran and Russia—has caused many countries to seek to avoid American sanctions by financing trade with other currencies, such as the Chinese Yuan. The BRICS nations (originally Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, but now expanded) seeks to favor trade among its members based on a currency other than the USD, the USD seen as an element of American imperialism. Therefore, with BRICS already threatening the primacy of the USD, it came as particularly unfortunate for the USA that Trump (unwittingly?) further sabotaged the USD by his tariffs shenanigans. I would anticipate a huge call for repayment of USA debt resulting in more borrowing and/or printing of money (huge USD inflation) just as investments (stock markets, bonds) fall. Ouch. Was this trouble treason or mere incompetence; and does that matter All this trouble and pain for the USA, so unnecessary! Was it done deliberately? Is Trump an agent of an enemy power? China? Russia? And if so is Trump guilty of treason? Or was it merely Trump being Trump, an idiot in charge of things he doesn’t understand, unwittingly serving America’s enemies (that is, America’s economic competitors)? Does this question matter? What’s done is done. But my question: deliberate or unwitting? stands and matters if someone (perhaps J.D.Vance) wishes to unhorse this so dangerous rider. Mentally unstable? Crazy? Senile? Evil? Treasonous? Some of these lovely words might be used to allow old-style (that is, non-MAGA) REPs to join with DEMs to get rid of Trump and to hope that J.D.Vance would be or become more reasonable, answering to more traditional Republican views of governance. But I digress. There is more to say. GOVERNANCE OF, BY, AND FOR THE WEALTHY I judge the root cause of the Trump/Musk ascendancy to be quite well-established: America’s unfortunate decline into an oligarchy ruled by people who personally own, or who as CEOs of large corporations control, huge fortunes some (usually a VERY small part) of which they are willing to use to “buy” or “rent” politicians of both parties. I call these people the “BIGs”. BIG-OIL, BIG-DEFENSE (a/k/a MIC—the Military-Industrial-Complex), BIG-ZION (AIPAC and its allies), BIG-BANKS, BIG-AGRICULTURE, BIG-HEALTH-INSURANCE, and on and on and on. The BIGs have allowed Americans to have two somewhat different political parties in order to maintain the fantasy of democratic choice. But the Democrats (DEMs) and Republicans (REPs) are basically tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, like two “different” brands of nearly identical toothpaste both manufactured by the same company. As to issues which matter to any one or more BIGs, the Two Parties do as they are paid to do. The BIGs are agreed on many things, especially the transfer of political power and the nation’s wealth to themselves and away from “the people”, that is, from the poor, the working-class, even the middle-class. This was clearly demonstrated when, in Bernie Sanders’s primary run for president, wherein he sought to turn the Democratic Party toward concern for the poor and working class, he was quickly shot down by the DEMs—or, as I like to say, looking at DEM leadership, the “corporate” DEMs or “establishment” DEMs, people exemplified by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. I judge that the BIGs, among themselves, have either an actual agreement or a tacet agreement, not to step on each other’s toes, so that if one BIG wants something that is not—or seems not to be—too injurious to other BIGs, they will not object to that BIG’s expenditure of (a rather small proportion of its) wealth to “buy” or “rent” acquiescence to its desires from Congress and the President. It actually appears to require rather little money to exact obedience from our governments (including state governments) because once a small amount has been given to a particular politician, the threat remains behind to give the same or more to a rival in the next election cycle. Our politicians all seem to think that becoming re-elected is sufficiently valuable to themselves to justify (to themselves, of course) subservience to one or more (or all) BIGs. This is a “system” of legalized corruption, “bribes” being somewhat illegal but acceptance of “campaign contributions” being protected as unregulatable “free speech” by a succession of Supreme Court decisions. This system got into full swing with the introduction of radio and, later, TV, which allowed very expensive advertising as a means of delivering elections to those backed in one way or another by big money. In addition, many federal elected officials appear to be quite wealthy themselves, suggesting either that wealth is necessary for election or that office-holding can be quite an enriching experience, and also suggesting that these office-holders have, in general, class-solidarity with others of great (and of course greater) wealth. Although the Constitution itself does not explicitly set forth or protect corruption as a system for control of the federal government, it does skew government away from democracy by the undemocratic institutions of the electoral college and small-states-favoring Senate. Some of these arrangements were deliberately adopted to favor wealthy 1700’s slave-owners, and early laws allowed voting in elections only to persons of sufficient wealth. So we can say that the Constitution itself and the early government of the USA favored political domination by the wealthy. Today’s absolute control by the BIGs is an enormous amplification of this idea but not entirely out of line with it. THE TRAP BIDEN AND HARRIS FELL INTO I judge that the BIGs did not greatly favor Trump over Biden/Harris. But DEM subservience to the BIGs opened a window of opportunity for a “populist” candidate like Trump which he took good advantage of. How did this happen? The DEMs, for many years, have refused to show any concern, beyond occasional lip-service, for the poor or