God, how I wish I had been the first one to realize this! But I wasn’t: It was Cenk Uygur, founder of the TV network “The Young Turks.”
The Trump-loving MAGA base has proved a useful idiot for the wealthy 1% to manipulate; however, their interests obviously diverge on occasion, the debt ceiling being one. On Dec. 9, Uygur released a video where he and his co-host Ana Kasparian discussed reports that Senator Lindsey Graham was warning that anyone who voted to raise the debt ceiling would face the wrath of Donald J. Trump. (Yes, the party of super masculinity is so weak that it needs a permission slip from Mar-a-Lago for everything.)
Senate Minority Leader #MoscowMitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have come to an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. For decades, raising debt ceilings had been uncontroversial until Republican Newt Gingrich decided to make the move into a ransom opportunity. Since then, intermittently, when they’ve been in the minority, Republicans have resorted to blackmail, threatening to crash the U.S. economy (and, consequently, the world’s) unless we give in to them.
Now #MAGA fans love the talk of government shutdowns so they can “stick it to the libs.” But GOP donors? Not so much, of course; the resulting stock plunge would devastate their stock portfolios and their businesses. Now the Koch Network, Rupert Murdoch, the Mercers, and the other oligarchs don’t care as long as it’s just empty threats – they love chaos because they know it hurts Democrats.
But I’ll let Uygur explain it further:
So, this is an interesting civil war (between the Trump base and the billionaire donors). At the end of the day, if the Republicans ever don’t raise the debt ceiling, that means the donors have lost control of the Republican Party, and that’s a fascinating phenomenon.
But that means ... they’ve gone insane populist. I mean, obviously you see a giant faction already doing that, but what I’m telling you is things are not what they appear, especially if you’re watching mainstream media or reading them.
What I’m saying is that, in my whole lifetime, this whole not raising the debt ceiling has always been a fraud. There’s never been any question about it because the donors control the Republican and Democratic Party nearly 100%, and it would affect their stock portfolios, and they’re not clowns. So, they might be bad guys, but they’re not clowns.
And 99% of the world’s economists say it would definitely send the U.S. economy and probably the global economy into an immediate meltdown. They’re not interested in losing all their money.
So we actually get to a point where Trump has beaten all the donors, but leads them off a cliff. Like, I love beating the donors, but not if you’re driving off the cliff. If they drive off the cliff, that means that’s it! They’ll do anything, no matter how irrational.”
Thus far, McConnell, however venal and unscrupulous he might be, realizes that the MAGA mob (frequently in the form of an actual mob) are the Barbarians at the Gate. They eschew science, economics, and even logic. They won't just burn it down for Democrats; they'll blow it up for everyone. I never thought I'd be grateful to McConnell for anything, but, should he fail, we're talking about returning to the time before the Enlightenment.
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