TRUTH UNDER SEIGE?

Has truth met its waterloo in TrumpWorld?  Given the fusillade of alternative "facts," the facade of relativistic rhetoric, the obscurantist sophistics of the likes of Sean Spicer?  Given the mouthpieces of Trumpworld such as Sean Spicer, Kelly Anne Conway, Steven Miller and, God forbid, Sarah Huckabee Sanders? 

Possibly never before have such scurrilous speakers of the language used political discourse to prevent language from pursuing truth, what the Greeks of Socrates' time called the "Logos."  What we see happening in TrumpWorld and manifested daily by his mouthpieces is Orwellian doublespeak literally.  Here today in American politics, fiction becomes truth, life verifies art.  

Possibly only comedy can deal with and expose the untruth of TrumpWorld.  We see much of this on late night TV.  Much of what we see obscured politically regarding real issues is complicated by the triviality of issues such as Trumps claims regarding 4-5 million illegal voters, assertion of record breaking crowds at his inaugural, accusation of Obama's illegal wiretapping at Trump tower, accusing British Intellegence of spying on the Whitehouse, quibbling over deceptive distinctions such as "literal" vs "serious" statements by the so-called President, etc., etc.  Such trivial if not eccentric claims are red meat for comedy but an anaesthesia for democratic discourse.

Of course, this superstructural obscurantism does point to some non-trivial issues such as what is implied by Trump's accusation of Obama committing a felony.  But sadly such as this is tantamount to a child not recognizing the serious implications of his words. So truth is not in sorting out the sophistries of the "reality TV light show" of Trump's lackeys and sycophants. The truth is in the infrastructural issues.  The truth of infrastructural actions is what must be attended to such as the infamous "Muslim Ban." 

The infrastructural issues point to the real issues and the truths we should be concerned with.  The real issues are these:  Firstly, the dismantling of the state department while dramatically increasing an already wasteful pentagon.  Within an ideology of Economic Nationalism, as General Mattis has warned, ‘if we disengage the state department and suspend diplomacy you will have to buy him more bullets.  So is Bannonist ideology intending military diplomacy and abandoning negotiation even though Trump claims to be the great negotiator?  Does Economic nationalism mean opportunistic military interventionism?

Secondly, will Trump pay for the medical, educational and social needs of the people, the very people who voted for him, prior to the ushering in of his promised golden age of the return of good jobs and prosperity to the homeland?  The real needs of people will not be satisfied by Economic Nationalist pipedreams.

Thirdly, will Bannonism enable the alt-right white Christian cultural vision to perpetuate the regressive culture war?  Or will the Bannon-believers wake up to the inevitable and only true populist vision for America, namely a multi-cultural reconstitution of community and local culture?  Possibly Trump could awaken to his own liberal-cultural tendencies and instincts and fire Bannon thus eliminating his insidious, obfuscating alt-right influence in the administration.

Fourthly, will the contradiction between egregiously wasteful spending on “the Wall,” and the military be reconciled with the promise to cut the deficit.  

Fifthly, can democracy be salvaged while Wall Street invades Washington in the form of Goldman Sachs populating the Trump administration and Billionaires bankrolling the expropriation of democratic politics from its local roots and lifeblood?  Can democracy be salvaged as business is conflated and confused with government and diplomacy?  Mass manipulation of an essentially under-educated populace does not a democracy make?  Trump’s base is not “deplorable” as Hillary Clinton exclaimed.  Their choices are regrettable or even lamentable.  They will themselves eventually regret and lament their choice of Trump.  They will discover that stoking the fires of white identity politics does not address their real needs and interests, nor promote their real political power which lay in uniting with “left-wing populism."

Lastly will the virulent behemoth of two-party politics finally be declared the 800 lb. gorilla in the political room.  Trump is neither conservative nor Republican.  Bernie Sanders was not really Demcratic nor liberal nor really even “socialist.”  Present party politics obscures the interests of the people and enervates their own possible political initiative.  The “revolution” required in American politics can’t be carried out while thinking in the obsolete bi-polar categories of left-right, liberal-conservative, Republican-Democrat, red state-blue state, white vs black, Christian vs Muslim, rich vs poor, people vs politicians, welfare vs workers, etc.  Obviously the supposed conflicts used to divide us are more determinative than the commonalites that unite and can harmonize us.  But Legislators are meant to harmonize the interests that unite the many rather than politicize unnecessary pseudo-conflict polarities that ultimately enrich and empower the few.  We thereby need a revolution in thought and political education in order to pursue and unconceal the real issues of truth.

