Both Trump and Sanders serve US deep state: Scholar

Both US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic White House hopeful Bernie Sanders play to different constituencies but serve the interests of the US corporate and political elites, says Professor Dennis Etler, an American political analyst.

In an interview published Tuesday, MIT professor Noam Chomsky, a well-known critic of establishment politics in the US, attributed the rise of Trump as the potential Republican Party presidential nominee to the “breakdown of society” and the “fear” that it engenders in segments of the population.

“Fear, along with the breakdown of society during the neoliberal period,” Chomsky said, when AlterNet’s Aaron Williams asked the intellectual for his thoughts on Trump’s surprising progress. “People feel isolated, helpless, victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence.”

“To Chomsky it is the neo-liberal domestic and foreign policies of both parties that has led to the emergence of political maverick's on the left, Bernie Sanders, and the right, Donald Trump,” said Etler, a professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, during an interview with Press TV on Thursday.

“Both reject ‘business as usual’ and promise the electorate a ‘quick fix’ to alleviate their anxieties. An honest evaluation however shows that they both engage in different forms of demagoguery in order to galvanize, motivate and activate their bases. For Trump it is the aging white middle class that feels threatened by a perceived variety of both domestic and foreign ‘enemies,’ while for Sanders it is primarily the young who are burdened by college debt, organized labor and minorities who have been left behind as the economy undergoes a partial recovery,” he added.

“But contrary to Chomsky's analysis neither Trump nor Sanders are outside the mainstream of US politics. Both serve the interests of the capitalist/imperialist system by holding out the promise that the system can be made to work by pursuing policies different than those currently employed by both parties,” he continued.

“Chomsky identifies those policies as ‘neo-liberal’ which is a term coined to describe the economic and foreign policies of center left capitalist parties. These policies include ‘austerity’ and ‘social welfare cutbacks’ at home and interventionism abroad to enforce the US economic policy of free market capitalism and the imposition of US political, social and cultural values abroad.”

Neocon foreign policy falls out of favor

Professor Etler said “The Republican neo-conservative foreign policy of direct military invasion and forced regime change has fallen out of favor, but the neo-liberal agenda subsumes the same goals with less overt military engagement. In point of fact both Republican and Democratic administrations pursue a hybrid neo-liberal/neo-conservative domestic and foreign policy which serves the interests of big business, big government and the military-industrial complex, a three headed Cerberus that sets the rules and parameters which the politicians follow.”

“Trump on the right proposes hard-headed policies which appeal to the ‘know-nothing,’ parochial attitudes of a large swath of poorly educated, insular and vaguely traditionalist sectors of the white electorate who look back to a time when their interests were catered to by the powers that be,” he said.

“Sanders appeals to those on the left who have seen the costs of housing, education and retirement soar while subsidies plummet and the social safety net is tattered. Neither however challenges the underlying foundations, structure and functioning of the US capitalist system and the imperialism it has spawned,” the scholar stated.

“Their candidacies serve as escape valves to let off the steam generated by the heat of a dysfunctional system that does not meet the needs of the people but only serves the interests of the economic, social and political elites. Neither candidate if elected will be able to effect real change as the deep, bureaucratic state apparatus really calls the shots.”

Trump a fascist; Sanders a new dealer

Professor Etler said “Trump's demagogic pronouncements verge on an American brand of Fascism, while Sanders touches the deep vein of ‘New Deal’ social democracy that has laid latent for the last three decades. They both however are well within the scope of permissible electoral rhetoric. The question is could either actually carry through with their policies if elected.”

“The short answer is an emphatic no. Both will pursue policies to placate their constituencies while leaving intact the underlying premises of US capitalism and imperialism. Both are attempting to strengthen the US system of monopoly capitalism at home and imperialism abroad,” he said.

“The only way for the US to move ahead is to dismantle the military-industrial complex, as well as other monopolized industrial complexes at home, and abandon the role of military hegemon abroad. Only in that manner will the US be able to devote the necessary resources to confront its many problems at home and contribute to building a peaceful and secure world abroad,” the analyst concluded.