All those readers of the press who have a life are generally depressed about events in the US. This is because there seems hardly enough time to pay attention to the torrent of bad political news coming out of America. We are all constantly being bombarded by updates on Trump’s legal travails, all the murky details of Hunter Biden and his laptop, and sundry distressing stories about a feeble President who might very well be at deaths door.
But those of us who don’t have a life, and instead endlessly troll the media to avoid interacting with actual people, have time enough to glimpse an entirely different America. An entirely different country to the one that is commonly depicted in the Aussie press.
First of all, how many Aussies would realise that the US is currently enjoying a booming economy? With the annual inflation rate slowing to 3% in June (which is the lowest since March of 2021). Or that the unemployment rate is currently the lowest it has ever been in the history of the Republic? Or that the stock market keeps hitting record highs? Or that during the last six months the number of people crossing the southern border has dropped 22%? Or that there has been a boom in wages across the country? Or that construction spending on factories has soared nearly 80% in the last year. Or that (according to the Census Bureau) public works spending has increased (13.6%), with electric power projects booming (up 36.7%), as well as conservation and development projects (up 30.1%), and expenditure on highways and streets rapidly increasing (up 20.4%).
I would suggest that most of this positive information has managed to entirely bypass most Australian readers because the papers in our country commonly paint an entirely different picture. (For reasons that I talk about endlessly elsewhere…).
This also means that Aussies are generally unaware that the battle between a Trump dominated GOP and the Democratic Party, and the legal travails that are slowly smothering Trump, adds up to less than half of the important political story.
In Aus we have a right-wing press that totally ignores the ‘big picture’ politics in the US. It is focused, instead, on presenting commentary on the happenings in the federal political scene.
Consequently, our papers present the politics of the US in a simplistic fashion, as being all about the GOP v the Dems. But this commentary (which is generally deeply partisan) usually fails to assist an Aussie in understanding the domestic context within which these remarks are being made. Which is to say, all of this commentary generally fails to describe many things that American readers would consider to be ‘bleeding obvious’ but which are nevertheless hardly ever mentioned in the Australian press (including the matters earlier canvassed as well as those that follow).
I would suggest that Aussies could also be forgiven for not knowing that there has been an ongoing civil war inside the GOP – between the Trumpers and the Traditionalists – that has been raging for the last ten years.
The Trumpsters are not interested in compromise. This is mainly because, unlike earlier right-wing populist groups like the ‘Tea Party’ Patriots, the Trumpsters are not at all interested in policy, or even politics. They are only interested in the world that Trump has promised. And in the south, over the last ten years this group has ruthlessly pushed the traditionalists out. Which means that the GOP grip on their southern strongholds is slipping.
When Trump arrived on the scene, the GOP heartland in the southern states had long been secured by a history of solid local support and a host of gerrymandered seats. This, and the distortions provided by an odd electoral college system, had long allowed the Southern GOP to hold onto office pretty much regardless of what the population might want to say as well as maintain a disproportionate amount of influence federally. All of which requires planning and organisation.
Then Trump arrived.
For an Aussie audience it cannot be overstated how important it is that about fifty-five percent of the really attached Trump supporters in the US are generally uninterested in politics. Which is to say, prior to Trumps’ descent of the escalator, they were unaffiliated voters. These people are interested in and attached to Trump, not the GOP.
This influx of newly interested activists into the ranks of the GOP had an initial effect of boosting the hype, the vote, and the GOP coffers, across the US. It got Trump elected. But then momentum faltered. Mainly because the Trump Presidency was a success ONLY for the newly enthused loony right and their media boosters – for everyone else, both in the US and elsewhere, it was an evident disaster.
This is the part of the story that is bleeding obvious to any American, but which is generally missed by Aussies. In the last ten years, events have entirely refashioned state and federal politics in the US. When Trump arrived on the scene the southern strongholds of the GOP appeared secure. Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Georgia, Arizona, Mississippi, and Florida (amongst others) were the ideological heartland of Republicanism. These southern states were run by authoritarian and ruthlessly efficient political machines and were backed by a consortium of corporations and very rich individuals.
Then Trump failed dismally, and a civil war ensued.
Too few Aussies are aware of how significant it is that virtually every person who gave evidence at all of the impeachments, were GOP traditionalists. The informants were people that Trump had appointed, not Democrats.
Then Trump was defeated in 2020 by GOP Traditionalists, not by Biden.
Then most of the sixty cases that Trump subsequently lost were heard by judges that Trump had appointed, in states that are run by the GOP.
Then Roe v Wade made the whole thing very real for all the Americans who hadn’t been paying attention. Suddenly, the dog had caught the car. Nobody was happy.
At once politics was vitally important for young people who were not political or religious. As well as everyone related to them.
The Roe v Wade rejection has been the biggest setback the GOP has faced in the modern era. Trump and his acolytes, and the ideologues at the Federalist Society, as well as the rabid high court justices, all failed to appreciate that the distant prospect of a ban on abortion was a wonderful thing. But the reality is precisely the opposite.
Ever since the Roe rejection, the GOP hold on state politics has been slipping. Because the once reliable GOP political machinery in the southern states has recently been replaced with a series of dinky-toys being ridden by amateur Trump cultists, so the response to the disaster of Roe has been to double down on Trumpist purity and conspiracy theories. Thus, even the Wall Street Journal (run by Rupert) has guardedly acknowledged that the whole southern GOP enterprise is currently teetering on the edge of an electoral cliff. In an article today a staff writer observed that:
“In Colorado, Dave Williams, the new head of the state Republican party, has attacked Republicans he deems insufficiently conservative. In June he announced he had negotiated an agreement with the Colorado Libertarian Party, which would stay out of certain races. “The Libertarians will only stand down if we recruit and nominate candidates who are more pro-freedom than not,” he said in the statement.
In Georgia, the fallout from the 2020 presidential election has state GOP officials fighting each other over whether pro-Trump Republicans who worked to overturn President Biden’s election should be purged or praised.
State GOP parties in Arizona and Minnesota are struggling financially.
In Michigan, the statewide party organization has embraced conspiracy theories and far-right political views. The party website, for example, has a section pledging to stop what it deems a global cabal. “The Democrat party, in direct partnership with China and globalist organizations, has abandoned Detroit and the working class,” it says.
“The new folks don’t even consider us Republicans anymore,” said John Truscott, once an aide to former Republican Gov. John Engler.
“I would say they’re running it into the ground,” he said of the new party stalwarts, “but it’s already imploded. They’re out of money, they can’t do anything.”
So, take heart, my friends. Always remember that the whole Trump fiasco has been written, conducted, and wholly staffed by the Republican Party and the Trump cultists. Democrats have only really had walk-on roles during the last few years. And do not be misled by the narrative that being pushed by much of the media in our country about a big GOP v Dems stoush.
The reason that all the nonsense coming from the US often sounds so histrionic and implausible is – because it is. The right wing and their media backers in the US have been engaged in a losing battle with the rest of America.
Ever since Trump was booted out in 2020, the whole GOP card castle has been falling apart. So, whenever you see something in the media about the fight between the GOP and the Dems, do not be fooled.
The real fight is between America and the Trump cultists; and America is kicking butt.
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