DONALD TRUMP is the obvious choice for President in 2016. It could even be argued that he is the only real choice Americans have had for a century or more. All of the other candidates have been, and are now, obvious shills for Wall Street and Zionist extremism.

Putting Hillary or Bernie in charge would be like sowing salt in the fields of America: Nothing would change, nothing would grow, America would keep on dying.

Hillary and Bern are oligarch-puppets, sexless mannequins made out of GMO- and pesticide-laced stale bread and kept animated by toxic preservatives and string-pulling media con men.

Trump is fresh, brash, brutally honest, red-blooded, masculine, and vitally alive. He is a real man, a real American — who prevails and gets stronger and stronger every time the media attack him. The people sense that honesty and that strength — and are giving him their loyalty, enthusiasm, and votes in ever-increasing numbers.

Donald J. Trump refuses to kowtow to Political Correctness. For example, he’s willing to notice differences, such as the differences between Muslims and the mostly Christian and free-thinking population of the United States. He’s even called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration until we can decide as a nation which Muslims we should exclude for our own good — and which we should accept.

On the subject of “our own good”: To even utter the idea, as Trump has, that the existing American population has interests of its own that might not be served by wide-open borders is streng verboten according to the oligarchy that rules us. Trump’s blasting of the rotten oligarchy’s taboos to pieces with his frank words and powerful personality has opened up the Overton Window and brought us some real debate for a change. And that’s exactly what we needed.

He openly questions the wisdom of so-called free trade, going against the rotting secular religion of free market liberal democracy. “Free trade”? Bad idea, kills American jobs, makes us weaker, says The Donald. He doesn’t give a damn if his fellow billionaires are making more money exploiting Third World labor than can be imagined in the wildest dreams of avarice. He wants American jobs and American manufacturing protected — and expanded. And the financiers that run business and politics in this country hate that.

Candidates are supposed to be bought and paid for. They’re allowed to make occasional noises criticizing free trade, but never do anything substantial about it. Donald J. Trump, on the other hand, wants to renegotiate all the existing trade deals — with the interests of the American manufacturer, small businessman, and worker paramount in his mind — and set up some steep tariffs for foreign countries that won’t play fair. And the money-men know he means it. That’s why they hate him with a passion.

I wouldn’t trust the Wall Street crowd with my ice cream cone money, but I do trust their hatred of Donald Trump as an accurate indication that the Man in the Red Hat would spoil their selfish games. About time too!

Even though he has Jewish family members and is enthusiastically supportive of Israel, Donald Trump was against and remains firmly against the “neoconservative” cabal that brought us fifteen years of wars for Zionism in the Middle East, wars that have ravaged that part of the world, killed millions of innocents, and made an entire generation of Middle Easterners 1) hate the West, including America, and 2) migrate to the West, including America — a deadly combination for all concerned.

Donald Trump is simply being honest when he says we need to rethink these wars — and this wave of migration. He also says he would be an even-handed negotiator when it comes to peace between Israel and Palestine, which has enraged the neocons and some extremist Israelis — but given real hope to practically everyone else.

Speaking of hope, Donald J. Trump offers more real hope for African-Americans in one campaign stop than Barack Obama or Hillary have given in their entire sordid, sycophantic careers. Obama played Stepinfetchit to the bankers and the warmongers, and demoralized Black folks who thought he would be different. Bernie and Hillary would dance to the same tune, and everybody knows it.

The lying national media pillory Trump as a “racist,” but African-Americans have a sense that Trump is the real deal and his lack of smarmy PC-speak is proof that he’s not jiving them. They respect him. In a world of phonies, D.J. Trump is a real man. Black people are some of the biggest economic victims of mass immigration and “free trade” and plenty of them know it. People of color are among those most affected by America’s crumbling economy and infrastructure, and nobody but Trump has a plan to fix — or even seems to care about — those things. Many African-Americans are ready for a change and ready to vote Trump — the only Republican in decades with that kind of appeal.

Just because he laughs at liberal orthodoxy doesn’t make Donald Trump a conventional conservative. He’s more of a practical man — a deal-maker; a business-builder — who simply wants to make America great again by making things work again: and that means people, infrastructure, government, business, the works. And he’s willing to use the power of government to make that happen. Like Putin in Russia, Trump would be able to sit opposing factions down at a table and make things happen by the force of his personality and the implied force of the state behind his words. And he’d use both those forces against the entrenched, moneyed interests, too — something that the bought-and-paid-for milquetoasts who usually get elected are paid not to do.

