Daily Archives: March 7, 2017

A federal tax-reform plan will not be concluded in time for Finance Minister Bill Morneaus 2017 budget as the Liberal government waits to see how promised tax changes in the United States will affect Canada.

During the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals pledged to raise $3-billion in new revenue by eliminating tax breaks that primarily benefit wealthy Canadians or are ineffective.

March 22 federal budget will focus on job growth: Morneau (The Canadian Press)

Mr. Morneau had intended the budget to reflect the final results of a review of all tax credits, but sources say the process will extend beyond that date. The budget, to be delivered on March 22, is likely to eliminate some tax credits and will also focus on skills training in response to rapid changes in the work force.

Read more: To paint a portrait of the Liberals federal budget, Morneau will have to get crafty

Our budget will be very much about trying to increase jobs in this country, to create opportunities for people today, for their children and for their grandchildren, Mr. Morneau said. It will be about how we can help Canadians get the skills that they need in a dynamic and changing economy. Mr. Morneau has little room for new spending, so his budget is not expected to include a major change in direction. It will provide new detail on existing government plans for infrastructure spending, innovation and research in addition to the review of tax credits. Business groups had argued that the more complex aspects of the tax reforms would need more debate and consultation beyond the budget date.

Tax credits are worth more than $100-billion a year in forgone federal revenue. They cover everything from tax breaks for apprentice vehicle mechanics buying tools to deductions related to investments such as stock options or the sale of a primary residence.

Extending the tax review would allow the government time to see how U.S. President Donald Trump implements his pledges of major tax reform and factor that in to its own plans. Business groups say Canada could be at a disadvantage when it comes to retaining companies and highly skilled workers if the United States sharply reduces personal and business tax rates.

Sources say the budgets focus on skills will be part of a longer-term approach to the economy as the ratio of working-age Canadians to retirees shrinks. Measures to encourage specific groups including aboriginals, low-income people and women with young children to boost their participation in the work force will be a central theme.

Well be thinking about not only how we can grow the economy, but how we can ensure that Canadians are prepared for the exciting and good opportunities that will come out not only for this generation, but for the next generation as well, Mr. Morneau told reporters after announcing the budget date in the House of Commons.

Conservative finance critic Grard Deltell said he hopes the government shelves the tax credit review in light of the changes in the United States.

If the Trump administration tables some new direction to have less fees and less tax for business, well, we must address it because its very serious, Mr. Deltell said. America, as you know, is our most important partner, but also our most important competitor.

The Conservatives also want a more ambitious timeline for erasing the deficit. A finance department report recently said the budget will not be balanced until the 2050s.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said the Liberals should follow through on closing tax loopholes for the rich and deliver on their promises to Indigenous people.

Mr. Morneaus advisory council on economic growth which worked directly with the Finance Minister and his team over the past year called for an increased focus on skills training in a February report.

The Liberal government was elected on a central plank of running deficits to boost economic growth through infrastructure spending, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer and a Senate committee say the money has been slow to get out the door.

The 2017 budget is expected to provide more detailed breakdowns of the long-term spending plan for infrastructure. The numbers are not likely to change much from what Mr. Morneau outlined in his Nov. 1 fiscal update, which increased the total to $186.7-billion over 12 years.

While some new projects are expected to be highlighted in the budget as examples of what is to come, funding announcements on big projects will have to wait. Ottawa has not formally launched its second phase of funding for large projects, which means provinces have not submitted wish lists.

Mr. Morneaus Nov. 1 update added trade and transportation as well as rural and northern communities to the three categories public transit, green infrastructure and social infrastructure on which the Liberals have promised to focus.

One senior government official said the budget will have more to say on federal efforts to promote trade infrastructure.

John Gamble, president and CEO of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies Canada, said his members are not seeing evidence of increased construction in spite of promises from the Liberals and the Conservatives before them to hike infrastructure spending.

Were very excited and very supportive of the fact that weve seen three successive budgets, from two governments, and each one of them has legitimately claimed to be the largest infrastructure investment in Canadian history, he said. However, in practical terms, we have just not seen the corresponding level of design activity so far. We know there are a lot of reasons. Were just trying to convey a sense of urgency.

