This is part 2 in a 3 part series that unapologetically demonstrates why Iranian-Americans tend to have a naturally superior grasp of national current events, more than the news media or any politician for sure.
Mainstream Liberal America today, is awash in self doubt these days. Total loss of confidence. In a dumbfound cultural funk that the “utter idiot” Trump could actually be President of the United States! And how much worse he is at it than they originally feared! That’s how they feel. And from all the evidence so far, they are right to feel this way.
This New Conservative Right (as opposed to the traditional conservative right), is the opposite. With their bed made, backs against the wall, with nothing left to lose, they are naturally all in, literally deifying Trump as the “Can Do” (No Wrong), second coming of Reagan-Christ. And they especially believe any criticism is unfair, and should be banned. And most surprisingly of all, that his sheer undeniable ineptitude, is only temporary, and should be expected. After all, Trump is “learnin’ on the job”.
But the (Superior) Iranian-American analysis of what at once seemed horribly impossible, and now more horribly real, explains this new American reality as predictably obvious. It was really only a matter of time. Was bound to happen. Even the movie “Idiocracy” foretold it.
The commonly (mis)held belief among Trump supporters in the Trump error – I mean era, is that Trump geniusly does what he always does, namely surrounds himself with “experts”. People better than him. People who know more than him. But nevertheless people that work for him, and who now bow down to him. You may have heard him refer to this as, “Loyalty”. We Iranians certainly know “bowing down” when we see it. It never ends well.
Trump though, like a finely spoiled carcass, has attracted “deep thinkers”. Buzzards like Steve Bannon. Who for decades has been wandering the talk radio wilderness, unshaven, in an old bathrobe, pants around his ankles, perfecting his tattered handwritten manifesto, “How to (Re-)Make America into (what I think is) Great Again”.
In case you do not know where Bannon came from, here’s your wake-up-call primer:
-
- Like most Jew and foreigner hating right wing conservatives, Bannon started out as an Irish-Catholic.
- He also used to be a Kennedy Pro-Union Democrat.
- Which he confused with Marxism.
- Which is why he then publicly called himself a Leninist.
- Bannon thinks Lenin wanted to “Destroy the State”. Bannon likes that. A lot.
- Lenin then went on to build one of the biggest “States” in the history of the world.
- Bannon went to a Military Prep School.
- Bannon was also “In the Navy!” Stationed in the Persian Gulf. One of the “seven seas…”. Which is why he can’t “put his mind to ease…”, and hates the song, and Gay people.
- Bannon is only rich because he receives a piece of a highly successful, syndicated, and ironically the most iconically and ironically Liberal television show in history, “Seinfeld”.
- Bannon is a former notoriously ruthless M&A broker at Goldman Sachs (A company whose actions you could easily argue have technically made America un-Great)
- Bannon learned how to organize social media to bring down enemies when a gaming company he bought, that sold cheats to players of online adventure games, was attacked on an organized social media campaign led by the players of the game, who got Bannon’s company banned, for cheating. Sound in any way familiar?
- Bannon has spent 25 years on the sole task of proving that the Clintons are crooks.
- Bannon took over Breitbart (a website). After the owner died.
- Bannon ironically (and cynically) sounds a lot like “Banning”.
- Bannon brought Kellyanne into the “stable of bovines” we see in the White House today.
- Kellyanne’s last name is “Conway”. Emphasis on “Con”. Which is the only way she rolls.
- All of this proves there is a God. That he makes God-sized mistakes. And that he has a sense of humor.
With Bannon and Conway cleaning the toilets he keeps clogging, Trump has finally been able to surround himself with the most obvious elites, who previously would never give him the time of day. “Elite” to Trump means “Wall Street”. But not Jeff Sessions. Whose middle name will very soon be changed to Patsy when Trump fires him. And neither is General Mattis any sort of elite by any means. However when it comes to middle names and Iran, Jim “Mad-Dog” Mattis is highly appropriate. He most certainly hates Iran. No, like this much [ ].
But none of this is as relevant as it sounds. Bannon, Conway, Sessions, or Mattis are not as influential as they appear. Trump will easily throw them under the bus, as it runs over Kellyanne, then backs up and runs over her again, at the slightest moment’s notice. Because Trump is not loyal to his loyalists, as everyone loyal to him thinks. And none of this seemingly explains why so many people in the rural areas of America voted for Trump.
