21 November
Movie Review: Piece by Piece 
November 21, 2024 Movie Review: Piece by Piece
November 14, 2024 "Humor on the Margins: Cartoons in the Turkish Jewish Newspaper Şalom" by Rakel P. Meşulam
November 7, 2024 The "Ottoman and Turkish Ketubbot" Exhibition
November 4, 2024 TV Show Review: Nobody Wants This
November 1, 2024 The Irresistible Drunkenness of Reading Books
Why will Trump keep on winning?
İvo MOLİNAS
Thomas Piketty, the most famous economist of our times, has been hollering for a long time. What he’s been saying in brief is “The economy is going terrible. Since the rate of return of capital in developed countries is higher than the growth rate of those countries, wealth is not distributed equally among people and the gap is growing rapidly.” The individuals and institutions who still have anti-socialism/anti-communism reflexes in their souls labelled Piketty’s opinions as “Marxism” and Piketty was accused of re-marketing outdated “leftist opinions”.
Yes, especially globalization, which we call the order of the new world, reinforced well-educated people who possess all kinds of innovative tools including solid capital and communication technology, in terms of economy. Those people are the ones who benefited the most from globalization’s added value deriving from the global circulation of capital and labor.
Since post-modern life praises individualism and materialism, the elite class, created by globalization, who perceives success as solely being rich and wealthy, neither cared much about their environment and “the others” nor empathized with what’s beyond their World to understand it. All they focused on was their own “success”. However, eventually, the system hit a brick wall. Yesterday UK had an accident and today the USA had an even more severe accident.
What happened?
Middle and low class got their revenge on globalization and the elite class, in other words on the privileged class created by globalization, through the elections which are deemed the most egalitarian practice of democracy.
It’s also interesting how the “mistreated” class got their revenge on the rich and the elite class with Donald Trump, a rich man himself, who attributes success to individualism and materialism. A rich businessman rather than the Democrats advocating for relatively poor and mistreated people demonstrates that the concepts of left and right have become hollow on sociological level.
From an individual’s perspective, the main reason behind this success is the fact that mistreated or downtrodden class believes their future is at risk, both economically and sociologically. Other reasons are the decline in their incomes and the increasing presence of foreigners they see around them, thriving at the expense of them. This is exactly what’s going on in the USA. Trump’s anti-foreign (xenophobic) politics which he specifically based on Muslims, Latins and partly African-Americans stroked right at the heart of that downtrodden class hence leading to such a result for USA, even he himself wasn’t expecting.
It is not clear how Trump, who has had his share of globalization exceedingly, will make regular Americans on the streets, the ones who are the victims of globalization, happy.
We don’t know how much of the things Trump had said throughout his pre-election campaign he’ll be able to carry out. His Vice President-elect Mike Pence is known to be an advocate for the conservative Tea Party movement, however in the final analysis, his balanced character as a politician leaning towards center somewhat relieved the anxious and concerned elites. On the other hand, it is a fact that Trump’s recent appointments sent shivers up Democrats’ spines.
There are various examples to such appointments that adhere to Trump’s pre-election campaign statements. I.e. Trump appointed a bureaucrat, who believes in the supremacy of the whites and is a known misogynist, as his senior advisor. Trump is considering to appoint a politician whose appointment as a judge was denied due to allegations which indicated he is a racist, as the new US Attorney General. Trump also appointed a former general, who is a registered Islamophobic and has deep ties with Russia, as his national security advisor.
It’s a total enigma as to where Trump will take America with the unconventional and marginal power he thinks he’ll run the country with. However, the odds of him dragging the country into an unknown adventure by shifting its course is slim, since the country has a long-standing institutionalized bureaucracy and the separation of powers works strictly.
However, as long as the illness of globalization is not cured, the downtrodden revolt against the elite will only expand. Obama’s statement after the election, “Do not worry. There is another election in four years” which he said as a consolation to the democrat constituents, may again be a nightmare for the elite class.
Time will tell.
The Trump reality will keep spreading throughout the world and eventually create a new world picture, unless nobody learns a lesson from all this and unless necessary “adjustments” are made to the big economic system.
Also, the possibility of racists coming into power one by one in European countries who are suffering from globalization is considered seriously and reminds us of the 1930’s Europe.
In fact, time moves on in cyclical recurrences.
It’s time to take precautions.
Related Newsss ss
1 November
The Irresistible Drunkenness of Reading Books
“Veni, vidi, legi! / I came, I saw, I read!"
7 March
Tracking Down Mario Levi
"My luggage has been checked. He smelled everything and rummaged around. In shirts, trousers, handkerchiefs. They were looking for lace and jewelry. Even for banned books. Idiots looking for you in your suitcase! You won´t discover anything here! The contraband traveling with me. I stuck it in my head. And there are a lot of books in my head! I assure you. My head is a chirping bird´s nest. From the confiscated books." Heinrich Heine / Germany. "A Winter´s Tale"
13 December
Kissinger´s Political Doctrine
“Life is suffering. Birth involves death. Transitoriness is the fate of existence. No civilization has yet been permanent, no longing completely fulfilled. This is necessity, the fatedness of history, the dilemma of mortality.” Henry Kissinger - From the preface of his doctorate thesis at Harvard University.
13 April
Do All Organisms Feel Pain?
Scientists have revealed that plants exposed to stress also react like humans and animals do. This is a very important discovery for understanding the universality of pain for all living things.