With a report from Robert Fife

Follow Bill Curry on Twitter: @curryb

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Liberals extend tax credit review beyond 2017 federal budget, keeping an eye on Trump - The Globe and Mail

An attempt by the Liberal governmentto gut the genetic discriminationbill was defeated by a coalition of MPs from across party lines Tuesday evening, despite constitutional concerns raised by Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Alberta Liberal MPRandyBoissonnaulthadintroduced a motion in the House to remove key sections of the legislation, including those relating topenalties for genetic discriminationand languageforbidding employers from subjecting job applicants to a genetic test. His efforts to dramatically reduce the bill'sscope weredefeated in a voice vote.

A number of Liberal backbenchers, including Toronto-areaMPs Jennifer O'ConnellandPam Damoff, spoke in favour of Bill S-201 An Act to Prohibit and Prevent Genetic Discrimination as originally drafted by recently retired Liberal senator Jim Cowan.

Conservative and NDP MPs also offered their support and chided the cabinet for accepting the "scaremongering" rhetoricof the insurance industry.

Now, at the request of the government, there will be a recorded vote (also referred to as a standing vote) on Boissonault's amendmentsWednesday evening.

Cowan said in an interview with CBC News Tuesday that the Trudeau cabinet's opposition to the bill is "curious" given the party's vocal embrace ofsuch legislation during the last election campaign and raisedthe possibility that aggressive lobbying efforts by the insurance industrysoured support.

Anna Gainey, the president of the federal Liberals, wroteto the Canadian Coalition for Genetic Fairness in October 2015 promising a Liberal government would "introduce measures, including possible legislative change, to prevent this [genetic] discrimination."

"Today, even people without symptoms can be denied life, mortgage and disability insurance and even rejected for employment based on genetic testing that shows risk of future illness. Many other countries have passed legislation on this problem. Canada is an outlier," she said in the letter addressed to the chair of the coalition, Bev Heim-Myers, and obtained by the CBC News.

Public lobbying records show there have been a number of meetings between the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Associationand ManulifeFinancialand senior members of Wilson-Raybould's office over thelast year where Bill S-201was the subject of conversation.

Liberal P.E.I. MP Sean Casey,who was, until recently,the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice, was also lobbied by the insurance associationsix times in the last year.

Cowan, who introduced the legislation in the Red Chamber more than a year ago, pointed to the lobbying efforts as a potential explanation for the cabinet's skittishness.

"All I can say is look at the number of lobbyists from the insurance industry; they have been very, very active at the federal and provincial levels, and they've been lobbying [the government] very heavily, and lobbying MPs and senators. Now, is that the reason [the cabinet] is opposed to this bill? Some would say yes. But, as they say, I couldn't possibly comment."

After a strong commitment for the bill from the party in the last election, "it makes no sense to me," said Cowan.

Records are vague as to what was discussed during these lobbyist meetings, but the industry has not hidden its opposition to Cowan's private member'sbill, a piece of legislation easily passed the Senate last April, and the House of Commons justice committee inDecember.

Bill S-201, introduced by Cowanin December 2015, would add genetic characteristics as a protected ground under the Canadian Human Rights Act, introducepenalties for discrimination, and forbid employers from subjecting job applicants to a genetic test.

Recently retired Liberal senator James Cowan says aggressive lobbying by the insurance industry could be the reason the Trudeau cabinet is now opposed to his genetic discrimination bill. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The bill would also allow people to refuse to disclose the results of a genetic test to anybody. Medical experts have said the legislation is necessary to counter the fears associated with potentially lifesaving genetic testing, which could produce resultsthat would help doctors better tailor health treatments.

The insurance industry recently committed to never asking an applicant to undergo a genetic test, but said it will ask for and retain the right to potentially use genetic testing information for life insurance applications for coverage over$250,000.

"The $250,000 limit helps ensure that individuals with knowledge of significant health risks through genetic testing information, cannot apply for unusually large life insurance policies without disclosing this information. Otherwise, the cost of insurance would increase for everyone and fewer Canadians would be able to afford coverage," the group said in a statement.

Cowan said there is no proof of widespread fraud in any other jurisdiction that has protections against genetic discrimination, including in the U.S., Great Britain, France and Israel.

"Their initial point was this will ruin the insurance industry as we know it. What's happened in all other countries that have protections like this? As far aswe know the insurance industry is doing just fine," he said.

Wilson-Raybould has said she is opposed to the legislationbecause she believesit treads on provincial jurisdiction over the insurance industry. (The bill does not specifically mention the insurance industry by name.)

She recently wrote a letter to the Council of the Federation, the group that represents the provinces and territories, asking for its opinion on the legislation.Three provinces, B.C., Manitoba, and Quebec,have raised some issues with the bill as written.

