A good businessman like Umno supreme council member Datuk Johari Umno makes deals that are sustainable and which bring benefit to both parties. As a businessman he should understand this. 200 years ago, religious leadership was dominant. From the dogmatic shackles of religious leadership we moved to the tyranny of military leadership, and then to the confoundedness of democratic leadership. In the next 15-20 years, business leadership is going to be most prominent in the world.
The desire for change, the more radical the better, the less pragmatic the more attractive, points to a deep disaffection with politics as it has come to be practiced. And while there are always reasons that can be summoned up to explain this anger, it is still worth asking if the world has indeed become such a terrible place, that democracies are acting in such populist rage? Something more fundamental is shifting and this needs to be speculated upon. One of the biggest changes we have seen in the last few years is the dominant media form of the day and the wide-ranging and deep effects of this are often not fully acknowledged. The print era retained the ability to regulate mass behavior through the power of ideas that seeped downwards from an influential educated elite. The ideals of democracy became well established boundaries within which political debate was largely contained. Liberal democracies were the aspired for destinations, even if progress towards that goal was often slow and unconvincing.
Either President Trump like Deputy Prime Ministeir lacks the intelligence and the education needed to appreciate the dynamics of the modern world or he has cynical contempt for the intelligence and education of his voters. PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar.said truth be told Deputy Prime Ministeir Ahmad Zahid Hamidi knows what he did. Trump and securing victory even though Ahmad Zahid Hamidi have no idea what Donald Trump did to secure his position as the current Potus.Truth be told I doubt even Trump knows what he did. When a Malaysian politician like Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi says that Umno should emulate Trump, what he really means is the perception that Trump was despised by the voting public of the United States but yet he somehow managed an election victory.
President trumpeted an obtuse self-interest, whose only moral compass is the conviction that might is right, a self-interest so near-sighted as to be self-defeating, one that panders to ill-informed prejudice at home and promises to cede more elbow room to rising powers hitherto hemmed in by overarching American presence. Hide that smirk, President Xi!Politicians who come to power feeding and feeding off a majority’s imagined sense of victimhood have to genuflect, once in a while, to the bogey they rode but would, if they have sense, concentrate their energies, having assumed power, on building up an alternative, real agenda
We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more than that. So they come in, they take our jobs, they take our money, and then they loan us back the money, and we pay them in interest, and then the dollar goes up so their deal’s even better. How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow this to happen? How stupid are they?
Lying is not a term that should be used to describe the exalted office Trump occupies. So, let us say Trump’s commitment to liberty extends to snapping the restraining bonds of truth and mere facts.
The reality is that American policy has always put, surprise, America first.Trump rightly termed his ascendency as a “movement” and this movement’s sole aim, no matter the disparate some would argue dissonant interests involved, was to sweep away the establishment, and for some install a new order and to others restore an order that was supplanted by various hegemonic interests at the expense of the American people.
The desire for change, the more radical the better, the less pragmatic the more attractive, points to a deep disaffection with politics as it has come to be practiced. And while there are always reasons that can be summoned up to explain this anger, it is still worth asking if the world has indeed become such a terrible place, that democracies are acting in such populist rage? Something more fundamental is shifting and this needs to be speculated upon. One of the biggest changes we have seen in the last few years is the dominant media form of the day and the wide-ranging and deep effects of this are often not fully acknowledged. The print era retained the ability to regulate mass behavior through the power of ideas that seeped downwards from an influential educated elite. The ideals of democracy became well established boundaries within which political debate was largely contained. Liberal democracies were the aspired for destinations, even if progress towards that goal was often slow and unconvincing.
READMORE Malaysia's most transformative event of 2016, 2017 the desire for change,
Either President Trump like Deputy Prime Ministeir lacks the intelligence and the education needed to appreciate the dynamics of the modern world or he has cynical contempt for the intelligence and education of his voters. PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar.said truth be told Deputy Prime Ministeir Ahmad Zahid Hamidi knows what he did. Trump and securing victory even though Ahmad Zahid Hamidi have no idea what Donald Trump did to secure his position as the current Potus.Truth be told I doubt even Trump knows what he did. When a Malaysian politician like Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi says that Umno should emulate Trump, what he really means is the perception that Trump was despised by the voting public of the United States but yet he somehow managed an election victory.
