Trump-Sanders 2016?

In the Last Election Cycle Pre-TPP,

Only the Oddest Bedfellows Will Do

By Norman Ball

Lets say the TPP cell door is about to slam shut.

Has anyone noticed how Fox and MSNBC take turns
deriding the only two guys prepared to stand in its way?
Critical thinking in America politics has been edged out by meme-factory conveyor belts and Facebook repeater
towers eager to share the latest red-blue speedbump with five hundred of their closest friends.
One bit of unexamined kookiness (a favored Fox News trope) is that theres still such a thing as operative liberals
in America. Another, emanating from both sides, is that the country will go down the tubes should Party X prevail
against Party Y. Despite decades of tag-team, blue-red empire wars, many still swallow the channelized pointcounterpoint hyperbole. Has all the blood rushed out of Americas head into its remote control? Its two puppets,
one master; two tongues, one beast.
Facebooks been falling over itself of late to warn us that, should Trump win (presumably by popular votesmall
detail) democracy is lost and fascism awaits. Of course the social media giant is not about to historicize its own
creeping advance on panopticonic lock-down. The fact is were already in inverted totalitarianism (RIP, Sheldon
Wolin). So at worst, going forward, were falling from some pretty low-slung branches.
Heres some breaking news from Channel Not: most Americans are uncomplaining cogs in a vast right-wing
conspiracy. You might ask how a nation of wall-to-wall reactionaries could assemble itself in the first place. The
Bell Curve has a theory. Unfortunately it involves loaded dice.

As Edward Bernays once generously allowed, probably after too many drinks: The conscious and intelligent
manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
Nice bit of sophistry there. Translation? Pull the lever of your choice. Weve already confirmed things in your head.
But as a backstop, we own the levers too.
Chris Hedges puts it all in context with a comparative ideology benchmark that shows just how little is at stake in
American political discourse:
"In Europe, Americas Democratic Party would be a far-right party. The Republican Party would be extremist. There
is no liberalmuch less left or progressiveorganized political class in the United States."
Berlin-based Bloomberg View columnist Leonid Bershidsky offers much the same:
"What Sanders suggests, however, is mainstream policy for any European center-right party."
Let that sink in Fox-heads. Sanders is a right-winger on any spectrum worth its salt. Of course Americans know this
isnt true because TV has taken great pains to tell them otherwise: Sanders is a socialist way over there (pan farleft). Trump is a fascist way over there (pan far-right). In truth, you could spit the distance from Sanders to Trump
or even Cruz. American politics is an intramural bitch-fest trying to pass itself off as a deep and wide roster. It
behooves the establishment to keep up fractious appearances. No one lands a real punch, the anchors are hot and
nothing has a ghost of a chance of changing.
Teacup, meet storm.

TV ventures nothing while raising the perceived stakes. The fake-chasm is further abetted by identity politics.
Afghan villagers know the futility of diversity progress without the progressivity part in successive drone
campaigns waged first by a white man, then a black man, and perhaps soon enough, by a white woman. American
bullshit and identity-narcissism delivers the graveyard across all demographics.
Call it the right-shift, divide and amplify model: First, you ghettoize the natural center by swinging the cameras
away. Then, you mock up a battle of ideas with two right-shifted, bellowing soundstages. By stamping out
moderation, energized reform becomes all but impossible. Mission accomplished.

How can a progressive catch a break when pragmatic centrism has been relegated to a darkened stage? Deprived
of oxygenating spectacle, untold tales wither away. Even the best ghost stories need a flashlight. Before long,
moderates are lumped in with Che Guevara all the crazies left of stage. The Fox-MSNBC shell-game camouflages
the only chasm that counts: whether youre on TV or not. The elite have firewalls for their firewalls.
It's as though someone took 315 million human beings, packed them into a 5 x 8 foot cell, then painted a line down
the middle of the floor before instructing everyone to pick their favored side. What's fascinating in a cognitive
sense is that, no sooner is the room divided than sectarianism becomes the governing principle, even though the
direness of the universal condition dwarfs any small advantage one group might gain over the other. The room
becomes a claustrophobic hell-hole of low-stakes game theory. Call it a bug in the software but people seem to lose
all sense of proportion when a line, any line, gets drawn. Maybe its a primate territorial thing. Somebodys studied
us very well indeed.
A vibrant political spectrum should reflect the unchecked eccentricities of a free-thinking people. Whereas a
society content to sit atop the head of an ideological pin has all the ambiance of a Stepford Wife village. Somehow,
large groups of Americans have been coaxed away from their uncoaxed inclinations. Mind control anyone?
Having deconstructed our crisis-by-truncation, lets content ourselves with drafting the most palatable rightwingers in our midst. That would be the two party pariahs, Trump and Sanders. Together (in some jerry-rigged
form of coalition government), theyd make for a gloriously disruptive ticket. Give Bernie a portfolio: Interior,
Justice and Edumacation. Leave Trump to divest empire responsibilities in The Ukraine and Syria (along with their
yuge costs) to fellow nationalist Putin. That's probably enough to earn the Trumpster a Dallas '63 moment. Frankly
it's a risk we should be willing to let The Donald take. Eccentric billionaires come around once in a generation.
Perot was the last one. Self-beholden, they send shivers down the establishments spine. Sadly, theyre the only
chance the People get. Too bad theyre always a little bit crazy.
A Trump-Sanders administration would turn the political class on its head, maybe for good. Combined, their sideby-side groundswells would gather up 99.9% of the clear-headed. Overnight, everything would stop making sense.
The same old venerable bullshit would lose its preferential station at the trough. Anything that discombobulates
the entrenched buys room for the People. More dada please.
Hip to an existential threat, the Top have dropped their perfunctory red and blue kimonos in a rush to embrace
their TV nemeses and real-life dining partners. Who has time for bad kabuki when the very notion of Top is under
assault? Mitch McConnell has suddenly realized Hillarys not such a bad egg after all. Aghast at the prospect of his
partys presumptive nominee, Paul Ryan has openly called for anyone else but.
If the elite were smart, theyd reserve their apoplexy for off-camera moments. However this train-wreck is so
rivetingly existential, it commands all available air-time. No sooner does some establishment Grand Poobah openly
bemoan the sweaty rubes of NASCAR nation (the main drivers, were assured, behind the Trump bus), than the
Donalds numbers go up again. The People smell panic and disarray. They are relishing it.
Oh, and NASCAR my ass. Recently, the Guardian had a fascinating article on the silent Trump army, in all its
sheepish glory, risking marital strife and worse to whisper their mans name in the shower. Admittedly anecdotal,
it includes a gay Arab Muslim, a Hispanic attorney, an Occupy protester, a biomedical engineer and a Harvard grad.
Theres even a scientist who likes Donald and Bernie. Imagine that. Clearly the Trump revolution has departed the
confines of the Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan club. Toss in Bernies folks and boy, do the elite have a tectonic shift on their
hands.
Will the people shake off their TV frames long enough to perceive their own unfiltered interests? Tune in to the
channels that will never say.

