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A visit to the US reveals many Americans in exile in their own country

Discussion with locals in Colorado and New York show a nation in profound disorder

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.

It is easy to report on the United States “from the outside”, by scanning the discussion from the major media outlets. It is a different matter to describe what is actually going on from the point of view of “ordinary Americans.” To do that, one has to be in the country talking and listening to people.

To that extent, I have been in the United States twice over the last two months – the first time was in New York City and its suburbs on Long Island, and the second time for a much longer stay has been in the state of Colorado, where I have had the opportunity to speak with many Americans from across the Great Plains region of the state all the way down to the front range communities of Colorado Springs, Erie, Denver, Walsenburg, Pueblo and Trinidad.

Since I am profoundly in the tank for President Trump, I preferred to keep politically silent while in the very left-of-center New York area, but I kept my ears open to see if anyone there had anything to say. For the most part, no one did, save for a Roman Catholic priest who serves in Manhattan in an ethnic parish, who was profoundly supportive of conservatism. His community are Eastern European Slavs and while not Orthodox, he maintains a very close relationship with the Russian Orthodox community (both Moscow Patriarchate and Synod) and he is very much of one mind with these most conservative clergy. This was in late October, and the impeachment circus was not really in the major swing it got to afterwards, but the impression of the state of the nation from that priest was “we are in trouble, and Christianity is definitely needing to be stood up for.”

The second trip, which I am currently still on, is in the state of Colorado from Fort Morgan in the northeastern part of the state to Walsenburg in the southern part of the state.

Colorado is an interesting case study. As one of the first batch of states to legalize marijuana, one might think that the whole state is full of potheads. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

What is true is that many citizens in Colorado that I have talked with seem to be shell-shocked from the legalization debacle pushed by ex-Californian liberals now residing in Boulder, as well as another large liberal contingent in Denver’s Arapahoe County. These two deep blue counties, they say, ruined everything for the entire state of Colorado.

Former Governor John Hickenlooper, to his partial credit, once noted in a visit to a rural wireless company in Fort Morgan, Colorado that many of the people in the state’s big Front Range cities “don’t know where their food comes from.” I was there, and I heard him say this repeatedly in person.

But what Hickenlooper did not say is the greater projection of this ignorance, that the heavy populace of liberals in these two Colorado counties seem blissfully unaware (perhaps because they are smoking so much of their vaunted product) that the regular folks in the state do NOT support legalized marijuana, and further, they seem unable to account for vast amounts of supposed tax revenue from pot sales that have since gone missing over the last few years.

What is sad though, is that while many municipalities in Colorado, such as Walsenburg, have successfully passed laws to keep the cannabis dispensaries out of their towns, the county politics have gone the other way. For example, in Walsenburg, every road leading out of town takes the driver past at least one dispensary. Even in ultra-conservative Colorado Springs, the dispensaries could not be kept out, and anyone visiting from Russia seeing the vast number of green crosses everywhere would wrongly conclude that “this town has a lot of pharmacies.”

Nope. Those ain’t pharmacies. Keep your Russians safe. Don’t let them go in these places.

Another thing that is uniformly true across the state is the level of ignorance about Russia. I went on Colorado Springs radio station 740AM (KVOR) as a call-in person on one of their morning talk shows. I made brief reference to the reality of life on the ground in Russia – how it is asserting itself as a Christian nation, how the people there have no ill will towards the Americans, nor did they have anything do to with election interference, and how they do not want war with anyone.

The radio host, Richard Randall, was ecstatic to hear real news about what is going on in Russia. He instinctively knew that the American news media narrative was not correct, but because of the incredible degree of penetration of American propaganda against Russia (even and especially among many conservatives at Fox News, save Tucker Carlson), he had no idea how to get real information.

Now he has my phone number and e-mail, so there may be more opportunities for contact in the future, especially once I am back home in Moscow.

The general reaction from everyone I talked to in Colorado about Russia was delighted surprise and wonder. Most of the people I spoke to are conservative Christians, usually Baptist, and some Roman Catholics. However, the Orthodox Christian community in Pueblo had the strongest positive reaction. The people there were so grateful to hear of Russia’s Orthodox Christian ascendancy and renaissance that they were hugging me for joy and almost in tears to know that someone is embracing Christianity whole-heartedly.

