A New America arises, perhaps with Trump as its first leader

Summary: Updates on two predictions I’ve made, each a window into the New America now arising on the ruins of the old. What horrific attacks has China made on America with the information hacked from the government’s files? When will the Donald flame out, leaving the Presidential campaign safely in the hands of stuffed shirts — loyal servants of the 1%? {1st of 2 posts today.}

A strength of the FM website is its predictions. Sometimes wrong (see the smackdowns page), our overall record is very good (see these hits). Tracking forecasts is important, as we’re locked into news cycles run by amnesic journalists who report with little recollection of the past. Gurus with records of almost always wrong reappear with new predictions and no mention of their frequent failures. Past events reported as certain apocalypses are forgotten.

Remembering has become a radicalizing action. Here are two blasts from the past worth revisiting.

(1) The hack into Federal employee records by “China”

“I believe this infobomb has done catastrophic damage to US security. How? Big data + bots (made smarter via AI) will be able to turn this data into a decisive instrument of warfare.”
— John Robb at Global Guerrillas, 24 June 2015. Broadcast to the Left via Naked Capitalism.

One of great bursts of American pants wetting, between We’ll ALL Die from Ebola and Protect Me from the ISIS Terrorist Under My Bed., as the hack of the Federal employee records — allegedly by China (“we don’t know” are words that burn the tongues of officials). In August I said “My guess is that on this day next year (8-5-2016) we’ll add the OPM hack to the list of hysteria outbreaks in America which had little or no serious results.”

Status so far after 89 weeks (1 year, 8 months) from the first hack in March 2014: no reports of significant results. Even more significant, after months of investigations the US government has provided no reliable data showing that China was responsible for the hacks. For more about this now forgotten but once “game-changing big story”…

(2) The Trump Revolution: the flash in the pan is still burning

“Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”
— Attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson.

The latest polls show Trump widening his lead over Carson, solidifying his front-runner status, with substantial leads in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Worse, the two latest match-up polls of Trump vs. Clinton show him a viable candidate (+5% in one, -1% in the other). The political gurus and political scientists assured us that this could not happen. He better implode soon, since there only 11 weeks remain until the first primary — where Trump might prove his standing. If he wins two or three, the this song for this election will be The World Turned Upside Down.

Readers of the FM website knew this was coming. Scores of posts during the past decade described the massive changes coming to the American, warning that the unexpected was certain during this transitional period. As for the Donald….

Can he win? Yes. The US public lives in the now, without a foundation in history, knowledge, or logic — and so is vulnerable to wild swings of opinion in response to the news. A recession next year or a large terrorist attack in America — either quite plausible — could sweep him into office.

We had a close call in 2008 with McCain-Palin — the former an elderly loose cannon, the latter ignorant and stupid. This second bout of folly might take hold. If not, I fear the third will. There will be a third, as the force unleashed by the Right can no longer be contained. At best they can be contained until they burn out. As “Bernie Quigley at The Hill wrote in July …

I’m not sure if anyone has put it together yet, but if Donald Trump does not go quietly into the good night within the month or so, then we will have reached a turning. You can feel it already with the rise of Marine Le Pen and the hard-right National Front in France. And in our times, as goes France, so goes everyone as we have unfortunately connected ourselves here, there and everywhere in foolhardy cultural globalization so if one goes, everything goes.

… If Trump is still riding high in the Republican polling say in a month or so from now, the Republicans can consider themselves to be all but finished. And Trump will be the avatar of a yet-defined new movement. A metamorphosis will have occurred. We will have entered a new phase of our American condition from which there will be no turning back.

One example of Trump’s dangerous race baiting (with bogus statistics)

“@SeanSean252: @WayneDupreeShow @Rockprincess818 @CheriJacobus pic.twitter.com/5GUwhhtvyN“

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2015

(3) Conclusions

These two phenomena, the Donald and the fear-mongering about the OPM hack, are related. We’ve become ungrounded. Our fearfulness — even cowardliness — results from this. It makes us easily led. Our oligarchic rulers have exploited this to close down the normal channels of political expression (i.e., they still operate, but have no effect) and channel the fruit of America’s increasing productivity into their pockets. The result has been rising social tension at all levels. The Black Lives Matter protests are one expression of this. The right wing revolt against their GOP leaders is another. The latter matters even, as the eventual Right-wing loon victory will ally with our ruling elites almost immediately after his win. The combo might have horrific effect.

This shows how nihilism has become epidemic, with people madly hoping for any kind of massive change — thoughtless of the likely consequences.

Long ago (2014?) Michael A. Cohen asked on Twitter why I kept writing about a New America being constructed on the ruins of the America that once was. I suspect soon even he will see the answer. The foundation has been laid. We await the Leader to build a structure upon it.

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. … This … was the real American Revolution.

—- John Adams in a letter to H. Niles, 13 February 1818.