NDP MP Don Davies said during the House debate on Tuesday that the government'sclaims of constitutional problems are "a smokescreen and no more."

Cowanadded constitutional experts have been widely consulted on the bill, and have testified beforethe Senate and House committees that Parliament is well within its rights tolegislate in this area.

He said hewrote letters to the provinces when drafting this legislation and not one responded to his inquiries with any concerns about the bill.

CBC is not responsible for 3rd party content

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MPs reject Liberal government's attempt to gut genetic discrimination bill - CBC.ca

Is there any party less aptly named than the Liberal Democrats? A truly liberal party would embrace the chance to shape Britains future as a self-governing nation outside the EU, free to trade with the world. And a democratic one would respect what the people voted for in one of the biggest exercises of democracy in modern times. Instead, the Lib Dems want to stop Brexit.

With only nine MPs, the Lib Dems can do little harm in the House of Commons, but there are over 100 of them in the House of Lords, many rashly given peerages by David Cameron to placate his Coalition allies. Those peers are seeking to force the Government to hold a second referendum on the final Brexit deal; they say they will vote against the Bill that will authorise Theresa May to trigger Article 50 unless their scheme for another public vote is written into law.

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The Liberal Democrats should learn to respect democracy, even if they don't like the Brexit result - Telegraph.co.uk

March 7, 2017 BOSTONPerhaps it was only inevitable that in Americas most Democratic state, Nilo Asgaris elephant sticker would get her in trouble.

Amid the intense fervor of the 2016 election, the Boston University student was eating lunch when a fellow student spotted the Republican emblem on her phone case and accosted her.

He came up and started yelling at me, says Ms. Asgari. He didnt know anything about me.

Like the fact that her parents immigrated to the US from Iran, for example and that she opposes the Trumpist rhetoric about immigrants and foreigners.

There are some values that people associate with the Republican Party that can be really offensive to certain groups, says Asgari. People assume that just because someone identifies with the Republican Party that they share those views and its not necessarily true.

Confronted with such pushback, conservatives at Boston universities are flocking to College Republican clubs causing membership to double or even triple. Some of the new members feel inspired by Trump to up their political engagement, but often it is to reaffirm to themselves as well as others on campus that there are more strains of conservatism than just Trumpism.

Feelings about politics are running very strong, says Virginia Sapiro, a professor at Boston University who specializes in political psychology. I think pretty much everyone who cares about politics feels vulnerable for various reasons. And for those in the minority, seeking a safe and congenial space to have conversations with like-minded people would seem attractive.

According to a 2016 Pew Research poll, 57 percent of Millennials identify as Democratic and 36 percent identify as Republican. Democrats also claim more female and college-educated voters. That can make conservatism a tough sell.

During the Obama years, the Northeastern College Republicans had about 30 members, with 10 to 15 attending the weekly meetings. Since the election, the club has grown to almost 100 members, with 35 to 50 attending each meeting.

The Boston University (BU) College Republicans and Tufts Republicans cite similar increases. BUs attendance has tripled in recent months from 10 to 30 students, and Tufts attendance has doubled over the last year, with about 40 students attending each meeting.

Once inside the safety of a Northeastern University classroom, a handful of students swap winter beanies for the iconic red hats stowed in their backpack: Make America Great Again. One student opens a laptop emblazoned with a "Johnson-Weld 2016" sticker, and another shows off a new camouflaged NRA baseball cap.

This is the College Republicans club a weekly reprieve from liberal campus life, if only for an hour. This is the only place on campus during the week when you can say whatever you want and nobody will judge you, says Nathan Kotler, the clubs secretary.

During an overview of the weeks media coverage, club leaders play a Fox News segment, UConn professor claims Trump voters motivated by white supremacy. All 40 students laugh in unison at what they see as the lame responses of the professor to Mr. Carlsons questioning.

At the end of the meeting, they put their red hats and TRUMP for President T-shirts back in their backpacks before leaving the classroom.

We are a minority on campus, says Noah Tagliaferri, president of the Northeastern College Republicans. It is cool when students find out there is a group on campus where they dont have to feel like an outcast.

Despite the camaraderie of College Republicans club, young conservatives say they feel scared or embarrassed to publicize their political beliefs for fear that other students will ostracize them or professors will grade their assignments differently.

Nobody wants to be called a name or have no friends because they are the Republican kid in the group, says George Behrakis, a freshman economics major at Tufts University and president of the Tufts Republicans club. And if you write something in class and you show any sort of bias toward conservatism people feel like they will get lower grades.