We have nothing to fear but false consciousness. Trouble is, thats a lot. Decades in the making, manufactured
consent works much like an electric fence. Can it be scaled? Trumps personality is no boon. Yes hes an insufferable
ass. But he could be our insufferable ass. Weve fashioned tight, exacting standards for our wardens, which is
another way of saying we are the prime obstacle to a Trump-Sanders ticket. For reasons known only to the
Tavistock Institute, aisle-crossing affects us like a marital transgression. Our cognitive dissonance hums like an
alien implant. Man, theyve fucked us up.
So yes, 315 million TV-eyed American sardines will be hard to sway should such an alliance even emerge: Trump
and Bernie? They're on whole opposite sides of our 5 x 8 cell. That'd take some reaching. It'll never work. Television,
damnable energy sink, has robbed us of a sense both of our own collective strength and our ridiculous proximity.
David Foster Wallace addressed decades ago the television-induced paradox of communal isolation, calling it e
unibus pluram: we are alone all together.
This brings us to another eerie contrariness. Our cramped conditions have metastasized into a shared
consciousness just waiting to be tapped. Habituated for decades to diminished expectations and a window-ledge's
worth of political latitude, we're shoved up against one another (in separate TV rooms) and dont even know it.
Therein lies our captors careless and errant gift. The Stockholm Syndrome can be flipped to our advantage. Join
hands across some Great Divide? People, its a veritable coffee stain on the remote control!
Is something different this time? A desperate and unaddressed energy is venting up from all sides. Think of the
Titanics steerage passengers struggling to reach the upper deck. Trump and Sanders are the improbable lightning
rods for a movement that is truly seismic, and only appears bifurcated due to its split-screen masthead. Some sort
of co-Presidency would seal a gap thats hardly there anyway. Imagine the potential. Both men would act as brakes
on the other. Trump-Sanders is our best shot at firing the Top and precipitating a natural drift back towards the
American peoples greatest strength: the sprawling center. They keep us from our strength for a reason.
The one thing [Sanders and I] very much agree on is trade. We both agree that we are getting ripped off by China, by
Japan, by Mexico, everyone we do business withDonald Trump, February 7

Thats no small one thing, Mr. Trump, and is in fact the policy clincher that should, in a clear-eyed world, seal the
deal. Trump and Sanders are fellow nationalists who detest TPP for the anti-competitive America jobs-killer that
it is. TPP is arguably the greatest threat to national sovereignty since the onset of Nazi global ambitions. In a postTPP world, Presidents will become even more perfunctory than they are today. Clinton, Cruz, Rubio and Kasich are
closet internationalists running for national office. Their empire patrons are on-board for WW3. So, right out of
the gate, they have an unacknowledgedand fundamentally deceptiveconflict of venue. The yugeness of TrumpSanderss grassroots potential cannot be understated, except whos going to state it? Fox? MSNBC? Desist at once
people from your petulant Facebook battles over comparatively small potatoes. TPP is the whole ball of wax.

Coalition governments are not prone to broad affections. Trump and Sanders would have to be convinced on the
potency of such an alliance which, when one considers the momentous egos involved, seems rather unlikely, yet a
prospect worth discussing nonetheless.
The lesser-of-two-evils calculus has delivered us, in ratcheted increments, to the shadowy threshold of the
Panopticon, if weve not crossed that Rubicon already. Every time the polis exhales, the system constricts around
it. Well see Patriot Act 5 before we see nail clippers on a flight to LaGuardia. And oh, theyll kill Trump if they cant
cheat him out of the job. So yes, this excursions been a fanciful time-waster.
But who knows. In this cycle, the bottom has a chance at reaching some fresh air. The strength and breadth of the
current movement seem born of truly existential rumblings impervious to the usual glossed TV soundbites. The
People have seen the movie and want a new script. They know theres an iceberg looming just off-screen.