“Exhausted Democracy” 2
Holger Stark, Der Spiegel’s Washington Bureau chief, attempts to understand Trumpery. A snippet (emphasis added):
This aggressive nationalism is paired with an absurd authoritarianism. Indeed, there is something operatic about Trump promising his voters that after he wins the election, his first official act will be to call the CEO of Ford and force him to move his auto plants from Mexico back to the United States within 48 hours — not to mention his vow to force Apple to stop making iPhones in China. But Trump’s words have made an impact.
Follow the link; you may consider this a required reading assignment.
May 21, 2016 at 10:07 pm
Not altogether. You know I wrote about American whitemanistan thinking in contrast with reports on Germany in “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”
But Trump, unlike Hitler, is all fake. Hitler actually smashed corporate Germany, its industry and banks, into submission. They were made toadies, not just by haranguing but by national command, and they lived to regret it.
Not quite the same here.
Corporate America is not going to regret Trump. They’ll endure him because the rest of the world will not unite to turn the United States into rubble. Unless we provoke a thermonuclear war.
Now, OTOH, it’s easy to understand the appeal of a president, or someone who is a strongman, who is not at all reluctant to use his microphone to condemn specific companies and corporate America. That’s something to be appreciated. It’s easy to understand the allure, whether it comes from a total phony or, um, you know who.
Maybe we have to think about a thing like, what if a war really comes home to us? What if what we have coming actually got here? What then?
May 22, 2016 at 3:01 pm
I think your point that Hitler and Trump are not the same, in that Hitler was sincere (!) and Trump is a medicine show barker, is valid.
That prompts a question: If I’m driving along and someone runs a stop sign and t-bones me at an intersection, does it matter to anyone other than a sociologist whether it was by accident or on purpose?
I’m still dead.
Also, too.