During the Republican Primary in South Carolina, we called an old friend from our college days who now lives & teaches Mathematics in Columbia, SC. When asked about Donald Trump, he told us “I don’t know anybody who is voting for Trump“. We all know that Donald Trump won big in South Carolina. We heard the same thing from people in London who told us they don’t know anybody who is going to vote for Brexit.
Friends in America, especially New York, tell us that they simply don’t understand why we like the movement Donald Trump is leading. Because to them, we don’t fit with what they perceive as the Trump voter, not by education, not by profession or vocation and not in any way they can understand.
We forgive them because they are friends and because they don’t know what is wrong with how they think. By nature & by tradition we believe in the primacy of the people and not of the elite, especially the elite who look down on the people. In this week of Ganesh-Utsav, the celebration of Bhagvaan Ganesh, we are proud to say that we are the “Gan”, followers who support those uplifting the discarded. As “Gan”, we are delighted to see how people around the world are rising to get rid of the elite who have redefined democracy as a preserve of the elite, by the elite and mainly for the elite.
We were thrilled to see the people of England exit the horrid & elitistically tyrannical EU. And this week we are happy to see people in Germany hand a humiliating defeat to Angela Merkel. That brings to the article by George Friedman titled Merkel Doesn’t Blame the Voter. We urge all to read this article. Below are some excerpts:
- “These are times of systemic failure. In Europe, the European Union has failed to solve the problems that arose from the 2008 crisis for eight years, and there is no indication that a solution is forthcoming. Nevertheless, the idea that a radical change is needed in how the problem is viewed and how the governing system operates is normally seen as preposterous”.
- “The response of the mainstream politicians and their supporters to the Brexit vote was a classic example. There has been an increasing social crisis in Britain that neither of the major parties seemed aware of. They assumed that most people would not want major banks to leave London and therefore would vote to remain in the EU. They could not grasp that the majority of Britain had far greater problems, which the City was neglecting and possibly compounding”.
- “The United States is having a significant social crisis, where the middle and, most important, the lower-middle classes are incapable of living the kinds of lives that had become standard for these classes since World War II. The major parties had presided over this crisis. Mitt Romney spoke of 47 percent of Americans as moochers. President Barack Obama spoke of the problem but proposed only the same solutions that created this situation. Neither party could grasp that a massive political explosion was coming.”
What happens in such democracies?
- “In a democracy, when politicians are oblivious to what is happening around them and a massive social crisis is well underway, the consequences are utterly predictable. First, the public knows full well there is a serious problem. Second, they know the establishment doesn’t care. Third, they know the political system is the only recourse. And finally, personalities arise to lead them against the establishment.”
How do the elite react? Just watch Mika Brezinsky, co-host MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”. She is in intense agony almost every morning. She simply cannot comprehend how Donald Trump speaks and why everyone doesn’t recoil in horror the way she does. Mika just doesn’t understand that her own way of speaking, her words, her tone, have become deeply offensive to at least half the people in America. She doesn’t just get it because she has been brought up wrong in a self-congratulatory environment and, mainly thanks to Joe Scarborough, she is earning millions to sit in front of a camera and spew venom against the common people of America. She should read how Dr. George Friedman describes people like her:
- “The establishment looks at these new leaders as bizarre and doomed to fail. These leaders, unlike the establishment, are aware of the social crisis and the contempt the establishment is held in. They do everything they can to appear utterly different than establishment politicians. The establishment believes this will lead to the downfall of the new politicians. They are totally unaware of how offensive their mode of government and even mode of speech has become.”
Did you read the last line, Mika? Of course Mika Brezinsky is only an extreme example. Almost every single CNN anchor is reacting like a Mika acolyte. Frankly, both have no excuses. Mika should listen to Chris Mathews who, despite his fanatical partisanship, does understand what’s happening in middle America and why Trump has the right message. That is why he has said that the problem with Manafort-managed Trump was that he had become less Trump instead of being more Trump. And CNN anchors should listen to Mike Rogers who told them back in December 2015 that his constituents speak just like Donald Trump.
As Dr. Friedman writes:
- “In Europe, the economic condition is tolerable for the upper half of society but not the lower half. The same is increasingly true in the United States. On top of this stress is the perception that the countries’ leaders are more concerned with fairness to immigrants than fairness to citizens. If this is true, the politicians must do something about it. If it is not true, then politicians must reshape public thinking.”
Mika & CNN anchors are the rich elite Americans. Their touch with middle America has been left so far behind that they couldn’t even locate it with a Hubble telescope. So they react like their proper British counterparts:
- “But the “stupid voter syndrome” is now evident in Europe and the U.S. There is deep contempt for the Trump voter, the Brexit voter and now the anti-CDU voter. The common sense of citizenship has been torn on both sides. The anti-establishment voters hurl contempt at the establishment. The establishment hurls it back.”
There is a name for what is going on:
- “This is a systemic crisis. It is how major social problems are managed politically. Half still support the mainstream. Half support the upstart. The establishment can’t conceive of the upstart winning. The upstart doesn’t always win. But as the Brexit vote showed, sometimes it does. And then members of the establishment are shocked, realizing they don’t know anyone with views that oppose their own. And that is the core of the problem“.
Dr. Friedman reminds us of “Vox Populi. Vox Dei“, the mantra that launched the end of the “Kings are ordained by God” doctrine. Vox Populi, Vox Dei simply states that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Our belief goes even further in that God is who takes listens to the poor, the discarded. But then we are the “Gan” of Ganesh, the Ish or Lord of the Gan or people.
And who is a leader to us? One who becomes the voice of the forgotten, of the discarded. This belief, this movement created Mahatma Gandhi in India, Nelson Mandela in South Africa and FDR & Dr. King in America. Today this movement in America has created Donald Trump. It is indeed ironic that a billionaire from elite Manhattan with a Mogulesque lifestyle is the only one in America who speaks eloquently for the forgotten & discarded. But strange are the ways of the Lord, aren’t they?
And as for Mika Brezinsky, she should take a sabbatical from her show and intern with Chris Mathews for the next 10 weeks. It will do her good.
Editor’s PS: Going from God to Mammon, what are the markets saying?
- Ryan Detrick, CMT
@RyanDetrick – 3 mo performance b4 election has strong track record (82%) at predicting how incumbent party does. SPX currently negative for Aug/Sept ….
And Tom McClellan put up the chart below in his article DJIA Leads Poll Numbers:
Send your feedback to [email protected] Or @MacroViewpoints on Twitter
