Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by General Patton » Sun Nov 29, 2015 3:41 pm
by km artlu » Sun Nov 29, 2015 5:02 pm
by General Patton » Sun Nov 29, 2015 5:09 pm
km artlu » Sun Nov 29, 2015 4:02 pm wrote:That's a keen observation GP. One of those things that's obvious to me when it's been pointed out, but not until then. His rivals must raise money to be deployed largely for media time. All the Donald has to do is stir up some shit and then call in to respond to the response. I'd say 'brilliant', but it may be simply rat-like instinct.
by seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:06 pm
NOVEMBER 30, 2015
Trump’s Embrace of Totalitarianism is America’s Dirty Little Secret
by HENRY GIROUX
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames
Business Mogul, reality TV star, and presidential candidate, Donald Trump recently mocked Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times investigative reporter with a disability, at a rally in South Carolina. This contemptuous reference to Kovaleski’s physical disability was morally odious and painful to observe, but not to comprehend, at least not politically. Trump is a hate-monger, and spreads his message without apology in almost every public encounter in which he finds himself.
Some reporters claim he stepped over the line with this act of reprehensible cruelty. That is only partly true. In this loathsome instance, he just expanded his hate-filled discourse, making clear his embrace of a politics founded on arrogance, cynicism, unchecked wealth, and a deeply ingrained racism. In actuality, he stepped over the line the moment he announced his candidacy for the presidency and called Mexican immigrants violent rapists, gang members, and drug dealers. Or for that matter when he called, along with other right-wing extremists, to put refugees in detention centers and create a data base for them. These comments sound eerily close to SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler’s call for camps that held prisoners under orders of what euphemistically called “protective custody. To quote the Holocaust Encyclopedia:
In the earliest years of the Third Reich, various central, regional, and local authorities in Germany established concentration camps to detain political opponents of the regime, including German Communists, Socialists, trade unionists, and others from left and liberal political circles. In the spring of 1933, the SS established Dachau concentration camp, which came to serve as a model for an expanding and centralized concentration camp system under SS management.
What is truly sad, dangerous, and even cowardly is how few people along with the corporate media and his intellectual defenders recognize that Trump is symptomatic of the brutal seeds of totalitarianism now being cultivated in American society. Donald Trump represents more than the anti-democratic practices and antics of Joe McCarthy.[1]
On the contrary, he signifies how totalitarianism can mutate and take different forms in specific historical moments. Rather than being dismisses as a wild-card in American politics, it is crucial to recognize that Trump’s popularity represents a dangerous “political space…in both the wider culture and in recent history.”[2] This is evident not only in his race baiting, but in his increasing support for violence against protesters at his rallies, and his call to “make American great again” by any means necessary, none of which is new to American society.
What is new is the degree to which this endorsement of violence, racism, and the call to violate civil liberties are expressed so visibly and without apology. How else to explain the muted criticisms, if not almost non-existent public and media response, to his comments that: “we’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule… And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago…”[3] This call to do “the unthinkable” is a fundamental principle of any notion of totalitarianism, regardless of the form it takes.
For instance, Trump’s recent call to bring back waterboarding and to support a torture regime far exceeds what might be called an act of stupidity or ignorance. Torture in this instance becomes a means of exacting revenge on those considered “Other,” un-American, and inferior—principally Muslims, immigrants, and members of the Black Lives Matter Movement. We have heard this discourse before in the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s and later in the dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s. Heather Digby Parton is right when she writes that Donald Trump “may be the first openly fascistic frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination but the ground was prepared and the seeds of his success sowed over the course of many years. We’ve had fascism flowing through the American political bloodstream for quite some time.”[4]
This is a discourse that betrays dark and dangerous secrets not simply about Trump, but more importantly about the state of American culture and politics. Trump’s brutal racism, cruelty, and Nazi-style policy recommendations are more than shocking, they are emblematic of totalitarianism’s hatred of liberalism, its call for racial purity, its mythic celebration of nationalism, its embrace of violence, its disdain for weakness, and its anti-intellectualism. This is the discourse of total terror. These elements of totalitarianism have become the new American normal. The conditions that produced the torture chambers, intolerable violence, extermination camps, squelching of dissent are still with us. Totalitarianism is not simply a relic of the past. It lives on in new forms and it is just as terrifying and dangerous today as it was in the past.[5]
Trump is not just a fool or an idiot, or ethically dead, he is symptomatic of a long line of fascists who shut down public debate, attempt to humiliate their opponents, endorse violence as a response to dissent, and criticize any public display of democratic principles. America has reached its endpoint with Trump, and his presence should be viewed as a stern warning of the nightmare to come. This is not the discourse of Kafka, but of those extremists who have become cheerleaders for totalitarianism.
