Written by Carmine Gorga, The Somist Institute
Our country is on the verge of rupture.
If it does not reach a unanimous decision to either acquit or convict Donald J. Trump, the Senate is liable to split the country; certainly, to split the Republican Party. A fair and thorough Senate trial will give the opportunity to Donald J. Trump to fully explain and justify all his ways. If he does, it is my fervent hope that Democratic Senators will join Republican Senators to reach a unanimous vote of acquittal.
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If the Senate vote is going to be one of conviction, it is my fervent hope that Republican Senators will make it a unanimous vote. Either way, the following three steps must be taken to unify the country.
- First: We must recognize that Donald Trump committed perjury while taking the oath of office.
- Second: We must be guided by the wisdom of the rhyme that “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.”
- Third: We must heal the pain felt by MAGA People.
If the Senate does not reach a unanimous verdict, ominous murmurs of civil war are echoing across the land. If such an august and dignified institution as the United States Senate is not able to reach consensus, what hope is there to unify the country, what example is given to a fractious people? As an incorrigible optimist, I am happy to announce that fifty years of research, consultation with some of the best minds of Our Age and Ages Past, meditation, and publication give me the assurance that there are no unbridgeable differences in the nature of our country. There are only temporary mental barriers that, admittedly, are hard to dismantle. But dismantle we can, and we must. The alternative is too dire to contemplate.
Needs and demands are often complementary; you cannot achieve them without the half that resides with your opponent. Stop and think hard. Embrace your opponents. Honor their needs and demands. No, not all needs and demands are legitimate; discernment is supreme.
Let me give you a tangible incentive: If you have the patience to listen, we will ultimately follow a mental process through which the “dismal science” of economics is finally channeled into The Economics of Jubilation.
… AND THEN THERE IS PERJURY
We must all be open and hope that a unanimous decision to acquit President Trump will be reached. Should the evidence preclude such a decision, should our Senators be called to pass a harsh judgment, to make their task unanimous they ought to consider that Donald J. Trump committed perjury at the very moment he took the oath of office as President of the United States. Whatever other crimes and misdemeanors, that perjury stands as clear as our North Star.
What Is the Right Word to Describe the Current Crisis?
The law must prevail. The law offers guardrails in our travels through life. We cannot use the word “treason” to describe the current political crisis because we are not in a shooting war with a foreign nation – nor can we quickly adjust our laws to contemplate the case of cyber-attacks as “modern wars,” even though these wars are more subtle but not less dangerous to our national survival. Are we protected from attacks on our power grid? Are we protected against attacks to our national election system?
“Donald J. Trump committed perjury at the very moment he took the oath of office as President of the United States.”
Rather than treason, we should therefore use the word “betrayal” to describe some of the effects of Donald J. Trump’s words and actions.
Is Betrayal a Crime?
In the course of the Senate’s expected exhaustive investigation, other crimes might be proved to have been committed, but for the time being, no, legally a betrayal is not a crime. Betrayal is not a crime because no one ever dreamed that a politician would commit such a “crime.” And, indeed, it took a non-politician – candidate Donald J. Trump – to stoop so low as to ask Russia to help him win the election.
This is the “smoking gun” that has been lying out in plain sight all the time; this is the simple truth: Candidate Donald J. Trump, ready to win the election at any cost, committed –
A High Misdemeanor.
He called on Russia, a dangerous adversary, to conduct a cyberattack on the American electoral system. On July 27, 2016 in a widely spread videotaped declaration, Donald Trump cried out: “Russia, if you’re listening – could you find the missing 30,000 emails?”
Five hours later, Russia delivered a payload of email extracted (hacked) from Hillary Clinton’s personal server. Parallels with the Watergate break-in are uncanny.
With or without his knowledge, Trump’s lieutenant Paul Manafort selected the targets that Russia had to hit: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. These targets, discussed between Manafort and GRU operative Kilimnik, were swing states that Russians might not have been able to identify by themselves as the most sensitive targets – at least, not as fast and as effectively.
