Okay. He and I haven’t spoken and I disagree.

"Now, she talks tough, she talks really tough against Putin. And against Assad. She talks in favor of the rebels. She doesn’t even know who the rebels are. Every time we take rebels. Whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else. We are arming people. And you know what happens? They end up being worse than the people." -  Donald Trump, 10/9/2016

Mike Pence and Hillary Clinton could, if required, find plenty to argue about on the subject of Syria. But, as full initiates of imperial orthodoxy, they are in agreement on the essentials of American policy. Trump is not. In the debate he quite deliberately stepped outside the bounds of accepted speech when he challenged the identity of the rebel forces under attack in eastern Aleppo. My guess is there are ex-military who have his ear and fill it with their opinions that were frustrated politically during their time in command. Not all generals agree with the prevailing strategy of the empire. Didn't Trump reference MacArthur in the first debate? He may even still be listening to Manafort.

In his lust to discredit his opponent and a Mideast policy that stretches across administrations of both parties he is uncovering facts that are not spoken of at the electoral dinner table. The nature and allegiances of the armies involved in the fighting in Syria are not secret but there is a consensus observed by all candidates in the election but one that, at least at present, the Russians and Syrian state are the bad guys in Aleppo. That Trump would question this, however else he confuses his story, is more than likely the reason his party is deserting him.

The disclosures from the Friday before the debate are ugly but are not the source of the rift between the candidate and his party. They are more in the nature of a escalated warning to him that he must conform in thought, word, and deed to the norms of American politics or he will not be permitted to take office. Had he fallen to his knees and begged forgiveness he would probably been taken back in the fold. That's how powerful is the need for the system to have two anointed candidates. Having refused to do this he is now in open defiance of his nominal party. It's hard to see how this ends well for him. My guess is that Pence will be convinced to pull the plug.

But the forces that have rallied with unquestioning loyalty to this campaign will not dissolve with his exit or defeat. Their relation to the Republican Party will become critical and could destroy it. Clinton sees these political shadows but she is not prepared to fight them. Nor can she be relied upon as an ally when the working class is defending itself.

"And the other leaving that looks good is the stock market"

 Typical politician. All talk no action. Sounds good. Doesn't work. Never going to happen. Our country is suffering because people like Secretary Clinton have made such bad decisions in terms of our jobs and in terms of what is going on. Now look, we have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. 

And believe me, we are in a bubble right now. And the other leaving that looks good is the stock market. But if you raise interest rates even a little bit that is going to come crashing down. 

We are in a big fat ugly bubble. And we better be awfully careful. And we had a Fed that is doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed, the Fed is doing political by keeping interest rates at this level. 

And believe me the day Obama goes off and he leaves and he goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you are going to see some very bad things happen because the Fed is not doing their job. The Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton.

- Donald Trump, Debate 9-26-2016

Other than one econ commentator and the World Socialist Web Site (Clinton-Trump debate: A degrading spectacle) this outburst received little attention. Hardly surprising given the almost random referential web of Trump's performance in the debate. But the first virtue that is mentioned by his supporters, at least in polite society, is that he is a successful businessman, And here is America's most famous rich man, running for president, and he is alerting his audience that the stock market has nowhere near the worth that its current prices would indicate. Trump has plenty of experience with bubbles and knows where they end. The alarm he is sounding is no joke.

Has he shorted the market, perhaps anticipating an adverse reaction to his election? Is he trying to force a crash to undermine the continuance of Democratic control of the White House which he is claiming is the policy of the Fed? I don't think we have to answer these to get to the ground of what is going on here, to use them to see the political structure of the campaign the Republican Party is using, however it may protest its reluctance to do so.

And there is more that we can regard as symptomatic rather than descriptive. The "political things" that the Fed is doing reminds me of Tracy Powers' vision of "the media" ensuring Obama's election eight years ago (The Media Is Behind All of This). One could get the impression that the Republican Party is feeling more dispensable than it would like. Their role since Nixon has been to provide a politically acceptable avenue to balloon credit through military spending and that role has limited value at present.

Why is Trump criticizing Yellen? Fed policy cannot allow itself to move too far outside the consensus space of the financial powers, that is, it cannot long ignore ruling class opinion. If, indeed, the Fed is trying to avoid upsetting the apple cart at the close of the Obama administration and, therefore, favoring the election of its designated heiress then Trump is not furthering his position by blasting it. It is an even worse strategy than McCain's waffling on TARP. But Trump, swearing fealty to each and every dark power in the Republican universe, does not feel constrained to also genuflect at the altar of capitalist orthodoxy.

