Posted on 07/18/2015 3:31:04 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s not too interesting to say that Donald Trump is a nationalist and aspiring despot who is manipulating bourgeois resentment, nativism, and ignorance to feed his power lust. It’s uninteresting because it is obviously true. It’s so true that stating it sounds more like an observation than a criticism.
I just heard Trump speak live. It was an awesome experience, like an interwar séance of once-powerful dictators who inspired multitudes, drove countries into the ground, and died grim deaths.
His speech at FreedomFest lasted a full hour, and I consider myself fortunate for having heard it. It was a magnificent exposure to an ideology that is very much present in American life, though hardly acknowledged. It lives mostly hidden in dark corners, and we don’t even have a name for it. You bump into it at neighborhood barbecues, at Thanksgiving dinner when Uncle Harry has the floor, at the hardware store when two old friends in line to checkout mutter about the state of the country.
The ideology is a 21st century version of right fascism — one of the most politically successful ideological strains of 20th century politics. Though hardly anyone talks about it today, we really should. It is still real. It exists. It is distinct. It is not going away. Trump has tapped into it, absorbing unto his own political ambitions every conceivable bourgeois resentment: race, class, sex, religion, economic. You would have to be hopelessly ignorant of modern history not to see the outlines and where they end up.
For now, Trump seems more like comedy than reality. I want to laugh about what he said, like reading a comic-book version of Franco, Mussolini, or Hitler. And truly I did laugh, as when he denounced the existence of tech support in India that serves American companies (“how can it be cheaper to call people there than here?” — as if he still thinks that long-distance charges apply).
Let’s hope this laughter doesn’t turn to tears.
As an aside, I mean no criticism of FreedomFest’s organizer Mark Skousen in allowing Trump to speak at this largely libertarian gathering. Mark invited every Republican candidate to address the 2,200-plus crowd. Only two accepted. Moreover, Mark is a very savvy businessman himself, and this conference operates on a for-profit basis. He does not have the luxury of giving the microphone to only people who pass the libertarian litmus test. His goal is to put on display the ideas that matter in our time and assess them by the standards of true liberty.
In my view, it was a brilliant decision to let him speak. Lovers of freedom need to confront the views of a man with views like this. What’s more, of all the speeches I heard at FreedomFest, I learned more from this one than any other. I heard, for the first time in my life, what a modern iteration of a consistently statist but non-leftist outlook on politics sounds and feels like in our own time. And I watched as most of the audience undulated between delight and disgust — with perhaps only 10% actually cheering his descent into vituperative anti-intellectualism. That was gratifying.
As of this writing, Trump is leading in the polls in the Republican field. He is hated by the media, which is a plus for the hoi polloi in the GOP. He says things he should not, which is also a plus for his supporters. He is brilliant at making belligerent noises rather than having worked out policy plans. He knows that real people don’t care about the details; they only want a strongman who shares their values. He makes fun of the intellectuals, of course, as all populists must do. Along with this penchant, Trump encourages a kind of nihilistic throwing out of rationality in favor of a trust in his own genius. And people respond, as we can see.
So, what does Trump actually believe? He does have a philosophy, though it takes a bit of insight and historical understanding to discern it. Of course race baiting is essential to the ideology, and there was plenty of that. When a Hispanic man asked a question, Trump interrupted him and asked if he had been sent by the Mexican government. He took it a step further, dividing blacks from Hispanics by inviting a black man to the microphone to tell how his own son was killed by an illegal immigrant.
Because Trump is the only one who speaks this way, he can count on support from the darkest elements of American life. He doesn’t need to actually advocate racial homogeneity, call for a whites-only sign to be hung at immigration control, or push for expulsion or extermination of undesirables. Because such views are verboten, he has the field alone, and he can count on the support of those who think that way by making the right noises.
