The Elite Seeks to Entrench Its Power taken from our ‘On Target Newsletter’ issue no 267
In the past American presidents have used the first of their four-year terms to do the nasty stuff, pushing through unpopular changes, saving the nice bits for closer to next elections. Joe Biden is doing the opposite. He’s immediately spending or trying to spend public money on a scale so lavish that it’s comparable to mobilizing for a world war. What’s going on?
The Biden administration is gambling that it can use its wafer-thin control of federal government to force through measures that will entrench Democrats’ defences against the rising threat from populist Republicans. Time is short because in the mid-term elections only 18 months away the Democrats could easily lose control.
My friend Bill Bonner says Hillary Clinton “made one of the most tone-deaf political blunders in history by referring to these people as ‘deplorables’. Over the years those deplorables have drifted towards the Republicans.”
From a classical conservative perspective, Donald Trump made little sense with his policies and proposals. “But when it came to the cultural notes, he seemed to have perfect pitch”
Since the 1990s the two parties have switched. Republicans “now represent the working class and the hustling, small-business-owning petite bourgeoisie. The Democrats are now the party of the Grand Bourgeoisie – big business, the rich, the elite, the media, the universities and the government itself (including the Pentagon).
“The trouble with this realignment, from the Democrats’ perspective is that there are relatively more deplorable voters than elite voters.”
They are attacking this problem with several initiatives to tilt the balance of power…
► Seeking to pack the Supreme Court by adding four judges sympathetic to its interests. “Fortunately that idea seems to be going nowhere, with several Democratic senators facing re-election afraid to touch it.”
► Seeking to pack Congress by giving the District of Columbia, the capital city of Washington, statehood. With that would come two senators and one congressional representative. The three new hacks would be reliable, guaranteed votes for the Democrats. However that effort is also unlikely to pass.
► The massive fiscal spending plans that aim “to win back working-class votes by handing out good-paying jobs in the ‘infrastructure’ boondoggle [only a small percentage of which will actually be for infrastructure]… along with free schooling and other giveaways in the ‘families’ programme.
“It might work.”
OT 267 22 May 2021
The way governments have acted to deal with the pandemic has come as a shock to all of us. A big shock. They have thrown money at the problem on a scale rightly compared with that of fighting a world war, abandoned any pretence of thrift in public affairs, and ordered about their citizens like schoolchildren. With hardly any opposition.
The consensus view of the US central bank and of economists is that the coming surge in prices will be temporary and therefore not to worry about too much. Several factors support the opposing view on inflation…
Most of us think that “infrastructure” means very large physical structures – bridges, tunnels, roads, railways, airports. Useful things that we’re generally in favour of, but needing large public bodies to finance and manage.
The true costs of renewables are fudged by not counting external and replacement costs, argues commentator Charles Hugh Smith…
The shortage of semiconductor microchips keeps getting worse. Why can’t we just make more? Bloomberg explains…
House prices in developed economies are soaring. In America they increased by 11 per cent in the 12 months to January, their fastest pace in 15 years. In New Zealand, prices are up by 22 per cent; in Germany by 9 per cent and in Britain by 8 per cent.