Patrick Collins, executive director of public relations at Tufts, says the university "encourages the free exchange of ideas, diverse opinions and beliefs" and supports an environment "in which all students feel free to express themselves."

Noah Tagliaferri, president of the Northeastern University College Republicans, and Nathan Kotler, secretary of the Northeastern University College Republicans.

Since the election, Asgari says she has removed the elephant logo from her phone case and any other public Republican paraphernalia. But she says she is still a proud Republican: She interns with the Massachusetts Republican Party and she is the membership director for BUs College Republicans.

Like Asgari, young Republicans at Boston universities are trying to distance themselves from the stereotype of a Trump-supporter racist, sexist, opposed to same-sex marriage, and so forth.

There are different strains of conservatism in Northeasterns club, says Mr. Tagliaferri: Some members abhor Trump, and some identify as libertarians. But I will say none of them are the strain that are on Buzzfeed or Vox giving the Nazi salute.

Mr. Behrakis says he wants to start challenging preconceived notions on campus by chiming into the political debates with a moderate conservative viewpoint. And when professors make jokes at Republicans expense in class, he plans to call them out.

When we try and do outreach we try to change the narrative on campus about who Republicans are, says Behrakis. If we can prove some people wrong, that is a step in the right direction.

Club members believe they could be a majority on campus someday if only the Republican Party would mirror their clubs platforms and let go of a social ideology that opposes abortion rights, same-sex marriage, or allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice.

Those are ageist issues, says Tagliaferri. Those are issues for 75-years-olds who sip their bourbon and yell to their grandkids about how Bulgarians are ruining the country.

But for some reason the old-school Republicans wont let it go, adds Mr. Kotler. But the younger Republicans, he motions to the classroom, there is nobody in this room that opposes gay marriage.

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In liberal Boston, College Republicans see club membership triple - Christian Science Monitor

The liberal elites, who bear significant responsibility for the death of our democracy, now hold themselves up as the saviors of the republic. They have embarked, despite their own corruption and their complicity inneoliberalismand the crimes of empire, on a self-righteous moral crusade to topple Donald Trump. It is quite a show. They attack Trumps lies, denounce executive orders such as his travel ban as un-American and blame Trumps election on Russia or FBI Director James Comey rather than the failed neoliberal policies they themselves advanced.

Where was this moral outrage when our privacy was taken from us by the security and surveillance state, the criminals on Wall Street were bailed out, we were stripped of our civil liberties and 2.3 million men and women were packed into our prisons, most of them poor people of color? Why did they not thunder with indignation as money replaced the vote and elected officials and corporate lobbyists instituted our system of legalized bribery? Where were the impassioned critiques of the absurd idea of allowing a nation to be governed by the dictates of corporations, banks and hedge fund managers? Why did they cater to the foibles and utterings of fellow elites, all the while blacklisting critics of the corporate state and ignoring the misery of the poor and the working class? Where was their moral righteousness when the United States committed war crimes in the Middle East and our militarized police carried out murderous rampages? What the liberal elites do now is not moral. It is self-exaltation disguised as piety. It is part of the carnival act.

The liberal class, ranging from Hollywood and the Democratic leadership to The New York Times and CNN, refuses to acknowledge that it sold the Democratic Party to corporate bidders; collaborated in the evisceration of our civil liberties; helped destroy programs such as welfare, orchestrate the job-killing North American Free Trade Agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, wage endless war, debase our public institutions including the press and build the worlds largest prison system.

The truth is hard to find. The truth is hard to know. The truth is more important than ever, reads a television ad for The New York Times. What the paper fails to add is that the hardest place to find the truth about the forces affecting the life of the average American and the truth about empire is in The New York Times itself. News organizations, from the Times to the tawdry forms of entertainment masquerading as news on television, have rendered most people and their concerns invisible. Liberal institutions, especially the press, function, as the journalist and author Matt Taibbi says, as the guardians of the neoliberal and imperial orthodoxy.

It is the job of the guardians of orthodoxy to plaster over the brutal reality and cruelty of neoliberalism and empire with a patina of civility or entertainment. They pay homage to a nonexistent democracy and nonexistent American virtues. The elites, who live in enclaves of privilege in cities such as New York, Washington and San Francisco, scold an enraged population. They tell those they dismiss as inferiors to calm down, be reasonable and patient and trust in the goodness of the old ruling class and the American system. African-Americans have heard this kind of cant preached by the white ruling class for a couple of centuries.