Iranian-Americans know that even if the Russian hack of the election somehow brainwashed people in rural America into voting for Trump, in the end, red-state folks still did the voting! And even if a Russian hacker on Facebook managed to talk you into it, you still “looked into your heart”, found a large “Hate for Hillary” lump, deep in the darkest parts of it, and then went ahead and voted for Trump in spite of your usual bluer judgment. Something that deep in the other part of your dark heart, now tells you might have been a huge mistake. Which is probably why no one in coal country is complaining about coal mines not re-opening. Since January.
The typical explanation given now, is the Trump vote was obvious. Blow up the DC insiders, and pound in the hate-vote for Hillary. But this election was not as much a referendum on fat politicians or Hillary, than the total utter vilification of what Hillary and the pocket-lining legislative branch stand for. Which is entitled, self congratulatory, intellectual superiority. “Intellectualism” for short.
Liberal Democrat (and Republican) Intellectualists, define the Trump voter as “Red State Knuckle Draggers”. Which only sounds really really good to you now. And was even a reasonably accurate definition, represented by several well known examples of RSKD, who stood proudly on the podium next to Trump on all those genius “County Fair” campaigns. And as it now turns out, ongoing Right(Stag) Rallies.
Sigh. Deep sigh.
But on average this delicious stereotype is also far from the real Trump voter. The more accurate definition of the Trump voter is an “Anti-Intellectualist”. (AI, as in Artificially Intelligent).
AI is almost always White. AI is intelligent but through arrogant ego, bypassed any formal education in place of a fine-tuned yet still incoherent argument, that now tries to defend the mere lazy-life-shortcut he took, re-defined as a legitimate and respect demanding life-choice now. Even though that’s just not the truth.
AI was once eventually promoted to line management. After many years of production line dedication. Working in the only 180 year old factory in the small rural red-state hometown he grew up in. Note: we will symbolically now call all outdated, irrelevant, obsolete light industry American factories in small red state hometowns like it, “the Pencil factory”. All these “Pencil factories” are now naturally shut down. Because they should be. Because in the iPhone era, in the age where you can get a cheaper “anything” made in China, at “the Walmart”, it turns out even American people just don’t need small hometown factory made pencils anymore.
Which means the Trump voter (AI), ignored almost all of the numerous obvious economic trends that flicked them on the head, as they flew by, and merely doubled down against the telltale tea leaves they were too illiterate to read, and went ahead anyway and bet their entire life completely wrong.
Ironically in almost every single case, it was conservative Republican industrialists looking to increase profits, who eventually stabbed every (middle) American Pencil Factory worker in the back as they sourced cheaper labor overseas. And now? Due to mostly (Southern) pride, and an obstinate self denial of “facts”, it’s just easier to ignore “…it was yer own dang fault Cletus!”, and blame Globalization, NAFTA. And Obama. And Liberals. And their kin, Immigrints’. Whom they have never met. Not one.
The plan to skip college after high school and go straight to work at the hometown “Pencil factory”? Dashed. The hometown he played highschool football in? More tattered and torn than his lettermen’s jacket. The one he can’t fit into anymore. The Camaro he bought the day after graduation? The day before Peggy-Sue told him she was pregnant? Long since busted. Sits rusting in the front yard now. With a blown transmission. That he can rebuild. The knee he blew out his senior year? The one he never got looked at? Still aches everyday. All day. With or without the Opioid pain meds. That Obamacare covers. For now.
The “Pencil factory” shuttered 6 or 16 or 26 years ago. Not just because China makes cheaper pencils. But because the 3rd generation family of lazy brats that inherited it, merely got tired of running it, and sold it and all the patents Grandpa had, off. They’ve long since packed up and moved to Florida, where they’ve bought a bigger mansion. And a bigger boat.
But AI America still thinks they are just as smart as Intellectual America. And they are. Just without the fancy Berkeley degrees. They may not know much about Economic theory, World History, and especially 19th century European Philosophy, but at least they can rebuild a transmission! Right in their front yard! And wasn’t Jesus a Carpenter?
But the bet that AI America made, has now gone far more horribly wrong than even Intellectuals with MIT degrees in statistical analysis could have predicted.
It is very very clear that the many similar bets, made in this part of America, have all gone wrong too. And after a life of ignoring all the bad bets, and stupid-stubbornly refusing to relocate or renovate or re-educate themselves for better jobs, modern era jobs, jobs that cannot be offshored, well no wonder they are now naturally pissed off at the whole system. And I mean the WHOLE system.
But then, as if by magic, just like in the movies, along comes a bright blonde blustering salesman in a shiny Chinese-made suit waving a Chinese-made American flag. Not unlike the salesman who sold him that first Camaro so many years ago. Promising everyone in town, the very moon that glints off his whitened tiny-toothed grin.
Well, no wonder!