It is as if Churchill had called upon Hitler to bomb London. And then he had allowed his lieutenants to inform Hitler about the most sensitive and sacred sites to bomb. No, not just to request bombing of sensitive and sacred sites but specifying where the ships and the planes and the ammunitions were produced and stored.
Confirmed by unimpeachable sources, such as the Muller Report, all our Intelligence Agencies, and even the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, we do not need to know the litany of cases in which President Trump “colluded” with Russia; we do not even need to know the variety of ways in which President Trump “obstructed” or tried to obstruct justice to hide his collusion with the Russian government.
“It is as if Churchill had called upon Hitler to bomb London.”
One initial, incontrovertible single case of betrayal is enough to declare President Trump unfit for office. He betrayed the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States before swearing the oath.
For that reason, he uttered a lie, he committed perjury while taking the oath of office of the President of the United States.
The Denial
The fear of recognition of perjury is the hidden reason why President Trump and his supporters are vehemently denying that there has been any “collusion” with Russia and any “obstruction of justice” to cover up collusion.
Why? Why does Donald Trump deny any collusion, when he asked for that collusion in a publicly televised plea? Why are his defenders compelled – by Trump and by their own beliefs – to deny that reality?
If we ask, why the steadfast denial of collusion, we find the answer in two, perhaps three places. First, the perjury while reciting his oath of office. Donald Trump has to deny collusion with Russia because, if he did, he would affirm that he consciously committed perjury. The more one ponders this perjury, the more insulting the offence and the denial becomes.
Subtle reasons for the steadfast denial of collusion can also be found in the sense of fairness of the American People. President Trump trembles at the thought of the American people discovering the truth. He knows that he would lose legitimacy in the eyes of his followers, if he were to confess that he colluded with Russia. That is also the fundamental reason for his steady attack on adverse reports as “fake news.”
Perhaps, there is an even deeper reason why President Trump is denying collusion – and compelling his associates to agree with him, or else. The else are vicious, relentless attacks against their character and reputation. If he were to face the truth of his betrayal, if he were to state the truth, he would have to recognize that he has so consistently been a liar.
Of course, he knows he is a liar. He can take that. He takes that reality in stride in a hundred different ways. What he cannot do is to let the American people know that he is a liar. The reason is subtle, but not very abstruse. He cannot let the American people know he is a liar, because then the American people would know that he is a traitor.
“He betrayed the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States before swearing the oath.”
The proof is there. As an inveterate projector, Donald Trump accuses of treason many civil and military servants who do respect the oath of office they have taken to support and defend the Constitution of the United States while they tell the truth they know about many of his concealed words and actions – and their effects.
In classic duplicitous fashion, to cover his own corrupt actions, he – it seems at the direction of President Putin – invents the tale that he is fighting corruption. Where? In Ukraine! What corruption? The receipt of a high monthly salary by Hunter Biden, the son of then Vice President Joe Biden.
Worse still. He cannot let the American people know he is a liar, because he would not see a liar and a traitor but a loser in the mirror, a person who, to win, loses his soul – his American soul.
The specter of Trumps’ father might be casting long shadows over the American political system at this stage: Donald Trump cannot admit to his father that he is a loser.
The circle is closed remembering James Comey’s observation that this President has “eaten the soul” of even accomplished people who joined his administration.
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Lest some underestimate the damage done daily to our national security by President Trump’s words and actions, let us remember that a clear-eyed assessment of the U.S. 2016 election is that “Putin won.”
And Putin’s winning has had a wide range of effects: We do not specifically know how or why, but Trump did accept the evident Putin command to fracture the NATO Alliance, to withdraw from international Trade Pacts and the Paris agreement on climate control, to foment the ideological war against Islam, and instill the divisive fear of Latino immigrants – let alone the festering of race relations. Putin is a KGB master.
Whether President Trump tried to achieve anything but force President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to find “dirt” on his potential opponent in 2020 we will eventually find out without any doubt. (What seems absolutely certain is that with his actions and those of his lieutenants in relation to Ukraine, President Trump has been trying to bend the next 2020 elections in his favor).
