Has the United States become a Failed State?
Follow the 3rd American Civil War as it Happens
American democracy was already struggling in its death throes desperately grasping for enduring relevance and purpose when Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States on 6 November 2016. Did the election of President Donald Trump represent the highest point and triumph of American democracy?
President Donald Trump, a successful multi-billionaire businessman, had noticed (perhaps also participated in?) the widespread shenanigans, fraudulent dealings, duplicity, sleaze, malfeasance, legalised misconduct and openly corrupt political practices of US politics. He was even taunted by his predecessor, 44th US President Barack Obama, at a dinner reception and later publicly that Trump was incapable to do the job of US President.
However, before the successful election of Donald Trump, a “deep state” cabal of corrupt politicians and their financial backers has already developed their strategic plan to de-legitimise him, as an “insurance plan”, should he become the duly elected 45th President.
Over the past 20+ years, systematic corruption and corrupt practices have been carefully nurtured and cultivated by members of the American power elites, now exposed as the “deep state”, to permeate and consume the minds of the American electorate as it works its way into every decent sectors of the community including religion, economy, family, education and everyday life.
The resulting outcome was that upon his 2016 democratic election, President Donald Trump was denied a peaceful transition into his 45th Presidency. A functional Democracy would have managed the peaceful transfer of power in an orderly manner after democratic free elections, as the most powerful evidence of true democracy. His unexpected election represented a checkmate on the “deep state”.
His opponent (and her husband) personified and represented every corruption of the Washington establishment and its “deep state”. Their “philanthropic” foundation, which promptly folded when she lost the elections, is now being investigated for selling access — “pay for play” — to senior government officers and foreign governments. A Hillary Presidency would have embedded corrupt practices into an already corrupt US Government nurtured and nourished by the previous Obama and Clinton Presidencies.
The End of American Democracy and the 3rd Civil War
In spite of Trump’s election, American democracy continues its nosedive towards eventual oblivion. The cancer of corruption, that eternal enemy of democracy, has long infected American democracy for many decades, and has reached terminal stage. We bear witness to the end of an American democracy that was never one from the beginning.
American democracy continues to choke as it struggles for renewed relevance and meaning in President Trump’s new world order. Over the past 3+ years, the forces against American democracy assaulted in organised unison to de-legitimise the duly elected 45th US President using the tools of democracy against itself by systematically unleashing a series of events to destablise the established, albeit imperfect, democratic eco-system developed over the past 215 years.
The “deep state” conspiracy to destroy a duly democratically elected US President is now well documented in many books.
A comprehensive analysis of the post-2016 US Elections highlighted the concerted actions by American anti-democracy forces to prevent and thwart a Trump Presidency unsuccessfully.
By 2018, the de-legitimisation of the duly-elected President, the perversion of justice and fairness, the corruption of due process, the inaction of a biased and impotent judiciary and the dominance of undemocratic national US leaders came to a confluence to end American democracy.
The systematic destruction of American democracy was initiated by key officials in the previous President Obama’s administration. History would expose President Obama’s role as to what President Obama himself knew, and when did he know, of the “deep state” strategic “insurance” plan to de-legitimise the democratic succession of the US Presidency.
The complicity of key senior officers of the elite FBI who weaponised its powers and operations in favour of Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy is the greatest political scandal in American democracy. Undisputed evidence have pointed to the active participation of top FBI officers like ex-Director James Comey, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok et al to reveal the corruption and abuse of power at the very top of the Bureau.
Today, the FBI has lost its hard-earned reputation built over many decades. As its own Inspector-General (IG) Report uncovered, the FBI professionalism and credibility has been serious and irreparably compromised together with the Justice Department. Another core pillar of democracy, namely justice and equality, has been destroyed.
None of the FBI officers who were found to have violated key laws of secrecy and ethical conduct have been charged to answer for their offences before a public court. Clearly, the “deep state” continues to protect its own and do so openly and blatantly.
The FBI’s central role in the perversion of justice and fairness is clearly evident in its use of a bogus discredited dossier to obtain a warrant from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court to wire-tap and surveil a Trump associate so as to obtain opportunities to spy on Trump and his election campaign. Not once, but four times! The FISA Court was never told that the dossier was a product of the political opposition and is extremely unreliable as to its unverifiable contents. The former FBI deputy director had also testified that the FISA warrant would never have been issued without the bogus dossier. And it should also never have been repeatedly renewed, given recently revealed evidence of fabrication of key support documents by FBI Agents and lawyers.
