Over the past week or so, something unusual has happened in American politics: political figures, mainstream scholars and commentators are describing a leading contender for president of the United States as a fascist. Sure, people on barstools around the country have done this forever but it’s unprecedented to see such a thing on national television and in the pages of major newspapers.
For instance, take a look at this piece by MJ Lee at CNN: [I]t it was after Trump started calling for stronger surveillance of Muslim-Americans in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks that a handful of conservatives ventured to call Trump’s rhetoric something much more dangerous: fascism. […]
“Trump is a fascist. And that’s not a term I use loosely or often. But he’s earned it,” tweeted Max Boot, a conservative fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who is advising Marco Rubio.
“Forced federal registration of US citizens, based on religious identity, is fascism. Period. Nothing else to call it,” Jeb Bush national security adviser John Noonan wrote on Twitter.
Conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace, who has endorsed Ted Cruz, also used the “F” word last week: “If Obama proposed the same religion registry as Trump every conservative in the country would call it what it is — creeping fascism.”
Donald Trump: "A billionaire brute.
Timothy Egan at The New York Times writes about Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the race for the Republican nomination:
"Take him at his word — albeit, a worthless thing given his propensity for telling outright lies and not backing down when called on them — Donald Trump’s reign would be a police state. He has now outlined a series of measures that would make the United States an authoritarian nightmare. Trump is no longer entertaining, or diversionary. He’s a billionaire brute, his bluster getting more ominous by the day."h/t DailyKos
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What does this say about the people who support Trump? Do they really not understand that forcing people to register by religion is morally as well as Constitutionally repugnant? I imagine Trump's supporters think of themselves as patriotic Americans, but do they not know American values? Laws? Decency? How can they approve of a man who suggests these abhorrent policies? Who are these thousands and thousands of people? Did they grow up here in America? They seem more foreign and contra-America than the people Trump is suggesting we surveil, register, and even monitor in their mosques.
Have Donald Trump's supporters lost their minds?
18 comments:
Believe it or not, Shaw, people really like this guy. I'd find it hard to believe anyone thinking of voting for him could be sane or could consider him or herself a patriotic American. What he's suggested he'd do is beyond disturbing, it is something a fascist government would implement. But his admirers are so blind to this because of their hatred toward Obama. I've even read on one of those extreme right angry-mob type blogs that they're blaming Obama for the rise of Donald Trump. That's how removed they are from their own insanity -- an insanity that the Tea Party brought on this country: A belligerent boob like Trump.
This is certainly setting up an intriguing dynamic for the general election. The Republican establishment is gambling everything on the hope that they can stop Trump from being nominated. If he nevertheless is the nominee -- which is still growing more, not less, likely as time passes -- how can the party support a nominee whom so many of its leading lights are on record as calling a fascist and grossly unfit to lead? It seems impossible. We've been talking for years about a future split or collapse of the Republican party, but in this scenario it could finally happen.
As for Trump's supporters, to me that's the least surprising element of the story. There's a subculture in this country that is not exactly fascist and certainly not organized or ideologically coherent, but burns with hatred and resentment toward vast ill-defined categories of people, naïvely idolizes nihilistic figures ranging from Adolf Hitler to Charlie Manson, and nurtures fantasies of some vague future revolution where they will take over and slaughter all of "those people" (google "Turner Diaries" and "Day of the Rope" for a taste). Some of them drift in and out of groups like the neo-Nazis or the KKK, most don't. Trump's anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim rhetoric has got their attention like no previous mainstream politician. They've always been out there. Most people just didn't notice until now.
Then there's the more "normal" element, the teabagger types who are enraged at the Republican establishment for not being confrontational enough with Obama. They're not turned on by Trump's fascist stances like the first group is, but they're willing to overlook such things rather than turn away from the one guy who seems able to serve as an effective vehicle for their anger.
