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The Cheeto Cometh

I dunno about you, but I rather enjoy watching the praetorian Deep State go batshit crazy as the day of Trump’s apotheosis approacheth. I imagine a lot of men and women running down the halls of Langley and the Pentagon and a hundred other secret operational redoubts with their hair on fire, wondering how on earth they can neutralize the fucker in the four days remaining.

What’s left in their trick-bag? Bake a poison cheesecake for the inaugural lunch? CIA Chief John Brennan has been reduced to blowing raspberries at the incoming president. Maybe some code cowboys in the Utah NSA fortress can find a way to crash all the markets on Friday as an inauguration present. What does it take? A few strategic HFT spoofs? There will be lots of police sharpshooters on the DC rooftops that day. What might go wrong?

Civil War Two is underway, with an interesting echo of Civil War One: Trump dissed Civil Rights sacred icon Georgia congressman John Lewis, descendant of slaves, after said icon castigated Trump as “not a legitimate president.” That now prompts a congressional walk-out of the swearing-in ceremony. The New York Times is acting like a Manhattan socialite in a divorce proceeding, with fresh hysterics every day, reminding readers in a front-page story on Monday that “[Martin Luther] King’s birthday falls within days of the birthdays of two Confederate generals, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.” Jeez! Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters?

There’s not much Trump can do until Friday noon except tweet out his tweets, but one can’t help but wonder what the Deep State can do after that magic moment passes. I’ve maintained for nearly a year that, if elected, Trump would be removed by a coup d’état within sixty days of assuming office, and I still think that’s a pretty good call — though I hope it doesn’t come to that, of course. My view of this was only confirmed by Trump’s performance at last week’s press conference, which seemed, shall we say, a little light on presidential decorum.

Perhaps it befits this particular Deep State to go down in the manner of an opéra bouffe. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, old Karl Marx observed. What does the Union stand for this time? The rights of former SEC employees to sell their services to CitiBank? The rights of competing pharma companies to jack the price of insulin up from $20 to $250 a vial? The rights of DIA subcontractors to sell Semtex plastic explosives to the “moderate” jihadis of the Middle East?

So the theme of the moment is that Donald Trump is a bigger crook than the servants and vassals of the Deep State. He ran for president so he could sell more steaks and whiskey under the Trump brand. He’s in violation of the emoluments clause in the constitution. Well, I’m not aware that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or Andrew Jackson put their slaves in a blind trust after they became president. Anyway, at this point in our history, nobody can beat the Deep State for financial turpitude, certainly not a single real estate and hotel magnate.

I guess the big question is whether the Deep State — and, yes, Virginia, the Deep State does exist, unlike Santa Claus — will tear the country apart in the attempt to defend all its ill-gotten perquisites and privileges. The public at large is restive, eager to get on with the job of deconstructing the matrix of racketeering that adds up to the immiserating culture we live in, a society where health insurance company presidents make $40 million a year while ordinary people lose their homes because a $5,000-deductible health insurance policy doesn’t cover the cost of treating a routine tonsillectomy.

I didn’t vote for the Cheeto-head sonofabitch, but it will be interesting to see what he does between noon and six p.m. Friday, if he survives the festivities.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/JamesHowardKunstler?ty=h)

3 Comments

  1. Rick Weddle January 19, 2017

    re: ‘Peaceful transition of power,’…

    So. I guess the previous ‘peaceful’ transition of power (where the furtive, decades-long, and successful Corporate Insurrection seized the democratic rug from under us Humans) is going to sustain its Hard Reign…following the wrecked DNC on into the dirt.
    Illegitimate Prexy elexy? Oh, yes! But not because those pesky Russkies told Julian Assange the truth about what HRC, the DNC, and all those worms were doing to us. There’s never been a sillier, more expensive excuse for a real democratic election than what we’ve just been force-fed. But, by now we should be accustomed to elections stolen from US, patriots! We’ve been sitting still for this faux crap so long, lots of People think that’s how she’s done! Good luck, America, you’re gonna need it, not having any duly elected ‘servants’ handy, and having gone flatline in front of your flickering screens…

  2. Jim Updegraff January 19, 2017

    Be sure to look under your bed tonight to see if the bogey man is there.

  3. Humbilly January 19, 2017

    Clinton and his wife cashed in big time on their status. Still doing it too. So easydoesit on our Trumpster, at least he had to hustle for his money. The infamous Roman Emperor, Caligula, noted for his debauchery and treachery signalled the beginning of the end for that ancient ‘Republic’, do we qualify?

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