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29/07/2018 | Rethinking America - America’s Fifth Column

Stephan Richter

If, in the B.T. (=Before Trump) era, anybody had ever posited that the Republican Party would turn out to be Moscow’s and Putin’s best ally, they would have been declared insane.

 

If, in the B.T. (=Before Trump) era, anybody had ever posited that the Republican Party would turn out to be Moscow’s and Putin’s best ally, they would have been declared insane.

And yet, here we are. Republican voters are extremely faithful to their man Trump and, by logical extension, to Moscow.

There used to be times, during the days of McCarthyism, when Republicans hurled the phrase “fifth column” as an insult at Democrats, to brand them for being soft on communism. Those days are long gone.

A key part of the explanation for why there are the now real – and, in contrast to the McCarthy days, not just the imagined – “Fifth columnists” in the United States is rooted in the boundless cynicism of the Republican Party.

The party has managed to perform some potent voodoo magic throughout the land. This is the only way to describe its ability to attract working-class whites, mostly in the rural areas of the United States, to its plutocratic causes.

Supporting Putin

The even bigger political magic the Republicans have pulled off is to get their voters to support Putin at the very same time as Republican campaign managers try to scare off potential Democratic voters by talking about the Democrats’ turn to “socialism.”

By that amazing logic, speaking up ever so slightly in favor of the potential economic, social and political interests of average Americans is an act of “socialism.” In contrast, it stands to reason that “democracy” is the process of ensuring that an entire country is largely organized for the economic interests of the top 1%.

The main reason why the inappropriate charge of socialism is thrown into the equation is to protect Republicans against appropriate charges that they are little more than a clever front organization dedicated to furthering the cause of economic plutocracy.

That this maneuver is even remotely possible is due to the fact that most Americans have always had a hard time with definitions and abstract concepts.

Why are Democrats taking it?

Still, one has to ask why the Democrats are allowing the Republicans to get away with these immense ideological distortions. A key part of the explanation here is the relentlessness of the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party to pay no more than lip service to the economic and political interests of the large U.S. working class (i.e., people with under $40,000 in annual income).

Under those circumstances, it is no wonder that U.S. politics is ever more linked to Russia. The leaders of that country have always managed to organize Russia’s economic affairs in an exploitative and/or deceitful manner.

This is true regardless of whether one is talking about nobility during Czarist days, the nomenklatura during the days of Communism or the oligarchs now.

For a long time, the United States held itself out as the alternative role model – a society that isn’t just organized for the benefits of the “haves” at the top of the economic pyramid.

Dispensing with that notion is the biggest implication of the Republicans having turned themselves into America’s Fifth column.

****Stephan Richter is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Globalist, the daily online magazine on the global economy, politics and culture, which he founded and launched in January 2000.

He also is the President of The Globalist Research Center, the online thinktank — as well as the creator of The Globalist Quiz, a weekly feature exploring the global agenda in an innovative fashion that is syndicated to newspapers around the world.

Mr. Richter is a frequent guest on leading radio and television programs, including CNN, PBS Newshour, Germany’s ARD and ZDF and National Public Radio.

A sought after and thought-provoking keynote speaker at executive conferences and retreats, he has moderated more than 150 policy events during his time in Washington, D.C., featuring prime ministers, CEOs, Nobel laureates and heads of international organizations.

His articles and views have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Salon, Le Monde, Les Echos, Die WeltDer SpiegelFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, HandelsblattManager MagazinCicero, NZZ and Foreign Affairs.

For the past ten years, he was the presenter of the Marketplace Globalist Quiz, aired on public radio stations all across the United States as part of NPR’s Morning Report. From 2002-08, he was a monthly columnist for Les Echos, the leading financial daily in France. He was also the U.S. correspondent for Rheinischer Merkur from 1990-98, as well as a monthly columnist for CEO Magazine.

In addition, he has been a keynote speaker on geopolitical and geoeconomic issues and trends at major international conferences organized by asset managers, investment banks and public policy institutions in Europe, the United States and Asia.

Prior to starting The Globalist, Mr. Richter led a global strategic communications firm based in Washington, D.C., advising ministers and CEOs of governments, leading global banks and corporations, international organizations and foundations around the world.

In that capacity, he served as North American advisor to the German Economics Ministry and Vice Chancellor in the early 1990s, when he successfully shaped the “New Federal States” campaign, designed to create a dynamic brand image for the former Communist East Germany.

In the fall of 1990, at the request of the U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, he drafted the Sense of the U.S. Senate resolution calling for forgiveness of Poland’s Communist-era public debt. It proved a crucial step in the successful conclusion of the April 1991 Debt Agreement in the Paris Club.

For those activities, he was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of Poland in June 2014, as part of the country’s celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the arrival of freedom.

Mr. Richter received his J.D. from the University of Bonn, Germany in 1984, was a Rotary Foundation Award recipient in 1980-81 and a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association in 1986-87.

His 1992 book, Clinton: What Europe and the United States Can Expect, correctly forecast the Clinton Administration’s emphasis on fiscal consolidation in U.S. public accounts.

In 2013, he was the co-editor of the book, In Search of a Sustainable Future: Reflections on Economic Growth, Social Equity and Global Governance.


The Globalist (Estados Unidos)

 



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