Those groups combined probably account for the core of Trump's support. Obviously, a party that lets its nominee be selected by them is no longer functioning as part of a normal modern democratic system. But with the non-Trump Republican vote splintered among so many candidates, it's possible and even likely.
This is the guy the "patriotic" Tea Baggers like:
"Donald Trump said Tuesday during a campaign stop in South Carolina that Americans should inform on each other and denounce their neighbors to the authorities:
“People move into a house a block down the road, you know who’s going in. You can see and you report them to the local police.
“You’re pretty smart, right? We know if there’s something going on, report them. Most likely you’ll be wrong, but that’s OK.
“That’s the best way. Everybody’s their own cop in a way. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it.
A recent book about Nazi Germany’ Gestapo (Secret State Police) tells us, “The Gestapo was not bound by any legal or administrative accountability or burden of proof.”
You’ll probably be wrong when you denounce your neighbors but that’s okay. Proof is for losers.
The authors, Carsten Dams and Michael Stolle, relate that while denunciations can occur even in democratic states (obviously Trump is proof of that) and “represent to a certain extent the normal condition of any political intervention,” they point ominously to the fact that in the Third Reich it was “men from the lower and middle classes who make up a disproportionately large percentage of the denouncers.”
IOW, Trump's supporters: Fearful people who know nothing about freedom or American values, but would make the Gestapo proud.
Trump IS the present day republican party. They conjured him up as the representative of what they value: hatred of all Muslims, all liberals, all Latinos, women, nonChristians, the disabled, Jews, African-Americans, science, and as someone here said, human decency.
Trump is the Tea Party Republicans all wrapped up in a repulsive package.
A well articulated opinion from a moderate.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/261252-gop-in-panic-over-trump
Well, that didn't take long. The Republican "stop Trump" campaign is already running out of steam.
These people are hopeless. Terrified of Trump, terrified of splitting their party by trying to stop him..... Trump can go all out because he's got nothing to lose. Even if he doesn't get the nomination, he just goes back to his billionaire lifestyle having had a year of attention, thrills, and twisting everybody's tail. He's going to just bulldoze them aside.
Republican party in Thanksgiving-parade form
Shaw, re your banner "Republicans, you're better than this."
Really? If they were, why are they supporting this fatuous egomaniacal low-life. IMO they're not "better than this" they are as loutish as this.
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Really? If they were, why are they supporting this fatuous egomaniacal low-life.
Many are not.
But the link provided ought to beneath you. At least IMNHO.
From the link Anon @1:44 posted:
"...it is clear that many in the Republican base are excited by what he says and not revolted as decent people should be."
I've been saying this for a while: Decent people do not support Trump at all. Those who do should be introspective to understand where their approval for this neo-fascist is coming from. I'm guessing it's from a deep, dark pit of hatred they've been nursing since January 20, 2009.
Those who support Trump are NOT decent people.
RN, exactly. Many GOPers are NOT supporting Trump, however, a large noisy group do support him.
I do agree with RRG that decent people do not support Trump.
First the Trumper sez the NYTimes reporter was a "nice guy" then sez something like "now this poor guy, you ought to see this poor guy." Then Trumper jerked his hands around while mocking the reporter. Later in a tweet Trumper sez he don't know who the guy is and he's never met him. Well how does Trumper know the reporter was a "nice guy" if he never met him or doesn't know who he is?
Does any of this lying matter to his supporters? It looks like it don't. See they howl about Hitlery being a liar. They howl about Obama being a liar, but they do love Trumper being a liar because he's their liar. So it's really not lying that bothers the hypocrites, it who in their tribe does it. If one of their tribe does it, it's not being PC and tellin' it like it is.
The great thing is that Trumper is hated by most Americans and the idiots who support him are in for a large surprise if they think he's gonna to be the next president. No way. No effen' way.
Shaw, just found this.
From the "We're Not Surprised Department:"
Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, says that anyone who supports Donald Trump for president is a low information voter.