Trump is not a straight talker as some writers have claimed, he is a monster without a conscience, a politician with a toxic set of policies. He is the product of a form of finance capitalism and a long legacy of racism and violence in which conscience is put to sleep, democracy withers, and public values are extinguished. This is truly a time of monsters and Trump is simply the most visible and certainly one of the most despicable.
Totalitarianism destroys everything that makes politics possible. It is both an ideological poison and a brutal mode of governance and control. It puts reason to sleep and destroys and viable elements of democracy. Trump reminds us in the most exacerbated and dramatic forms of totalitarianism’s addiction to tyranny, its attachments to the machineries of death, and its moral emptiness.
What is crucial to acknowledge is that the stories, legacies, and violence that are part of totalitarianism’s history must be told over and over again so that it becomes possible to recognize how it appears in new forms, replicated under the banner of terror and insecurity by design, and endlessly legitimated by in the image making of the corporate disimagination machines.
Dark times are here but history is open and Trump’s presence—along with his fellow extremists and supporters– should be a rallying cry for a struggle not simply against a crude and reactionary popularism, but against the tyranny of totalitarianism in its new and offensive forms.
by 8bitagent » Tue Dec 01, 2015 12:34 am
by Luther Blissett » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:45 pm
by Wombaticus Rex » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:56 pm
Luther Blissett » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:45 pm wrote:Does the security state believe that they can wield him? What portions of the private sector do?
by Iamwhomiam » Tue Dec 01, 2015 4:59 pm
by Luther Blissett » Tue Dec 01, 2015 5:09 pm
Wombaticus Rex » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:56 pm wrote:Luther Blissett » Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:45 pm wrote:Does the security state believe that they can wield him? What portions of the private sector do?
I don't see how anyone could possibly attempt to control a status-conscious sociopath who loves money and really cares nothing about average Americans.
And it's not like Trump's wealth is primarily tied up in assets that are easy to target via state/private lawfare, such as real estate.
by Joao » Tue Dec 01, 2015 5:17 pm
by Iamwhomiam » Tue Dec 01, 2015 6:47 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Dec 01, 2015 10:13 pm
Wary of Donald Trump, G.O.P. Leaders Are Caught in a Standoff
By JONATHAN MARTINDEC. 1, 2015
Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Macon, Ga., on Monday. Many leading Republican officials, strategists and donors are concerned that Mr. Trump has an increasingly plausible chance of winning the nomination. Credit Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — For months, much of the Republican Party’s establishment has been uneasy about the rise of Donald J. Trump, concerned that he was overwhelming the presidential primary contest and encouraging other candidates to mimic his incendiary speech. Now, though, irritation is giving way to panic as it becomes increasingly plausible that Mr. Trump could be the party’s standard-bearer and imperil the careers of other Republicans.
Many leading Republican officials, strategists and donors now say they fear that Mr. Trump’s nomination would lead to an electoral wipeout, a sweeping defeat that could undo some of the gains Republicans have made in recent congressional, state and local elections. But in a party that lacks a true leader or anything in the way of consensus — and with the combative Mr. Trump certain to scorch anyone who takes him on — a fierce dispute has arisen about what can be done to stop his candidacy and whether anyone should even try.
Some of the highest-ranking Republicans in Congress and some of the party’s wealthiest and most generous donors have balked at trying to take down Mr. Trump because they fear a public feud with the insult-spewing media figure. Others warn that doing so might backfire at a time of soaring anger toward political insiders.
