I’ve witnessed many presidential elections. The first one I took a serious interest in was in 1968. I’ve seen good candidates, I’ve seen bad candidates. I’ve seen some that were witless like Dan, what’s his name? I can’t even remember. The guy who couldn’t spell tomato, or was it potato? That’s right, Quayle. But I’ve never seen a GOP primary contest like this one. To say it marks a new low is so much an understatement that I don’t know how to properly articulate it. It’s also hard to know what it means. Political buffoonery is one thing, we’ve had it for as long as we’ve had politics. But when an entire political party (and we basically only have two that govern, remember?) seems to spontaneously combust in a mix of sulfur and racist fulmination–you start to wonder what it means for the country.
I’m not talking about what happens if one of the buffoons wins. At this point, I don’t even want to go there (if I don’t have to). But what does it mean for us that so many Americans are charmed by these asses?
I’ll leave Ben Carson for another day. Though I can’t help reminding you of this tidbit my son heard on Trevor Noah’s show. It is from last March and originated at Bloomberg News. In the interview, he made so many blooper-errors about Palestine, it’s hard to know where to begin. Rather than dissect them, I’ll leave it whole for you to read it in all it’s ineffable glory:
Carso…was…thinking anew about how Palestinians could establish their own state.
“We need to look at fresh ideas,” said Carson. “I don’t have any problem with the Palestinians having a state, but does it need to be within the confines of Israeli territory? Is that necessary, or can you sort of slip that area down into Egypt? Right below Israel, they have some amount of territory, and it can be adjacent. They can benefit from the many agricultural advances that were made by Israel, because if you fly over that area, you can easily see the demarcation between Egypt and Israel, in terms of one being desert and one being verdant. Technology could transform that area. So why does it need to be in an area where there’s going to be temptation for Hamas to continue firing missiles at relatively close range to Israel?”
I could go on and on. But let’s get to the guy I really want to talk about: Donald Trump. Yeah, I know too much has been written about him already. You’re probably tired of him. But I have a few thoughts that might not have crossed your mind.
Way back in the dark past of American history we had brushes with Nazism. We had isolationists like Lindbergh who thought Hitler was a pretty nifty fellow. My father, who was born and raised in a semi-rural area of New York State, remembered the German-American Bund rallying and training in Stony Point (Rockland County, NY), near his family’s home. We had lunatics like Lincoln Rockwell. But those aren’t the real dangers now. There are no Brown Shirts lifting their arms in a Nazi salute.
But we have blowhards whose views aren’t far removed from them. Is it fair to compare Trump to such an offensive ideology? I think it is. Fascism doesn’t spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. It evolves into something monstrous, but doesn’t start out that way.
It starts with a candidate who argues that all the adherents of one religion must be tallied and marked and surveilled because they represent a danger to the rest of us. It starts with an African-American heckler at a rally, whose assault the candidate incites. When the candidate’s followers beat and kick the heckler, it reminds some of us of the days of lynching. No, there was no rope. The poor man lying on the floor wasn’t in danger of being killed. But this is how it starts. With small incidents of hate. Then they multiply. They become more vicious the less the broader public protests. Till eventually, you have a candidate who maybe, just maybe could deliver a stem-winding Nuremburg-style election speech at a party convention. Could it happen?
My original motivation for this post came today with the news that Trump “remembers” that “thousands and thousands” of Muslim-Americans celebrated the 9/11 attacks and the destruction of the Twin Towers. He was, he claims, sitting in his office in Jersey City and he saw it with his own eyes. Then he says he saw it on TV. But no one can seem to confirm any of this. In fact, it never happened.
Ronald Reagan, who had the excuse of Alzheimer’s onset, imagined that he liberated Nazi death camps or landed on an invasion beach during World War II and was confusing his memory with a film script. In fact, Carl Sagan had some prescient words about this phenomenon that call Donald Trump to mind as well:
It is not hard to imagine serious public dangers emerging out of instances in which political, military, scientific or religious leaders are unable to distinguish fact from vivid fiction.”
But Reagan’s memory lapse is minor compared to Trump’s sheer invention of history. A man who can invent reality can do virtually anything if enough people believe him. Isn’t that what led to Hitler?
Hey, I’m a progressive. So I should love the GOP disintegrating before my eyes. It almost guarantees a Democratic victory in the next election (though I hate the likely winner of that race, but that’s another story). But I’m enough of a student of American history to know that there should be at least two viable, credible political parties. What happens if the GOP collapses into a mush of extremist nostalgia for certainties which never existed? I don’t know. But the prospect scares me. Because it means that too many of my fellow citizens reject the basic values I hold dear about this country. Without them, we are lost.
I think it is very important how other political parties and politicians react to such politicians and such voters. People often have the instinct to pander to such populists because they, in most societies, have the capacity to capture about 30% of the votes. But that is still a minority. A minority we have to deal with somehow, but still a minority.
Irony reversed
Israel is the USA reversed. The BOZOS are in charge creating history and not to mention RELIGION whilst the realist have vanished and dare not show their nose
May I dream to have YOUR SCENARIO in Israel –
what say you
On some important matters, Clinton may be easier to take than The Donald. That said, not sure there’s much difference between themn (or between the parties) on various enormously important matters of federal governance: [1] even (even?) under Obama there’s been almost no talk, no teaching, no warning, no public hand wringing, and especially no action on Global Warming / Climate Change. That problem’s been urgent for 10 years, and there is never any action taken (there’s always time to dither when you’re the frog being boiled); [2] both parties appear to be thoroughly under the thumbs of the oligarchs (big banks, big defense, big pharma, big oil (see [1] above), and of course big-zion.
