This is typical behavior of autocrats and
dictators.
When you make colossal errors which are killing
thousands of people, find somebody else to
blame.
And in the United States, it’s unfortunately
the case, for well over a century, century
and a half, that it’s always easy to blame
the “yellow peril.”
The yellow — “They’re coming after us.”
We’ve seen this all through my life, in
fact way before.
So, blame the World Health Organization, blame
China, claim that the World Health Organization
has insidious relations with China, is practically
working for them.
And that sells to a population that’s been
deeply indoctrinated for a long time, way
back to the Chinese Exclusion Acts in the
19th century, to say, “Yeah, those yellow
barbarians are coming over to destroy us.”
That’s almost instinctive.
And it’s backed up by the echo chamber,
so, you know, say, Rush Limbaugh.
Science is one of the four corners of deceit,
along with the media, academia — I forget
one of the others, but they’re the four
corners of deceit.
They live on deceit.
You keep driving that into people’s heads.
They say, “Why should we believe anything?
Why should we believe the news?
It’s just fake news.
They’re all trying to destroy our savior,
our president, the greatest president ever.”
I’m old enough to remember as a child listening
to Hitler’s speeches over the radio, Nuremberg
rallies.
I couldn’t understand the words, but the
tone and the reaction of the crowd, the adoring
crowd, was very clear and very frightening.
We know what it led to.
It’s hard to — it comes to mind at once
when you listen to Trump’s ravings and the
crowd.
I don’t suggest that he’s anything like
Hitler.
Hitler had an ideology, horrible ideology,
not only massacring all the Jews and 30 million
Slavs and the Roma, and conquering much of
the world, but also an internal ideology:
The state, under control of the Nazi Party,
should control every aspect of life, should
even control the business community.
That’s not the world we’re in.
In fact, it’s almost the opposite, business
controlling the government.
And as far as Trump is concerned, the only
detectable ideology is pure narcissism.
Me, that’s the ideology.
As long as I am smart enough to keep serving
the real masters, pour money into the pockets
of the very wealthy and the corporate sector,
and they’ll let you get away with your antics.
It’s pretty striking to see what happened
at the Davos conference this January.
That’s the meeting of the people who are
called the “masters of the universe” — CEOs
of the major corporations, you know, big media
stars and so on.
They get together in Davos once a year, congratulate
each other on how wonderful they are, put
on a pose of dedicated humanists who couldn’t
do — you know, just totally devoted to the
welfare of the people of the world.
“You’re safe leaving your fate in our
hands because we’re such good guys.”
Trump came along and gave the keynote address.
They don’t like Trump.
His vulgarity is incompatible with the image
that they’re trying to project of cultivated
humanism.
But they wildly applauded him, lustily applauded
every word, because they know that he does
recognize which pockets you have to fill with
dollars and how to do it.
And as long as he does that, as long as he
serves his major constituency, they’ll let
him get away with the antics — in fact,
like it, because he mobilizes a crowd that
will back policies like his legislative achievements.
Main one is a tax scam that pours money into
the hands of the corporate coffers and harms
everyone else.
The deregulation is great for business.
They love it.
They can destroy the environment and harm
people as much as they want.
Very harmful to the population.
You cut back on pollution constraints, on
auto emission regulations, what happens?
People die of pollution, of mercury poisoning.
The waters are poisoned.
And the world, it goes, is facing disaster.
You’re accelerating the disaster.
As I said, even in the February 10th budget,
while cutting back on protection against diseases
in the midst of a raging pandemic, increases
funding for fossil fuel production, which
is going to destroy us all.
Of course, a lot more money for the Pentagon
and for his famous wall.
But that’s the world we’re living in — here,
not everywhere.
As I said, the Asian countries have been acting
sensibly.
New Zealand actually seems to have killed
it also.
Taiwan is doing very well.
In Europe, Germany has maybe the lowest death
rate in the world, Norway, as well.
There are ways to react.
And there are ways to try to destroy everything
— what President Trump is leading, with
the support of the Murdoch echo chamber, Fox
News and others.
And amazingly, this conjuring act is working.
So, with one hand, you raise your hand to
heaven: “I’m the chosen one.
I’m your savior.
I’m going to rebuild America, make it great
again for you, because I’m the servant.
I’m the loyal servant of the working class,”
and so on.
Meanwhile, with the other hand, you’re stabbing
them all in the back.
And to carry this off is an act of political
genius.
You have to recognize that serious talent
is involved, whether intuitive or conscious
planning.
It’s devastating.
We’ve seen it before.
We see it now in dictators, autocrats, sociopaths
who happen to get into leadership positions.
And it’s now happening in the richest, most
important country in world history.