Because the system works for the elites, and because the elites interact only with other elites, they are mystified about the revolt rising up from the decayed cities they fly over in the middle of the country. They think they can stuff this inexplicable rage back in the box. They continue to offer up absurd solutions to deindustrialization and despair, such asThomas Friedmans endorsementof a culture of entrepreneurship and an ethic of pluralism. These kinds of bromides are advertising jingles. They bear no more connection to reality than Trump promising to make America great again.

I walked into the Harvard Club in New York City after midnight on election night. The well-heeled New York elites stood, their mouths agape, looking up at the television screens in the oak-paneled bar while wearing their Clinton campaign straw hats. They could not speak. They were in shock. The system they funded to prevent anyone from outside their circle, Republican or Democrat, from achieving the presidency had inexplicably collapsed.

Taibbi, when I interviewed him in New York, said political power in our corporate state is controlled by a tripartite system. You have to have the assent of the press, the donor class, and one of the two [major] political parties to get in, said Taibbi, author of Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus.

Its an exclusive club. Its like a membership system. They all have to agree and confer their blessing on the candidate. Trump somehow managed to get past all three of those obstacles. And he did it essentially by putting all of them on trial. He put the press on trial and villainized them with the public. I think it was a brilliant masterstroke that nobody saw coming. But it wouldnt have been possible if their unpopularity hadnt been building for years and years and years.

Its a kind ofStockholm syndrome, he said of the press.

The reporters, candidates, and candidates aides are all thrown together. Theyre stuck in the same environment with each other day after day, month after month. After a while, they start to unconsciously adopt each others values. Then they start to live in the same neighborhoods. They go to the same parties. Then it becomes a year-after-year kind of thing. Then after that, theyre the same people. Its a total perversion of whats supposed to happen. Were [the press] supposed to be on the outside, not identifying with these people. But now, its a club. Journalists enjoy the experience of being close to power.

At first the press, especially the television press, could not get enough of Trump. He received23 times the coverageof Sen. Bernie Sanders, who spoke about things that do not make for great televisioninequality and corporate corruption. Trump brought in the advertising dollars. 2016 wasCNNs most profitable year. Then, alarmed at Trumps ascendancy, the press set out to destroy him. The press applied its Darth Vader Force choke. It did not work. They tried it again and again. The Force had deserted them.

When a candidate makes a mistake and steps in it[2004 presidential hopeful] Howard Dean is the classic example,the screamthen they [TV news shows] replay it every hour, 100 times a day, Taibbi said.

The critical part is that Dean was already in violation leading up to that moment. He was not the right person because he was anti-war. He got his donations from the wrong people. He makes the mistake. The press pig-piles on the person just instinctively. All this negative attention. The candidate freaks out and apologizes. He disappears for a while. He tries to soldier on. The next thing you know, theres a Page 16 story: Candidate exits the race. Its a script. But it didnt work with Trump.

The press, like the Democratic Party, is an appendage of the consumer society. These institutions are not about politics or news. They are about imparting an experience. They create political personalities, marketed as celebrities, to make us feel good about candidates. These manufactured emotions, the product of the dark arts of the public relations industry, determine how we vote. Issues and policies are irrelevant. It is marketing and entertainment. Trump is a skillful marketer of his fictitious self.

When you work in that environment long enough you unconsciously become an agent for whatever that commercial strategy is, Taibbi said of the press in our corporate-run political theater.

What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism, Taibbi wrote in Insane Clown President. The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well, while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or anACORNactivist. Both companies offer the same service, its just that the Fox version is a little kinkier.

The pseudo-events on television displace reality. This is how a reality star becomes president. Sixty million people think Trumps manufactured personathe predominate tycoonon The Apprentice is real. Our perception of the truth is determined by what appears on the screen. If an event is never broadcast, it somehow never happened. The electronic image is the word of God. The corporate state controls most of what is seen and heard on television, what ideas and events can be discussed in the mainstream media and what orthodoxies, including neoliberalism and the war industry, must never be questioned. We suffer an intellectual tyranny as pervasive as that imposed by fascism and communism. Trump, who is as gullible as the most habitual television viewer, exemplifies our cultural and political death. He is no more authentic than Hillary Clinton. But he appears on our screens as more authentic because he is more deeply embedded in the medium that controls our thoughts. He is what is vomited up from the perverted zeitgeist of a nation entranced and dominated by electronic hallucinations.