USA Today: “Trump Supporters Uneducated” Polls also consistently show that Trump’s support comes disproportionately from those with relatively low levels of education. For instance, a recent ABC/Washington Post survey found that 40% of Republican-leaning voters without college degrees support Trump, compared with only 19% of college graduates.
Well that explains why the inmates of the Smut Hut love Trump, dunnit? The lower your education the more likely you are to go hard for Trump. And the more likely you are to be a Smut Hut regular idiot supporter as well. But you knew that already, didn't you. These are the same trogs who thought Sarah Palin was brilliant and Herman Cain would beat Obama in a presidential election.
I wonder who ties their shoes for them in the morning.
Dana Milbank:
Republican elites are panicky about the durable dominance of Trump (and to a lesser extent Ben Carson) in the presidential race. They are right to worry, but I don’t feel much sympathy. Trump is a problem of their own creation.
Trump gets ever more base in his bigotry — and yet, with few and intermittent exceptions, rival candidates, party leaders and GOP lawmakers decline to call him out. So he continues to rise, benefiting from tacit acceptance of his intolerance.
My Op-Ed commentary is now sin-dictated and will appear weekly in Scripps newspapers:
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Trump Cards
Donald Trump is the man of the hour who can grab any bull by the horns and run with it. There is no teapot in a tempest he can't handle. In Donald we trust. E pluribus Trump ‘em!
When other candidates were grasping at straws that broke the camel’s back, only Donald Trump came out like a horse on fire. You can always count on him to drive off the bridge when we come to it — and burn that bridge when we cross it.
Donald will round up foreigners and domestics alike with snowballs from Hell raining hot air down the mountain with a full head of steam. But just in case it’s deja-vu all over again, he’ll line them up in pairs by three (or alphabetical order by size), then make them clean hotel rooms and wash your underwear.
Donald will catch those chickens crossing the road and kick the stuffing out of any turkey with its pants down. Better to curse losers who screw in light-bulbs than to light a candle in the dark.
If terrorists cut the water supply, he’ll never let any Celebrity Apprentice run dry. He’ll rain down cats and dogs in droves like gangbusters wearing combat galoshes. If the shoe fits, it’s probably on the wrong foot.
Never again will we be stuck between a rock and a frying pan, and no more beating around the Bushes! He will turn every outhouse into a White House and make America grrr8 again!
The Donald always has an ace up a hole where the sun don't shine and hits the wall running.
Kathleen Parker tries to blame all Americans for Donald Trump, the short-fingered vulgarian:
Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker is appropriately appalled by Donald Trump, who she refers to as a “a mean, narcissistic, bloviating SOB.” She accurately describes him as “the ultimate personification of a variety of vices (greed, intemperance, gluttony, wrath, pride).”
But, you know, someone must be blamed for his popularity, and it can’t just be the people who support him. It must be all of us.
So, for example, it’s not just that Trump personifies vice, it’s that “our culture” has embraced vice.
We’re all consumerists who are six seconds away from stampeding our neighbors in the local Wal Mart as we seek the latest “deal” on a holiday gift. And we’ve all embraced relativism, so we’re incapable of making basic moral judgments
Sorry Kathleen, you're wrong. I've read numerous right wing blogs and seen where they've praised this loud-mouthed baboon because he "tells it like it is." They ignore his fascistic ideas and his gruesome mockeries of Latinos, women, Muslims, veterans, and the disabled. The fact is that the Tea Party Republicans created this monster, and it is ONLY THEY not other Americans who are responsible for this disaster. Just like the weasel, Trump, Kathleen blames others for this pox on our culture, not the Tea Party Republicans who are keeping him at the top of the polls.
He is a Tea Party Republican and no amount of lying about that will change it.
(O)CT(O),
Great! Thanks for posting it here. I need something smart and amusing to read.
I'm running out of things to say about guns, so I'll post some happy Trump news here.
he has 25 to 30 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That’s something like 6 to 8 percent of the electorate overall, or about the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.)
Coincidence? I don't think so.
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