Indeed, whether Putin was the ultimate source of the betrayal of the Kurds is not clear yet. What is clear is that, without a quid pro quo, President Trump obliged the request of an autocrat, Turkish president Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan to abandon the Kurds, our erstwhile ally against ISIS. His expressed love for another autocrat, Kim Jong-un, does not seem to have yielded any positive results: North Korea, a dangerous enemy of South Korea, Japan, and the United States, has not pursued a slowdown in its nuclear arsenal build up.
“a clear-eyed assessment of the U.S. 2016 election is that “Putin won.”
Deep inside the United States, there is the acceptance of another likely Putin wish. President Trump’s overt War on the Deep State is a War against our Intelligence Agencies, our first line of defense against foreign aggression, be it Russian or Chinese or Iranian or North Korean aggression.
The unparalleled danger is that we are going to be totally unprepared for the expected onslaught that is to occur the next 2020 elections.
A RHYME TO SAVE THE SANITY OF ALWAYS TRUMPERS
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.
I promise. As soon as Always Trumpers bring this rhyme to mind, they will be free. They will no longer be mesmerized by the words of Donald J. Trump.
Hope is the last to die. Of course. Why would Always Trumpers even make this effort of the will? One reason is that, burned on their psyche are the specific choice words that Trump regaled to many of them personally on too many occasions. At the sound of that rhyme, they will indeed ask themselves, “Why did I ever tolerate those words? How could I have ever pushed those words to the back of my mind?”
Reasons will cascade to their feet, once they call to mind all the words of Donald J. Trump. Let me help. As a secular peon not afraid of losing whatever power and authority I have assumed over my flock, I feel ashamed by the way Donald Trump has treated women all his life. As a non-mainstream-economist, not blinded by the glitter of the riches, I cringe at the way Donald Trump has treated creditors. That is a constitutional infection that he has transmitted even to his reelection campaign. Worse. While doing a tiny bit of research on this issue, a parallel behavior comes into focus: against any prior pronouncement, Trump Has Shifted $1.3 Million Of Campaign-Donor Money Into His Business. My stomach churns when President Trump mimics the palsied gestures of our brothers with physical disabilities. My mind revolts when President Trump says he prefers soldiers “who weren’t captured.” Then, I remember the bone-spur to avoid military service. My heart is broken when President Trump, in the presence of fallen soldiers, uses selfish and divisive expressions claiming that past presidents did not reach out to the families of fallen soldiers as much as he has. My rage is inflamed when I see children ripped from their parents and put in cages. All the fibers in my body tremble when I hear saber rattling about “locking up” political adversaries. As a bully, Donald J. Trump is by definition cruel – and a coward. Hence, opponents must be done away with.
“Trump Has Shifted $1.3 Million Of Campaign-Donor Money Into His Business“
Mark my words, Donald J. Trump will be remembered in history as a cruel bully and a coward. At 73, he cannot tolerate to lose out to a 16-year-old girl for Time’s Person of the Year,
That he is a coward, you can prove it to yourselves, you Always Trumpers. He will deflate in front of your eyes, if you ever stand up to him.
What can he do? What will he do, if you stand up to him? He surely will hit you with vulgar and vicious words. You only have to repeat to yourselves – or even tell him: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.”
A Breakdown of Our Social Constitution
These and many other expressions of Donald Trump’s intellectual and moral make-up are not infringements of idiosyncratic sensibilities. No. They are the battering ram against our social constitution. The Constitution of the United States is not just a legal document. It is a living document. It represents all the people of the UNITED States. Thus, betraying our social Constitution, Donald J. Trump has betrayed the people of the United States; he has betrayed the trust that We, the People of the United States have placed in him.
We are not that crass; we are not that vulgar. Most important of all, we must remember an acute observation of Justice Brandeis:
“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retributions.”
And Brandeis was talking of relatively unimportant public benefits, such as the conviction of criminals. He was not talking of abuse of constitutional powers, of breaking a law, many laws, any law, even a moral law, even a social commandment, for which aim? To gain private profit. Private profit for himself and perhaps a few friends and relatives, as President Trump is clearly doing.