In the United States, my impression of the Orthodox and Baptist and Roman Catholic communities all shared one thing in common: the experience of the Christian in exile. rejected by the world, ignored by the world, but also thinking that the whole world is like this, and that there is no Christian bastion anywhere. Add to that the increasing penetration of cannabis (now legalized in about thirty American states), coupled with the simultaneous sense of despair over what to do about the opioid and other drug epidemics (yet missing the simple act of making pot illegal again!), the incredible penetration of LGBT values imposed through the incredible amount of television and radio content available to American viewers (I caught things my friends and relatives somehow missed or filtered out), and it seems in many ways that life looks very bleak for American people.

Indeed it would seem that way. But it is also a common thread that these “American exiles” share a great love for President Trump. They are 100% dedicated to supporting him, and it is easy to see why. He may not be the voice of a Christian Moral Majority by any means, but it is plainly apparent to them that he represents them, not the coastal elites, not the cultural Marxists and their elite, but this vast population of plain ordinary Americans that otherwise feel themselves strangers in their own country.

For them, Mr. Trump is the only key to preserving what they once had ubiquitously across this land. He seems to be the only guy who remembers and who cares about it. While America’s economy is indeed roaring ahead, I suspect that the real appeal of Trump to this group of Americans is not that they have more money. It is that through him, they understand that someone in a very high place still has his sanity.

This all is coming to a head as we approach the House vote on the two flimsy articles of Impeachment crafted against Donald Trump. In any other era of American history, these complaints would never even be considered as a means of removing the President.

But the present times are full of flaky politicians. It is quite likely that the articles will pass the House and go to the Senate, and it is honestly difficult for me to believe the Senate will do the slap-down that Fox promises. I suspect the Senate situation is far, far weaker than my favorite pundits want to admit.

I hope I am wrong.

But If I am not wrong and the Senate folds to remove the President, there is little doubt about what comes next:

The nastiest, most pathetic and banal civil war that has ever been fought. It may never come to weapons fire, but it may as well. It will certainly lead to a rural / urban American split, which might itself prove to be the key to a conservative victory, since America’s food comes from mostly conservative places and conservative people. (The people don’t know where their food comes from, remember?)

It will be the nastiest conflict ever because it will be the LGBT / Cannabis / Globalist / Open border / Open society crowd against a whole lot of angry farmers with guns, many of these hiding in the hills in a manner that would do the Afghan tribesmen proud.

It will be the end of America as a superpower, and depending on the kind of people who seize power, it is quite possible that they will drag the rest of the world, mainly Russia, into the fight, perhaps by diversionary false flag strikes that the American populace has no good intelligence about, considering the propaganda lock the MSM has on the country.

If there was ever any set of factors to justify the existence of independent journalism, you have just read it.

There are great people here. There is no doubt that when pressed to it, they will fight. But reason should have prevailed long before this, and even our best people seem strangely blinded and deafened, and therefore unable to personally do what President Trump seems often to be doing single-handedly.

Forty years ago, many more of us were as freely outspoken as the President. He is not breaking any particularly new ground in terms of how he addresses things, but he IS doing it now when very few others in power are as well. The rest of us have been somewhat cowed into submissive silence, and that is one of the most saddening and frightening aspects of all of this.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.

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Chris Cosmos
Chris Cosmos
December 17, 2019

Please enlighten me on why cannabis possession should be not only ilkegal but a felony. You nay not be familiar with how and why cannabis became illegal in the first place. Hint, it wasn’t because it caused physical harm. Also you clearly don’t understand that a good deal of the people you lambast are libertarians who believe human beings have the right to make choices about what they put into their bodies rather than be subject to arbitrary and draconian laws against cannabis based purely on cultural prejudice.

ManintheMoon
ManintheMoon
Reply to  Chris Cosmos
December 17, 2019

A good point. Personally I am agnostic on the issue but do note that Ron Paul supports legalisation and he’s hardly a pot smoking hippie.

Steve Horth
Steve Horth
Reply to  Chris Cosmos
December 18, 2019

When John Doe decides to put junk into his body and then show up at a hospital, he is (at least) taking resources away from needy others and (at most) costing taxpayers money. Both are not worth him “enjoying his freedom.” Until they have a separate ward for dopers that are treated only when the rest of us have been seen, they should stay home and in hiding. Is it too late to send them to Epstein’s island?

Thraxite
Thraxite
Reply to  Steve Horth
December 18, 2019

Have you ever known anyone anywhere turn up to a hospital from smoking pot (knowingly)? More people need heart/lung transplants or kidney transplants and dialysis from tobacco and alcohol. Plus violence and domestic abuse all stem from other drugs. Yet you are not advocating for the prohibition of them, are you? You are ignorant of facts and bigotry is on full display.

