But people will pay with their lives.
Nothing is truly free isn’t it? Then again I don’t think the elite truly cares.
The story of humanity since the dawn of time. The "elite" is just a name that most successful predators and parasites in society give to themselves to deflect attention from what they really do.
There's really no thing such as "class war". Humanity is not divided into those who sell labour and those who own capital. If that was the case then primitive societies would be fairer and more peaceful than advanced societies and we know for a fact that this is false. The real "class war" rages along behavioural division - between the general pro-social population or (herd) and the elements of the population that have anti-social personalities (predators/parasites). Majority of those anti-social individuals fail but some succeed and become "elite". It's downright Darwinian. That's also why the "elite" promotes social darwinism so strongly - either overtly (unregulated free-market libertarianism) or covertly (DIE pseudo-leftism) because it fundamentally aligns with their personality. This is also why whenever some kind of communist revolution occurred it always ends up reverting to some quasi-oligarchical structure. The people in charge of the revolution are the same as the people in charge of the hierarchy that is being overthrown. They just lie differently about their intentions.
Say what you want about Trump but at least he made an effort.
All Trump did was pull the wool over the eyes of gullible rednecks who got big MAGA hats and huge empty promises while the oligarchy received another round of tax cuts and capital injections. Trump is a pathological liar, a cheat and a grifter. He's not even semi-competent like the actual industrialists. He's completely incompetent. He was a walking textbook case of the most blatant NPD I've seen in years in a public figure of prominence.
Sanders was the closest America got to a sensible president but if he won and tried anything he would be dealt with as is American tradition. Suicide by a lone nut. Besides Sanders is not genuine either. If he was genuine he'd build a bottom-up movement on state level rather than wasting time in a rigged DNC primary that uses him to scam voters into thinking that they're allowing debate.
America is too far gone. We're approaching civil war/revolution/authoritarian coup territory like Weimar Germany. The problem is that people don't know what happened in Germany which is why they're sleepwalking into the same trap.
As for Trump's efforts:
The trade war was just another deflection because
trade wars can't fix structural failures.
You can't ban imports from China and at the same exacerbate the very thing that causes American manufacturers to shift production to China. The reason why American manufacturing plummeted is that dollar is overvalued artificially due to its role as reserve currency. This means that whoever manufactures dollars (Fed, banks, aligned interests) has the ability to cash in on a premium in value for each dollar. Consequently it becomes inefficient to manufacture goods in America because they will be more expensive due to higher value of the dollar. At the same time it is efficient to manufacture dollars and acquire capital or IP - which is what the investment banks, funds and asset management corporations have done. When you look at ownership structure than all roads lead to NYC while some still lead to London.
In the past America would own physical capital such as factories and workforce on its own territory. Currently America owns titles to the capital and financial instruments based on said capital while the capital is in other countries. It can be done because as long as the capital is located within the sphere of influence of Washington empire the US has the de facto monopoly on the use of force - unless someone is willing to go to war with the US. So those other countries work in economic terms as if they were Washington's colonies. That is tremendously profitable for the financial sector so when a physical goods manufacturer wants to aqcuire capital for physical capital in the US the bank has to make a calculation - lower yield and higher risk for manufacturing or higher yield and lower risk for off-shoring.
No trade war can fix that. What you need is a selective ban on all trade with China so as to force manufacturing to shift to other countries - which btw has been happening already for some time as the cost of labour in China is rising rapidly. But if you do this then you stop all trade that is necessary for the economy to function. So you can't ban trade and have to rely on artificially raising import cost through tariffs so that some of the capital begins to shift but not all at once - leading to an economic collapse.
But that can be used only against countries that are not in a position to resist your economic warfare. Both the EU and China are huge economies that have advantages and positive trade balances vs the US which means that before they hurt the US is already hurting. And when a country is hurting the poorest are hurting first and most. In a country with little or no social protection that leads to societal breakdown and instability.
So the only way out of that situation is to prepare for economic warfare and establish manufacturing ecosystems for those goods which are most vulnerable to trade wars. But those will be operating in highly competitive markets and as such you will run against both the banks and their preferences as well as the existing manufacturers doing all they can to prevent you from establishing a competitor with the intent to wage economic war.
Just look at the chip warfare where US has a clear technological advantage and plenty of physical manufacturing in the US. There's no clear path to victory there and you think it can be done in industries where structural asymmetry has existed for decades?
What you are describing is achievable between US and the EU because of comparable levels of cost. US has an overvalued dollar but EU has higher cost of labor due to social protections but both are comparable. So investment can move back and forth between the two and it regularly does. Between the US and the cheap emerging markets that's like NAFTA and the "great sucking sound" from Mexico. Movement is possible only in one direction. Out.
It can't be done unless the average price level in America is cut by 30% at least and that would kill the working class unless the entire social protection system is overhauled and redistribution brought to that of France. And that's how you get Joe Hitler for President in your country.
Also, to benefit from any shift in productive capacity you need a population that is prepared to adapt to the shift. Have you seen what Americans are studying?
America is the socio-economic equivalent of morbid obesity driven by mental problems. Hypertension, diabetes, depression etc leading to systemic failure. It's either crash & burn or 4th Reich. Or a miracle. I wish I could hope for a miracle but I'm a neo-Darwinian hardliner. God is a delusion and so are miracles.