No. These are not minor affairs. What is in the balance is this: What are we teaching our children? What seeds are we sowing about the life of our children?
Do More
Repeat these words aloud, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me,” and you will stand up to whatever temper tantrum Donald Trump will throw your way; whatever avalanche of vituperous and vile words will he curse over you. As soon as you restrain yourselves and resist his will, you Always Trumpers, you know it well, he will viciously turn against you.
“What are we teaching our children?”
If you resist? First reward, you will feel better. Second reward, your family will feel better about you. Third reward, your constituents will support you.
Why do you assume that your constituents are Trump’s constituents?
Do more. Explain to yourself first, and your constituents soon after that all of Donald Trump’s promises are empty words. The hold that President Trump has on his constituents is inextricably fastened to his promises. The list of Donald Trump’s promises is impressive: Make America Great Again (MAGA); America First; Drain the Swamp; Ditch the Deep State; Secure National Security; Bring our Military Back; Bring Jobs Back; Bring Coal Back; Bring God Back.
It is evident that if half these promises had been fulfilled or were to be fulfilled, Donald Trump would be remembered as one of the most influential presidents ever to occupy the White House.
Is not still betting on Donald Trump to achieve any of these goals betting on a losing horse? Trump supporters may tell you why Donald Trump did not fulfill any of his promises. But it is doubtful whether they keep any of their hopes up.
What is the reason, then, why many Always Trumpers are still supporting him and are unlikely to abandon his defense any time soon?
The Economic Reality Underneath the Words
The real reason why Always Trumpers in the Senate and other places cater to the whims of Donald Trump is that his Administration has delivered what conservative power elites have wanted most for quite some time: In the name of liberty, the Trump Administration is reducing the power of the unions; reducing the power of environmentalists; reducing taxes on the rich and powerful.
True. But he is pursuing your agenda in a stealth and wrong way – not through open discussion, but through dictatorial edicts. A new president taking the helm of the state is likely to undo what Donald Trump has done. Another cycle in the sad history of the last few centuries will repeat itself. (There are many electrifying moments in our history).
Are you Always Trumpers receiving any recognition of the value of your goals? He owes you nothing. He does this in his name. Not in yours. His edicts bear his signature.
Clearly, there is a deep disconnect between rhetoric and reality. The reality is composed of the pain felt by MAGA People. A new chapter has to be initiated in American history: We need to understand the roots of the pain to which MAGA People have for long been subjected and those roots need to be extirpated once and for all. No, this is not a cheap political shot, through which blame is shifted from one side to the other of the political aisle. The pain felt by MAGA People has been inflicted by shortcomings in the political program of the extreme right just as much as the political program of the extreme left – and by the borrowed program of the ever-oscillating center. The center does periodically swing its allegiance from one side to the other. It is high time that the Center develop its own political program.
ON THE PAIN OF MAGA PEOPLE
There is much more than words that our political leadership owes our country men and women – and children. There is a whole array of injustices that have to be set aright. Set these injustices right and you unify the country. We must realize that, while MAGA People are at the forefront of the affront of injustices, no section of the population escapes scot free.
The affections that hold MAGA People together are the resentments and the afflictions that society inflicts upon them. Their lives are being eviscerated by the latifundia; yes, who knows about the latifundia any longer? Ever since Constantine converted to Christianity, latifundia have disappeared from polite political imagination; but vast tracts of land – whether in the wilderness, in dilapidated downtowns, or in the undeveloped band of land that strangles the cities – are still controlled by few people and rich corporations:
As a consequence, MAGA people tend to be corralled into crowded lots. MAGA People’s lives are being eviscerated when money is lent to people with money on easy terms and the people without money are left to pay outrageous interest. MAGA People’s lives are being eviscerated whenever two mega corporations are glued together; then the few gain more power and the people within and without both corporations suffer many afflictions. MAGA People’s lives are being eviscerated by robots that take their jobs, their livelihood, away.
“The affections that hold MAGA People together are the resentments and the afflictions that society inflicts upon them.”
