Posted on 07/18/2015 3:31:04 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s not too interesting to say that Donald Trump is a nationalist and aspiring despot who is manipulating bourgeois resentment, nativism, and ignorance to feed his power lust. It’s uninteresting because it is obviously true. It’s so true that stating it sounds more like an observation than a criticism.
I just heard Trump speak live. It was an awesome experience, like an interwar séance of once-powerful dictators who inspired multitudes, drove countries into the ground, and died grim deaths.
His speech at FreedomFest lasted a full hour, and I consider myself fortunate for having heard it. It was a magnificent exposure to an ideology that is very much present in American life, though hardly acknowledged. It lives mostly hidden in dark corners, and we don’t even have a name for it. You bump into it at neighborhood barbecues, at Thanksgiving dinner when Uncle Harry has the floor, at the hardware store when two old friends in line to checkout mutter about the state of the country.
The ideology is a 21st century version of right fascism — one of the most politically successful ideological strains of 20th century politics. Though hardly anyone talks about it today, we really should. It is still real. It exists. It is distinct. It is not going away. Trump has tapped into it, absorbing unto his own political ambitions every conceivable bourgeois resentment: race, class, sex, religion, economic. You would have to be hopelessly ignorant of modern history not to see the outlines and where they end up.
For now, Trump seems more like comedy than reality. I want to laugh about what he said, like reading a comic-book version of Franco, Mussolini, or Hitler. And truly I did laugh, as when he denounced the existence of tech support in India that serves American companies (“how can it be cheaper to call people there than here?” — as if he still thinks that long-distance charges apply).
Let’s hope this laughter doesn’t turn to tears.
As an aside, I mean no criticism of FreedomFest’s organizer Mark Skousen in allowing Trump to speak at this largely libertarian gathering. Mark invited every Republican candidate to address the 2,200-plus crowd. Only two accepted. Moreover, Mark is a very savvy businessman himself, and this conference operates on a for-profit basis. He does not have the luxury of giving the microphone to only people who pass the libertarian litmus test. His goal is to put on display the ideas that matter in our time and assess them by the standards of true liberty.
In my view, it was a brilliant decision to let him speak. Lovers of freedom need to confront the views of a man with views like this. What’s more, of all the speeches I heard at FreedomFest, I learned more from this one than any other. I heard, for the first time in my life, what a modern iteration of a consistently statist but non-leftist outlook on politics sounds and feels like in our own time. And I watched as most of the audience undulated between delight and disgust — with perhaps only 10% actually cheering his descent into vituperative anti-intellectualism. That was gratifying.
As of this writing, Trump is leading in the polls in the Republican field. He is hated by the media, which is a plus for the hoi polloi in the GOP. He says things he should not, which is also a plus for his supporters. He is brilliant at making belligerent noises rather than having worked out policy plans. He knows that real people don’t care about the details; they only want a strongman who shares their values. He makes fun of the intellectuals, of course, as all populists must do. Along with this penchant, Trump encourages a kind of nihilistic throwing out of rationality in favor of a trust in his own genius. And people respond, as we can see.
So, what does Trump actually believe? He does have a philosophy, though it takes a bit of insight and historical understanding to discern it. Of course race baiting is essential to the ideology, and there was plenty of that. When a Hispanic man asked a question, Trump interrupted him and asked if he had been sent by the Mexican government. He took it a step further, dividing blacks from Hispanics by inviting a black man to the microphone to tell how his own son was killed by an illegal immigrant.
Because Trump is the only one who speaks this way, he can count on support from the darkest elements of American life. He doesn’t need to actually advocate racial homogeneity, call for a whites-only sign to be hung at immigration control, or push for expulsion or extermination of undesirables. Because such views are verboten, he has the field alone, and he can count on the support of those who think that way by making the right noises.
Trump also tosses little bones to the Christian Right, enough to allow them to believe that he represents their interests. Yes, it’s implausible and hilarious. But the crowd who looks for this is easily won with winks and nudges, and those he did give. At the speech I heard, he railed against ISIS and its war against Christians, pointing out further than he is a Presbyterian and thus personally affected every time ISIS beheads a Christian. This entire section of his speech was structured to rally the nationalist Christian strain that was the bulwark of support for the last four Republican presidents.
But as much as racialist and religious resentment is part of his rhetorical apparatus, it is not his core. His core is about business, his own business and his acumen thereof. He is living proof that being a successful capitalist is no predictor of one’s appreciation for an actual free market (stealing not trading is more his style). It only implies a love of money and a longing for the power that comes with it. Trump has both.
