by Pepe Escobar and cross posted with Strategic Culture Foundation
The whole planet is enthralled, appalled, shocked and awed by the spectacle of democracy as enacted under the shadow of messianic imperialism – complete with a slew of slimy, smoking gun October Surprises.
We’re in total Frank Underwood territory. And as befits the ultimate “society of the simulacrum” pictured by Baudrillard back in the swingin’ 1980s, all those similarities with a Wrestlemania spectacular are obviously not mere coincidence.
Let’s start with the polls.
All manner of polls are circulating like whirling dervishes. Most highlight myriad Dem paths to victory and an inexorable Highway to Hell for Trump. A poll by The Economist gives Joe “Walking Dead” Biden a whopping 91% chance – remember Hillary in 2016? – of winning the Electoral College.
A Dem-fueled consensus is emerging that Trump – relentlessly depicted as a deranged, lunatic proto-fascist who’s bad for business worldwide – will dispute results in any Republican-led state which he may narrowly lose, as in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Yet on the campaign trail, it’s a completely different story. Evidence shows that on The Walking Dead’s rallies, there are more people from the Biden bus and reporters than flesh-and-blood Dem voters. The Biden-Harris campaign, demonstrating its matchless P.R. skills, spins these rallies as campaign secrets.
Team Trump’s long-shot strategy seems to have been unveiled by the President himself: “We are going to be counting ballots for the next two years (…) We have the advantage if we go back to Congress. I think it’s 26 to 22 or something because it’s counted one vote per state.”
That was a reference to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution: if state electors can’t agree on a president, the decision goes to the House. And then each of the 50 states gets one vote. So picture small GOP-controlled states such as Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming (each with one Republican in the House) having the same weight as California (52 members in the House, 45 of them Democrats.)
Advantage Trump: as it stands, it’s indeed 26 to 22, with two – Pennsylvania and Michigan – basically tied.
Ask the quant
Internal GOP polls show that while the Biden-Harris campaign is not knocking on any doors, Trump volunteers have actually swarmed no less than 20 million homes in swing states.
Combine it with a new Gallup Poll showing that 56% of Americans state they are better off now under Trump than four years ago under Obama/Biden. Call it the return of “It’s the economy, stupid.”
The Trafalgar Group – which correctly called the 2106 election – bets that Trump narrowly wins the Electoral College with 275 votes.
JPMorgan’s top quant Marko Kolanovic has exhaustively mapped changes in voter registration to dismiss virtually every poll showing a Dem sweep. This implies that Trump may well end up winning the Holy Trinity: Pennsylvania (20 votes), Florida (29 votes) and North Carolina (15 votes).
And to top it off, something more exotic than a black hole eating a star has happened in this October Surprise-laden week: CNN decided to practice real journalism and eviscerated Nancy Pelosi on camera.
That may be quite a bad omen for President-in-Waiting Kamala Harris, who very few remember was forged as the heir to the Obama-Pelosi axis in a secret meeting in the Hamptons way back in the summer of 2017.
Follow the money
Now let’s Follow The Money.
That’s a slam dunk. For Republicans, the top bagman is casino schemer Sheldon Adelson – who literally bought Congress
for a paltry $150 million. For Democrats, it’s Haim Saban – who owns his own think tank and is Hillary’s go-to moneyman. The Dem dementia is essentially a bagman op.
To make it even more digestible, both Adelson and Saban are rabid Israeli-firsters. A dissident Beltway intel op cuts all corners: “The Mafia front man Sheldon Adelson financed Trump for Israeli insurance even though Israel was for Hillary.”
Four years ago, selected New York sources I was in touch with correctly called the election result at least 10 days before the fact.
One of these, a New York business tycoon intimate with assorted Masters of the Universe in control of Wall Street, once again goes to the jugular:
“The Deep State governs both Republicans and Democrats. Trump has to work within the system. He knows it. I am a friend of Donald and I know he wants to do the right thing. But he is not in charge. He certainly wants to be friends with Russia and China. He is a businessman. He wants to make deals with countries not fight them. We were among those who set the main campaign features for him in 2016: stop rigged currencies destroying domestic industries, stop unlimited immigration destroying the lower classes wages and encourage detente with Russia and China. Largely nothing has happened in four years.”