Trump also tosses little bones to the Christian Right, enough to allow them to believe that he represents their interests. Yes, it’s implausible and hilarious. But the crowd who looks for this is easily won with winks and nudges, and those he did give. At the speech I heard, he railed against ISIS and its war against Christians, pointing out further than he is a Presbyterian and thus personally affected every time ISIS beheads a Christian. This entire section of his speech was structured to rally the nationalist Christian strain that was the bulwark of support for the last four Republican presidents.
But as much as racialist and religious resentment is part of his rhetorical apparatus, it is not his core. His core is about business, his own business and his acumen thereof. He is living proof that being a successful capitalist is no predictor of one’s appreciation for an actual free market (stealing not trading is more his style). It only implies a love of money and a longing for the power that comes with it. Trump has both.
What do capitalists on his level do? They beat the competition. What does he believe he should do as president? Beat the competition, which means other countries, which means wage a trade war. If you listen to him, you would suppose that the U.S. is in some sort of massive, epochal struggle for supremacy with China, India, Malaysia, and, pretty much everyone else in the world.
It takes a bit to figure out what the heck he could mean. He speaks of the United States as if it were one thing, one single firm. A business. “We” are in competition with “them,” as if the U.S. were IBM competing against Samsung, Apple, or Dell. “We” are not 300 million people pursuing unique dreams and ideas, with special tastes or interests, cooperating with people around the world to build prosperity. “We” are doing one thing, and that is being part of one business.
In effect, he believes that he is running to be the CEO of the country — not just of the government (as Ross Perot once believed) but of the entire country. In this capacity, he believes that he will make deals with other countries that cause the U.S. to come out on top, whatever that could mean. He conjures up visions of himself or one of his associates sitting across the table from some Indian or Chinese leader and making wild demands that they will buy such and such amount of product else “we” won’t buy their product.
Yes, it’s bizarre. As Nick Gillespie said, he has a tenuous grasp on reality. Trade theory from hundreds of years plays no role in his thinking at all. To him, America is a homogenous unit, no different from his own business enterprise. With his run for president, he is really making a takeover bid, not just for another company to own but for an entire country to manage from the top down, under his proven and brilliant record of business negotiation, acquisition, and management.
You see why the whole speech came across as bizarre? It was. And yet, maybe it was not. In the 18th century, there is a trade theory called mercantilism that posited something similar: ship the goods out and keep the money in. It builds up industrial cartels that live at the expense of the consumer. In the 19th century, this penchant for industrial protectionism and mercantilism became guild socialism, which mutated later into fascism and then into Nazism. You can read Mises to find out more on how this works.
What’s distinct about Trumpism, and the tradition of thought it represents, is that it is non-leftist in its cultural and political outlook and yet still totalitarian in the sense that it seeks total control of society and economy and places no limits on state power. The left has long waged war on bourgeois institutions like family, church, and property. In contrast, right fascism has made its peace with all three. It (very wisely) seeks political strategies that call on the organic matter of the social structure and inspire masses of people to rally around the nation as a personified ideal in history, under the leadership of a great and highly accomplished man.
Trump believes himself to be that man.
He sounds fresh, exciting, even thrilling, like a man with a plan and a complete disregard for the existing establishment and all its weakness and corruption. This is how strongmen take over countries. They say some true things, boldly, and conjure up visions of national greatness under their leadership. They’ve got the flags, the music, the hype, the hysteria, the resources, and they work to extract that thing in many people that seeks heroes and momentous struggles in which they can prove their greatness.
Think of Commodus (161-192 AD) in his war against the corrupt Roman senate. His ascension to power came with the promise of renewed Rome. What he brought was inflation, stagnation, and suffering. Historians have usually dated the fall of Rome from his leadership. Or, if you prefer pop culture, think of Bane, the would-be dictator of Gotham in Batman, who promises an end to democratic corruption, weakness, and loss of civic pride. He sought a revolution against the prevailing elites in order to gain total power unto himself.
