(Note: Now that we have confirmation that the lost plane went down most probably due to a terrorist bomb, I took down the drawing of Superman meant to represent Trump saving a plane.)
Waking to non-stop news about the missing Egyptair flight we learn that Donald Trump Tweeted last night that under him as president such terrorist attacks would be prevented. Of course, we don’t know yet what caused the crash. Never mind. Trump is taking advantage of what everyone is thinking to make political points. As I pay attention to the talking heads saying exactly what they said seven hours ago when I went to bed I surf the web I come across with this Wall Street Journal piece by Robert Kagan: This is how fascism comes to America. Here are some quotes with my emphasis added.
We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies — his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.
Note below how Kagan’s last two sentences are chillingly relevant to Trump’s strongman fascistic appeal.
This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” Fascist movements, too, had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society. “National socialism” was a bundle of contradictions, united chiefly by what, and who, it opposed; fascism in Italy was anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical. Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Fuhrer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation. Whatever the problem, he could fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, he could vanquish it, and it was unnecessary for him to explain how. Today, there is Putinism, which also has nothing to do with belief or policy but is about the tough man who singlehandedly defends his people against all threats, foreign and domestic.
Putin, Hitler, and Mussolini prove that the fascistic protector from all things the populace fears, or can be convinced to hate, mass appeal doesn’t require a literally muscled superhuman with kick-ass superpowers. Putin is the only one to pose shirtless on a large horse, or in a judo gee. Trump’s body has probably gone to flab, so I don’t think we’ll see him flipping and opponent in judo practice, or riding a horse and flexing his muscles. Thank goodness for small favors!
However, the egomaniacal Trump, who admitted admiration for Putin, wants to be a superhero. He feeds off the worship of the crowds. Not only that, and really much worse, he relishes vanquishing his “evil” foes.
Like Superman, he wants to fly into the sky, grab a crashing plane, and carry it to an airport to the relieved and amazed cheers of the crowds.
This is how the Daily Mail in England reports on Donald Trump.