No, economic oppression is not due to the ill will of anyone. It is systemic; it springs from the system, a system that we have built helter-skelter, adding a patch here, and a patch there. No one has designed it. There has never been any real understanding of the economic process as a whole – only understanding of parts of the elephant. In its development we have overlooked many essential elements. It is now time to put it all together.
We have built a system that ultimately affects negatively everyone. Do we ever consider the condition of the billionaire who goes to bed tonight with the fear that he or she will wake up to the news that, due to the collapse of the Stock Market somewhere in the world, this poor soul has lost a good chunk of the wealth so painfully accumulated over the years?
Have we considered the psychological reflection on the affluent when this society opts for a “preferential treatment for the poor”? If we are going to love the poor so much, to the extent of giving them a preferential treatment, don’t we implicitly say that we hate the rich – or at least we have less love for the rich?
Have we seriously considered that we have built a society of beggars? While the poor beg for food and shelter, the middle classes beg for a job. And the affluent are constantly begging for a subsidy and/or a tax reduction.
Yes, these horrible conditions that weigh so heavily on the life of nearly everyone today can and must be changed. But certainly, they cannot be solved by the fake solution stated or implied by President Trump. These conditions cannot be curated through a culture of adoration of riches; nor through the vague promise to “drain the swamp,” while President Trump and his entourage are openly involved in the pilferage of the people; nor through lies that Trump’s followers believe to be truths.
Some of the most notable lies? Lack of jobs and lack of job security do not stem from any influx of immigrants, whether from the North of white Europe or the many-colored people from the rest of the world. Do MAGA People truly believe that any of their ancestors took good jobs away from prior immigrants? Or that their ancestors were rapists and murderers? No, lack of jobs and lack of job security do not stem from unfair foreign trade conditions.
“we have built a society of beggars“
NO WALL with Canada is not less safe than the partial wall with Mexico. Nor does the height of the Stock Market indicate a stable future.
Unable to provide jobs and security, Mr. Trump is now inciting the country to the despair of open rebellion.
Surely the Trump Administration is giving us the “best economy ever,” but at what cost? Is not the “best economy ever” acquired at the cost of keeping unions weak and the environment degraded? Two more conditions explain the status of the current economy: steady, high budget deficits and stratospheric infusions of our money into the financial system through operations of the Federal Reserve System. Nor are trade wars something to write home about. Even employment statistics are not necessarily depicting a world of roses for working people. Are not people carrying two or more jobs to make ends meet? Are there not people who want to work, and cannot find a job? Due to the peculiar statistics about employment and unemployment, we don’t even know how many millions of them there are.
At a fundamental level, all these negative conditions spring from our uncontrollable pursuit of “happiness”; they spring from a world engulfed in rights without responsibilities. There is no short cut. Only the full assumption of responsibilities will set the world aright. Much discernment does indeed suggest that only the performance of four economic rights and responsibilities will gradually set our mutual social, economic, and political relationships aright. We must switch our attention from many expressions of wishful thinking to the reality of what can and must be done. This is the only way for the moral leadership of our country to gain the allegiance of MAGA People, the people who have forever switched their allegiance from the hard right to the hard left – and consistently been deceived.
Four Economic Rights and Responsibilities
- First, money. Money is not created out of thin air. Money is created out of our national credit, our creditworthiness. Since we individually create the value of our national credit, we are individually fully entitled to access it as we need it, on the basis of loans, loans to create real wealth; loans obtained at cost. Our responsibility is to repay the loans.
- Land. We are not angels. We need access to land and natural resources to be productive – indeed, to be anywhere or do anything. We have the responsibility to pay taxes on the land and natural resources on which we have exclusive control. Latifundia exist because some people pay no land taxes; let everyone pay the appropriate amount of land taxes and latifundia will be dissolved; land and natural resources will gradually become available to all who need them – at fair price.
- Labor. We must acquire ownership of all the wealth we create; if we work for corporations, we must have a fair share of the value of capital appreciation that we create. Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are ideal legal instruments to achieve this goal. Needless to say, we have the responsibility to earn our compensation.
