A good friend and colleague of mine is a professional political pundit. He was and is very anti-Trump. I argued a case in favour of Donald Trump. In the end, electing Donald Trump on his message of MAGA seems to have been as futile as electing Barrack Obama on his message of hope and change. Here is my mea culpa to my friend. It appears prudent people should plan for a post-apocalyptic world:
Just to note: you were right about Donald Trump (I argued above you didn’t give him a fair chance). Trump is the same sellout as Barrack Obama was, betraying his MAGA voters as Obama betrayed his hope and change voters. Was George Carlin right about the unseen angle on the Kennedy Assassination?
Whomever the Americans elect, regardless public platform, that politician turns around and pursues a Wall Street/military industrial complex/Big Oil agenda.
Hillary Clinton was a known disaster. Voting for her was likely to end in two more Middle East wars and World War III with Russia/China (her game would have been to separate China from Russia and then to attack – while perhaps a better strategy for America, it’s just as sour a plan for the world). Donald Trump was an unknown, a wild card. But you may be right. In the end, as awful as Hillary Clinton would have been, Donald Trump might manage to be worse. He still has his homework in front of him.
There’s no one left to root for. The old codger Sanders went along with his sandbagging. Rand Paul has neither party backing nor is he particularly reliable himself.
The whole plutocracy is rotten through and through. We’re living through a modern version of the 1770’s or 1780’s. You’ll remember how that ended in France.
On the issues important to you:
- Israel won’t make a reasonable settlement (equal rights or independence) with the Palestinians.
- industry (and in particular) American industry will not accept climate change so we will continue to pollute and poison ourselves into an imminent (give or take fifty years) extinction event
Sadly part two might be the best thing we could do for the planet. We wiped out the Denisovians, the Neanderthals, the North American Indian and countless other species. If we could just wipe out ourselves, life would have another chance at making a kinder, gentler and wiser sentient species.
Like you as a father, I have to do my best to combat our self-destructive tendencies for the benefit of future generations. Our efforts for the moment seem to be in vain as the water table is fracked poisoning an enormous of the US groundwater and the ocean is slowly reduced to a toxic bath. This is without mentioning the steady air pollution. If I had to wager, nuclear war will put most of us out of our misery before we manage to damn the environment entirely via conventional means.