Running rough over great and small, rich and poor

For the benefit of all of you non-Christians out there, these are the verses that describe the economic power of the beast.

“And he makes everyone, small and large, rich and poor, free and slaves, to be marked on his right hand or forehead, and no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name.”

Ok, ok, 47 is not 666, and Ergot -induced views of a first -century hermit, living in a cave on the Greek island of Patmos, are hardly the most reliable guide for what is happening in the year of our Lord 2025.

But you have to admit, Donald Trump’s spectacle ordering the whole earth (including the Australian Heard and McDonalds penguins) to double the knee in its universal tariffs, it is quite evocative to what is beginning to look remarkably with the “final times” – of globalization.

The question that I hear people do, repeatedly, is “how?” How did this happen? How are CEOs of the largest corporations in the United States willing to watch trillions of dollars overthrow the value of their collective stocks – in silence?

Why was Trump not summoned, like Howard Beale, hero of the 1976 film classic NetworkWas it summoned to be remembered the exact nature of the activity in which he is involved?

Why Trump has not been said: “You intruded with the primary forces of nature … and I won’t have it! This is clear? Do you think just a trade agreement has stopped. This is not the case! … It’s a flow of refuge and tidal flow! There is no ecological balance! You don’t have an old man in terms of nations and no.

Of course, the world was very different in the mid-1970s. For starters, the US Constitution had just been tested by Watergate-A Ponta of the Criminal Iceberg, which was the presidency of Nixon-E. had emerged with flying colors. Certainly President Jimmy Carter’s US faced several challenges, but the American system still worked; Had not crumbled.

Trump’s political success was based on the opposite proposition – the US was crumbling. As an evidence of its disintegration, the system of two US parties no longer seemed able to choose presidential candidates who could reach and connect with crucial groups of annoyed voters, living in balance states, which decided their elections in the US.

Buy-in was simply not there for traditional country republicans, or the bureaucratic liberals of a Democratic Party who, instead of representing American workers, condescended and sponsored them.

When Push even pushed the 2008-9 global financial crisis, President “Yes We Can”, Barack Obama, had saved Wall Street and allowed Main Street to be to the devil. As a consequence, the game of politics has become increasingly difficult to play.

Highly educated Americans with good jobs could not understand Americans with little education with porear jobs. Republicans who drink on the country club had no idea what kind of candidate alienated the working class democrats who get drunk on their local bar could be willing to vote.

But Donald Trump did. Like That other Great Political Adventure, Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1808-73) Who Made Himself President, Then Emperor, of France in the 1850s and 60s, Trump Forced Histo Bete Beteen and Cogs Of A Political System That Had Ground To a Halt, Gave the Machinery to Hefty Whack, and Achieved A Surprise Victory That Delighted His Friends To Roughly The Same Degree that it it Enemies.

Until 2025, what used to be true for the US is quickly becoming true to the whole world. Everywhere, the wheels and gears are stuck. The global machinery needs a heavy blow.

Unfortunately, the only politicians willing to provide such blows are openly despised with democratic brushes.

And so, Trump’s time, our rough beast, finally comes.

■ Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.