Reactionary nostalgia for yesterday's empire

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

AFTER A yearlong chaotic faction fight in his administration, Trump has purged the White House of most of its establishment representatives and replaced them with advocates of his "America First" nationalism and militarism....

A growing collection of mainstream commentators has denounced Trump's protectionism, reckless threats of unilateral military action and transactional approach to both allies and antagonists. They have contrasted all this with previous administrations and their imperial policies, which tended to stress "stability" above all else....

In the process, the horror with which many foreign policy commentators--not to mention millions of everyday people--regarded the perpetual wars of the last decade and a half is casually brushed aside as people struggle to keep up with the latest diplomatic outrages committed by Trump's hatchet men and women.

To read more:

https://socialistworker.org/2018/05/07/reactionary-nostalgia-for-yesterdays-empire

One area of agreement between both parties is that the Empire must prevail. Trump's version of American exceptionalism is cruder, but the end result is generally the same.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. sure...

de-democratize schools.....to keep the poor, poor and ignorant of the value of their labor.
smaller gov't = more and more centralized gov't a la totalitarianism. More power in fewer hands.
continue wealth inequality, keep the poor available for exploitation
Raise up an entitled noble class (read rich capitalist oligarchs)
fascist scapegoating, racism, jingoism, etc. selective populism
control the media

voila! neo-feudalism, the fiefdoms will not be based on land but on parceling out industry to the cronies in the court.

[guillaumeb]

2. Agreed on much of what you wrote.

Both major parties agree that the Empire must be expanded.