President trumpeted an obtuse self-interest, whose only moral compass is the conviction that might is right, a self-interest so near-sighted as to be self-defeating, one that panders to ill-informed prejudice at home and promises to cede more elbow room to rising powers hitherto hemmed in by overarching American presence. Hide that smirk, President Xi!Politicians who come to power feeding and feeding off a majority’s imagined sense of victimhood have to genuflect, once in a while, to the bogey they rode but would, if they have sense, concentrate their energies, having assumed power, on building up an alternative, real agenda
We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more than that. So they come in, they take our jobs, they take our money, and then they loan us back the money, and we pay them in interest, and then the dollar goes up so their deal’s even better. How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow this to happen? How stupid are they?
(“If you don’t get your feet dirty, the ink of your pen can dry up,”), it was left to Waldman to remind the audience about why we read and write in the first place: “Literature should wake up the world to itself…” The call to direct action did not surprise anybody familiar with the poet’s work. Describing Donald Trump’s inauguration as ‘horrible’, Waldman gave a “shout out to sisters, children and all women marching towards Washington…” It was promptly dubbed the lit fest’s Meryl Streep moment.This perception problem is misleading. The mainstream media with the collusion of DNC (Democratic National Committee) supporters mocked Trump even though this really did not represent the reality on the ground. To make the claim that Trump was “unpopular” based solely on the dubious readings of the mainstream American media is the kind of faulty logic that cost the DNC the presidency.
While reminding the opposition on not counting on the Trump vote, “The Trump vote was a vote against the establishment. However, pundits forget that Trump destroyed the Republican establishment in the GOP (Grand Old Party) primaries before taking his message to the national stage. He did this by slaying sacred cows and projecting himself as the only one who could save America from the Washington elites who cared little for the white working class that was neglected in the national discourse.”
An American poet read out his work, with each verse starting and ending with an impassioned refrain: “There is blood on our hands.” The night was cold. My blood was running colder. Another speaker referred to Trump’s inauguration as an “apocalypse”.The statements from the new president and his spokesman came as hundreds of thousands of people protested against Mr. Trump, a crowd that appeared to dwarf the one that gathered the day before when he was sworn in. It was a striking display of invective and grievance at the dawn of a presidency, usually a time when the White House works to set a tone of national unity and to build confidence in a new leader.Instead, the president and his team appeared embattled and defensive, signaling that the pugnacious style Mr. Trump employed as a candidate will persist now that he has ascended to the nation’s highest office.
The Umno deputy prime minister would be wise to remember that core Trump supporters were anti-establishment and this included anything to do with the mainstream media, middle-ground politics and foreign policies, and they were major participants in the culture war
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| Ahmad Zahid Hamid should talk less, listen and do more NaJIB should take away his Twitter handle |
Umno, of course, is the Malay establishment. Umno controls the mainstream media and nearly every facet of the Malay community either through commerce or through religion. Umno is the very definition of the establishment.
It is no point ratcheting up the cyberwar because unlike Trump, who more or less managed his own presence in the online world and had a willing cadre of people who thought they were disenfranchised from mainstream American politics, Umno which has domination over the mainstream media has to rely on hired guns to settle their online disputes. In other words, this is not about political fervour but mercenary tendencies. Not good if you want to start a movement like what Trump did.
Right now, we have an Umno president who many people, regardless of political affiliation, think he is the most corrupt sitting Umno president in history. Here is an Umno prime minister who is siding with Umno’s sworn enemy because his political career, not to mention the existence of Umno, is in question.
