The Rest of the Iceberg

        While the arrival of the age of Trump is a coup of startling proportions it’s the tip of an iceberg whose larger impact will be an even greater shock. The Trump presidency reflects the end of faith-based confidence in progress, a myth that died as the steel mills closed; but in his cabinet choices—such as Exxon Mobile’s Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State—it provides cover for tyrannies that if institutionalized in the U. S. can usher in an age of fascism.

 

        Our government already operates this way in Asia and Africa in league with giant U. S owned oil corporations.  The Trump election foretells a change of world historical importance because of huge first world populations paralyzed in their life journeys by technology, automation and globalization. In the under-developed world studies cited by Steve Coll in his book about the Exxon Mobile empire found that standards of living decline and infant deaths rise after the oil money flows.  New rebels born of this disaster are already producing the earth-shaking events of Isis, Brexit, the rise of far Right fascism in Europe, and the precipitous decline of social and political participation that the Democratic party and unions used to stand for in the U S.

         Take something as basic as housing:  two-thirds of the U. S. population now has a growing inability to afford housing for their families. The National Association of Realtors In August 2016 reported the median single-family price in San Jose was $1,000,000; in San Francisco, $835,400; in New York City $748,000. If necessary regulatory policies are needed they will face not only the new Trump regime and a Republican Congress but Republican control in 32 of the 48 states. Democracy advocates in the U. S. now face learning how to breathe in this new atmosphere where policy debates over issues like government regulation will be controlled by Trump and the Republicans.

        The imagined moral atmosphere in the U. S. has the strange configuration not only of southern constituencies tied to both endemic inequality and religious piety but abroad reflect extreme versions of socially acceptable private piety practiced while empowering local dictatorships. In Private Empire: Exxon Mobile and American Power, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Coll reports that the retired executive of Exxon Mobile, Lee Raymond, enlarged that company’s earnings from oil and gas investments in Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere around the world to the proportions of empire while diligently practicing his religion in the Methodist Church. His successor, Rex Tillison, a devout Roman Catholic who arranged private mass for himself and others while visiting Muslim nations and making lucrative deals with governments such as Equatorial Guinea. 

         The UN reports less than half of the population has access to clean drinking water and that 20% of children die before reaching the age of five.

Equatorial Guinea arbitrarily detains and tortures critics, disregards elections, and has faced international prosecution for using oil profits to enrich the president’s family….the director of the watchdog organization EG Justice, said that by doing business in Equatorial Guinea, Exxon Mobil was complicit in reinforcing President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo — a strongman who has held office since 1979.

The New York Times on December 13^th 2016 reported

“The country's authoritarian government has one of the worst human rights records in the world, consistently ranking among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights.^[12] Reporters Without Borders ranks President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo among its "predators" of press freedom.…"Equatorial Guinea is a source and destination for women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking." The report rates Equatorial Guinea as a "Tier 3" country, the lowest (worst) ranking. (NY Times December 13, 2016)

What has kept all this afloat for so long in the U. S. is composed of a mixture of a vague cultural Christianity that believes in progress and the time lag of doomed expectations. That’s the hardest link to part with—that faith equals patriotism and brings the money to support a family.  In the new age now arriving only a home and a job will count for anything.