Back in June I wrote a piece for Monkey Mind reflecting on Donald Trump’s race for the presidency.
In short I feared the neo-fascist aura of his campaign.
At the time I observed how he’s not Hitler. He’s not Mussolini. He is, however, a lot like Silvio Berlusconi. But, not quite. What he is, is something of an American original. And, now, this American original with more than a whiff of fascism following him like a smoky tail is president elect.
I find two quotes come to mind when I think of Mr Trump. The first from Sinclair Lewis, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The other from old Karl Marx, not someone I usually cite, but. “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Again, neither quite works. But both suggest.
Robert Kagen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute writing at the Washington Post observed significantly, “What (Mr Trump) offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence.” That’s our president elect.
In the article Mr Kagen continued, “His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.”
Now, not everyone is quite so worried. And we need to hear this, as well. Some say, no, no, he is just going to drain the swamp of our contemporary American political scene, get government off our backs, protect our borders, keep us out of foreign entanglements. But as we look through the smoke screen of his parade of possible cabinet and close policy appointees and just look at who he has actually appointed, he is following what he said he would do. This is a message of brutalism. Mr Trump throws a suit on it, but the threat hangs in the air. I feel a frisson of fear when I watch him. And, now, with the normalization of his coming presidency, I find a cold horror overtaking me.
While a collective amnesia is being sold right now, let’s not forget in his campaign Mr Trump flat out sold a form of fascism, hard on fear of the other and a promise of putting it all right. What he was asking for was not actually election as president, but as strongman. And the part that makes me sick is people bought it. Large numbers. He may not have won the majority of votes, but he got the right ones.
And now I find myself deeply concerned about the media, many in government, and much of the general public as this would be tyrant is being normalized. Whether people are supporting Mr Trump for their own reasons while not actually believing in his platform hardly matters. This is the harsh truth we all must live with. You support the fascist, it doesn’t matter that you figure you can control him, you’re voting for the fascist. Peoples’ “motives” are overtaken by their actions. What they’ve done is supporting someone running on, well, call it what you like, fascist platform isn’t quite right, neo-fascist, perhaps. More fascist as farce.
Me, I’m still waiting. We don’t know a lot, yet. But, what we do know is to my mind frankly, frightening.
We have firmly landed in the midst of that old Chinese curse. These are interesting times.
A bit too interesting, if you ask me.
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