The above video is another satirical piece in my “MAGA Doublethink” series. From the point of view of the fictional Ms. Pepe I outline how the populist right and working-class Americans who left the Democrats for MAGA have been betrayed on economics – and I am mean really pummeled, beaten and humiliated – on all economic policies that would benefit them. First, MAGA voted for stronger borders and the deportation of illegal immigrants who are part of criminal organizations. They also felt that the massive influx of immigration was driving down labor wages so mass deportations could lead to higher wages for Americans. But what we have seen in practice is the weaponization of ICE as Trump’s private police force – a group of masked thugs that resemble Mussolini’s Blackshirts militia more than a legitimate policing agency – that have given America a spectacle of brutal beatdowns of citizens and windowless van kidnappings -- but lower deportation numbers than we had under Clinton, Bush, Obama or even Biden. This could be because ICE are so inefficient that they are overflowing prisons with their abductees and haven’t been able to complete the deportation process. What MAGA are getting for their vote is mostly performative and America is outraged at the constant stream of ICE videos where they are assaulting innocent people and invading their homes without warrants. Any American citizens who accidently got in ICE’s way during an arrest were also assaulted and thrown in the van. The people they are deporting aren’t criminals; they are the low hanging fruit of law-abiding immigrants just trying to go to work.
And has all this violence resulted in a more competitive job market for America’s working class and an increase in wages? No. Certain industries are just having to cut production, contributing to rising inflations. If helping workers was their real goal, they would target employers of illegal immigrants and force them to employ Americans at fair wages. This is not the goal at all, so they have changed their messaging to make it seem like they are fighting crime and keeping America safer. Really what ICE is doing is creating a secret police infrastructure that can be used against ordinary Americans. Soon political dissidents will be thrown in the van and processed at a remote site in Florida. This has already begun on behalf of Israel. How Trump has betrayed the “America First” agenda for an “Israel First” agenda will be the topic of a future video.
We see in the recent government shut-down that Republicans will end health insurance subsidies, and millions of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans will lose their health care because they can’t afford their premium jumping from 300 to 3000 per month. And the Trump administration was using the withholding of SNAP benefits as a bargaining tool, literally starving America’s poor. All this while Argentina’s libertarian economic policies have led to economic ruin for the country. This is the kind of economic collapse that could trigger a socialist revolution. We can’t have that, so Argentina is getting a 20-billion-dollar bailout. Huge portions of the bail out will no doubt be stolen by Argentina’s criminal president Javier Milei and his goon squad of economic hitmen.
The economic world we are now living in is what Karl Marx called “late-stage capitalism.” This is when the normal healthy form of infant capitalism -- where mid-sized businesses exchanged goods and services -- has been replaced by mega-monopolies. Now most of society’s wealth is concentrated among a small group of oligarchs who become exponentially wealthier each year. At this point we no longer have capitalism; we have a return to feudalism. This has been the trend ever since Ronald Reagan introduced neoliberal policies in the 80s and it has gotten incrementally worse every year whether the president is Democrat or Republican. What we are getting now is an acceleration of these policies where the corporations see an opportunity in Trump’s presidency to go in for the kill. Elon Musk’s DOGE being a mask-off example where he gutted all the agencies that work for the public good, robbing America of its social safety net and neutering the power of any organization that would regulate his business. But he is not alone, all the Silicon Valley moguls who were known as the “liberal elite” have rebranded themselves as anti-woke tech bros in order to get MAGA acceptance. This video focuses on Amazon who are currently the number one exploiter of American workers. Jeff Bezos has destroyed American capitalism by creating a system where all products must be bought and sold through the power of his algorithm.
Bezos has destroyed many small businesses by copying their products and pushing search results to sell his knock off products. Americans no longer have the choice to buy the best product – they can now buy the product Bezos recommends. Now he’s working on a way to replace his workforce with AI. But if AI replaces so much of the workforce what is left of the people? Who will buy the products when no one has money?
Taking Back Pepe
Pepe the frog was originally an apolitical cartoon and internet meme created in 2005. In 2015 he was used by some right-wing groups on 4Chan message boards. I haven’t seen these posts personally so I can’t attest to how racist or right-wing they actually were. At that point the Anti-Defamation League had Pepe labeled a hate group – even though most people using Pepe weren’t right wing racists, they were just memers having a laugh. My personal meme making experience only goes back a few years so I have only known Pepe as “Pepe the racist frog” and whenever I put Pepe in a meme, he is a stand-in for, or a symbol of, racism. So if I have a MAGA-hat who hates immigrants it makes sense to use Pepe as meme shorthand, as I do in this video. But I now wonder if that is right considering anything that the ADL want is suspect.
Recently the ADL have violated the first amendment rights of Americans by having criticism of Israel be legally defined as antisemitism. And I guess a racist frog is antisemitic according to the ADL. So does that mean Pepe is a now a based “Free Palestine” leftist? In the recent protests against ICE in Portland there were people dressing up as “Protest (or Antifa) Frogs.” The point of Antifa Frogs was to meet trigger happy National Guardsmen with silliness that they wouldn’t know how to respond to. The tactic was successful as they got positive national press and the protests did not escalate into violent clashes. There is now an “Antifa Pepe,” associated with this used to mock the right-wing. So should we reclaim Pepe as a Marxist Antifa Leftist?
‘Nuff said.
