Part 1 – Donald Trump, The Rise of the GOP Presidential Candidate.
(ThyBlackMan.com) Literally seven out of every 10 politics stories published in the mainstream media this year have centered upon the improbable campaign for president of Donald Trump. The media have pretty much covered the gamut – from Trump’s shocking rhetoric, to his unorthodox campaign finance strategies, to Trump’s strong appeal among certain cross-sections of the electorate. By almost all accounts, Trump’s rise has defied the odds and is leaving the political prognosticators and prediction markets increasingly irrelevant.
But few have really discussed the rise of Donald Trump from a moral perspective. What is it about the state of the spirit of the American people that gives rise to a political anomaly like Trump?
There are a host of factors, but among them are concern about America’s decline, economic despair from a decade of recession and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a credible challenge to Western hegemony.
The origins of this moral dilemma facing Americans actually goes back to President George W. Bush. Bush outlined a vision for American foreign policy oriented in opposition to what he termed an
“axis of evil.” The term – which Bush coined during his State of the Union Address in in 2002 – was to describe nations that supported terrorism and sought to obtain weapons of mass destruction (or were 123-DonaldTRUMP-2016threatening to use them). The axis, consisting of Iran, Iraq and North Korea, took on an almost mystical quality in the philosophy and terminology of George Bush. If these nations were inherently evil, then America, in opposing them, was a force for good in the world. More critically, the fact that the U.S. is an inherently good country, that is, “exceptional,” justifies America’s own military actions around the world.
With that moral framework in place, Bush announced an invasion of Iraq. And at first, the story seemed to fall neatly into place. Within days of the invasion, we were told the mission had been accomplished. Baghdad had fallen to the U.S. Army, and Saddam was on the run. From there on it was to be merely a mop-up operation.
The ensuing five years was to not only disprove the idea of a quick and easy victory for the good guys, but also challenged America’s idea of itself as a force for good in a world in which things were no longer so black and white. Amid the fog of war, an impalpable grayness settled over America’s moral standing. Civilian casualties in Iraq reached staggering proportions; news of torture, waterboarding and CIA black sites disturbed our sense of righteousness. A theory of “extraordinary rendition” was enacted to skirt the Geneva Conventions, and the use of contractors to carry out the dirty work was to provide a semblance of distance from the practice of torture. Legal memos seeking to justify the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” emanated from the Bush White House with ex-post facto dispatch. The real question of whether one can justify invading a country that has not attacked us or our allies, but harbors terrorists, was fraught with moral ambiguities. Guantanamo Bay happened. Targeted assassination of U.S. citizens on foreign soil was a moral frontier no one had even contemplated before the adventure began.
Read More At: http://thyblackman.com/2016/08/27/part-1-donald-trump-the-rise-of-the-gop-presidential-candidate/
Armstrong Williams additionally says he has known Stephen Bannon, Breitbart for many years and speaks well of him for whatever we hear that comes down the pipe.