- Capital. Corporations should be free to grow as large as they internally, organically can. They should be prohibited from acquiring other corporations through mergers and acquisitions. This form of growth is tantamount to industrial murder.
To learn about the subtleties of these four economic rights and responsibilities, forget Keynes, forget Hayek. Do study four giant American thinkers: Benjamin Franklin, Henry George, Louis O. Kelso, and Louis D. Brandeis.
“Only the full assumption of responsibilities will set the world aright.”
Do develop these programs of action together with your constituents, and each one of you Always Trumpers will be again proud to be a politician. Tap into the better angels of the American Spirit, and you will be amazed what we are going to do. Did we not aspire to go to the Moon once? Did we not go there and return, safely? There is every inch of our living space to beautify; there are the vast expanses of the wilderness to be left alone.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and let’s start on our voyage. As wise men and women know, the journey of a thousand leagues starts with the first step. What we need to do is to transform modern capitalism that at best benefits 5% of the population today into 100% capitalism. It is capitalism that creates jobs, and income, and security – at home and abroad.
To obtain capitalism for 100% of the population, we do not need to penalize the rich; we do not need one cent – let alone two cents – of their money. We need only to realize how does capitalism work for the rich; how do capitalists acquire their wealth. Capitalists acquire their wealth through the exercise of four economic privileges – privileges that have to become rights for all – regarding the four modern factors of production:
- access to land and natural resources;
- access to national credit; access to the fruits of one’s labor; and
- access to the fruits of one’s capital.
What needs to be emphasized is that in the development of capitalism we neglected the responsibilities that ought to accompany the rights. Again, the reader can find the four responsibilities in many of my publications. Here I should like to emphasize only the pivotal mechanism. Let us start with reforming how is our money created and distributed. The Federal Reserve System (the Fed), our central bank ought to create money in relation with these responsibilities. The Fed has to create money by extending:
a) Loans only for the creation of real wealth – not to purchase financial assets;
b) Loans to individual entrepreneurs, to corporations with Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and/or Consumer Stock Ownership Plans (CSOPs), and to public agencies with taxing power so that the loan can be repaid; and
c) Loans at cost.
An aside: Rather than catering to Russian interests, Senator Mitch McConnell ought to ask the Fed to provide capital for the re-industrialization of Kentucky. Better still, Senator McConnell ought to ask the Fed to provide capital for the re-industrialization of America.
These are conditions that the Fed might adopt, provided they are endorsed by “state and federal representatives.” These are conditions that, if implemented before or as soon as the next financial crash occurs, the damage to the real economy will be minimized if not nullified. In fact, if a crash has to occur before these policies are promulgated, the sooner the crash comes, the better it is. The monetary system will then finally be placed on a steady and fair course.
The most important fact that the reader must know is that, in an expression of extraordinary moral fortitude, the Fed has manifested a willingness not only to implement these three marginal changes in its operations, but even to consider the possibility of assisting in introducing into the cacophony of the modern world the Mosaic wisdom of a systematic cancellation of private and public debts every seven years.
A Bit of History
William Jennings Bryan had it right. If we fix our monetary system, everything will fall into place – in time; if we do not, all our efforts at reform will come to naught. The reason is fundamental. If we implement this reform, everything will gradually change, because we will have transformed the world from one in which money controls people to one in which people control money.
President Trump does not demand loyalty to the country, but loyalty to himself. Before Republican Senators decide to capitulate to his will, they should consider that we will all lose the democratic republic for which many people have given their lives ever since the European colonists set foot on this land, while escaping political tyranny in their country of origin (and, because of horribly wrong cultural assumptions, committing unspeakable atrocities against aboriginal Native Americans and people brought here as slaves). The best of the American soul has gradually restored political freedom to African-Americans, and is trying to restore political and economic freedom to Native Indians.
The best of the American soul is desperately trying to preserve political freedom for everyone – We the People seem to be ready to commit any sacrifice to protect our political freedom. The nation should rely on its better angels to prevail. The unthinkable possibility in the current confusion is that we lose our constitutional republic, the last best hope of earth. We the People are those who are resisting Trump’s addictions.