False Comparison
False Comparison
Reply to  Thraxite
December 18, 2019

Marijuana intoxication is the nr 1 substance responsible for emergency visits.

lizzie dw
lizzie dw
Reply to  False Comparison
December 18, 2019

Do you have proof of this statement? I thought it was alcohol related emergencies or fentanyl or cocaine or any of those drugs that make you crazy violent. I have never heard that cannabis makes one crazy violent.

oldandjaded
Reply to  Steve Horth
December 18, 2019

As long as the same treatment is applied to the VAST numbers who show up in hospitals due to the abuse of alcohol, nicotine, prescription drugs, and the abuse of food as a mood alterant, I would agree with this, at least in principle. But then, that’s not what Steve means….

Eric Zuesse
Reply to  Chris Cosmos
December 18, 2019

The article’s author has made clear that he believes in myths, including not only the ones in the Bible, but also the myths about cannabis being a “gateway drug” and prisons being appropriate for punishing its users, and nothing being appropriate for regulating its sale and for monitoring the authenticity and safety of whatever products are being labelled and sold as “cannabis” or “marijuana.” The article’s author hugs to his myths, his prejudices, of several different sorts, and he thinks that the severe problems with America come from Americans not being as uniformly believers in those particular myths as he… Read more »

oldandjaded
December 17, 2019

The idea of legislating “morality” is laughable, and Christian far right has laid the centuries old path that the neo-liberal “left” now trods, that just ASSUMES that it has the “God-given right” to write any such legislation. What hypocrisy. What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes is NONE of the states business, and ANYTHING to the contrary is the thin edge of totalitarianism, end of story. And FWIW, if I wrote the legislation based on MY lifestyle choices, people like the author would be most unhappy indeed, as I would start right off the bat by… Read more »

False Comparison
False Comparison
Reply to  oldandjaded
December 18, 2019

I used to think you were clever from some of the past posts I’ve seen from you, but you wanting to ban religion shows just how much of a dope head you are, pardon the pun.

oldandjaded
Reply to  False Comparison
December 18, 2019

Right, except I don’t use ANY mood altering substances, and I CLEARLY stated that. And I THOROUGHLY resent you implying otherwise, but then that’s pretty typical of the dogmatic thinking of the religious people I have encountered. To be honest, I was being somewhat flippant in including religion ( and taking a poke at the writer, who like you, is clearly part of the religious far right), I believe that it is a useful means of channeling the behavior a large segment of society in the least damaging direction. And FWIW, whether you, or anyone else thinks that anything I… Read more »

Triniterias
Triniterias
December 17, 2019

All the mainstream opposition against Trump is a simulation. It doesn’t hold up to legal scrutiny. Elites want Trump to have a second term. Why not? They earn a lot of money through his tax cuts and massive contracts to the MIC.

Mizen Fratelli
Mizen Fratelli
December 18, 2019

Free market capitalism does not require a stable and contented workforce because their security and wellbeing comes at the expense of the profits and control of the 1%. Adherents of the neoliberal/free market form of capitalism despise government assistance for the poor or middle classes, this includes pensions, childcare, healthcare and guarantees of secure employment and housing.  Neoliberals consider any government expenditure – jobs, services, pensions, schools, housing and care for the disabled – as wasteful, inefficient, incompetent and even morally repugnant, even if the only alternative is death. You force the peasants to give money to the Government. Not… Read more »

Clarity
Clarity
Reply to  Mizen Fratelli
December 18, 2019

>Free market capitalism does not require a stable and contented workforce because their security and wellbeing comes at the expense of the profits and control of the 1%.<

Rubbish. There will be no profits if the workforce has nothing left to spend. Btw, it is no longer a free market if your manipulate both supply and demand.

oldandjaded
Reply to  Clarity
December 18, 2019

I used to believe this, but I think you are out of touch as to what is now, and has been for more than a decade, driving western capitalist economies.

