I’m So Bored With the USA: Silly Season, Only It Isn’t

 

 

“They’re watching every move we make We’re all included on the list”

 

 

As the political world continues its journey to the right, everything seems increasingly ridiculous. Sullen people making viscous promises, based on little more than hot air and grandiose gestures

 

Worse still are the more centrist politicians who are rushing to catch-up, trying to prove that they too, are tough. As so many extremist politicians have proved over the years, it requires more than posing and talk to be tough.

There are plenty of wannabe tough politicians in both the Tories and Reform, but, all too often, they are just opportunists. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, suddenly became rabid nationalists. Others jump ship to Reform; begging the question is Reform a breath of fresh air, or a retirement home for played-out Tories?

The government’s answer to a summer of anti-migrant protests and rising nativism is to promise to close asylum hotels whilst wrapped in a flag, and ignoring the fears of those frightened and unsettled by the new mood.

 

‘is Reform a breath of fresh air, or a retirement home for played-out Tories?’

 

In contrast, the government mobilises to ban Palestine Action and arrest hundreds of peaceful protesters, including Mike Higgins, who was carrying under his arm a sign that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Mike is a 62-year-old, who uses a wheelchair and describes himself as totally blind with additional hearing and physical impairments.

Higgins was arrested under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He is on bail until October, and has told officers that, by law, any written communications sent to him must be in braille.

The PM is becoming increasingly consistent, constantly picking on those that can’t hit back.

The PM far from being the most influential politician continues to be overshadowed by the leader of the unofficial opposition, Nigel Farage, who has plagued the majority of UK politicians for the past 10-yrs. During this time he has continued taking the terms of debate further to the right, successfully galvanising public dissatisfaction on a range of issues and connecting it to immigration, furthering his desire to be PM.

Farage is a wannabe Trump. On a recent visit to Washington he encouraged radical Republicans’ paranoid illusion of Britain as a hellscape where free speech is stifled and national culture is corroded by immigration. He endorses Trump’s method of mass deportations, enforced with contempt for law and human rights.

Trump continues to undermine the US constitution, deployed 2,000 troops, heavily armed troops to patrol the streets of Washington DC to fight crime which is at a 30-year low there. This follows of from his decision to send the national guard and the marines into Los Angeles to put down protests against his immigration policies, protests he administration amounted to an “insurrection”.

These are all Democrat cities with large Black populations, that could form centres of opposition to his rule. The constitution was designed to stop president’s doing this, giving the states powers of their own and restricting the reach of federal government.

The end game is control, and removing or neutering any institution or person that could stand in his way.

 

‘removing or neutering any institution or person that could stand in his way’

 

As part of this marginalisation of any opposition, Trump is stirring-up a fear and hatred of migrants, casting them as predators and criminals, obscuring the distinction between illegal migration and legally settled, foreign-born citizens.

Trump isn’t the great patriot, he is simply another would-be dictator.

Reform are weaponizing immigration with the same goals in-mind. There has always been racists and undercurrent of racism in post-WWII Britain, but, to date, it was confined to fringe parties such as the National Front. They encouraged violent demonstrations, and proposed rounding people up for mass deportation, but there was never a remote possibility of that happening. They never looked like attaining seats in parliament, let alone forming a government. Today, their ideas have become mainstream. Farage may be the catalyst, but the endorsement of these ideas by “mainstream” parties has seen them become normalised.

The Tories attitude to immigration can, at least, be described as consistent, as, post-Brexit the party has tacked further rightwards. Robert Jenrick wants immigrants “detained in camps” resembling “rudimentary prisons”. He wants “net emigration”, to give the UK “breathing space”. This may not be official party policy, but Kemi Badenoch, the party’s supposed leader, doesn’t dare contradicts him.

What is most disappointing is the Labour government’s failure to mount any form of effective defence of multiculturalism, or push to back against this anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead, they have endorsed Farage’s comments that immigration is public enemy #1, only pausing to question the logistics.

