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phallus dei
583 posts

Re: USSA
May 15, 2017, 14:52
thesweetcheat wrote:

As for the UK, what they did appears to have been a breach of electoral rules i.e. illegal. If so, that's serious and I don't think the articles are overstating the issue by saying that this is a threat to our democratic system.

I'm under no illusions that the system has always been rigged in favour of the rich and powerful. Trump is simply the latest rich person to take control, although anyone thinking a billionaire was there to champion working people (any more than Farage was here) against a different set of the rich and powerful was naive at best.


Certainly, if any of the groups that took part in the Referendum vote did anything illegal, they should be penalized, and - depending on the scope of such illegal activity - the results of the election may need to be reconsidered. Not knowing the intricacies of British law, and having had a hard time deducing what exactly was "illegal" in the articles you shared, I will leave it at that.

As for Trump, I think it's an overstatement to dismiss those who thought he would bring positive change as "naïve at best". (And ignorant at worst, I guess?) I stand by my belief that he was the best option America had in November '16. Although he is a billionaire, he wasn't a venture capitalist or IT guy. His wealth was tied to manufacturing, which was the sector that brought relative prosperity to American workers in the 50s - 80s. And although he was a member of the elite, he seemed to genuinely piss off the majority of the establishment, as well as the establishment media. It wasn't a sign of ignorance to hope that Trump would bring real change, considering that the status quo was so adamantly against him.

It's also important to remember the alternatives. There was no viable independent mass movement like in the late 60s, where one could pin one's hopes in lieu of voting. And there was no other viable anti-establishment candidate - Sanders had already dropped out and endorsed Hilary. And Hilary was clearly at home with the elites, and praised by them.

Even if Trump was a complete fraud from the beginning, his campaign accomplished two wonderful things - it interjected a semblance of class consciousness to millions of American workers, and it exposed how the media is not "independent", but simply a mouthpiece for the elites. Now that more and more Americans are realizing that their interests are not reflected in Washington, and that the media is designed to control them, two of the dominant myths used to legitimate the system are starting to erode.

Waking up is the first step toward building a genuine counterhegemonic movement, one that truly reflects peoples' interests.

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