Speaking of Putin, Trump is someone the Russian leader — and other world leaders — could work with and respect. Putin himself said so, and Trump reciprocated. (Trump is even willing to defy taboos and sit down and talk with Palestinian and North Korean leaders — what a refreshing change!) Respect is a word that is never used in conjunction with the pathetic crop of US presidents we’ve had lately — clueless boob and war criminal George W. Bush, servile lackey and war criminal Barack Obama, serial rapist, war criminal, and intellectual nonentity Bill Clinton. What a sad lot of amoral, order-taking phonies.

We at the Mercury do not hand out endorsements often or lightly. Most politicians are despicable criminals and employees of our oppressors — and some of the worst are Republicans. As our founder, H.L. Mencken, said: “In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”

Frankly, the Republican establishment that openly hated Trump until a few weeks ago (and now secretly hates him) was right about one thing: Donald Trump is not really a Republican. True indeed. In our thoroughly crooked “two-party system,” Trump had to assume the mantle of one establishment party or the other. He took the Republicans’ mantle — against their will. But when he wins in November, he will not be a Republican president. He will be an American president.

The American Mercury vol. 40 (1937)

THERE CAN be no question about the average American’s Americanism or his desire to preserve this precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un-American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in the Near East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the Chinese. All these substances have been transformed into cloth by methods invented in Southwestern Asia. If the weather is cold enough he may even be sleeping under an eiderdown quilt invented in Scandinavia.

On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention; uses one potent Latin word in abbreviated form, rises in haste, and goes to the bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution; he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other country does the average man perform his ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious foreign influence pursues him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for floors and walls in the Near East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The only purely American contribution to the ensemble is the steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly and unintentionally places his posterior.

In this bathroom the American washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls. Next he cleans his teeth, a subversive European practice which did not invade America until the latter part of the eighteenth century. He then shaves, a masochistic rite first developed by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt and Sumer. The process is made less of a penance by the fact that his razor is of steel, an iron-carbon alloy discovered in either India or Turkestan. Lastly, he dries himself on a Turkish towel.

Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un-American practices removes his clothes from a chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close-fitting tailored garments whose form derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose prototypes appeared in Europe at the Close of the Stone Age. This costume is appropriate enough for outdoor exercise in a cold climate, but is quite unsuited to American summers, steam-heated houses, and Pullmans. Nevertheless, foreign ideas and habits hold the unfortunate man in thrall even when common sense tells him that the authentically American costume of gee string and moccasins would be far more comfortable. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece, and makes sure that they are properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he ties about his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth century Croats. He gives himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention, and goes downstairs to breakfast.

Here a whole new series of foreign things confronts him. His food and drink are placed before him in pottery vessels, the proper name of which – china – is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin the meal with coffee, an Abyssinian plant first discovered by the Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning-after effects of overindulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the alchemists of medieval Europe.

Whereas the Arabs took their coffee straight, he will probably sweeten it with sugar, discovered in India; and dilute it with cream, both the domestication of cattle and the technique of milking having originated in Asia Minor.

If our patriot is old-fashioned enough to adhere to the so-called American breakfast, his coffee will be accompanied by an orange, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. He will follow this with a bowl of cereal made from grain domesticated in the Near East and prepared by methods also invented there. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention, with plenty of butter, originally a Near Eastern cosmetic. As a side dish he may have the egg of a bird domesticated in Southeastern Asia or strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in the same region, which has been salted and smoked by a process invented in Northern Europe.

Breakfast over, he places upon his head a molded piece of felt, invented by the nomads of Eastern Asia, and, if it looks like rain, puts on outer shoes of rubber, discovered by the ancient Mexicans, and takes an umbrella, invented in India. He then sprints for his train – the train, not sprinting, being in English invention. At the station he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on board he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil. Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus Vespucci, Italian geographer).

_________

It’s been said that this piece by Mercury writer Ralph Linton shows the “irrationality of ethnocentrism.” I’m not sure that a mild ethnocentricity is irrational — after all, it’s Nature’s way of ensuring that variation and speciation are preserved and indeed intensified over time — but the ignorant, jingoistic nationalism that has allowed us to be manipulated into hatred of innocents and endless wars (I see a yahoo with an “I’d walk a mile to smoke a camel jockey” pro-war t-shirt) certainly deserves to be lampooned, as Linton does masterfully. – Ed.

(This article by Ralph Linton, “One Hundred Percent American,” is from The American Mercury vol. 40 (1937): pp 427-29.)