The new home secretary, the Birmingham MP Shabana Mahmood, proposes to intensify the government’s war on asylum, immigration and so-called small boats, enthused and supported by her bosses “island of strangers” speech,

As I have written before wannabe mainstream politicians turning to the right don’t cut it with the electorate. Its decaf versus a double espresso.

If Labour and Starmer want to be re-elected they need the support of voters appalled by Reform and what it represents, rather than trying to be a poor man’s fascist.

Voters too need to open their eyes, and see Trump’s America for what it is.

His immigration policies are causing upset and chaos.

The South Korean industrial giant Hyundai has, as apart of the South Koreans trade deal, are building a EV battery plant in Georgia. Last week, Trump’s ICE Stormtroopers arrested nearly 500 South Koreans working to the plant. This summarises the chaos caused by an administration that doesn’t know what it’s doing, with a clear contradiction of policy objectives; immigration vs foreign investment.

Elsewhere, there are signs that his economic policies are slowing the economy, which added only 22,000 new jobs in August. This was below expectations, and the unemployment rate was slightly up at 4.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the beginning of the year, more than 100,000 jobs were being added each month.

The impacts of DOGE are still being felt; in August federal employment lost a further 15,000 jobs, bringing the total number of lost jobs to 97,000 since January.

Manufacturing is also suffering, losing 2,000 jobs in August, and 78,000 over the last year.

It’s been a longtime trend that Black Americans are the “last hired, first fired” in a downturn. In August, the unemployment rate for Black Americans jumped 0.3%. to 7.5%; over double the unemployment rate for white and Asian Americans, of C.3.5%. The unemployment rate for Hispanic Americans was also higher, at 5.3%.

Black Americans are the “last hired, first fired” in a downturn

 

Prior to Friday’s jobs report release, Trump said that “The real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now. You’re going to see job numbers like our country has never seen.”

The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told CNBC that the jobs reports will be better once the administration makes changes to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: “You’ll take out the people who are just trying to create noise against the president.”

Tariff’s are, or perhaps were, going take centre stage within Trump’s economic policy. The cash cow that funds his “big beautiful” bill.

However, as he admitted last week, if his cherished tariff regime is struck down by the supreme court, he may need to “unwind” some of the trade deals struck since “liberation day” in April.

The whole tariff charade has been a joke, fraught with changes of direction, delays, now it appears he may have acted ultra vires in imposing them.

His reign and policies seems predicated on how he feels that day. His recent whims have included taking a 10% government stake in Intel, demanding 15% of the revenue of Nvidia’s chip sales to China and the suggestion that the CEO of Goldman Sachs should go.

 

‘His reign and policies seems predicated on how he feels that day’

 

He has also constantly trying to undermine the Federal Reserves’ independence, insulting the chair, Jerome Powell, and trying to sack Lisa Cook from the central bank’s board.

The head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was removed by Trump after a run of poor jobs data; the chief of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”), Jennifer Abruzzo, was fired, too. The latter decision no doubt found favour with his tech bros who loathe the NLRB for its role in upholding workers’ rights, such as mandating unionisation ballots at Amazon warehouses.

The destruction of America’s established economic model is not solely down to Trump. Instead it has been a slow burn bought on by the GFC, where government bailouts of financial institutions laid bare the failings of financilisation, and free-markets.

The bailouts led to a schism between Wall St and Main St. In both the US and the UK the creators of the crisis were rescued at the expense of everyone else.

But, prior to the GFC, the beginnings of the fault-lines started in 1980s, when free-market economics laid waste to swathes of jobs across the US rust belt, and in the UK’s former manufacturing heartlands. This deindustrialisation and subsequent unemployment is yet to be reversed.

In both countries this gave birth to populism, resulting in Brexit in the UK, and Trump’s first-term. During his first 4-yrs, Trump introduced modest China tariffs, his first stab at tilting the playing field back towards the US.

His successor, Joe Biden left these tariffs in-place, and introduced a more interventionist economic model, offering billions in grants and loans distributed under the Inflation Reduction Act linked to national priorities of cutting carbon emissions and creating jobs.

