I mean, the pussy-grabbing seems authentic enough, and his business and show-business records speak for themselves: he is a thoroughgoingly reprehensible human being. But what the heartland has made of him is something else entirely, something artificial and reflective rather than directive: in his accidental quest for the presidency he has soaked up the image of gun-toting Jesus, the dead-steeltown rage at thwarted manifest destiny, the frothing blind hatred of all things liberal and "elite"; and he has ended up espousing radically xenophobic viewpoints he had no truck with more'n 15 month ago.
The alarums liberals have sounded all this time—the preemptively anagodwinian comparisons with Hitler and so forth—have been all about "facism"; but the usage is sloppy as always. The image fascism evokes in mosta folk is xenopohobic authoritarianism—fears of which the journalist-thrashing Trumpisti certainly reinforce. But fascism has a more precise economic meaning:
The Democratic establishment is arguably every bit as fascist as the GOP—owned by industry, beholden to the bottom line, intolerant of dissent, ever more parsimonious with guaranteed constitutional rights—they're just more educated and slick about it. And they know they can throw social liberals enough bones like gay marriage to distract us from the cutpurse at our heels. In this regard—the culpability and collusion of the so-called left—Trump fans are absolutely spot on; but they only get it half-right: once again, in the us-and-them economy, we see only their iniquity. It's an astonishing feat of selective blindness not to see and recognize that this huckster billionaire, this amoral businesscheat, is not a legitimate friend of the working poor—but there it is.
The alarums liberals have sounded all this time—the preemptively anagodwinian comparisons with Hitler and so forth—have been all about "facism"; but the usage is sloppy as always. The image fascism evokes in mosta folk is xenopohobic authoritarianism—fears of which the journalist-thrashing Trumpisti certainly reinforce. But fascism has a more precise economic meaning:
So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a “model” by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe. A version of economic fascism was in fact adopted in the United States in the 1930s and survives to this day. In the United States these policies were not called “fascism” but “planned capitalism.”
And the inevitable result of such a rich-people circlejerk is that the poor are increasingly cranky about being fed table scraps and invent hatreds against entire classes of people to pursue in vicarious vengeance.
The Democratic establishment is arguably every bit as fascist as the GOP—owned by industry, beholden to the bottom line, intolerant of dissent, ever more parsimonious with guaranteed constitutional rights—they're just more educated and slick about it. And they know they can throw social liberals enough bones like gay marriage to distract us from the cutpurse at our heels. In this regard—the culpability and collusion of the so-called left—Trump fans are absolutely spot on; but they only get it half-right: once again, in the us-and-them economy, we see only their iniquity. It's an astonishing feat of selective blindness not to see and recognize that this huckster billionaire, this amoral businesscheat, is not a legitimate friend of the working poor—but there it is.
Derp, saith America. Derp.
In any case, the engine of Trumpism—the populist groudnswell and tearful, rapturous allegiance to a pro rasslin' heel—isn't fascism. It's fundamentalism. It's not stupidity; it's programmatic ignorance. It's the inevitable and planned result of the forced starvation of public liberal education in America. We have shat in our bed for generations. Yeah, it's gonna stink some. Go figure.
In any case, the engine of Trumpism—the populist groudnswell and tearful, rapturous allegiance to a pro rasslin' heel—isn't fascism. It's fundamentalism. It's not stupidity; it's programmatic ignorance. It's the inevitable and planned result of the forced starvation of public liberal education in America. We have shat in our bed for generations. Yeah, it's gonna stink some. Go figure.
