The political gamble that will be the Trump presidency traces back to the desperation of Americans who lost out in the social experiment of neoliberalism — and the Democrats’ candidate who personified those economic inequities, says Greg Maybury.
Donald Trump’s unlikely election is a Brexit-like blow to the global elites who espoused an arrogant mix of neocon foreign policy and neoliberal economics that has hurt many common citizens, says ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
Exclusive: Team Clinton thought the path to the White House led through a neo-McCarthyistic assault on Donald Trump as Vladimir Putin’s puppet, rather than addressing the real worries of Americans, writes James W Carden.
On both sides of the Atlantic, a battle is underway between largely discredited “elites” and sometimes disreputable “nationalists,” a conflict over un-kept promises about the future and unsettling memories of the past, writes Andrew Spannaus.
The global elites’ false promise that neoliberal economics would cure all ills through the elixir of endless growth helps explain the angry nationalist movements ripping apart the West’s politics, observes ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
In the 1980s, British Prime Minister Thatcher and President Reagan depicted neoliberal or “free market” capitalism as the ideal system, a dogma that extends to the present despite its horrific failures and other options, says Sam Ben-Meir.
So-called “free trade” in textiles has led retailers to seek out the cheapest labor and to neglect safety measures, factors in a devastating Bangladesh fire in 2013 that killed more than 1,000 workers, recalls Dennis J Bernstein.
With the Brexit repudiation of the E.U. — in defiance of Establishment scare tactics — British voters stood up for common people who face marginalization in the neoliberal scheme of global economics, explains John Pilger.
Neoliberal “reforms” of Mexico’s schools and health care have sparked public protests, including a clash with police in Oaxaca that left some nine protesters dead amid a growing challenge to President Peña Nieto, says Dennis J Bernstein.
Amid a reassertion of U.S.-backed neoliberal policies in Latin America, Venezuela’s socialist government totters at a tipping point, beset by a severe economic crisis, but Lisa Sullivan sees a ground-up struggle of Venezuelans to survive.