What do capitalists on his level do? They beat the competition. What does he believe he should do as president? Beat the competition, which means other countries, which means wage a trade war. If you listen to him, you would suppose that the U.S. is in some sort of massive, epochal struggle for supremacy with China, India, Malaysia, and, pretty much everyone else in the world.
It takes a bit to figure out what the heck he could mean. He speaks of the United States as if it were one thing, one single firm. A business. “We” are in competition with “them,” as if the U.S. were IBM competing against Samsung, Apple, or Dell. “We” are not 300 million people pursuing unique dreams and ideas, with special tastes or interests, cooperating with people around the world to build prosperity. “We” are doing one thing, and that is being part of one business.
In effect, he believes that he is running to be the CEO of the country — not just of the government (as Ross Perot once believed) but of the entire country. In this capacity, he believes that he will make deals with other countries that cause the U.S. to come out on top, whatever that could mean. He conjures up visions of himself or one of his associates sitting across the table from some Indian or Chinese leader and making wild demands that they will buy such and such amount of product else “we” won’t buy their product.
Yes, it’s bizarre. As Nick Gillespie said, he has a tenuous grasp on reality. Trade theory from hundreds of years plays no role in his thinking at all. To him, America is a homogenous unit, no different from his own business enterprise. With his run for president, he is really making a takeover bid, not just for another company to own but for an entire country to manage from the top down, under his proven and brilliant record of business negotiation, acquisition, and management.
You see why the whole speech came across as bizarre? It was. And yet, maybe it was not. In the 18th century, there is a trade theory called mercantilism that posited something similar: ship the goods out and keep the money in. It builds up industrial cartels that live at the expense of the consumer. In the 19th century, this penchant for industrial protectionism and mercantilism became guild socialism, which mutated later into fascism and then into Nazism. You can read Mises to find out more on how this works.
What’s distinct about Trumpism, and the tradition of thought it represents, is that it is non-leftist in its cultural and political outlook and yet still totalitarian in the sense that it seeks total control of society and economy and places no limits on state power. The left has long waged war on bourgeois institutions like family, church, and property. In contrast, right fascism has made its peace with all three. It (very wisely) seeks political strategies that call on the organic matter of the social structure and inspire masses of people to rally around the nation as a personified ideal in history, under the leadership of a great and highly accomplished man.
Trump believes himself to be that man.
He sounds fresh, exciting, even thrilling, like a man with a plan and a complete disregard for the existing establishment and all its weakness and corruption. This is how strongmen take over countries. They say some true things, boldly, and conjure up visions of national greatness under their leadership. They’ve got the flags, the music, the hype, the hysteria, the resources, and they work to extract that thing in many people that seeks heroes and momentous struggles in which they can prove their greatness.
Think of Commodus (161-192 AD) in his war against the corrupt Roman senate. His ascension to power came with the promise of renewed Rome. What he brought was inflation, stagnation, and suffering. Historians have usually dated the fall of Rome from his leadership. Or, if you prefer pop culture, think of Bane, the would-be dictator of Gotham in Batman, who promises an end to democratic corruption, weakness, and loss of civic pride. He sought a revolution against the prevailing elites in order to gain total power unto himself.
These people are all the same. They are populists. Oh how they love the people, and how they hate the establishment. They defy all civic conventions. Their ideology is somewhat organic to the nation, not a wacky import like socialism. They promise greatness. They have an obsession with the problem of trade and mercantilist belligerence as the only solution. They have zero conception of the social order as a complex and extended ordering of individual plans, one that functions through freedom and individual rights.
This is a dark history and I seriously doubt that Trump himself is aware of it. Instead, he just makes it up as he goes along, speaking from his gut. This penchant has always served him well. It cannot serve a whole nation well. Indeed, the very prospect is terrifying, and not just for the immigrant groups and imports he has chosen to scapegoat for all the country’s problems. It’s a disaster in waiting for everyone.
Just saying.
Trump has been at this, longer than the author:
That doesn’t have much to do with the article. Did you read it in it’s entirety? I don’t agree with him, but whether or not Don Trump flirted with a run back then is beside the point. I was helping to run a campaign in Iowa around that time.
Bizarre, but there is some sense to it.
Libertarians are often bizarre.
Why would you claim that Trump is nothing more than a populist? Over the years Trump has talked about running for President, thus has a track record of expressing his concerns about the direction of this country. Are not politicians measured by their accomplishments? Do you not believe that Trump can accomplish what he promises?