This political milieu is exactly the kind of “swamp” that Trump supporters want him to drain and which was why he struck a chord with some voters who would not normally vote for such an outlier candidate.And Umno has reason to be proud, they have “outrumped the Donald” by being the first to propagate “alternative truths”. While the Trump administration is only just starting with this useful bit of fascist nation building, Umno can be secure in the knowledge that they have done this for years. So really, do not worry so much about emulating Trump. It would seem that Trump is emulating Umno in this instance.
Trump promises to reverse that selfishness and altruism, to bring back to America jobs, prosperity, greatness, and, implicitly, a way of life in which men were men, brought home the bacon for the wife to cook, cheerfully looking up recipes from Good Housekeeping and other such trusted guides of the homemaker.Lying is not a term that should be used to describe the exalted office Trump occupies. So, let us say Trump’s commitment to liberty extends to snapping the restraining bonds of truth and mere facts.
The reality is that American policy has always put, surprise, America first.Trump rightly termed his ascendency as a “movement” and this movement’s sole aim, no matter the disparate some would argue dissonant interests involved, was to sweep away the establishment, and for some install a new order and to others restore an order that was supplanted by various hegemonic interests at the expense of the American people.
Now whether this belief is factual or not is beside the point. What is important is the reality that a certain section of the demographic wanted to cast an anti-establishment vote.
So there is no point for unpopular establishment types having wet dreams about pulling a Trump and attempting to find commonality with a corrupt, bigoted plutocrat’s electoral win. What Trump did is galvanise a movement which if the GOP did not fall into line, they would have been swept away.
Having said that, I do think we could see a “Trump vote” happen in Malaysia and this should really worry Umno. While some pundits may have a problem with contradicting what they have previously written, I have no such problems. When the facts change, so do my opinions.
In the same piece where I argued that the opposition will not get the Trump vote, I wrote: “The problem here is that the opposition and Umno are the establishment. There is nothing that separates the two besides the numerous corruption scandals that plague Umno. In addition, as recent by-elections have proven even this does not seem to bother people who still vote in Umno.”
While this may be true, the reality is that the most cunning political operative this country has ever known currently leads the opposition. That’s right - former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. What exactly has Mahathir got to do with possibility of securing the Trump vote...
Right now, we have an Umno president who many people, regardless of political affiliation, think he is the most corrupt sitting Umno president in history. Here is an Umno prime minister who is siding with Umno’s sworn enemy because his political career, not to mention the existence of Umno, is in question.This political milieu is exactly the kind of “swamp” that Trump supporters want him to drain and which was why he struck a chord with some voters who would not normally vote for such an outlier candidate.And Umno has reason to be proud, they have “outrumped the Donald” by being the first to propagate “alternative truths”. While the Trump administration is only just starting with this useful bit of fascist nation building, Umno can be secure in the knowledge that they have done this for years. So really, do not worry so much about emulating Trump. It would seem that Trump is emulating Umno in this instance.
Trump rightly termed his ascendency as a “movement” and this movement’s sole aim, no matter the disparate some would argue dissonant interests involved, was to sweep away the establishment, and for some install a new order and to others restore an order that was supplanted by various hegemonic interests at the expense of the American people.
Now whether this belief is factual or not is beside the point. What is important is the reality that a certain section of the demographic wanted to cast an anti-establishment vote.So there is no point for unpopular establishment types having wet dreams about pulling a Trump and attempting to find commonality with a corrupt, bigoted plutocrat’s electoral win. What Trump did is galvanise a movement which if the GOP did not fall into line, they would have been swept away.Having said that, I do think we could see a “Trump vote” happen in Malaysia and this should really worry Umno. While some pundits may have a problem with contradicting what they have previously written, I have no such problems. When the facts change, so do my opinions.
In the same piece where I argued that the opposition will not get the Trump vote, I wrote: “The problem here is that the opposition and Umno are the establishment. There is nothing that separates the two besides the numerous corruption scandals that plague Umno. In addition, as recent by-elections have proven even this does not seem to bother people who still vote in Umno.”While this may be true, the reality is that the most cunning political operative this country has ever known currently leads the opposition. That’s right - former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. What exactly has Mahathir got to do with possibility of securing the Trump vote...
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