Vselovod Chaplin: ‘Old West elites are running out of steam and the image of Clinton emphasizes it very well’

Skeletons in cupboards of the candidates

You like it or not, but religious and moral issues are becoming important in politics and decisive in the election. In Russia, they try to avoid it — only because of a lack of good judgement. The economy, as well as the issues of 'bread and circuses', in fact, has never been the main one, whatever the Marxists and classical neo-liberals would say. Religion and ethics 'weigh' much more, and we see it in the American electoral processes, and soon we will see it in the French ones. By the way, electoral-political stories have stirred up interesting debates in one of the world's religious communities — Catholic.

Recently, a compatriot asked me: why Trump and Clinton discuss what is 'below the belt' and all sorts of stories with emails and 'personal business'? Can it be true that America has no other problems — for example, health care reform (the famous Obamacare), violence in 'black' neighborhoods… Do they have too much of good things? Many people still think that way in our country, which has recently gone through total crisis and uncertainty. But in a society where daily life is not a survival on the brink of a risk, intelligent people, first of all, ask themselves not about pensions or insurance, but following: 'Is a candidate a liar?', 'Is he trying to seem much better than he really is?'

'The closest associates of Clinton spoil her moral image, especially in the eyes of believers. Wikileaks has recently leaked the email of the current chief of the campaign headquarters John Podesta.' Photo: ibtimes.com

Both Trump and Clinton has many failures in this reagrd, they have skeletons in a cupboard. But Trump is more straightforward. He does not claim to have an eternal marital fidelity, an invariably diplomatic tone, courtesy to the opposite sex. But the closest associates of Clinton spoil her moral image, especially in the eyes of believers. Wikileaks has recently leaked the email of the current chief of her campaign headquarters John Podesta, who confessed in the establishment of two 'progressive' Catholic movements, saying that they need to strengthen their pressure on the Catholic Church to fight a 'medieval dictatorship' of the hierarchy and to start a 'Catholic Spring'.

Catholic Church: in an effort to survive

The thing is not just that the tone can offend and insult many Catholics. An Italian researcher Francesco Kolafemmina emphasizes that these words were written on 11 February 2012 — exactly a year before the unexpected announcement of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, after which the current pontiff came to power in Vatican. He hitherto was a man rather close to the right-wing Conservative circles, but immediately after the election to the papacy he began to implement the program of a 'reformer' in the style of the Society of Jesus — with a broad smile, a desire and ability to adapt to any environment and culture.

'Honestly,' writes Kolafemmina, 'I think that the Bergoglio pontificate coincides with a clear project: to bring the Church into the reality of so-called new world order. <...> We live in a world, where the financial elite and the power of technology are increasingly dominating. In this world <...> the Church has two options: 1) be overwhelmed by the dominant culture; 2) try to survive.'

According to the intellectual, for the realization of the second option they will have to mimic the 'characteristics of the dominant culture: contradictions, temporariness, being out of historicity, entropy — especially the latter, because its great sociologist Zygmunt Bauman called it a cornerstone of the 'culture' of the financial elites.' You can believe or not in the almighty conspiracy of the American financiers or politicians of Clinton circle, but the described is really very similar to the pontificate of Pope Francis. And the pontificate, in its turn, is very similar to the 'collective project'. By the way, for some reason, it is impossible to find old photos of a smiling cardinal Bergoglio…

The article cites the words of one commentator: 'It seems that Francis serves a 'god-rainbow', who does not impose religious or moral principles, but not a Catholic God.' Photo: rtvi.com

Kolafemmina spoke out in response to another interesting article, full of even more interesting cites. The Vatican Insider website, which is a project of the leading Italian newspaper La Stampa, published the text of Giacomo Galeazzi and Andrea Tornielli, which describes the global opposition to Pope Francis, accusing him of excessive liberalism and that under him the Catholic Church is turning into a 'UN of religions' with a flavour of Greenpeace. As the authors write, this opposition informally unites thousands of people — from cardinals, bishops, theologians, staff of the Curia to Internet activists.

The article cites the words of a commentator: 'Francis I seems to be serving God Rainbow (who does not impose religious and moral principles) and not the Catholic God.' The current pontiff is compared with the previous one. Francis, with all his umsmiligness, had a rather strict recruitment policy aimed at a weakening of the Conservatives. The article presents, according to the famous vaticanist Robert Moynihan — for the first time in the history, the information about that the Conclave that elected Francis allegedly voted twice: for the first time the extra ballot has been revealed.

In the end of the article there are some very unexpected words of an Italian sociologist and social activist Massimo Introvigne, which were put, by the way, in the header. The scientist believes that the opposition to the current Pope are prone to 'the mythical idealization of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is presented as a 'good' leader in contrast to the 'bad' leader, the Pope, because of his stance on homosexual people, Muslims and immigrants. Russian foundations that have strong ties with Putin co-operate with the anti-Francis opposition.'

'The religious electorate is increasingly leaning towards Trump — even Catholics, among whom there are many recent migrants, traditionally voting for the Democrats.' Photo: nowostimira.com

Populism of Trump and politically incorrect truth

All this, of course, have a flavour of the conspiracy theory. There is no systematic cooperation of the mentioned funds with the Conservative part of the West Catholics — there are only scattered and infrequent contacts. However, Introvigne is a serious and sensible person. He feels and knows that a sympathy for Russia and Putin among Catholics-Conservatives is really growing. The reason is the same: only our country is able to implement a 'third' scenario not considered by Francesco Kolafemmina — to take away the power and technology from the global financial elites. Few military-political moves will be enough to do that. If to unite them with a new mission to change the world order based on beliefs and faith, this challenge will receive more support than once the idea of Communist 'world revolution'.

Back to America. Old West elites are running out of steam — and the image of Clinton emphasizes it very well. The religious electorate is increasingly leaning towards Trump — even Catholics, among whom there are many recent migrants, traditionally voting for the Democrats. It is not a coincidence the last candidates debate again periodically concerned Putin, and in the Facebook the group 'Russians for Donald Trump' is very active. The conservatives of all countries are unlikely to unite, but they can feel a commonality of values. After all, the fact that the critics call them 'populism' actually is the truth — obvious to everyone, but carefully ignored in the world of political correctness. Therefore, it is likely that a lot of people, who will never recognize that publicly, will vote for Trump. They are the main resource to achieve advantage over Clinton today.