These people are all the same. They are populists. Oh how they love the people, and how they hate the establishment. They defy all civic conventions. Their ideology is somewhat organic to the nation, not a wacky import like socialism. They promise greatness. They have an obsession with the problem of trade and mercantilist belligerence as the only solution. They have zero conception of the social order as a complex and extended ordering of individual plans, one that functions through freedom and individual rights.
This is a dark history and I seriously doubt that Trump himself is aware of it. Instead, he just makes it up as he goes along, speaking from his gut. This penchant has always served him well. It cannot serve a whole nation well. Indeed, the very prospect is terrifying, and not just for the immigrant groups and imports he has chosen to scapegoat for all the country’s problems. It’s a disaster in waiting for everyone.
Huh?
Can’t help but compare Trump’s successes and background to Hussein’s, who couldn’t run a Dairy Queen franchise.
I’d love to see Trump at a negotiating table with a few undesirable countries. HE probably would not sell us down the river. Of course, he’s not a Muslim, either.
More flack. Good. Still over target.
Obama couldn't even serve the sundaes.
A typical example of awkward youthful libertarianism. He’s just all mixed up and drawing silly conclusions.
Yet the author accuses Trump of using racism and of scapegoating immigrant groups? How does the author think someone should talk about the illegal problem or isn't it a problem to the author?
Yes, I read the whole thing.
Brevity is the soul of wit and Jeffery Tucker is witless...
What do we have now?
I like Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin but neither can win...
I have been “retired” for a long time and meet up with guys and gals that are retired or recently retired. I have a great retirement job.
Recently I worked with a guy that was planning his retirement in detail months before it occurred. He faced the prospect of nothing to do and was furiously digging around to remedy that prospect. It was comical and tragic. He had no clue about reality. He was trying too hard.
There are others less motivated that do little or nothing and bum around. They frequently just die
Trump is an active man, engaged in all sorts of endeavors and yet he is facing retirement and is looking for something to do. All his business life he has been somewhat constrained to a narrow path to please his business associates and bankers and such
When retired, with all the money he needs, he can cast off those restraints in retirement and do something completely different, what he wants to, make a difference as an American. He can retire, do that which he could not, endeavor to rid the country of that perceived as harmful. He can have as his retirement job, saving the country from the present tyranny.
Some accuse him of flying false colors, acting Republican when he is a Democrat. It is possible that just the opposite is occurring. He has been acting as a Democrat as a business necissity in a Democrat city and state with liberal Jews as both colleagues and customers. In retirement he can cast off that facade and be himself. That is precisely what he is boisterously doing.
It is not an act....... the act was his life pre retirement
Well, I can believe it because I am over the retirement fence looking back
Considering how far this country has lurched to the left, having someone with the will to unapologetically turning it back to its roots would not be a bad thing and may be just what we need at this moment.
A right winger without strong convictions and will would not get the job done. The people on my list are Cruz, Trump and Walker. The rest are either RINOS or simply don’t have what it takes to withstand the vicious assaults from the leftist media, Hollywood, education establishment and bureaucracy that would undoubtedly come.
True. But the “I just heard Trump speak at the Freedom....” was last weekend. So it took him a while to cobble that screed together.
I picked up on the fact that you like Cruz. I myself have rooted for Cruz, here on FR. But my one reservation was whether the smooth, erudite Cruz has the chops to stand up to the ruthless entrenched cartel of the uniparty.
Then Trump announced, and after a few weeks of watching and listening to him I’m convinced that Trump DOES have the chops for the job. And that doesn’t really take anything away from Cruz. In normal times, and in a campaign in the ‘50s, when candidates and parties were still somewhat honest and honorable and pro-American, Trump would be an ideal candidate.
