{"id":97399,"date":"2016-05-26T13:45:02","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T21:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97399"},"modified":"2016-05-26T13:45:02","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T21:45:02","slug":"us-republicans-fear-the-donald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97399","title":{"rendered":"US Republicans Fear the Donald"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Margolis writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

NEW YORK \u2013 It\u2019s been a treat watching the arrogant, Masters of the Universe Republicans wring their hands and ululate over the terror that is Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Most of my serious Republican friends don\u2019t know what to do: they yearn to be close to power, but fear backing Trump will make them pariahs at their local golf club. So they are still hiding in the closet.<\/p>\n

\u2018I am Shiva, destroyer of worlds!\u2019 That\u2019s Trump\u2019s message to America\u2019s oligarchs. And scared they should be because of even a modest Trump revolution would threatens their corrupt, stultified political system and their wallets.<\/p>\n

As a former conservative Republican who has watched his lifelong party become a vehicle for special interests and religious fundamentalists, I say \u2018blow it to smithereens.\u2019 Build a new party that represents America\u2019s 99%, not the gilded 1%.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sick of reading the New York Times sneer at \u2018uneducated white male workers who support Trump.\u2019 What about all the welfare recipients who are the core of Hilary Clinton\u2019s supporters?<\/p>\n

Trump is an American Mussolini who vows to make the trains run on time. But at a deeper level, he threatens three of the nation\u2019s most sacred cows: 1. imperial war-making, the American Empire, and the military industrial complex; 2. the vast power of Wall Street and its shameful tax breaks; 3. the Israel lobby and its undue influence over US foreign policy.<\/p>\n

No wonder his candidacy has produced so much fierce opposition and cries of anguish. Trump is remarkably brave, or incredibly foolish, to gore all these sacred cows at the same time.<\/p>\n

Still, Trump is answering a deep current in American politics, dating from the Founding Fathers, that wants to avoid foreign entanglements and wars. Foes call this isolationism. In the Trump view, the US has drained its resources and mental energy waging wars abroad that have brought it no benefit at all except a rickety empire.<\/p>\n

In 2015, US warplanes dropped 23,144 heavy bombs on six Muslim nations. US forces are now fighting in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and West Africa. Do we really wonder why so many furious Muslims want revenge against the west? Trump has yet to understand this.<\/p>\n

But Trump is right when he says no more foreign wars. Equally important, it\u2019s time to begin dismantling the US Empire which is precisely what invites attacks we call \u2018terrorism.\u2019<\/p>\n

Today, NATO does not defend the US or Europe. It is a control mechanism that keeps Europe under American strategic domination. It should have been ditched when the Soviet Union collapsed. Instead, we see the Washington neocons who control the Obama administration\u2019s policy planning to send a full US armored brigade to Russia\u2019s western border, and intensifying air and naval patrols there. Madness, and likely stepping stones to a new war.<\/p>\n

Candidate Trump advocates grown-up dialogue and cooperation with Russia and an end to Hillary Clintons\u2019 crass war-mongering and hate Putin campaign.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s call for \u2018even-handed\u2019 US policy in the Mideast was greeted with fury and horror by Israel\u2019s partisans who are now asking Washington for $4.2 billion in annual military aid.<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s daring effort to forge peace in the Mideast has run head-on into the mighty US Israel lobby which helped orchestrate a ferocious anti-Trump media campaign.<\/p>\n

Now, it appears Trump has met his match. Pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson has just made peace with Trump and announced he will support the Republican candidate. This sends an important message out to Israel\u2019s supporters to lay off the Donald. In return, Trump just announced he actually favors more Israeli settlements on the Occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the slighted Republican establishment is still sulking and won\u2019t endorse Trump \u2013 yet. Its leaders are right when the say Trump must change his speech regarding Mexicans and Muslims. But they don\u2019t really care about either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Margolis writes: NEW YORK \u2013 It\u2019s been a treat watching the arrogant, Masters of the Universe Republicans wring their hands and ululate over the terror that is Donald Trump. Most of my serious Republican friends don\u2019t know what to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29752],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97400,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97399\/revisions\/97400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}