Still, adds another New York player, “Trump does 90% of what they want anyway. Better to keep a villain at the top to blame and keep the proles running in circles.”
On the financial front, that will never be admitted publicly: but Wall Street, while projecting a mere pro-Dem façade, is not interested in a Democrat “sweep”, because that would tank Wall Street stocks. A contested/protracted election would go the same way – with Goldman Sachs projecting a nightmare scenario of the S&P down to only 3,100 points.
Thus the preferred, hush hush, Wall Street scenario: a Trump win and more juicy tax cuts – in parallel with the sentiment that Wall Street’s priority is for the Fed to keep showering trillions of dollars in helicopter money whatever happens. After all the only “policy” in town is that Wall Street turned the Fed into a hedge fund.
For its part, what Team Trump certainly does not want is the Great Reset – to be officially “launched” at a virtual Davos in January 2021.
And all this while Goldman Sachs, once again, is adamant that the only way to “save” the nation from it humongous, ever-exploding debt is to devalue the U.S. dollar.
Hillary wants a new job
In the shadow play – or Wrestlemania plot – of Trump’s face-off against the Deep State, another of those New York players confirms that, “Trump was not allowed to do much of his agenda. That shows you where the real power is. The military-industrial complex wants Trump in as he is giving them everything they want for a giant military buildup. But Biden will not make that commitment.”
Clapper, Brennan, Comey and Mueller “were just following orders and are being protected.” As for warmongering narcissistic hyena
Hillary Clinton, she needs a Biden/Harris win essentially to stay out of jail, a follow-up to a “secret” deal struck with Obama which had her bow out to the former President as the de facto leader of the vast DNC machinery.
Anyone with a brain across the Beltway knows The Walking Dead was chosen because he does not even qualify as a place mat. Assuming he would be elected president, the real power behind the throne will be the Obama-Pelosi axis – and their usual suspect masters. Welcome to the reign of President Kamala.
Hillary though is leaving nothing to chance, doubling down and taking no prisoners. She has just released a 5,000-word manifesto which reads as an application to become head of the Pentagon.
The fact that with all the plot twists key vectors of the Deep State continue to be untouchable should be read as the proverbial D.C. swamp protecting their flock. More than the possibility that Trump is unqualified when it comes to picking minions, more realistically he was never given any decent options: so he was stuck with nefarious specimens such as Gina “Queen of Torture” Haspel, The Warring Mustache John Bolton, and Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo.
Which bring us to Attorney General William Barr – and a persistent question across many Beltway corridors: how come there have been no indictments as evidence piles up of interlocking Deep State-related shenanigans.
Simple: Barr is CIA, part of the old Daddy Bush gang, recruited when he was still in high school, in 1971. When Daddy Bush became CIA director in 1976, Barr stepped into the CIA’s legal office and started his steady climb, culminating in 1991 as Chief Legal Counsel to Daddy Bush’s presidency.
Needless to add, Barr subsequently squashed every possible investigation on Bush, Clinton and assorted CIA ops, from BCCI to the theft of PROMIS software.
No one will volunteer to be on the record showing how Trump selected Barr – or how the Deep State made it happen. The fact is Barr was appointed shortly after the death of Daddy Bush. It’s unlikely that Team Trump have “turned” CIA asset Barr away from the swamp – with or without Hillary’s 33,000 deleted emails.
And that’s what leads those New York players to bet that Barr won’t go after any star in the Deep State galaxy.
Still the fact remains that the NSA has stored every possible call, chat or email on its massive server farms. Trump has the power to order everything to be released – as he did. Yet, as it stands, the proles have only been offered a WWF-themed sitcom.
“I’m back” on steroids
The total balkanization of culture in the U.S. into bulletproof containers of irrationality is precluding any possibility of civilized debate. What’s left is an endless proliferation of fake actors, paid troll armies, bots, mob outrage packaged as chocolate bars, all out hysteria.
Whatever happens, get ready for some major Kill Bill mayhem ahead.
And into this shooting war – not only metaphorical – steps John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, Sex Pistol legend and a millionaire resident of the tony parts of Venice beach in L.A. He’s voting Trump.
That’s the ultimate crowning of POTUS Punk – except that Trump is more Village People (“Young man/ there’s no nee to feel down”) than the Sex Pistols in Holidays in the Sun or the Dead Kennedys in Holiday in Cambodia.