“President Trump does not demand loyalty to the country, but loyalty to himself.”
Before Republican Senators decide to capitulate to Donald Trump’s will, they should also ponder the past lessons of history. Once the Roman Senate became subservient to the will of one man, the will of the Emperor, Senators lost their personal political freedom.
As our Founding Fathers knew, thus was the Roman Republic lost. Thus, was the Roman Empire created. Thus, was it that the Roman Empire eventually collapsed. Brute force and Barbarians took over. Our Founding Fathers studied history well. They gave us “a republic, if you can keep it.” With the United States Constitution, they gave us all the freedoms, all the institutions of freedom that we are now in danger of losing.
Every crisis, as the wise Chinese know, is an opportunity. At this juncture of history, to preserve our political freedom we have the opportunity to extend economic freedom to the entire population. MAGA People, those who provide the brain and the muscle to create wealth, have suffered enough already, not just through the last few years or decades, but throughout history. They will suffer most if we lose our political liberties; they have always suffered most. One Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, and three more great American thinkers have given us the rules of economic freedom – economic freedom acquired through economic justice for all. Will we pay homage to our destiny? What an opportunity!
How to Get from Here to There
To create a Modern Capitalism, we must solve the constitutional crisis that is consuming the energies of our nation. We have to put a stop to the internecine war that is destroying our faith and trust in the White House as well as the Congress of the United States. Neither the White House nor Congress – nor the media, nor academia – is focusing on what is necessary to do to avert incredible dangers that loom on the horizon, or concentrating on the need to create jobs, income, and security both at home and abroad. The task is urgent.
This is the task of The Economics of Jubilation.
Some Key Expected Effects of The Economics of Jubilation
The key expected effect of The Economics of Jubilation is to give expression to the natural ability of people to create all the wealth they need. Let them be free and they will create all the wealth they need.
I can hear the howls of primordial ecologists who will protest that “we” do not have the natural resources to accommodate “all the needs of all the people.” There is much to be said on this reflexive reaction. I have said some of it in one place. Here, let me simply plea to consider the amount of waste that the welfare state – coupled with the consumerists attitude to economics and credit – engenders. All that waste will be done away with under a regimen of The Economics of Jubilation. As that wise man Adam Smith well knew,
“It is better to play for nothing than to work for nothing.”
Correspondingly, the “welfare state” will gradually implode. Who, given alternatives, for the need to breathe would ever accept the opprobrium to which welfare recipients are subjected?
Conclusion
Looked at from the reality of a human soul we must realize that when Donald J. Trump committed perjury, he knew it. And he felt miserable. He looked, he saw a crowd smaller than the one gathered to wish Godspeed to President Obama and his puffed-up chest was deflated. Kellyanne Conway, as a nurturing woman, felt that pain. And the day after she invented a new trope. She talked of alternative facts.
That was not a cure for a deep wound. Besides, facts either are facts, or they are not. A stone is a stone; there is no such thing as a non-stone, an alternative stone, the reversal of a stone. There is no such a thing as an alternative fact. Just as if something that is not a truth must be a lie, so there is no such thing as alternative facts. Alternative facts are lies.
But in the long history of mankind this is a minor point. What is constant is the pain that Donald Trump has suffered all through his presidency. He has not truly enjoyed one day of his life.
At the bottom of it all, we must be brave enough to admit a sad, truly sad, truth. It is not Donald Trump’s fault if he was elected president; he never expected that result; he never planned for it; he never studied one day the art of the presidency. The night he was elected, Melania Trump cried. This is the same Melania who beat many a pundit to the punch by predicting that Donald Trump would win.
If Donald Trump was elected, it is our fault. We misjudged his ability to be our leader. Let us ask his forgiveness for this inexcusable misjudgment. Let us pledge not to make such a mistake ever again.
If this mistake allows us to finally, deeply, honestly unify the country, all our mutual pains and sufferance will have been well worth.
August Senators, let President Donald J. Trump resign in peace. Thank him for his services. Wish him, unanimously, Godspeed.
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