The FBI as the world’s most professional investigative organisation had therefore lied to the FISA Court for an otherwise illegal surveillance warrant on an American citizen, thus openly and blatantly violating his civil and constitutional rights.
For more than 36 months, the US Judiciary Branch who used to have a reputation for fearless independence remained quiet. The panel of FISA judges sat in silence as its judgement, credibility and professionalism were called to question. What emerged were its gullibility and naivety, and that of the entire Judiciary. The FISA Court’s silence and inaction instead of recalling the FISA warrants obtained under false and fabricated pretence seriously impacted its credibility, and in turn destroyed the legacy of the retiring Chief Justice who supervised the FISA Court.
It is however not lost to any intelligent person that the withdrawal of the FISA warrants would render invalid all investigative activities as well as evidence collected, including that by the Special Counsel, resulting directly and indirectly from the FISA warrants. The legal doctrine of “fruits from the poisonous tree” applies here.
The final impact is that all hitherto indictments by the Special Counsel would be invalidated and have to be dismissed. Evidence from recent FBI documents also point to the fact that the very appointment of the Special Counsel has no evidentiary predicates and was politically motivated, and his appointment should therefore be retroactively reverted and withdrawn. Democracy demands an active independent Judiciary.
With the passing of American democracy before our eyes, the 3rd American Civil War has already begun years earlier steadily, surely and silently. True democracy may never return to America any time soon.
Political power has never truly been in the effective hands of the American people. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettyburg Address on 19 November 1863 that “… the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth” never really had an even chance to grow into full maturity.
Political power develops through concentration not by dispersion or distribution. Democracy’s promise of popular power in the hands of the people is an illusion, an empty promise made by those in power to a permanently gullible, weak and naïve electorate. Political power easily slipped out of their hands as they rather bask in comfortable living without participating in the process of political life through debates, discussions, confrontation and regular elections.
In the coming US Presidential elections in November 2020, Americans have to evaluate and examine critically how they have allowed the corrupt power elites to infest the Judiciary, Executive and the Congress through clever arguments, money and privileges.
A Corporatist America Emerges?
President Trump is essentially a visionary Corporatist, who possessed great self- confidence to improve the economic and social well-being of his American people. Trump’s economic achievements in his first 20 months as well as during the rest of his Office, before the coronavirus pandemic, speak for themselves.
Why would Americans not want more of the goodies that he “produced”? Why allow Trump to be distracted by opposition politicians with various parliamentary investigations, including impeachment, into fabricated wrongdoings and blocking the Presidential policies such as immigration, healthcare, education and infrastructural reforms? There is already high public confidence in his leadership for a successful post-Covid19 economic recovery.
A Corporatist America emerging from the 3rd American Civil War will create good-paying jobs, put food on the table, more money in the pockets, increase 401K value, reduce homelessness, provides affordable healthcare available and a more prosperous America. The alternative Socialism Model touted by his 2020 opponents is a no-brainer and guaranteed failure.
Singapore’s corporatist democratic political model is a good starting point for America to discover an upgraded version of a better democracy. Singapore believes that democracy and democratic processes must and should facilitate development or face irrelevance and oblivion, as we see in America today. Governments should promote the welfare and well-being of its people, which Trump did in his Presidency, and not the intellectual development of political concepts. Americans in their 3rd Civil War must learn to “trade-up” the benefits of a viable democracy, instead of a “trade-off” between democracy and development.
American political parties should become corporatist in their political orientation with the American people as their only primary political accountability, not financial backers and powerful industrial vested interests. Continuous electoral success comes from the American electorate, not election spendings.
Americans should ask whether their current dysfunctional democracy is better than a benevolent dictatorship? Ultimately, the test of the pudding (political system) lies in the palate and stomach of the electorate.
America is better off managing its democracy as a governance tool with regular free and fair elections and in a political climate characterized by freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of religious beliefs and the freedom of choice. If these were what a re-calibrated American democracy could facilitate, it would be great! As American democracy failed, it should be replaced by a democratic corporatist system more conducive for the American people to journey toward a better, just and more prosperous, fairer and equal “land of the free, home of the brave”.