Cue to POTUS Punk in Florida, “I’m back” on steroids, working an excited crowd of thousands like a pro, complete with YMCA dance moves at the end: “I’ll kiss the guys, and the beautiful women…”
Now compare it to “Sleepy Joe” in Ohio, in front of, well, nobody really: “I’m running as a proud Democrat…for the Senate”.
Last week an astonishing eight people showed up for a Biden-Harris rally in Arizona.
And the racket goes on while a pandemic with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of roughly 0.14% – according to the WHO’s own estimate – has cost the global economy no less than a whopping $28 trillion, according to the IMF.
Oh yes: it ain’t over till slim Britney “I Did It Again” sings.
Brilliantly frightening stuff! These people are insane … and they’re the ones running the country. The US is descending into anarchy on all levels and it is just going to go on and on.
Most the whole world is descending and the U.S. just leads the pack.
US not just leads the pack, it lays the track.
Cheers, Coos
Regardless of who wins, they will only be supported by a minority, and for glaringly obvious reasons! Typically, 55% of eligibale voters vote, with roughly 1/2 of votes foing to Democtatic candidates, and roughly 1/2 going to Republican candidates, meaning that there is always a silent majority of roughly 2/3 of adult Americans.
The even more problematic thing is how this election catastrophy will effect elections other than the presidency, obviously. That is where it could turn really ugly, really fast, because it is going to be far bigger than a dispute between two people.
Don’t expect me to pick a side in all of this, because it is not going to happen! I am on my side, because nobody in this government at any level is, for sure! I have nothing to gain and everything to lose by siding with any of them! They are all committed to violating my rights, so committing to them is out of the question for me!
Andrea Iravani
Biden’s anti-campaign strategy is totally in line with American political apathy. As a voter, it’s not about which policies you favor, but which candidate/party you hate. The spotlight is far too bright for any corrupt Beltway goon or Palm Beach supercriminal. Best to hide in the shadows.
More people hate Trump more than than hate Biden. He certainly didn’t gain any points in the last 4 years–now he is no longer an “outsider” and he oversaw disaster after disaster. While he didn’t cause these disasters, he also failed to manage them. Biden, for his innumerable faults, is also far more likeable than Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote anyways.
Suppose USA is a corporation and Trump is the CEO (no imagination required). Last “quarter’s” performance was unacceptable, with media crisis after media crisis, and it’s time for a new CEO. It’s nothing personal–it’s the rational choice of the Board (Big Tech, NatSec, etc). Trump will get his golden parachute and slither off to Mar A Lago, Tel Aviv, or some tax haven. Biden AKA Harris will take his place.
That’s the plan, at least. But will Trump cooperate, for perhaps the first time in his life? Maybe rubbing shoulders with the “Deep State” for half a decade softened him up. If he doesn’t cooperate, expect serious instability, a Yeltsin-style coup in the formerly-United States of America.
“To make it even more digestible, both Adelson and Saban are rabid Israeli-firsters.”
It’s a slam dunk victory — for Israel.
As I posted in a previous thread:
Before there is a US civil war, the Washington leadership will do what they always do: try and unite the country by going to war against a non-white country. Just look at the racism against China, and Iran; while they are not (yet) using racist terms against Chinese & Iranian people, virtually all US media, from mainstream to alternative media like Zerohedge, constantly demonise China & Iran. Twitter & Facebook only allow articles & commenters that criticise China & Iran. If surveys are to be believed, over 70% of respondents in NATO countries view China & Iran as threats/enemies. In other words, the general population of NATO countries would support violence against China & Iran. This plan, however has many flaws:
*NATO is built strictly to “throw a crappy country against the wall, just to show we mean business.”
*Neither China, nor Iran are “small weak crappy countries.”
*People of NATO countries are mostly emotional passive-aggressive types that are only good at using “lawfare” or “cancel culture” to bully people; it is unlikely they have the stomach for war.
Once this plan inevitably fails then the true civil war will begin, because:
*(a) whatever Americans remain will have nowhere else to direct their rage than against each other,
*(b) most Americans are ignorant to the fact Wall Street + MIC + Washington Think Tanks are the true cause of their misery, and
*(c) extreme poverty will prevail in the USA, thus Americans will have nothing to lose
In the event of a US civil war, will Russia + China need to deploy navalised S-500s and A-235s in Cuba to protect the Eurasia against stray American ICBMs?