That has led to a standoff of sorts: Almost everyone in the party’s upper echelons agrees something must be done, and almost no one is willing to do it.
With his knack for offending the very constituencies Republicans have struggled with in recent elections, women and minorities, Mr. Trump could be a millstone on his party if he won the nomination. He is viewed unfavorably by 64 percent of women and 74 percent of nonwhite voters, according to a November ABC News/Washington Post poll. Such unpopularity could not only doom his candidacy in November but also threaten the party’s tenuous majority in the Senate, hand House seats to the Democrats and imperil Republicans in a handful of governor’s races.
In states with some of the most competitive Senate contests, the concern is palpable, especially after weeks in which Mr. Trump has made a new series of inflammatory statements.
“If he carries this message into the general election in Ohio, we’ll hand this election to Hillary Clinton — and then try to salvage the rest of the ticket,” said Matt Borges, chairman of the Republican Party there, where Senator Rob Portman is facing a competitive re-election.
Pat Brady, the former state Republican chairman in Illinois, where Senator Mark S. Kirk is also locked in a difficult campaign, was even more direct. “If he’s our nominee, the repercussions of that in this state would be devastating,” Mr. Brady said.
Another Republican strategist in Ohio replied to an email asking about Mr. Trump’s effect in the state by sending a link to a Wikipedia page on the 1964 congressional elections, when Barry Goldwater’s presence atop the Republican ticket led the party to lose 36 House seats.
In Washington, many of the party’s top operatives believe that there is no way even the strongest Senate candidates could overcome the tide if Mr. Trump were leading the ticket.
“Senator Portman is a great example I like to use when talking about this,” said Brian Walsh, a Senate campaign veteran. “He’s very well prepared, has tons of cash in the bank, and he got his campaign organized and up and running early. But if we nominate a bad presidential candidate like Trump, senators like Portman or Kelly Ayotte aren’t going to be able to outrun Hillary by that much. And there goes the Senate.”
Asked about concerns over Mr. Trump’s potential influence on other contests, his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said, “I think the facts indicate the exact opposite is true,” and emailed a link to a consumer marketing firm’s assertion that Mr. Trump would ensure the highest general election turnout from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike.
Yet the clamor for a “Stop Trump” effort has become pervasive at the Senate’s highest levels, where members up for re-election are realizing that they can no longer dismiss as strictly theoretical the possibility of his capturing the nomination. Mr. Trump’s persistent ranking at or near the top of the polls is prompting urgent calls for an advertising assault to try to sink his campaign.
“It would be an utter, complete and total disaster,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, himself a presidential candidate who has tangled with Mr. Trump, said of his rival’s effect on lower-tier Republican candidates. “If you’re a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot, you’re going to have a hard time being president of the United States, and you’re going to do irreparable damage to the party.”
Mr. Graham recounted separate phone calls with two of the party’s most sought-after donors last week, people who he insisted not be named but who give tens of millions of dollars to Republicans every election year. He said they had expressed alarm at Mr. Trump’s durability and asked what could be done.
“I said, ‘If you care about the future of the Republican Party, and you want to have a viable Republican Party, you better start moving,’” Mr. Graham said. “If they don’t push back, they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves.”
“There is not a bit of confusion among our members that if Donald Trump is the nominee, we’re going to get wiped out,” a prominent Republican senator said about Mr. Trump’s effect on Senate races in states such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Pleading for an outside group to run ads highlighting, for example, people who lost their jobs because of some of Mr. Trump’s business deals, the senator warned, “Until somebody with A, the money, and B, the incentive to step up comes along, I worry he kind of glides along unmolested.”
But the same reason the senator insisted on anonymity explains why, just two months before the Iowa caucuses, there has been no such ad campaign: To step up in that way would be to invite the wrath of Mr. Trump, who relishes belittling his critics.
Two of the most potent financial networks in Republican politics, that of the hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer and another led by the industrialists Charles G. and David H. Koch, have each had preliminary conversations about beginning an anti-Trump campaign, according to strategists involved. But Mr. Trump has already mocked Mr. Singer and the Kochs, and officials linked to them said they were reluctant to incur more ferocious counterattacks.
