So you think that with Trump gone it will be morning in American again? Think again. Paul Mason writes:
The scenario being touted in Democrat circles is that Trump tries and fails to sack Mueller, one or more suspects gets immunity and the beans are spilled. Trump then either resigns or is impeached. Mike Pence becomes president. Only then do we get to know what the rightwing billionaires behind the project really want. Because Trump was never their first pick: for the first six months of his campaign, the main elite donor to the Trump campaign was Donald J Trump himself. It was only when the religious conservative Ted Cruz failed to ignite the masses that ultra-rightwing business money switched to Trump.
The Koch Brothers let it be known that they and their network weren't backing Trump:
Even then the Koch brothers, who have funded rightwing pressure groups to the tune of $400m (£307m), kept their distance until their ally Pence was installed as Trump’s running mate. If Pence becomes president it will be the true moment of revelation. All the 3am garbage tweeted by Trump, all the waffle that comes out of his mouth at rallies, will be seen as the surrealist prologue to the main event. But what is the main event?
Pence is where they want him -- poised to take over at the appropriate time: The Kochs and their confederates have two objectives:
One, most clearly associated with the Koch brothers, is best described by its adopted euphemism: “income defence”. It sees every dollar of the US’s $19tn debt as a future claim on the profits of private enterprise; it wants low taxation and – as Trump backer Robert Mercer is once reported to have said – a state “shrunken down to the size of a pinhead”
The other side of far-right ideology, by contrast, wants a repressive state, imposed conservative social norms and – if necessary – an eviscerated constitution to achieve it. If we analyse Trump through his actions, rather than his garbled words, it is political illiberalism that has won out during the first seven months of his presidency. When a judge blocked his Muslim immigration ban, he attacked the judiciary’s constitutional role. When the press revealed malfeasance, he labelled them “enemies of the American people”. When James Comey refused Trump’s appeals for “loyalty”, he was sacked.
Pence has long stood for those two objectives. And he's willing to drive full bore to achieve them. The worst is yet to come.
Image: Twitter.com
