Donald Trump’s latest rant that Capitol police should be prosecuted for beating up ‘innocent J6 protestors’ is so disgusting that it’s beyond belief, but I have to give Trump credit for continuing to figure out something to post on social media every day that keeps his name out there for everyone to see.
Nevertheless, no matter how crazy or repulsive Trump continues to be, no matter how much he ramps up his rhetoric, including stealing a line about ‘vermin’ from Hitler or Mussolini or both, I’m sorry but just because you sound like a Fascist doesn’t make you a Fascist, no matter how many times you threaten to call out the troops to put down riots ‘in the streets.’
Trump has two basic problems which are becoming more apparent every day. First, you can only perform the same show on the road before you run out of audiences who are eager to hear what you say. Second, in this country if you want to attract everyone from either fringe of the political spectrum, the well only runs so deep.
When you have an unemployment rate under 4% and a Dow Jones number just a tad below 36K, it’s pretty tough to make a believable ‘things are going to Hell in a handbasket argument’ which will be bought by anyone other than the people who support you no matter what you say.
Yesterday, I drove past a convenience store with a posted price for regular gasoline at $2.99. That’s some ‘ruinous’ inflation, right?
On the other hand (I love to pretend that I’m President Eisenhower at a press conference with the ‘on the one hand this, on the other hand that’ response which he always gave to every question – duhhh, does anyone out there know who Eisenhower was?) maybe I’m making a mistake by chastising my friends in the liberal media who continue to warn us about the so-called Fascist threat.
The good news about saying that Trump’s a Fascist is that, if nothing else, such comments keep the notion of Fascism alive, which is an historical phenomenon that appeared in Western Europe in the 1920’s and then spread to other regions around the globe. I was reminded of the international aspect of Fascism yesterday with the death of Henry Kissinger who, denials to the contrary, was deeply involved in the installation of a CIA-baked Fascist regime in 1973.
Keeping the concerns about Fascism alive is not just because all societies tend to turn their histories into myths whenever the need to justify a political decision arises, particularly when it’s a decision (like voting for Donad Trump) which may have serious consequences for everyone alive at a certain time and in a certain place.
On the other hand (here we go again with the Eisenhower press conference) creating a myth is one thing, over-mythologizing an event or an individual’s importance is something else. If we have learned one thing from the four years that Donald Trump on occasion sat behind the real Resolute desk, it’s that we now have a political environment dominated by social media, and when it comes to the impact of social media, talk is cheap.
Trump’s latest rhetorical injection into the digital space is a demand that the Capitol police be prosecuted for beating up ‘peaceful’ demonstrators on January 6th. This comment isn’t a statement lifted from the Fascist playbook, it’s a comment made by a guy whose 1st-place hold in the GOP primary campaign is perhaps beginning to wear thin.
Even if you’re leading the field by more than 50 points in the aggregate polls, you can’t feel good about a decision by the Koch Brothers political machine to start dumping millions of dollars into Nikki Haley’s lap. This money will allow Haley to bury DeSantis and turn the GOP primary season into a one-and-one race.
Trump’s poll lead reflects name recognition and nothing else. But studies have indicated that money doesn’t buy votes so much as it helps lesser-known political candidates to become better known. Which is why Trump is increasingly indulging in wild and crazy rants, because since he’s already a household name, sounding like everyone else wouldn’t get him any more political traction at all.
Before they took over the government, Mussolini and Hitler spent most of their time and money equipping and training a quasi-military force which used violence to push any and all political opponents out of the way.
Does Trump have a squadrismo or an SA to help him seize power next year? Yesterday, a mother and son were sentenced for stealing Nancy Pelosi’s laptop after they ‘invaded’ the Capitol on January 6th.
These are the troops that will help Trump install a Fascist regime? To quote Grandpa, ‘gai macht’ (read: stick it up your you know-what.)
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