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<body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space;
-webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">First, I apologize to my dear friend
Alan, as I got tied up in a net.controversy in Pakistan and could not do the
first post as he requested.<br>
<br>
Second, as someone who lives in Dubai the last couple years (well, Sharjah last
year), I find this topic hard to tackle, mainly because of its heterogenous
effects around the world. On Sheikh Zayed Boulevard, the Trump Country
Club signs are back up on the property being developed with his
friend <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font
color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Hussain
Ali Sajwani of DAMAC. </span></font><br>
<br>
<font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I
hear some of William's reflection in hearing the somewhat disconnected
narrative when he sees America from afar via the news. In fact, here, Trump is
non-news. From my observation, the main issues here in the UAE have to do with
the cycle of the economy (we have a Ministry of Happiness here) and making sure
ISIS does not get a foothold here. I believe the main issue that Trump's
actions might rock the region would be the movement of the US Embassy to
Jerusalem, or changes in the Iranian sanctions. The feeling that Trump is
another Hitler is a largely North American effect, and the reality is probably
that he is just a toxically corrosive plutocrat.</span></font><br>
<br>
<font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:
13px;">This does not mean Trump has deep effects, and that I am not deeply
troubled by him, but to describe all of the effects he has had on my out here
would be a book; one I do not want to write. For now, I am thinking of
two things - the collapse of Kroker's bimodernism into spheres of influence and
Baudrillard's </span></font><em style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);
font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Illusion of the
End, </em><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span
style="font-size: 13px;">and </span></font><em style="color: rgb(34, 34,
34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> The Gulf War Did
Not Happen.</em><br>
<br>
<font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:
13px;">With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States declared
victory for neoliberal catalyst democracy and engaged on enacting a form of US
Imperialism, including the Project for the American Century, the TPP and its
botched Central Asian/Middle Eastern policy. But with the unexpectedly
high cost in Afghanistan (let us not forget the Soviets and Brits to remind us
of American exceptionalism in entering this theatre) with the continuing
squeezes to the Middle Class by offshoring, productivity hikes, and cuts in
Federal domestic spending as well as general erosian to the American
infrastructure, the Left was taken unawares of its own moral superiority
signified by the "deplorables" quote. They won, and their zvengali, Steve
Bannon, rests relatively unscathed on the security council. The madness
has already begun normalization, and the question is no longer resistance, but
how to weather the storm.<br>
<br>
However, with the collapse of American hyperpower status under Trump and his
abandonment of the TPP, outsourcing defence against North Korea to China (in
media, in a way) and alignment with Putin, Geert Lovink and I agree that the
globalist discourse will shift to Spheres of Influence, such as the Indian,
Chinese, US/'Canadian, Australian; and as such, the world will only care about
Washington in terms of its sphere until war comes about, which I believe that
Trump's quote about America winning wars again is his resistance to the
collapse from The Superpower to a major power.<br>
<br>
2016 was Baudrillard's election, for sure. As in <em>The Gulf War
Did Not Happen</em>, Trump's media machine created a scenario of misdirection
and simulated Republican Reich Federalism created a candidate that simply did
not exist except as an avatar. Even Melania's sad plagiarism of Obama's
First Lady speech was a signifier of empty signification. But Donald reassures,
But I'm telling you, it's going to be great, believe me... Such is the clueless
raving of a megalomaniac CEO whose media promises are now just a storm of
mirrors.<br>
<br>
Many in North America consider the Trump Presidency an "end of the Republic" of
sorts. Although severe, unless the Contitution gets rewritten, the worst he can
do is create damage, but (hopefully for this year) not enough to really
collapse the Union, unless Bannon has a black swan up his sleeve.<br>
<br>
But as Baudrillard once wrote, an End is merely a terminus; after it, there is
always another End, and after then, what then? At the risk of being
flippant, I think that American is entering the realm of "post-postism" in
which eschatology fails, and the necessity of considering the continuous
becomes neccessary, however distasteful.<br>
<br>
At this time, it just seems that The crisis for America is plutocratic
exceptionalism that is corroding the Obama legacy of foreign policy and
threatening to fleece its populace through Trumpcare. This is life
after the end, and the world is turning its back.</span></font></span><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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