Observations on current events

Election 2016:

Walter Einenkel: Noam Chomsky's spot-on prediction of a Donald Trump presidency in 2010

"In April of 2010, Noam Chomsky was speaking with Chris Hedges for an interview. Here is one glaring excerpt.

“The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen,” Chomsky went on.
“Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers.
If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.”
“I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Chomsky added. “I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.”

Most lefties have seen this kind of thing coming for a while. It is never any less shocking than when it happens."

Election 2016

The exit polling data I'm reading indicates that
Mr. Trump's message appealed to more voters than backed Pres. Obama in 2012 in several key categories:

- voters with annual incomes of $50,000 or less
- voters with an education level of high school or less
- voters over 65
- voters between 18 and 29 (Mrs. Clinton only captured slightly more than half)