Has truth met its Waterloo?  Not at all.  We must simply know where to look for it, how to articulate it and give it the light of day. The democracy needs "citizen legislators" who will reappropriate the republic and democratize the intelligence of the people. 

TRUMP BEYOND TRUTH

WHY ARE TRUTH AND FACT NOT IMPORTANT TO TRUMP?  …… It may well be that Trump just doesn’t pay attention to the facts for whatever reason whether narcissism, arrogance, ignorance.  He may not pay attention to truth because, like most people, he doesn’t see a difference between truth and facts whether those of his or others.  On the other hand, a better explanation may be that the liberal discourse generally shapes a body of fact and consequent truth that has had bad consequences for America as Trump sees it.  

He and Bannon are moving the narrative away from the validity of this discourse.  These Economic Nationalists see themselves creating a new narrative which requires a structural transformation of state and society.  It is within and as a consequence of this re-structuration that the narrative of new values will emerge.  Or possibly, as they probably see it, old values that must be renewed, a conservative culture that must be rehabilitated.   

So the globalist liberal media becomes the enemy of the people because their discourse narrates a “violence” against the re-valuation of state and society, trade and foreign relations, community and culture.  Trump’s “truths” are the values of the predominantly white working class who have not been allowed an identity politics as they perceive it.  There obviously still cling to white identity politics the regressive tendencies of racism, sexism, zenophobia and religious charvinism.  But for the Trumpists this will be tolerated in order to make the transition to a new populist polity.    

This is not my populism but the populism that won him the election and could sustain him through a second term.

PROTO-FASCIST DECONSTRUCTION OR POPULIST DECENTRALIZATION

So what exactly is happening in the wonderful world of Washington?  At the current Conservative Political Action Conference Steve Bannon, Chief Advisor and member of the National Security Council, announced the "deconstruction" of the "administrative state."  What does he mean?

Bannon put it in practical terms: The cabinet members were picked not to manage and improve the function of the various agencies such as the EPA.  They were explicitly picked to dismantle and thus disengage the agencies from their intended functions.  This is not simply a matter of deregulation of constraints on business.  It is a matter of the destruction, not even the 'de-construction' of the public function of these agencies in the name of the interests of the people as a whole.

In the case of education, to decentralize education and return its control to the states and communities is one thing.  But to "de-construct" the purpose of the agency in the name of destroying public education is another.  To decentralize the EPA may however amount to the destruction of the function of the EPA in that communites or even states may not have the leverage or power to combat the negative effects of the big corporations.  

What, moreover, would it mean to de-construct the Justice Department?  What does it mean to deconstruct the intelligence agencies?  What does it mean to deconstruct defense?  Can these central functions be decentralized?

Obviously Bannon paints which such a big brush that he hasn't thought through what part of the "administrative state" he wants to "deconstruct."  He hasn't thought through the difference between dismantling the mission of such as the EPA and decentralizing the function.  Decentralization based upon the principal of subsidiarity, namely, "all that can be done at home should be done at home," would be a selective process if not specialized process of populist principle.  If the "administrative state" presumes to take over the cultural life of the communities/regions, then this needs to be decentralized and returned to the people.  But when decentralization is conceived as a wholesale deconstruction of the state, then this is simple governmental incompetence or a cover for more nefarious and idiosyncratic or selective "deconstructions" in the name of achieving certain political ends such as job creation, deregulation of corporate controls, re-writing trade relations, disenfranchising voters, etc.

Autocracy is not a vehicle of decentralizing deconstruction even if we did know what could and should be decentralized.  What the people need to think about is what they can and should take control of such as education, monitoring the quality of their environment, what's happening to their tax monies, the state of the democracy, etc.  They need to think about the democratizing function and the democratization of intelligence and character.  Business and corporations can't set the standards of the values of communities/regions.  We have to decide and secure how we want to live our lives qualitatively culturally.  Economic issues construed according to certain political ideologies can't drive the democratic discourse at the community level.  Yes, all politics is local politics.  The citizen is first a local citizen.  We can think globally and act locally.  But we also live locally.

The obscurantist rhetoric of the Trump circle can't be allowed to distract the people from the positive articulation of what quality of life we want.  What needs to be deconstructed is their sophistic misdirection away from what they are doing and what the big picture of Bannon's "Economic Nationalism" really means in terms of what they are really doing.  It is not clear that our present "globalism" is better or worse than this neo-economic nationalism especially in terms of job creation and national economic sovereignty.

Is this a hidden agenda of neo-fascism that we see happening here?  Is the battle with and over the Press a ruse or is it a feeler for what the Trumpists can get away with in securing autocratic control?  Will this new deconstructed State serve us or will we serve it?