The GEOFOR editorial board asked Paul Craig Roberts, Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy (USA), a PhD in Economics and US Undersecretary of Treasury in the Reagan administration, to find out why Kevin McCarthy is leaving the post of Speaker of the US House of Representatives, how the preparation for the 2024 presidential election is going, and what place Ukraine will occupy in it.
- In Russia, the unprecedented resignation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the third person in the state hierarchy, is considered as evidence of the serious political crisis that Washington is currently experiencing. To what extent, in your opinion, is this assessment fair? And what does it indicate?
- The Speaker did not resign. He was removed in keeping with a provision in an agreement McCarthy signed with the Republicans who opposed him. McCarthy agreed that as Speaker he would use the office to put up more of a fight for Republican agendas than establishment Republicans are wont to do. Part of the agreement is a clause that says that the Republicans who provided the votes McCarthy needs can call up a vote on his removal as Speaker if they believe he is not keeping to the terms of the signed agreement.
McCarthy's removal is unrelated to the American political crisis. He was removed because he did not keep part of a private bargain. McCarthy knew that the Republicans would not vote to remove him, but it seems he overlooked that the Democrats would vote with the dissident Republicans in order to take advantage of the opportunity to worsen relations between the few Republicans who are principled and the majority that goes along to get along.
- Is there a possibility that if the Republican faction fails to agree on a nominee for Speaker, a Democratic representative will take office? How productive for the work of Congress would such a combination be? Especially since it is the Speaker who controls the prioritization of bills that are put forward for discussion and voting in the House.
- The Republicans are the majority in the House by a few votes. A Democrat could not be made Speaker without Republicans voting for him. The dissident Republicans are in a position to insist on a more principled leader than McCarthy. If the Rino Republicans decide to take vengeance on the few principled Republicans and vote for a Democrat, they are likely to loose their standing with their constituents.
Kevin McCarthy. Source: NBC
- It seems that the "Ukrainian issue" will be one of them, if not the key one, in the course of the beginning of the election campaign. And for both Democrats and Republicans: some are trying in every possible way to justify the need to support Kiev, while others insist on, if not an end, then a significant reduction of this support. This is something new in the history of American elections. Domestic agenda issues used to dominate. What is the reason for this?
- Aid for Ukraine is an issue but not the important issue. The important issue is the Democrats abuse of power with unwarranted indictments and prosecutions of Trump and his lawyers, while ignoring the documented crimes of President Biden and his son Hunter. The FBI has become a political police that is used against Republicans.
US foreign policy is controlled by Neoconservatives. Their policy is to prevent the rise of other countries that could serve as obstacles to US unilateralism. The policy is unrealistic, but the neoconservatives have had control of US foreign policy since President George W. Bush, that is, for the entirety of the 21st century. Donald Trump became a marked man when he said that he intended to give the country back to the people and to normalize relations with Russia. He offended the Ruling Elites by challenging their power, and he offended the neoconservatives and powerful military/security complex by threatening to take away from them the Russian enemy that sustains them.
The Republicans support aid for Ukraine because they believe that it is patriots’ duty to support the country in war and because they receive large campaign contributions from the military/security complex that profits from war.
The spending issues are likely on hold until a new Speaker is agreed upon. This is the opportunity for Russia to use sufficient force to end the conflict while Washington is paralyzed.
- Russian media pay a lot of attention to the legal proceedings against Donald Trump and the Biden family. How seriously is all this taken by Americans and by you personally? And what political consequences can all these manipulations have in the long term?
- There are currently no legal proceedings against the Biden family. The US Department of Justice and the FBI have instead protected both Biden and his son despite the massive evidence in their hands, such as the incriminating information on Hunter Biden's laptop and the classified national security documents dating from his days as Vice President found in Joe Biden's homes, car, garage, and storage places.
The legal charges brought against Trump are like all the others since 2016--Russiagate, impeachments, document gate, stripper gate, January 6 Insurrection. They have no basis in reality or in law. They are brought by Trump-hating black prosecutors in New York state, New York city, and Fulton County, Georgia, and are nonsensical on their face.
Trump and his co-defendants have to pay attention to the charges, because the prosecutors are known enemies of Trump and his supporters, the judges are Democrats who don't want Trump as president, and the trials will be held in Democrat jurisdictions where the juries will be Democrat and largely black.
Source: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
There is no outcry against this legal atrocity from the legal profession, the law schools, the bar associations, and very little from Congress. So we face the possibility that Trump can be falsely convicted and forced to spend the rest of his life in appealing the convictions.
How the American people will take this I do not know. It might make them very angry and unwilling to accept the use of law as a weapon against Trump and the traditional American electorate.
On the other hand, the people might conclude that their country has been lost and nothing can be done, give up, and submit to the rule of unaccountable power.
Everywhere the people see the political use of law for punishment by every federal department in the Biden Regime. Mike Lindell, a Trump donor, has been slapped with five audits by the Internal Revenue Service. Lawyers cannot defend Trump without being punished. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York, has been slapped by the IRS with a tax and penalty bill of $550,000 and a lien on his home. Elon Musk is being investigated by the US Security and Exchange Commission for his purchase of Twitter. Democrats hate Musk, because he revealed that the FBI had secretly forced Twitter to censor all who disagreed with the Biden Regime's narratives. The list is long.
Source: CNBC
I will define for you American's political crisis. The belief system has collapsed. The elites no longer believe in the Constitution that defines the country. Students in law schools and journalism schools are taught that the US Constitution is a racist document and an instrument of white oppression of people of color. They are taught that the Constitution stands in the way of "social progress," by which they mean the use of law not as a shield of rights but as a weapon for coerced change based on ideological beliefs and commitments.
What it boils down to is this: In America you are no longer innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty because you are white, or because you are a Trump supporter. No other evidence is necessary. The Democrats have put 1,000 Trump supporters in prison because they attended a rally for Trump.
Traditionally, American liberals based their demands for reforms not on appeals to good will but on denunciation of existing society. This made it easy for the Cultural Marxists to march through the institutions and discredit Western civilization and the institutions that embody it. Today in American universities no student ever hears anything affirmatory about his country. Instead, they learn that it is something that must be reconstructed. Journalism students learn that objectivity is no longer the purpose of reporting and that news is a weapon to be used to remake society. Law students learn that law is not a protector of rights but a weapon to be wielded to revolutionize society. Consequently, the US has no journalists, only propagandists, and the rule of law has been discarded. The United States is on the verge of becoming a tyranny. That is the American political crisis.