Our unsecured borders are costing our country dearly in corruption, crime, flow of terrorists, cost of incarnation in our jails, lives at the border, terror for property owners at the border, frustration for those who immigrated in a legal manner, continued frustration with failure to enforce laws on the books, and on and on.
Would not that one thing be an accomplishment?
We have heard nothing meaningful from our mealy mouthed politicians on both sides of the aisle, even now.
So I guess we are supposed to vote for the candidate that loves everyone,TALKS ABOUT,Tolerance,Celebrating Diversity,and will listen to all opinions and views,sort of like Democrats and Obama,how has that worked out?
I don’t know what Tumps inner motivations are or his “Real” goal is,I do know the way he expresses himself in these speeches is a breath of fresh air from the CRAP we have been fed for 50 years from career politicians,or in my opinion career ass holes that has now brought this great country to the brink of destruction.
You’ve never heard of Senator Ted Cruz?
I couldn’t get past the part about “right fascism” and its existence in the world. Can you tell me this ***hole’s point? And is he a Libertarian or a Communist? I can’t tell the difference anymore.
So far, Cruz is about the only one that doesn't fear "The Donald" - I take that as a sign that Trump's "bloviating" is hitting a lot of targets with effect.
I agree.
With the exception of Trump, who is speaking very clearly, repeatedly, and forthrightly about bringing jobs back to America, and defending our own borders.
Both of these issues, are very high on Donald Trump’s list of things which are important for America.
Nobody else is saying, what he is. Yet he is supposed to somehow be the “amateur”?
Well then, I say, gangbusters to him. I’ll vote for the amateur. For real.
There is a long time to go until the election, but the first debate is now in three weeks.
Just three weeks I think. August 6th.
http://www.2016presidentialdebateschedule.com/2015/07/potential-candidate-list-for-first-2016-republican-debate/
“hoi polloi”? I prefer “populist” as a broadbrush label.
The article makes a few excellent points.
Don’t get me wrong; the closest ‘personality’ (political too) to which I can compare Trump, on the other side of the foe spectrum, is Ahmadi-Nejad. The latter was/is a right-winger, a populist, but an Islamofascist, within his ‘domain’ (country).
I think Trump does, in a way, compare to Putin too - at least for the noises he has made so far.
A key difference between Trump, AN, and Putin is that we have already seen the latter 2 in office, in action, and their actual political delivery. Trump is yet to become the president, and he has no experience as the President of a country.
Other differences too, which we are yet to see in practice, since Trump, although a successful businessman & salesman, has never been a Statesman.
Very interesting article.
It was the first time I have heard of anyone compare Trump to Hitler and Mussolini. I don’t see the connection, but it is still scary nonetheless.
Fitting that it would be on the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima. I hope it is just as explosive and scares away the faint of heart, which is most of the field.
IMO Trump has no chance at nomination. His value is in bringing important issues to the attention of the public, something the liberal media won’t do and many Republicans are afraid to do.
He sez he JUST heard Trump speak. But that was a week ago. It took him a week to cobble together that screed.
My reply is that the left has run our Country down to the very brink of ruination, and the author apparently has no problem whatever with that. That tells me he doesn’t really give a d@mn about the Country.
He’s panicked by the possibility that the people who make the Country work are being wakened up and alerted by someone who can lead them and the Country back in the direction of sanity and prosperity. He puts me in mind of the clown this week on the net who opined that Obunga DESERVES a 3rd term.
I read the article and I generally agree with the author although he makes quite a few assumptions... Electing one man does not a fascist state make. Further, he doesn’t slack to the concurrent rise of third-wave feminism and the truly fascist left-wing ideology that exists today and is gaining power via the Supreme Court, Obama, news media and the like. Who’s to say Trump would be any worse than that? Can you even say that without showing your bias? Who’s to say that we don’t deserve an effective counterbalance to the radicals that have been working tirelessly for the past 7 years to transform our culture (and everyone on this site would agree with me here)?
The author says we should be weary of Trump, but he doesn’t shed a tear for the millions of Americans that have suffered under this regime. I’ll be happy to stand against Trump if the left agrees to similarly stand against crooked people like Hillary (someone that is even more vain and power mad than Trump) or socialists like Bernie.
Honest, decent Americans everywhere should be scared if either of those people get into office, too.
slack = speak
July 14, 2015 is the date it was submitted for publication.
Shark jump!
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