According to Real Clear Politics, there have been two national head-to-head polls of Clinton vs Trump taken in the past week (since 11/16). Fox News gives Trump a 5-point lead, while PPP (D) gives Clinton a 1-point edge. This could be a very close election.
@ckg: You’re out of your mind. Besides RCP is a GOP outfit.
If you ask Ann Coulter, the election’s already been decided (i.e. Trump’s already our President).
But seriously, Mitt Romney was a far more palatable candidate than Trump and he got thoroughly thumped. If Hillary doesn’t self-destruct and give the election to Trump uncontested, she’ll easily carry 40 states.
I think what we’re seeing with the advent of Trumpism is the disintegration of the farce that is a united America. In fact, there are two Americas (and likely always have been). There’s the progressive America, limited to the north east and west coasts – an America that to a large extent is guided by rationality (if not morality); an America that embraces things like science; an America that more or less understands its place in the world; an America that is productive and wealth-generating.
Then you have the other America – the rotten core in between the two coasts. This is an America that is NOT guided by rationality; it is an America that rejects things like science; an America that rejects everything that has to do with being decent to your fellow humans; an America that is intolerant of people who are even slightly different from themselves; an America that is ANGRY; an America that cannot fit itself into reality. And worst of all – for me as an Israeli – this America LOVES Israel because Netanyahu is their model for a strong leader who talks tough and kills lots of Arabs.
As Noam Chmosky said, the GOP is no longer a political party. It is now basically a hate group with tens of millions of members. They can only win election with heavy gerrymandering and voter suppression. They cannot win the Presidency, but they will dominate state and congressional politics because they will find new and innovative ways to cheat.
We have nothing to fear from Donald Trump unless Hillary Clinton self-destructs and he wins by default. As a stand-alone candidate, he is completely and utterly un-electable. But there is always a chance that the bastards will find a new way to cheat. That is the real danger, and it is one I hope and pray the Democratic party is prepared for,
Then the Republican party has to be dissolved for the mental health of the state, because the GOP is driving America towards a political psychotic break.
Just abolish things like gerrymandering and the GOP will disappear. You’ll still have millions of ANGRY white haters in the rotten core of the country, and they will probably seek another outlet to vent their anger into, but, yes, take away from them the power to intervene in national policy because they are completely irrational people.
Danny, your analysis of the coasts and what’s between them is just silly, and likely bigoted; I hope you’re not serious. If you refer to Chomsky, perhaps you should read him.
In reaction to a number of articles on a psychotic America and Trumpism …
The Terror Trap
A timely review of what propaganda does to America … and it’s only getting worse under the regime of the Obama administration. The US losing its moral compass in a turbulent world. Battling whistleblowers by prosecution for treason, a most secretive administration, revising and enactment of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 and undermining protest by the cognitive infiltration theory perpetuated by Cass Sunstein.
Intro of my newest diary – The Terror Trap Laid By Warmongers In the US and Israel.
The two party system and a first-past-the-post electoral system seem to me a dubious legacy of British politiical culture. Australia too is saddled with it and so is Canada, though Trudeau seems to have promised to try and introduce proportional representation. New Zealand has already opted for that.
The main drawbacks of a two party system seem to me that it leads to inequities (the Australian Greens for instance had in the last federal elections 8.65 of the vote but got only one seat in a 150 member house) and a political antagonism that prevents reasoned consideration of the issues at hand. This is particularly noticeable in the US but the Australian parliament too is hardly a place of reasoned debate.
The main drawback of a proportional electoral system, as I have known it in Holland, is that when a great national decision i required (as for instance for Holland the decolonisation of Indonesia) a multi party coalition government has great trouble generating the required parliamentary majority. England had less trouble with the decolonisation of India because the Labor party was solely in charge then (things would have been different if Churchill had come back). By the same token if the Dutch labor party had been solely in charge then many thousands of lives could have been spared on both sides.
However, a multi party coalition can also be a brake on great folly. A multi party coalition would probably not have gone for the invasion of Iraq for instance.
The Anglo Saxon two party system also knows a strong head of government, a president or Prime Minister British Style. A Dutch Prime Minister is merely a “primus inter pares”. He doesn’t have the authority to hire and fire his colleagues for instance. The Dutch are uncomfortable with putting too much power in one hand and prefer a collegial system of decision making. This also holds for other institutions such as academe. I have found the hierarchical system in Australian universities with a strong Vice-Chancellor at the top quite off-putting.
I don’t know why the Brits are always boasting about having brought forth the “mother of parliaments”. It is actually not a very democratic country.
To be precise, Arye, Australia does not have a first-past-the-post system, it has a single-transferable-vote system, which is much better than FPTP. And for the Senate, Australia does have proportional representation in a similar manner to the US – by State. Australia also has compulsory voting, unlike the US or UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Australia
@Gornutne
Thanks for being precise. I am aware of Australia’s preferential system since I have voted here quite a few times (compulsory voting, as you rightly point out). But my main point was about the two party system and as far as that is concerned this preferential voting makes very little difference. Cp:
“Following the full allocation of preferences, it is possible to derive a two-party-preferred figure, where the votes have been allocated between the two main candidates in the election. In Australia, this is usually between the candidates from the Coalition parties and the Australian Labor Party.” (from the Wiki you gave the address of).
One should not be deceived by the term “Coalition parties” – it is just one conservative block.
The “liberal” nation run by Geert Wilders …
○ Dutch welcome: Pig heads left at migrants’ camp entrance in Netherlands
That’s what Islamophobia does to people, an emotional reaction leading to a call for a “strong person.”