But these aren’t normal times. Neither party gives a d@mn about the true survival of America. If they did, we wouldn’t have hoardes of aliens pouring across an open border, or alien criminals given carte blanche to break our laws, murder our citizens and in too many cases, jump on the welfare benefits wagon and live off the taxpayers. We wouldn’t have manufacturers given INCENTIVES to take their jobs to other countries and then bring their finished products back without any tax, tarrif or other benefit to the Country or our unemployed citizens. Nor would we be running an $18 Trillion deficit, soon to be $20 or $21 Trillion. The list is endless.
No, desperate times call for desperate measures. We MUST go with our big gun, Trump right now. Another 8 years of a Hillary or a Jebbie will finish us off as a viable, $olvent Nation. After 8 years of Trump undoing a lot of the damage the left of both parties has done; that will be the time for a Cruz or a Walker or a Palin to run for POTUS and extend the dynasty another 8 years. IMHO.
Trump/Cruz 2016.
That sounds plausible to me.
When it comes to Trump I mostly go with my gut. I see people say he’s faking it but that’s not my read on him. I think this is the real Trump. That said, I seriously doubt he’s got a well thought out political philosophy like Cruz does. But I do think we are seeing his true instincts here.
Yes, bizarre at times...but very on the nose sensible at times too...
You have to get through some faux elitist thinking first, but eventually he really did nail Trump with the few paragraphs on Trump’s idea that America is one entity, one company, and that he’s going to be CEO of America and make sure we “win” - against the single entities of China, India, OPEC, etc.
I should'a put in the word "most" in the sentence about "mealy mouthed" politicians. He certainly is the exception to the psycho-babble we are getting from the rest of the Republican wanna-be's!
He speaks of the United States as if it were one thing, one single firm. A business. “We” are in competition with “them,” as if the U.S. were IBM competing against Samsung, Apple, or Dell. “We” are not 300 million people pursuing unique dreams and ideas, with special tastes or interests, cooperating with people around the world to build prosperity. “We” are doing one thing, and that is being part of one business.
In effect, he believes that he is running to be the CEO of the country — not just of the government (as Ross Perot once believed) but of the entire country. In this capacity, he believes that he will make deals with other countries that cause the U.S. to come out on top, whatever that could mean. He conjures up visions of himself or one of his associates sitting across the table from some Indian or Chinese leader and making wild demands that they will buy such and such amount of product else “we” won’t buy their product.
. ...to him, America is a homogenous unit, no different from his own business enterprise. With his run for president, he is really making a takeover bid, not just for another company to own but for an entire country to manage from the top down, under his proven and brilliant record of business negotiation, acquisition, and management.
All of this is true. Then again, you seem to look at America as one entity, and not 300 million people with individual goals, dreams, aspirations, etc, too. It's a foolish naive view.
Gee an America first policy is naive to you. Well that statement makes you another boring gloBULList.
Jeffrey Tucker is just tooooo full of himself. Try to get some overnight relief, Jeffrey.
He speaks of the United States as if it were one thing, one single firm. A business. “We” are in competition with “them,” as if the U.S. were IBM competing against Samsung, Apple, or Dell. “We” are not 300 million people pursuing unique dreams and ideas, with special tastes or interests, cooperating with people around the world to build prosperity. “We” are doing one thing, and that is being part of one business. In effect, he believes that he is running to be the CEO of the country — not just of the government (as Ross Perot once believed) but of the entire country. In this capacity, he believes that he will make deals with other countries that cause the U.S. to come out on top, whatever that could mean. He conjures up visions of himself or one of his associates sitting across the table from some Indian or Chinese leader and making wild demands that they will buy such and such amount of product else “we” won’t buy their product. .... Trade theory from hundreds of years plays no role in his thinking at all. To him, America is a homogenous unit, no different from his own business enterprise. With his run for president, he is really making a takeover bid, not just for another company to own but for an entire country to manage from the top down, under his proven and brilliant record of business negotiation, acquisition, and management.
I would like to see if the author could deconstruct Hillary. I doubt it.
I believe you mean Cruz would be an ideal candidate in normal times.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.