 

‘Trump has caused uncertainty and chaos, both of which destabilises markets’

 

In his second term, Trump has caused uncertainty and chaos, both of which destabilises markets. The end result of Trump’s economic mayhem will be little different to the debacle that was Truss experiment in the UK. Once markets lose faith in an administrations economic credibility it takes and age to rebuild it.

The real cause of the electorates desire for change is inequality. Post-GFC the rich have become richer and the rest are poorer. The rest are often the victims of deindustrialisation, the people in Main St. who bailed out the banks and bankers.

Today, the rich are doing better than ever.

Between 2019 and 2024, average CEO compensation within major U.S. low-wage corporations rose 34.7 percent in nominal — unadjusted for inflation — terms, more than double the 16.3 percent increase in these firms’ average median worker pay. The U.S. inflation rate over this same period: 22.6 percent.

During that time, firms spent $644 billion on stock buybacks, artificially inflating the value of a company’s stock — and CEO pay. Every dollar spent on buybacks represents a dollar not spent on workers.

Not only is this driving further inequality and the concentration of wealth at the top, it gives the few increasing influence over our politics.

The UK looks set to follow the US on the road to authoritarianism and disaster.

 

‘The UK looks set to follow the US on the road to authoritarianism and disaster’

 

Angela Rayner, whatever her failings may have been, was one of the last vestiges of Labour’s left, working-class roots. Each reshuffle nudges the party further rightward. So terrified are they of the media’s assault on their credibility, that they have become a party driven by how they look and sound rather than what they were supposed to represent.

As a result they have delivered austerity, closed borders and security overreach; a right-wing government in all but name. This is nothing real about them only a desperation bought on by a lack the courage, and fear that traditional Labour policies will be trashed by the media.

The result will be no different to the US; evil men preaching racism and creating unrest. The outcome is authoritarianism, and misery. And, the poor bloody infantry will be just that, poor! The minority, those who can buy influence will continue to flourish.

Farage isn’t a breath of fresh air, he isn’t the answer, he is just a minor-public schoolboy with a very large chip on his shoulder!

 

 

“Remember, a kick it over No one will guide you through Armagideon time”

 

 

It is remarkable that a government, 1-yr into a 5-yr term, and with a sweeping majority already appears to be over. They are just as terminally dysfunctional and directionless as their predecessor.

It is such a colossal waste of an opportunity for a party that sailed in on a large majority, with an eviscerated opposition and a moment ripe for the taking.

The latest nail in their coffin is the resignation of Angela Rayner , who appears to have been the only Labour high-up who brought a visibly human element to the business of government, and could talk movingly about life at the sharp end. Her policy priorities, such as championing the needs of social housing,  were focused on exactly the parts of the electorate to whom Farage most powerfully speaks.

In addition, she was at least a modest counterweight to the power wielded by Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who has gleefully seized the opportunity provided by her resignation for a reshuffle, and seemingly encouraged Starmer to lean even further into the blank, technocratic approach that has defined this government from the start.

If anyone doubts just how tedious and pointless the PM has become, there is the video Starmer put out a few days before the Rayner crisis: 35 tedious seconds in which he talks about getting “all the No 10 staff together” and “marching forward to the next phase of government”.

Can he really believe that rubbish?

Meanwhile, Farage and Reform continue to run rings around him.

As for the Tories; who?

In the US, it seems to be Trump versus the courts, versus C.50% of the population. All the while he continues to undermine the constitution, and seeks to further empower himself.

Globally, the US looks increasingly isolated. Europe and other western powers no longer trust them. In the east an axis of evil is taking shape; China, Russia, India and North Korea.

The Trump epitaph might be Making America Second-Rate. If so, he and Farage will get along just fine, with much in-common, only we got there first.

Lyrically, we have the Funboy Three and “The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum”. We end with the Clash and Armageddon Time”. They clearly knew something we didn’t.

One person’s enjoyment is another’s misery!  

Philip. 

 

@coldwarsteve

 

 

 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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