working-class. The very high rate of imprisonment of Black people in the USA shows that laws have been skewed to favor imprisonment over social programs. Imprisonment is quite costly to the government, but increasingly “acceptable” to the BIGs due to the privatization of prisons: the prison-industrial-complex (PIC). And, as you might expect, the PIC has used its government-subsidized wealth to push legislators to enact even more imprisonable offenses! Way to go, capitalism! So prisons are expensive. Social programs to help the poor and working-class would also be expensive, and the poor and working-class are groups into which many of the imprisoned Black people fall. Governments gotta choose! Sadly the choice is for prisons. In addition, the DEMs (as also the REPs) have been entirely subservient to BIG-ZION, exalting Israel as a nation of perhaps even greater importance (or reverence) than the USA itself. Beginning, in my opinion, in 1967 when President Johnson aided Israel in the Six-Day War, even turning a blind eye to Israel’s deliberate attempt to sink an American war-ship, the USS Liberty, USA politicians have protected Israel, given Israel huge sums of money and weapons, and defended Israel diplomatically, thereby frequently subverting international law and international human rights treaties. As far as finances go, the USA has fought several vastly expensive wars for Israel (Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen to name a few), wars of no possible utility to the USA itself, and wars fought at a cost far exceeding the money we annually give to Israel. What a splendid investment is that relatively small amount of money that BIG-ZION pays to “buy” or “rent” legislators! This subservience to Israel, and the consequential refusal by the American political class to find any fault with Israel’s genocide in Gaza which began following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and continues today, has been hugely unpopular with the American public which called for a ceasefire, which the Biden government refused to allow, and was especially unpopular with Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans. Biden’s and Harris’s bad luck Now although both DEMs and REPs were and today remain entirely subservient to Israel (or to BIG-ZION), it was the bad luck of the DEMs that Biden and later Harris were in office and were running against Trump/MAGA in the run-up to the 2024 election at the time the genocide began, so that it was Biden (and Harris) who were blamed by voters (again, especially by Arab-American and Muslim-American voters, but also by many young voters) for failing to stop the carnage. DEM unconcern for desperation of the poor and working-class So as the 2024 Presidential campaign went on, DEMs lost voters due to their perceived unconcern for the desperation of poor and working-class voters and their failure (as the team then in power) to stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza). By contrast, Trump sometimes suggested an anti-war persona and although not (as I recall) especially promoting economic relief for the poor and working-class (other than mendaciously promising to make groceries less costly), did respond to their desperation by falsely claiming the following to be their enemies and the engines of their desperation: immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, etc. The voters, by a very close margin, preferred Trump’s “populist” campaign (of maligning supposed enemies) over the DEMs rather empty or unappealing (“aren’t we just ducky? And we’re not Trump!”) campaign. Perhaps the DEMs, after so many years of patting themselves on the back for their elitist, nerdy, wordy internal communications had forgotten that in an election campaign it is necessary to appeal to likely voters, not to talk as if to DEM elitists. In sum, I would say that as neither party would conceivably blame “capitalism” as the engine of the despair of the poor and working-class, and only the Trump/MAGA campaign had the electoral wisdom (and absolute mendacity) of blaming the blameless instead, Trump gained an advantage among the poor and working-class—and of course among racists and white nationalists, and the DEMs gained no advantage with these or with anyone else. And as neither party would blame BIG-ZION (AIPAC) for USA’s subservience to Israel and complicity with the genocide in Gaza, voters observed the DEMs as the active party of complicity in genocide—not realizing that the REPs would have done the very same thing, as Trump has demonstrated, today threatening war with Iran at Israel’s request (or demand). CONCLUSION As I say far too often, the problem with American governance is the primacy of BIG-MONEY in elections (and in influencing what governments do in between elections). BIG-MONEY (all the BIGs taken together as a sort of Supreme Soviet) could have acted to require the USA to stop the genocide; to abandon Israel; or to coerce Israel into accepting the two-state “solution” recognized by most of the UNGA. But BIG-MONEY elected not to interfere with BIG-ZION (and BIG-DEFENSE) which desired to continue Israel’s wars. Yes, Virginia, America’s rulers, the BIGs, support genocide. BIG-MONEY could have acted to promote useful efforts to reverse climate change, but elected not to. Yes, Virginia, America’s rulers, the BIGs, support the death of human life on earth (providing it doesn’t happen too soon, I suppose). This is another sort of genocide, a delayed genocide. And BIG-MONEY has funded the DEMs (and REPs) as long as they favor the BIGs and don’t do much for the poor and working-class. And so, today we have Trump/Musk and the addlepated tariffs-war and consequent displacement of the USD as the world’s reserve currency. I doubt that BIG-MONEY is happy today about their choices which brought us Trump/Musk and the death of USA’s primacy in the world. Gee, thanks, BIG-MONEY! |
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