Why Trump Won the Presidency

In an earlier post prior to the election I observed that, “The US has been on the road to fascism for a long time. Both Democrats and Republicans have for decades been advancing the same agenda of ceding power to transnational mega-corporations and the global banking cartel. So called “free trade” agreements are simply ways of allowing capital to more freely, exploit labor and the environment, and forcing governments to guarantee their profits.

Changes in financial regulations, like the repeal of Glass-Steagall under Bill Clinton in 1999, have enabled banking companies to grow to monstrous size (“too big to fail”) and to more easily cheat the clients they are supposed to serve.”

Now Jordan Chariton, while he does not call it fascism, details this trend in his article, Trump’s victory over Clinton was sealed 40 years ago. He points out that Bill Clinton continued the trend that began under Ronal Reagan, and that it was Clinton who presided over the deregulation of the Telecom Industry, repeal of Glass-Steagall, deregulation of credit-default swaps, loosened banking rules, and NAFTA, all of which contributed to the dismantling of American manufacturing and the decline of the American middle class.

He concludes that “The GOP, and Donald Trump, is not the answer. Unfortunately, a cowardly and corrupt Democratic Party let millions of people think they are.”

I am inclined to agree with Paul Waldman who wrote in the Washington Post If you voted for Trump because he’s ‘anti-establishment,’ guess what: You got conned. He says:
“An organizational chart of Trump’s transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists, representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is positively salivating over all the new opportunities they’ll have to deliver goodies to their clients in the Trump era.”

Another indication of that reality is the stock market surge on the day after the election. The companies that gained the most were banks, weapons manufacturers, and drug companies.

No, Donald Trump is not the one who will “make America great again.” That is a job that needs to be done by you and me and all of us working together to find common ground and create new systems and structures that are honest, open, transparent and consistent with our most fundamental values.

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