Chris Hedges is a fine journalist who has too often predicted imminent financial disaster and the collapse of the West. It is certainly possible he is on to something this time, and we are seeing a new, even terminal stage of democracy in the U.S. under Trump — or his opposition. He is correct that a new political alliance where ruling elites, Wall Street, the MIC / Deep Security State combine forces with ragtag aggrieved white nationalists may be emerging. It would be as he describes it. But we are not there yet.
First of all, lacking any economic competence, or program, Trump is allowing the Fed to carry on in as “professional” a manner as possible (for them). Trump is not standing in their way as some Tea Party radicals did at first to the 2008 “bailout” legislation. Not at all. “Crony Capitalism” is being run by the big boys. They know their stuff and will run the country on debt forever If necessary. They are doing it much more “fairly” — LOL! — than Trump would do it. The system itself, even if some “enlightened liberal capitalists” favor minor reforms, inevitably will pass the burden onto the working people.
The situation will decay economically no matter what, and dramatically disintegrate socially if Trump is not decisively beaten in November, but the deepest collapse will not occur until the dollar loses its primacy, and that will most likely happen suddenly and through war. An outside impulse will be needed. This is what I believe Chris Hedges doesn’t get.
The tariffs are nothing. Trump’s “America First” economic plan is nothing. China does not need the U.S. and really does not need the “stage one trade agreement.” If Trump keeps pushing, China will push back. Only war can fully decouple the world.
So far, no section of the ruling elites, no significant sectors of the professional or middle classes, have had the foresight or guts to oppose the MIC. The Europeans are far too weak to stop the U.S., and the Russians and Chinese are tarred by their authoritarian systems, so the U.S. populace will probably be fooled again by talk of wars “for freedom.“
Unfortunately, the U.S. working-class has little power, little anti-imperialist consciousness, and its white component is to a very considerable extent poisoned by populist MAGA illusions. So stopping a war is very unlikely. There is not much hope for revolutionary change, in my opinion, not in the near term at least, even if we do go into a deep Depression.
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