Mafia America

Some of the speculation about Donald Trump is whether he sees himself as the president of a Constitutional Republic or the CEO of some sort of enterprise. It seems to me that the latter is most close to the reality but that the Enterprise is not some sort of normal Corporation. His tactics actually appear to be of the kind that should cause us to call him Don Trump. At least as legend has it, and there is no doubt that there is truth to this, mafia families would extract tributes from businesses in their sphere of influence in order that those businesses would be allowed to operate. This appears to be what Don Trump is up to as far as the global economic system is concerned. He is going to extract tributes from our trading partners as a condition of doing business. To justify this he harps about the unfairness visited upon the United States. This unfair system which he deplores has allowed the United States to become the most richest , successful and powerful nation on earth. If our GDP was distributed somewhat more equitably everyone in this country could have a decent education , decent housing and a job, increasingly in the service industry, that would allow everyone to have a good life. It would also increase aggregate demand to the benefit of the economyThis is the system he wishes to dismantle.

His program is not about America first. It is about ME first. He continues to demonstrate his pathetic need to convince everyone that he, not Mohammad Ali, is the greatest and can do things that no one else ever could or ever would be able to. Now, make no mistake about it. He is wielding enough power to push most other countries around. He may well be able to claim short term positive results as far as increasing America's share of the pie is concerned. But no one can gage the collateral and long-term effects of this sort of behavior. He has surrounded himself with a circle of sycophants with an extreme ideological bent. The new visible member of this group, Sebastian Gorka,  appears well suited for the role of Luca Brazi.

One wonders if we should be flying the American flag upside down.