E.J. Dionne writes that Martin Wolf has got it right:
Martin Wolf, the Financial Times columnist, captured Trump’s ideology with precision when he called it “pluto-populism.” It involves “policies that benefit plutocrats, justified by populist rhetoric.”
If you want proof, look at Trump's budget, which slashes the federal food stamp program:
Trump and Mulvaney are selling this budget as good for hardworking taxpayers by leading us to believe that it would really only hurt moochers and layabouts. Thus did Mulvaney claim that a $192 billion reduction in food stamp spending over a decade was directed at “the folks who are on there who don’t want to work.”
Well, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported, it turns out that in food stamp households with at least one working-age, nondisabled adult, more than 80 percent work in the year before or after receiving benefits, and more than half work while getting them. This is a program aimed primarily at easing the lives of the working poor.
Trump policies are simply built on lies:
Many who did business with Trump learned the hard way not to trust anything he said. His supporters are being forced to learn the same dreary wisdom.
Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its evaluation of the health care bill which narrowly passed the House. It concludes that 23 million people will lose health care coverage over the next ten years. Those who will benefit will be the young and the healthy. Those who will lose will be the poor and the sick:
Particularly astounding from a president who promised better health care for Americans who can’t afford it is the $1.85 trillion reduction over a decade from Medicaid and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But didn’t Trump promise not to cut Medicaid? Never mind, budget director Mick Mulvaney told CNBC’s John Harwood. That pledge, Mulvaney explained, had been overridden by Trump’s promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Robin Hood in reverse. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, they are touting a moral justification for selfishness -- Pluto-Populism.
Image: Community New Group
15 comments:
America First.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bGiKoxePd0
The Ugly American, Dana -- at home and abroad. Thanks for the link.
Increasingly I think the rest of the west's response to Trump's America should be to isolate it and wait to witness who Trump reaches out to.
That would be the proof of the pudding.
Not that anyone asked my opinion or would follow my wishes. :-)
The fact that no one follows your wishes doesn't invalidate your opinion, Dana. In fact, these days, it may validate it.
Josh Marshall thinks Trump is still planning to weaken NATO and strengthen Europe's right wing parties and advance Russia's aims.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-fix-is-in-nato-is-out
Also important to remember that Trump is lying about how NATO works.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dont-forget-trump-is-brazenly-lying-about-nato
That's precisely the point, Dana. Trump is hollow at his core. What he says one day can change the next. He is utterly devoid of conviction -- except his personal self interest.
Is Mulvaney that guy who showed up in his 500 dollar bed-room slippers to worK?
At that POS speech of Drumph's?
No he's that guy trying to power-point that crap about the wall, during QP, right Owen?
Either way, food-stamps, for God's Sake. How low? Right to the bottom, they'll go.
Trump might not really be trying to do anything but be adored by others as he would adore himself. I think it's becoming confirmed that he has not one clue. By the way he latches on and clings to simplistic and often ridiculous threads and then goes on to present his musings in the expectation that they'll be lauded as insightful revelations, it's seems often as though he's just considered for the first time in his life some simple question that any normal person would have put aside by the time he started the second day of his first job.
Mulvaney, on the other hand, has always been quite sure of what he wants. And everybody else is going to get it whether they realize that they want it or not. There's no solution in a civilized society to such an evil bald-faced lying libertarian milksop once he has the podium. He's mastered the art of exhibiting an active slimy indifference to anything he chooses to ignore. He already knows everything that matters, or at least he knows what he's going to tell you. And he's going to ram it down your throats irrespective of whether he actually believes it - just what flat-foreheads all the free world over have been waiting for. His answer to a question that he doesn't want to address is that it's the wrong question. The correct one is the one that calls for the lecture he's going to deliver. (And that's all you idiots are entitled to.) I've never seen a politician provide this performance with such dismissive arrogance and contempt. I understand he's about six feet tall but, when he leans forward and pushes out his yap, I always visualize him as a runt.
the trickle down campaign was getting stale, time for flow up
They are not driven by their better angels, lovingit.
And that's why truly nasty folks like Mulvaney stick with Trump, John. He's their useful idiot.
Trickle down has always been trickle up, Steve.
Owen, I can't even piece the words Angel.
And Tbum, together in a metaphor.
You are a much nicer person, than I, sir.
It's nice of you to say so, loving it -- but I'm sure there are those who would disagree.
Post a Comment