Daily Times

Leaving his legacy behind, another president of the US has eclipsed in the history. The one, who in the ‘best interest’ of human species ordered the annihilation of humanity. Probably a‘noble’ cause, why else the ‘Nobelcommittee’ nominated him as the most deserving candidate for the peaceprize?The bewildering question remains,how a peacecommitteecould become an accomplice in design as nefarious as that ofannihilating thehumanity. Was it an unconscious revival of guilt Albert Nobel, a manufacturer of ammunition, suffered or a misjudgementon the part of members who were culpable of taking a hasty decision?

Akin to all other populist leaders, Obama too staged a thumping appearance on the world’s stage.Those were the days of remarkable deception when even the acute Left of the US was too eager to bring him into power. For them, the first non-white president epitomised a near liberation, a revolutionary step towards the ultimate goal of achieving a proletarian dictatorship.Obama dismally failed. Incapable of turning the wheel of history, hewas exposed to his bare bones; the wave ofoptimism came crashing down. The people ofAmerica stepped from one dark era of Bush another of Obama.

Obama, akin to the incoming president, was neither a Satan nor a saint. He was a perfect representative of a system based on status-quo. As acharismatic man with populist slogans, he was promotedby the Wall Street, which provided a record-setting contribution to his campaign as a gifted economic leader.

Theinherent disaster of capitalism came to strike the empire in Bushera. The man was unfortunate in the sense that the storm, which was brewing under Clinton’s presidency, came to hit the country under hisadministration whichbrought him an unmatched ignominy. The dwindling economy came crashing down. A massive nationalisation of bad loans, bailing out the banks and corporations by violating the laws of laissez-faire brought the sharp class conflict into the open. Instead of finding fault with a toxic system, the heap of failurewas piled on his doorsteps.In Bush, capitalism found ascapegoat. The evil presidentwas not cast aside since as a villain he was providing the decaying system with a much-needed shelter.

To vent the anger and tobalm butnot tocure the bruised hearts of the people,Obama was brought in, who followed the chartered course set for him to the script. The wars kept conflagrating. The number of drone attacksmultiplied; the collateral damagecontinued to go upwards; Libya, Syria, and Yemen went into smoke; and Ukraine was devastated. Nero, as tradition goes burnt the city of Rome, hence condemned by the history forever. The leaders of the ‘free world’ have set states on fire, yet most left unblemished and scot-free.For lagging far behind the apostles of capitalism in the killing spree, Nero must be convulsing in his tomb.

By laughing at history, people make a laughing stock of themselves. Laughter is foreign to the moments of tragedy. Hilary Clinton made the mistake of her life by taking a tragedy a mere comedy. Her laughon the brutal death of Gaddafi became for her the last laugh of history, which including other conditions, wrote her nemesis. Horkheimer, succinctly states, “…the deaf ears in America imply an opposition to the lies that are being hammered at men and women from all sides and that they are following their leaders with their eyes tight shut. One day we may learn that in the depths of their hearts, the masses secretly knew the truth and disbelieved the lie, like catatonic patients who make known only at the end of their trance that nothing has escaped them…”Most certainly, the moment comes when nothing escapes the people, no matter how much prone to indoctrination they are.

In sheer desperation, lacking any plausible option, people of the USbrought anoligarch as their future president. When Clinton Foundation was preparing for an extravaganza, people of the US were preparing to dump her where she belonged, to the dustbin of history. For the majority ofpeople,her name became synonymous with Evil. She became the Medusa of the US, to be slain by Perseus.

It was people’s laughter, deflected to those in power. They elected a man whohimself was taken aback by this victory. In the wildest dreams of his life, the thought of winning the presidency would neverhave occurred to him. By electing a president least prepared for this job, who never thought himself qualified for this pedestal, people have sought their revenge. They have come to realise that whoever wins, they are bound to lose anyway. Hence throwing caution to the wind, they brought the least politically aware person into power.This was their revenge.

For the first time in the history of the US, people have elected an individual who happens to be a persona non-grata for the establishment. His slogan to make ‘America great’ is as meaningless as that of Obama’s claim of bringing peace into the world. Yet this slogan has made the US administration to concede publically, the reality of losing its prestigioustitle of a lone superpower, which was actually due for quite some time.

Trump is no different from any other presidents of the US. His fault which became the reason of his success was his open admission of his hatred for humanity which otherwise was shared by nearly all the other candidates of present and past covertly. In his elitism, sexism, conservatism, Islamophobia, class hatred, or/and fascism nothingsounds new, though he alone had the courage to express and embrace these facts overtly. His symbolic show of elitism is a clear manifestation that the monopoly capitalism in America finds it unnecessary to pass the power of executing the social function to any lower stratum.

Trump in his triumphant speech mentioned God more than once. Only collective amnesia can lead to the notion that he alone is instrumental inbringing God back into the White House.Nonebut the American capitalism itself has exploited God for its ends more efficiently. It was the era of McCarthyism when in clear violation of thefirstamendment God appeared on the Greenback for the first time. This shenanigan did not add up any further value to the dollar. In fact, religion was revived to exercise further control over human thoughts subjecting them to conformation. The other countries who exploit religion have learnt this trick of the trade more recently.

Mentioning God without any serious conviction is a political gimmickry.It was more or less an endorsement of Laing‘s statement that “far more people in our time experience neither the presence of God, nor the presence of his absence, but the absence of his presence.” It will be wrong to state that Trump brought God back in the White House. He always dwelled there only to be infrequently used, when the capitalistic necessity found itsutilityinevitable. In the democracy of the US, which is the case everywhere, the trophy irrevocably goes to the Goldman Sachs while the people remain the losers. This time they have come to know the fact, and this consciousnessitself isa historic achievement.

The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism
and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com