Democrats have a cunning plan

As noted by Praveena Somasundaram in her Washington Post piece today

The Democratic Party is less popular than before the 2018 midterm elections, when a blue wave delivered 41 new seats, according to a CNN poll released in late July. Just before that 2018 election, 46 per cent of adults rated Democrats favourably while 45 per cent rated them unfavourably. Now, 30 per cent rate Democrats favourably while 51 per cent rate them unfavourably, almost identical to ratings for the Republican Party.

I have said for some time that it’s extremely high risk to depend on the Trump protest vote rather than laying out a coherent vision for the American people. Voters are NOT stupid, as is clear from current polls in which both parties are underwater. They have lost faith in politicians full stop, and who can blame them?

The tragedy of the situation is that we are now coming off the final bend, the dice have been rolled and I fear there are now diminishing opportunities to grab the initiative. The American people chose, for whatever reason, to exercise their power as consumers because the pain of the inconvenience of a spending strike was just too much. As a result, they are now in the hands of the most corrupt president in American history or Chuck and Hakeem, the Laurel and Hardy of opposition politics. Sigh…..

It reminds me of a British comedy featuring Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, which seems totally apt for this moment. You’ll even find a reference to John Fetterman; it really was quite prophetic.

The American people have decided in their infinite wisdom to put their faith in an election where Trump will only accept the outcome if he wins. What could possibly go wrong? Other than mass voter suppression, thugs out on the streets to prevent anyone not white from voting. Purged electoral rolls and total domination of the social media narrative. I can’t think of a better environment in which to regain the House and Senate.

As an outside observer, I am left speechless that a convicted criminal and adjudicated rapist who has exploded inflation, gas prices and blown over half of the nation’s defensive missiles in a war of choice with no exit, is still in with a shot. Make it make sense.

Despite the now Willy Wonka stock market, which his friends have golden tickets to manipulate. His fantasy wealth narrative against the backdrop of almost $40 trillion of national debt, 28% of which has been added all by himself, continues to defy all economic logic. Millions of kids are facing food insecurity, while at the same time, tens of millions of Americans are losing access to healthcare. The argument seems to be that Americans aren’t angry enough yet. I have to tell my American friends that I am in awe of your pain tolerance. What exactly will it take to stop being the Turkey voting for Thanksgiving? Let me guess, the abolition of credit cards?

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that if the Democrats fail to win the House back, I’m not sure that there is a way back without enduring unimaginable social and economic pain, especially if you’re not lucky enough make the cut for the top 10%. In short, EVERYTHING hinges on November. Anything short of a win too big to dispute may well prove too difficult to defend. Then what?

Once the US has reached this point, I’m afraid I’m out of answers because I fear the ‘every man for himself’ mentality will truly kick in and heaven knows where that might lead us. The only option on the table then becomes an economic collapse, forcing the collapse of the government and likely major civil unrest.

What people need to understand is that the top 1% have been planning for such a collapse, and they are now well insulated against any fallout unless it becomes very violent. If you track the economic corrections, they learned the lessons of the 2001 dot-com crash. Their wealth took a hit in that correction, and that woke them up to the need for insulation. By the time the 2008 crash came along, far from being hurt, they grew their wealth on the back of the misery of those who suffered the most. By the time the COVID crisis hit, they already had a wealth expansion model in place to ride that storm too, all while holding out their begging bowls for free government money.

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Now they have built this new tech Ponzi scheme with AI; the ground has already been prepared to shift the risk to taxpayers, so when it bursts, ‘We the people’ will be left holding the baby as their wealth continues to expand unabated. What’s that saying? ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’, but this will be the fourth time in 24 years; now that truly does make us fools. If my piece on the tax solution proves anything, it proves that the wealth of the top 1% is now so vast, I fear it would take the likes of global conflict to have any impact. Even then, I dare say they would find a way to profit.

We appear to have reached a situation where we are on a bus careering towards a cliff, and have decided to place our faith in the flip of a coin to decide whether to pump the brakes. It’s pure insanity. We’re living in the political Twilight Zone, unable to escape from the madness, because we can’t even trust the politicians claiming to be on our side to save us.

I’m having sleepless nights about these AI literary rapists buying up original literary works, then scanning and destroying the originals. Can someone tell me what happens when they consume the works of scholars, playwrights, and writers over the centuries, making them the sole source of knowledge? How will we ever be able to tell truth from fiction when an AI can be programmed to reimagine history based on a political directive?

What happens when AI renders human labour obsolete? Will we use AI to decide who will be included in the cull? These might once have been questions for a science fiction writer; now they are legitimate questions for those in power who control the technology. We saw our first glimpse of sovereign AI when the US government issued an edict stating that access to a US frontier model should be blocked to any user outside of the US on national security grounds. How long before this is integrated into the National Security Defence Plan? How long before access to US AI is dependent on paying protection money to the US? Take it from me, ‘economic dominance’ is a very real thing and this regime will be happy to roll it out.

What the US has thus far failed to recognise is that the world is now wide awake to the possibility of the US weaponising AI, not just in a military context, but in trade and economics. This is exactly why China has decided to appear to play the responsible adult on the international stage, offering a hedge against US malign action through extortion. They now have an impact-tested cross-border payments system up and running to allow circumvention of the US dollar. This is already integrated into their Belt and Road Initiative, opening the door to fast, frictionless dollar-free trade over a wide variety of borders.

In March of this year, China published its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030). This serves as the core operational roadmap, bridging the strategic path toward China's 2035 modernisation goals. These include:

• Advanced Technology: Supercharging artificial intelligence integration across the economy, prioritising semiconductors, high-end manufacturing, and tech self-reliance.

• Investing in people: Addressing domestic consumption, elderly care services, and family support policies to counter economic slowdowns and demographic changes.

• Security and Supply Chains: Building resilient domestic manufacturing and resource frameworks to insulate against external trade shocks.

• Low-Carbon Development: Push for industrial carbon-peaking, aiming for green factories to account for 45% of manufacturing output by 2030.

• Clean Energy Integration: Expanding wind, solar, and smart microgrid infrastructure, to include zero-carbon computing facilities powered directly by renewable energy.

These are just the top-level bullet points forming part of a strategic plan that is not hostage to political fortune. These objectives are the declared aims of the Chinese government and, as such, Chinese businesses will have access to the resources to meet them. There will be no shareholder class taking a cut. This is why this race is already won at a fraction of the cost to China. Rest assured, they are just sitting waiting for the US AI bubble to burst, and they’re in no hurry.

I realise that too many Americans are struggling right now as a result of a policy agenda which is facilitating the constant flow of wealth from the bottom and the middle to the top. This is made all the worse by a president who daily stares directly into the camera with a straight face, telling Americans not to believe their own lying eyes when they fill up their car, go to the supermarket or check their bank balances, because there is no affordability crisis. Meanwhile, they live with the hands of the rich constantly in their back pocket. Trump claimed yesterday that there are more people in work in America than ever before, knowing he was telling a bare-faced lie.

It shouldn’t be the case that people like me find themselves the enemy for simply pointing out the facts. He’s a man who won’t accept the word ‘NO’ from Senate leadership when they tell him they don’t have the votes for The Save Act, or the Supreme Court when they rule his tariffs illegal or deny his attempts to abolish birthright citizenship. Instead of conceding, he simply goes looking for a way around their ruling. What’s the point of the rule of law if it is just ignored? Yet here we are, less than 100 days out from the midterms, and it looks like it will be another close election; I just can’t wrap my head around what appears to be an epidemic of stupidity.

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