Pepe, this is so not September 10, 2001. All the uproar you’re seeing about the “October surprise” is about how we in the USA will not, and I repeat, WILL NOT be dragged into another f-ing war for Israel because of another false-flag attack on the USA.
Even Trump acknowledges that all the wars we’ve fought in this century were for Israel. 9/11 was blamed on the Arabs. The Likudniks and Zionists that surround Trump are determined to blame the next false-flag attack on Iran. That’s how they plan to invoke special powers vested to the president under the USA Patriot Act that would enable him to stay in power no matter what the results of the November election are. This will not happen, Pepe! There are too many Americans who are onto them in 2020. I repeat, we will NOT be dragged into another f-ing war for Israel!
“… we will NOT be dragged into another f-ing war for Israel! …”
So you say … and then, of course, you will be dragged anyway.
Though in fact you already are right now fighting for “Israel”, by proxies and other means, all over Middle East and beyond. For who do you think is paying through nose those humongous $$$ to sustain all these fights? You are: you are paying taxes, and so, like it or not, you personally are “working from home” for Israel…
Funny you would say that after four years of watching Trump in action, Tommy. He seems as malleable as all the rest of them in that regard to me. Keep in mind as well that war is mostly fought unconventionally these days, via economic and diplomatic means. We’ve essentially been at war with Iran and China for Trump’s entire term thus far, both declared by Trump himself. Knowledge of what they’re doing is only one, exceedingly small, piece of the puzzle. The die has been cast: the empire has long since transitioned to the stage where it openly ignores and flaunts the will of it’s own lesser people. The small handful whose opinions actually count are totally behind more Zionist wars if that’s keeps the money and power rolling in on their behalf.
I hear you, but again, this is not September 10, 2001. I hope we’re not so naive and disconnected as we were then. The internet has changed everything. No false-flag attack blamed on Iran is going to march us all off into some f-ing war for Israel. No “official narrative” of such an event is going to be believed, like what happened after 9/11, when Congress voted unanimously but for one vote for the so-called “war on terror”, all in lockstep to Israel and the Zionists. Sheldon Adelson is not going to be the Republican king-maker, passing out thirty pieces of silver like candy, for long. We’re onto him and we know where he lives…
“… No “official narrative” of such an event is going to be believed, like what happened after 9/11, when Congress voted unanimously but for one vote for the so-called “war on terror”, all in lockstep to Israel and the Zionists. …”
As a tiny example, “Boston Marathon bombing” photoshop came 12 years after the “9/11” false flag – and still was believed by the common American sheeple. In fact, both are still believed by such, go ask today any housewife, salesman, auto-mechanic, engineer, office clerk, taxi-driver… You and your friends don’t believe, but “everybody else” does. The mass of zombies automatically swallow what they are told daily by the ubiquitous “radio talk-show host” corporate propagandists while driving to work and “see on TV” every evening. The inevitable next “event” is going to be believed just the same, and “Congress” will vote unanimously again.
Yes, I know. And, the “official narrative” of the Israeli attack on Beirut was never challenged by the MSM or by the limited-hangout alternative media. In fact, they still cling desperately to that bit of untruth. But, at least now the real truth is out there and as is the case of 9/11, those smelling something fishy about the official narrative are approaching a majority of thinking people in the USA, barring the 25% who still think the sun goes around the Earth and that it was created 6000 years ago, that is.
I really do hope you are correct in your optimism, Tommy Apeiron!
However, I do not see any serious reasons to share it.
True, the country at large “should be” better informed to challenge the absurd reasons given in 2001 and up to today for the threats against Russia, China, Iran, Syria, but what has changed or being changed. The blogs are filled with comments and articles from skeptics but so what. Assange is still being persecuted in a absurd “legal” process. What passes for foreign policy and/or the domestic political system is still being manipulated worse than any banana republic in the world. What has changed or will be changed?