People have this idea that Trump has no connection with the common man, but he does, Taibbi said. He has exactly the same media habits that ordinary people have. He believes the stuff that he reads on the internet and watches on television implicitly and unquestioningly. That is what gives him that connection with people. He thinks like they do. He has the same habits they have. A classic example is the thing with the so-called 3 millionillegal voters. He reads that, probably in anInfowarsstory, its policy like two minutes later. He doesnt go through the process of asking himself if its untrue. Hes a perfect consumer in that respect. Thats what makes him so dangerous.

[George W.] Bush was childs play compared to what were dealing with now, Taibbi said. Bush was a puppet. He was a vehicle for a very familiar form of right-wing capitalist politics. This Trump thing is totally different. Trump really is the actual engine behind this phenomenon during the entire campaign. There were no people behind the man, I dont think. The presidential campaign has no relation to the issue of whether or not you can govern effectively. The campaign is a television show. The values that decide whether a person becomes a candidate or cant become a candidate are more or less arbitrary. It has a lot to do with the commercial value of the candidate. You cant have an unentertaining candidate because the press needs to make money. They will unconsciously gravitate towards someone who does what Trump does, which is get [website] hits and eyeballs and ratings.

Trumps popularity increased the more the establishment condemned him. This would have sent a profound and disturbing message to anyone not as clueless as our liberal elites. They did not get it. They thought they could trot out Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hollywood celebrities and get the rubes to fall for their routine one more time. They thought the country would again obey.

The liberal class, by embracing neoliberalism and refusing to challenge the imperial wars, empowered the economic and political structures that destroyed our democracy and gave rise to Trump. Multiculturalism, when it means, to use the words ofCornel West, nothing more than having a president who is a black mascot for Wall Street, betrays the disenfranchised and endows the ruling elites with a false progressivism, a false humanism and a false inclusiveness.

Hillary and Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and the current Democratic Party leadership designed and built the massive system of imprisonment, essentially ended welfare, expanded our wars and pushed through NAFTA. They destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor and working-class families and are responsible for the mounds of corpses in the Middle East. Yet these liberal elites speak as if they are champions of racial and economic justice. They appear in choreographed pseudo-events to demonstrate a faux compassion. Now they have been exposed as fakes.

A genuine populism, one defined and often articulated by Bernie Sanders, could sweep the Democratic Party back into power. Regulating Wall Street, publicly financing campaigns, forgiving student debt, demanding universal health care, bailing out homeowners victimized by the banks, ending the wars in the Middle East, instituting a jobs program to repair our decaying infrastructure, dismantling the prison system, restoring the rule of law on the streets of our cities, making college education free and protecting programs such as Social Security would see election victory after election victory.

But this will never happen within the Democratic Party. It refuses to prohibit corporate money. The party elites know that if corporate money disappears, so do they. The partys hierarchy, pressured by Obama and the Clintons, elevated Tom Perez over Keith Ellisonwhom a major donor to the party, Haim Saban,condemns as an anti-Semitebecause of Ellisons criticism of the Israeli governmentto head the Democratic National Committee. They will press forward repeating the same silly slogans and trying to use the now ineffective Force choke on their political enemies. They may have lost control of the Congress and the White House and hold only 16 governorships and majorities in only 31 of the states 99 legislative chambers, but they are incapable of offering any meaningful alternative to neoliberalism and empire. They are devoid of a vision. They can only moralize. They will continue to atrophy and enable the consolidation of an American fascism.

Fyodor Dostoevskyexcoriated Russias bankrupt liberal class at the end of the 19th century. Russian liberals mouthed values they did not defend. Their stated ideals bore no relationship to their actions. They were filled with a suffocating narcissism.

In Notes From Underground, Dostoevsky lampooned the defeated dreamers of the liberal class, those who preached goodness but lived in moral squalor. These defeated dreamers denounced the social and cultural depravity they had largely created. They had an open disdain for the uneducated, the poor, the working class, the lesser breeds beneath them. And in the end they ushered in a moral nihilism to empower a dangerous class of demagogues, killers and fools.

I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect, the Underground Man wrote.

And now I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and utterly futile consolation that it is even impossible for an intelligent man seriously to become anything, and only fools become something. Yes, sir, an intelligent man of the nineteenth century must be and is morally obliged to be primarily a characterless being; and a man of character, an active figureprimarily a limited being.

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Donald Trump's Greatest Allies Are the Liberal Elites - Center for Research on Globalization