Exclusive to The American Mercury

TODAY THE FEDERAL RESERVE, America’s private central bank, began to ship billions of dollars to the central bankers of Europe in an attempt to stem the fall in the value of the euro created by Greece’s debt crisis. The total value of the deal could easily top $1 trillion according to experts. Americans — suffering from high unemployment and a tanking economy themselves — are expressing astonishment that 1) the “Fed” has the authority to unilaterally ship dollars to foreign bankers, and 2) that the desires of European-domiciled bankers come first in the Fed’s eyes over the needs of suffering, over-taxed, and unemployed Americans. (ILLUSTRATION: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke)

According to Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Congress did not authorize the move. “The Federal Reserve is no more Federal than Federal Express,” he said, which means that, as a consortium of private banks, the Fed can decide on its own and Congress can do essentially nothing about it. Pittsburgh Examiner financial commentator Joe Schoffstall added “Their ultimate goal, just like [that of] any other bank, is to maximize their net profit to the highest levels possible. None of this would be possible without the option of printing endless amounts of money at will….”

The dollars created by the Federal Reserve — which, according to analysts, will dilute and reduce the value of every dollar in Americans’ pockets — will be swapped for rapidly-declining euros, just as the euro’s value is plummeting, and for that very reason. The Fed is acting in concert with other central banks — including the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank and others — in the so-called “dollar swap” effort.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund had already pledged a $140 billion “defense package” for the euro, but it wasn’t enough. Estimates of the ultimate cost of the Fed’s dollar giveaway run from $900 billion to more than twice that amount — nearly as much or more in a single day’s pledge, critics say, as in a year of the disastrous Iraq war, which has already devastated the US economy.

The Federal Reserve’s decision today constitutes a reopening of a program started during the 2008 “global financial crisis” under which dollars are shipped overseas directly to foreign central banks. These central banks can then lend the dollars they receive to commercial banks in their home countries that they decide are “in need of dollar funding” to prevent their collapse — and make a huge profit in the bargain, courtesy ultimately of the US taxpayer.

The New York Times published information this morning which appears to buttress supporters of the deal, saying “The swap operations do not carry any exchange rate risks or credit risks… The Fed would not be a party to whatever dollar-denominated loans the European Central Bank may make to European financial institutions…. The Fed actually made money from the previous dollar swap program. The foreign central banks paid the Fed interest equivalent to what they made from lending the dollars.”

Critics say the “making money” and “no risk” claims are irrelevant, though: the dollar’s value is being diluted nevertheless and the fact that the lenders of these newly-created funds will make huge profits should be a source of outrage, not reassurance, they say.

According to American Mercury analyst Gideon Dene, “It is an outrage. But Americans have slept while the Fed has been given the power to control our entire economy. When private banks — and that is what the Federal Reserve is, the central hub of the private banking system — control your currency, you’re naturally going to see them act in their own interests instead of in the interests of American workers and small businesses. The Fed has essentially taken over one of the functions — you might say the most important function — of government: control of the currency. And so you get government by the bankers, of the bankers, and for the bankers.”

“And remember,” Dene added, “European-domiciled banks aren’t necessarily ‘European’ in any real sense. Look at the stockholders and you’ll find out that many of these characters are no more European than George Soros or the Rothschilds. These are internationalist, globalist ‘operators’ with no loyalty to any country. It’s both insane and tragic that we’ve handed over our currency to these private bankers. It’s like hiring Al Capone to run your Neighborhood Watch program.”

I asked Dene what could be done: “The problem actually goes deeper than the Fed,” he said. “The ‘Audit the Fed’ folks, if they get their way, will just uncover the tiny tip of a mountainous problem that’s been buried in ignorance and obfuscation. And that problem is fractional reserve banking. That’s the system that essentially is our financial system today. Most money is not created by the government. Most money is not created by the Fed either — most money is created by commercial banks through the ‘magic’ of the fractional reserve system, acting on demand deposits — like checking accounts. The Fed supervises and hopes things don’t get out of hand — and steps in when they do.

“The fractional reserve principle is based on the idea that most depositors won’t ask for their money all at once. So you can lend out 90 per cent. of your depositors’ funds without deducting the amount you lend from their accounts — in essence creating money.

“That’s a system that guarantees panics, failures and bubbles. And until people understand that, there will be no push for meaningful reform. Not one citizen in ten thousand has even heard of fractional reserve banking. And not one journalist in a thousand understands it. And those who are getting rich off of it are going to do everything they can to maintain that general ignorance. I do hope that what the Fed did today has an educational effect.”