With pompass and his zionist thugs and ghouls galloping around with sanctions in hand, threats to whom ever, what has changed. True, pompass has not enjoyed overwhelming success in Asia, Europe, but why. The skepticism really is in the outside world, not here in us where the swamp/deep states such as Adelson’s foundation for defense of democracy (FDD) is still writing his script. Where is the moral high ground in this thuggish admin, and in congress?
True, the excuse is trump is not in charge, true the excuse is he has not started any “new” wars but he is still stealing syrian oil, still burning syrian wheat fields, still trying to encircle russia, still sailing us war ships thru taiwan straits as an ultimate provocation. Again, what the hell has changed. He evidently believes it is the art of the deal in election strategy to simultaneous challenge russia and china and impose sanctions on iran and seize iranian petroleum products bound for Venezuela.
The list goes on and on and on.
” No false-flag attack blamed on Iran is going to march us all off into some f-ing war for Israel. ”
Over at Moon of Alabama this question came up.
Someone posted: The USA wont’ be going to war, at least not in any conventional sense, because: Who would fight it? American citizens are not going to leave their struggling families to go off and fight a stupid war and maybe get killed. Things are too dicey at home.
I agree that wars are fought nowadays with “unconventional” means. Still I think there is something to the argument that despite the all-volunteer-contractor army, the chances of the American people getting behind a foreign adventure at this point are very slim.
Katherine
@ Katherine
“… American people getting behind a foreign adventure at this point are very slim …”
It is never “the people” that got to “get behind” a foreign criminal adventure. Nobody asks them. Ever.
The huge example in point, which I lived through, during all my university student days.
During the Vietnam war in force was a general conscription in the US. Throughout the war there was a massive resistance to draft among young people.
All to no avail, of course.
Those who could get a college deferment got it; some claimed religion-based conscientious objection; some hid; others fled to Canada and elsewhere.
And the rest (550 thousand) were dragged to Vietnam. Where they either got killed (58 thousand), or physically mangled (153 thousand), while the remaining ones got addicted to drugs en masse (it is through them that heavy drugs became popular in the US!), or got mentally maimed for life, some became professional criminals, sadists and murderers (among the US “Marines” in particular, after their extensive “practice” on defenceless Vietnamese civilians). Majority of those who returned to the US became afflicted with deadly hereditary cancerous “Agent Orange”, which they transmitted to their new progeny. I personally know entire families that horribly suffered from it, till each member one by one died…
Great piece, Mr. Escobar. Really, eye-opening and insightful.
Looking at Wrestlemania, the Church of the Latter Day Bread and Circuses, it’s clear where the country is going.
Now that’s a great piece of work! May I translate this article to German, please?
POTUS Punk vs. Dem Dementia,
Cute couple, right?
I still don’t like your affiliation with, and propagation of, the Chinese version of NWO agenda, btw.
Deng Xiao Ping “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” It doesn’t matter if you have are left or right, capitalistic or socialist, or “democratic” or “authoritarian” government, what matters is if you deliver good governance for the people.
Such a fertile garden full of radishes and turnips yet sadly there is no comedy on any of the major US networks. Is it true that a diet of carrots and drinking only white turnip maliu float has the side effect of hormonal imbalance as well as an increased desire for cameras, Here I have made a short satire ‘Lesser of Two Weeviles’: https://youtu.be/j0Bm9dOL-Wc
A masterpiece summing up all the essentials.
I cracked up with: “The Walking Dead’s rallies” really 50s scary SciFi, followed by the all to ‘actual’ Cyborg summit in Philadelphia.
However I keep with Aleksander Dugin, beneath the surface of the vulgar and dirty political there plays another tune, it could be truly sensed in the MSNBC townhall in some of the questioners and the communication to Trump.
It’s a beginning but not the end.
If a Biden wins, and that takes the S&P 500 to 3100, that is like an 11% correction from 3,483.81. A civil war may easily mean S&P 500 310, more like a 91% correction. Nor do a think a 20% per annum compounded increase in militarist spending is any less likely under Joe Blow or Con-a-la.
For the deep state/shadow government, I doubt it matters, they are probably as apathetic as everyone else, *unless* they want the mayhem of a contested election or an Agent Orange win for whatever reason.
The too, even under a Joe Blow win they mayhem may happen, if anything, it is more likely to happen “organically” (sort of), with all the Faux”News”/”Business” and One Neoconservative Propaganda viewers out there.