Elderlyrstaa
December 18, 2019

As a foreign person my words have no meaning to Americans. However, I will point out that President Trump is being impeached on totally genuine grounds. He also has Christmas decorations in the White House. He therefore is anti-Christ. My question is why would Baptists et al support such a person – my mother, a dyed-in-the-wool Baptist!! – would not keep Christmas unless Dad forced her to.

lizzie dw
lizzie dw
December 18, 2019

I had to stop reading when I came to the lines, “Nope. These ain’t pharmacies………Don’t let them go in these places.” Since you come from a country with its fair share of alcoholics, to say the least, I would expect you would hope that “your Russians” WOULD go into these places. Since we know that alcoholism has destroyed more lives and more families than marijuana ever thought of doing ,your remark smacked of ignorance and bias baaed on this. I suppose you think cannabis is a “gateway drug’. Not. Cannabis has been used for about 28 thousand years and is… Read more »

Clarity
Clarity
Reply to  lizzie dw
December 18, 2019

If you had followed the news this year you’d know that recent WHO data reported that alcohol consumption in Russia has dropped considerably. Below Germany in fact, and is inching rather close towards US consumption habits. Also noteworthy is that alcohol consumption in both Germany and the US have increased, while Russia saw a significant decrease. The type of alcohol consumed is also changing in Russia, away from hard liquor and more towards softer versions like beer and wine. Youth is abstaining in larger numbers, or at least consuming responsibly. Youth is also getting more in touch with their religious… Read more »

Astraea
Astraea
December 18, 2019

I suggest you listen to the Trunews broadcast of Monday 16th. Trump is not the hero you think he is – he is quietly and secretly stabbing the American people who trust him – in th eback. Have you not noticed that he has put an end to freedom of speech and that he is preparing to take their guns. LISTEN to Rick Wiles on Trunews soon. He sees it all very clearly – and he is a devout Christian of deep faith and trust. He is no longer on Youtube, that disgusting organisation, but all you have to do… Read more »

Eric Zuesse
Reply to  Astraea
December 18, 2019

The author of this article is so in-love with the myths he holds, he doesn’t care about the reality. Why was his article published at The Duran? His article drags down the quality-level of the site.

False Comparison
False Comparison
Reply to  Eric Zuesse
December 18, 2019

Who are you to decide that? The website can post what it wants. If you don’t like the content, skip it, you crackhead.

oldandjaded
Reply to  Eric Zuesse
December 18, 2019

I agree with you in your appraisal of the content of this worthless piece of tripe, but as a supporter of free speech, I disagree with your solution.
But it does bring to mind my favorite Harlan Ellison quote, “You are NOT entitled to your opinion, you are entitled to your INFORMED opinion.”

oldandjaded
Reply to  Eric Zuesse
December 18, 2019

Just want to add, Eric, I enjoy your contributions on here, unlike this piece, they are generally well thought out, well researched, and informative. Really VERY impressive, considering they are written by a “crackhead” (ROFL!). Keep up the good work.

False Comparison
False Comparison
December 18, 2019

So many godless pot smokers in the thread got triggered, butthurt, and are calling for the author’s articles to be deleted from the website. That’s the leftist and rightist anti-globalist crowd for ya on the internet, completely in favor of censorship, of imposing their own POV at the expense of others, and then having the audacity to claim they’re all about freedom and free thinking.

oldandjaded
Reply to  False Comparison
December 18, 2019

Hey, wait a minute… is this John Ellis under a new screen name?? And only an IMBECILE can believe that anyone who does not support the criminalization of marijuana is automatically a drug user. I try to avoid personal attacks, but you are launching very insulting personal attacks on EVERYONE on this thread that doesn’t agree with your EXCEEDINGLY NARROW AND COMPLETELY UNINFORMED point of view. But, we are all human, so I will chalk your insulting behavior on this thread up to emotion getting the better of you. In other words, I will chalk it up to YOU being… Read more »

lizzie dw
lizzie dw
December 18, 2019

I posted the other day that cannabis has been around for 28 thousand years. No. It is 28 MILLION years; they found seeds in Tibet. So, please give up you bias against cannabis, do research and do not drink alcohol.

Culture of Outrage
Culture of Outrage
December 19, 2019

At what point in time did Jesus make an appeal to the goyim in order to garner sympathy and support regarding his suffering and oppression?

He didn’t.

Are you saying that conservatives wouldn’t complain so much if they received more tax revenues from pot smoking LGBT’s running wild and free back and forth across the state of Colorado?

Richo
Richo
December 22, 2019

This is the clearest Reporting I have seen on the Cultural divide in this country. It must take someone new from outside the country to see clearly what is going on here. The great divide in this country is not political. It is not economic. The old politics has for many decades been about the split between economic actors, labor vs capitalists. This is no longer the case. The Democrats, who came to power championing the working class, no longer do so. The great divide now is CULTURAL. We have those who want to live their lives as normal people… Read more »

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