“You have to deal with Trump berating you every day of the week,” explained a strategist briefed on the thinking of both groups.
The sidelines are crowded. The Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; American Crossroads, the group led by Karl Rove; and Right to Rise, the “super PAC” supporting Jeb Bush, have no immediate plans to go after Mr. Trump, officials said.
The exceptions so far: The super PAC supporting the presidential bid of Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio has attacked Mr. Trump, but partly to gain attention and raise money. The Club for Growth, a conservative group, ran a short-lived and unsuccessful ad campaign against Mr. Trump in Iowa this fall but has limited resources.
Slowly, some members of the party’s establishment are reckoning with the idea of a Trump ticket. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has cautioned its incumbents in blunt terms not to let themselves be linked to him.
But beyond sheer intimidation, some members of Congress worry that if the party’s establishment went after Mr. Trump, it would only fuel his anti-Washington appeal.
“I think it would play into his hands and only validate him,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. “A ‘Stop Trump’ effort wouldn’t work, and it might help him.”
And some Republicans repelled by Mr. Trump feel little urgency to attack him because, they say, he is preventing what they see as an even less desirable standard-bearer — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — from consolidating the votes of hard-line conservatives.
“He’s keeping Cruz where he is,” Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist, said of Mr. Trump.
In the House, where the Republican majority is safer, there is less worry about Mr. Trump. While the most competitive Senate races are in swing states, many House districts tilt toward the right, and the populist fervor that is lifting Mr. Trump may also aid Republican candidates for those seats.
But there are also some Republicans who, while uneasy about Mr. Trump, believe that he could attract new voters to the party. “He may bring out people who don’t usually vote, which could be helpful to some of my colleagues,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.
Yet Ms. Collins conceded that she had not fully thought through that notion. “I’m not up next year,” she said, “so I don’t have that dilemma.”
by justdrew » Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:05 am
by 82_28 » Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:17 am
People who have studied the extremist right as a historical and sociopolitical phenomenon in depth are acutely aware of a simple truth: America has been very, very lucky so far when it comes to fascistic political movements.
And now, with the arrival of the Donald Trump 2016 phenomenon, that luck may be about to run out.
Nor is this phenomenon just a flash in the pan. Trump is the logical end result of an endless series of assaults on not just American liberalism, but on democratic institutions themselves, by the American right for many years. It is the long-term creep of radicalization of the right come home to roost.
Fascistic elements and tendencies have always been part of America’s DNA. Indeed, it can be said that some of the worst traits of fascism in Europe were borrowed from their American exemplars – particularly the eliminationist tendencies, manifested first in the form of racial and ethnic segregation, and ultimately in genocidal violence.
Hitler acknowledged at various times his admiration for the American genocide against Native Americans, as well as the segregationist policies of the Jim Crow regime in the South (on which the Nuremberg Race Laws were modeled) and the threat of the lynch mob embodied in the Ku Klux Klan. According to Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler was “passionately interested in the Ku Klux Klan. ... He seemed to think it was a political movement similar to his own." And indeed it was.
Despite the long-running presence of these elements, though, America has never yet given way to fascism. No doubt some of this, in the past half-century at least, was primarily fueled by the natural human recoil that occurred when we got to witness the end result of these tendencies when given the chance to rule by someone like Hitler – namely, the Holocaust. We learned to be appalled by racial and ethnic hatred, by segregation and eliminationism, because we saw the pile of corpses that they produced, and fled in terror.
Those of us who study fascism not just as a historical phenomenon, but as a living and breathing phenomenon that has always previously maintained a kind of half-life on the fringes of the American right, have come to understand that it is both a complex and a simple phenomenon: in one sense, it resembles a dynamic human psychological pathology in that it’s comprised of a complex constellation of traits that are interconnected and whose presence and importance rise and fall according to the stages of development it goes through; and in another, it can in many ways be boiled down to the raw, almost feral imposition of the organized violent will of an angry and fear-ridden human id upon the rest of humankind.
That’s where Donald Trump comes in.
by General Patton » Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:25 am
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 158 guests