He may not be afraid of losing this election and sticking around to pick up the pieces of Clinton's administration when financial crisis re-emerges. Or, if elected after all, he will likely be content to let Yellen have her way and blame her and Obama when it all comes apart. In either case he is offering no alternative policy at all. Not even a bombastic assertion of the power of his indomitable will.

So why is it part of his repertoire? It would not have appeared in the debate if it had not elicited positive feedback on the stump or in bull sessions before hand. Its value, like everything he says as he stabs with his circled thumb and forefinger, lies in a negative charge of truth. Things are bad. As the party in power, the Democrats are loath to admit how bad they are. It is not insignificant that Clinton completely ignored this part of Trump's performance. Nor was it criticized anywhere in the media that I have seen. And that is what gives Trump, a man with no policies at all, purchase with the American electorate.

The Fed has been in the same tight spot for eight years. It would love to return to a pattern of accommodate and squeeze but it cannot. Accommodation, the bubble, is the only thing keeping the financial system afloat. The "political things" the Fed is doing are less to uphold the Democratic Party than to preserve the international financial system, capitalism, in short.

This crisis, climate change, war, everyone is aware of what is happening. Sanders and Trump have been able to convey a sense of solidarity with this general anxiety, Sanders by raising the political banner of the working class, however carefully, and Trump by his pantomime of hatred for all things upsetting to those who continue to take comfort in the structures of power. When voters say they distrust Clinton it is perhaps because they cannot tell whether she is hiding what she knows about how bad things are or is genuinely oblivious.

Lessons to be learned

The selection of Paul Ryan to the Republican ticket brings socialism into the debate foreground. A campaign sagging under its own tepid assumption that the opposition can win, regardless of its history or countenance, just because times are tough and it is the opposition, elects to rally around the banner of explicit capitalism. The shallowness of its position can be perceived in Mr. Ryan’s ever so slightly dissembled philosophical roots, Atlas Shrugged. Unnecessary to recap or refute or even insult such a book. It functions as a secret handshake among a social caste to privately signify what is publically muted; that the concessions made to the working class movement in the 20th century, and labeled the welfare state, can and should be revoked at the requirements and discretion of the ruling estate.

These views are popular among the progeny of the elect, such as Messrs. Ryan and Romney, but they are known to upset the body politic. For that reason they are usually confined to doyen of the Federal Reserve and places where the discussion is off the record and among friends. It is not only fear of being overheard by the wrong sort of voter which keeps Ms. Rand away from the podium it is the objective situation of capital in the modern era. Social insurance and the prominent economic role of the state have been inscribed in capitalism since overproduction became a permanent feature of the world market in the late 20’s of the previous century, alleviated only by the devastation of WWII.

But the inscription has been rubbed shallow. And the political fortunes of its guardian party have suffered a similar erasure. The loss of stature by American manufacturing and the decimation of its organized ranks have left the welfare state exposed politically. Historically and materially institutions such as Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Medicare are born from the socialist political program of the working class. But the compromises negotiated between capital and labor from the 30’s through 60’s re-baptized them as part of the panorama of capitalist progress. As long as the good times rolled.

Now, everywhere, political parties, ruling and opposition, subscribe to the credo of austerity and are faithful only to the overlords of finance. In the U. S., once upon a time, the Republican Party could balance its reactionary numbers with a large dose of fealty to the post-war Keynesian consensus. Its shift to the South has changed this but not as much as the general erosion of this consensus. The magnitude of world over-production, generating crises in the credit system as well as in global climate, has narrowed the range and magnified the costs of Keynesian tinkering to the point where the Republicans have escaped its hegemony entirely and the Democrats have turned gun shy.

Which leave the Democrats alone masters of the entire field of generally agreed upon economic principles, from cut to the bone to spend like there’s no tomorrow. And nowhere is there shelter from the storm. While the Republicans are freed to partake of any fantasy that can find funding from among the many and varied pools of crackpot wealth and which can avoid offending the upper crust as a whole.

But John Galt will win no general elections. The only tactic available to the GOP as it stands accused of the theft of grandma’s Medicare will be to dissemble. Its cover story of benign tolerance towards long established working class achievements looking nothing but threadbare it will be forced to attack the Democrats on the same ground; their acquiescence to the slow but accelerating squeeze of the working majority and their failure to take effective action in the face of economic disaster. 

It should not be forgotten that in 2008, with the global economy on the verge of locking up, both parties waited politely in the corridor as the titans of capital divided the public purse amongst themselves as they saw fit. At that time I commented that this was a lesson they would rather not be teaching. Now, in 2012, we will have a graduate seminar taught by competing lecturers. Do not think that everyone will be sleeping through the course.