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I have mentioned before that the right wing her in Australia have been immensely emboldened by the Trump victory. Now there have been a salvo let loose from the Left. Leftist historian, speech writer and script writer Don Watson has let loose on the Trump "horror show" in *The Monthly*. The article is at https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/march/1488286800/don-watson/american-berserk For starters it is brilliantly written. Watson is a major stylist and has produced a genuinely enjoyable take down of the monster in the Oval Office. His line is interesting. He depicts Trump as quintessentially American and asks why has it taken so long to produce a president like him. He writes: *A scam artist, an ignoramus, a professional liar, a colossal and malignant narcissist, a vulgarian, a casino operator, a serial bankrupt – a Roy Cohn–mentored billionaire with deep Mob connections – is in the White House. Has there ever been a more American presidency? What took them so long?* He then flirts with channeling the Nietzschean intellectual, H. L. Mencken, and his talk of the "morons". Watson of course is forced to condemn Clinton's talk of a "basketful of deplorables" and he rightly says that phrase will be her legacy. My comment is this. If we want to say or if we accept that Trump's victory is a victory for typical Americans then we cannot avoid the Mencken position that the majority of Americans are deplorables or morons. And Watson is trapped here. The solution of course is to insist that Trump is a minority President. That happens to accord with empirical reality. There is no need then to flirt with Mencken and Nietzsche and deplore the role of the majority and to bask in the self-pity of the isolated intellectual. We actually have an opportunity for the left intelligentsia to end its isolation and to break through to a mass base by opposing Trump. But we will never get there if we think he represents the majority. My take on it all remains that the American ruling class (the true deplorables) has made a major error in allowing the jester to keep prancing around in the crown and the robes of the king after the carnival is over. The fact that the jester is a sociopath and a narcissist compounds the error. We are about to see major acts of resistance by a wide variety of interest groups. They will all be united by a realization of the necessity to say No to Trump. that is the good news story. comradely Gary _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
