Junta lite: how generals and billionaires took over Trump's militarized America
From Tom Engelhardt in The Guardian:
It’s been epic! A cast of thousands. A spectacular production that, five weeks after opening on every screen of any sort in the US (and possibly the world), shows no sign of ending. What a hit it’s been. It’s driving people back to newspapers and ensuring that our everyday companions, the 24/7 cable news shows, never lack for “breaking news” or audiences. It’s a smash in both the Hollywood and car accident sense of the term, a phenomenon the likes of which we’ve simply never experienced.
And you know exactly what – and whom – I’m talking about. No need to explain. I mean, you tell me: what doesn’t it have? Its lead actor is the closest we’ve come in our nation’s capital to an action figure, a version of Batman and the Joker rolled into one, a president who, as he told us at a news conference recently, is “the least antisemitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life” and the “least racist person” as well.
As for his supporting cast? Islamophobes, Iranophobes, white nationalists; bevies of billionaires and multimillionaires; a resurgent stock market gone wild; the complete fossil fuel industry and every crackpot climate change “skeptic” in town; a White House counselor whose expertise is in “alternative facts”; a White House chief of staff and liaison with the Republicans in Congress who’s already being sized up for extinction; as well as a couple of appointees who were “dismissed” or even frog-marched out of their offices and jobs for having criticized him.
And don’t forget that sons Donald and Eric are already saving memorabilia for the future Trump presidential library, a concept that should take your breath away.
More at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/01/us-government-billionaires-generals-military-trump