The Trump Phenom (Abridged)
It was 1914, late in June, and
the Archduke was making his signature tour of the troubled provinces in and
around Sarajevo. It was a tour to show
how far things had come within the Empire in reconciling differences between its
many minority groups. Planned ahead of
time, then altered at the last minute, the motorcade opted to pass along its
previous, leaked route through the city.
All of a sudden shots rang out!
Back in March 2016, I started a
rather long essay on the nature of the Trump phenomenon in the Presidential contest
(and now Senate and House[i] as
well). Its length was partially because
it lacked a uniform conclusion. Then it
hit me: Gavrilo Princip![ii]
All of this thinking comes from a Facebook
post by a former soldier that served with/under my leadership in Iraq back in
2003. Joel Gackstetter laid out a fairly
bleak synopsis of the state of things in political America and hit on why folks
are supporting Trump.[iii] Since that post, I have been in conversations
all over the spectrum on this phenomena, and why people are choosing to put
their lot with such a devastatingly unqualified, ill-tempered, and dangerous
candidate.[iv] I've heard many views, but the one that I
finally have come to understand is at the core of this, is those who are
supporting Trump want to utterly break the system. It isn't a host of complex things involved
with them, when it comes right down to it, and these people are not dumb; they
are simply anarchist-authoritarians.[v] They have both legitimate and illegitimate
gripes, but at the core, they are simply fed up with things to the point they
just want to destroy the system they feel trapped in. Trump promises that in spades; to the point
that he is more than willing to be the assassin "for you".
If you listen to the anticipated
Trump voter long enough, you hear it again and again, they are so despondent
with our politics, economy and society, that they want revolution. But even more, they exhibit distrust, nay,
hatred of the very institutions of what makes-up the USA. They so want to get answers to their
grievances, they are more than willing to destroy the republic to get to what
they believe to be their relief. And
this is universal, regardless of the stripe of Trump voter you speak to, which
mainly come in three stripes: the
irreconcilably bigoted, the economically left behind, and the socio-politically
ticked off. To some extent, this is why
the Trump voter cannot exclusively be characterized as a white non-college
educated working class males; although their predominance cannot be denied.
Each of these groups feel they
have tried it other ways and it simply has resulted in the same thing for them
and their families. Continued expansion
of opportunities for minorities (of all stripes) and women at what is felt to
be the cost of the heterosexual white male predominance and the traditional
family.[vi] The unabated feeling of loss of working
class opportunities and support for the economically left behind to the
betterment of the rich, the powerful, and the foreign. And certainly, the feeling that the game is
rigged to only favor the "elites" and what was supposed to be a
government that represented them, is run by corrupt (politically, morally,
economically, socially) oligarchs that have no interest in them never mind
representing their interests.[vii] All of these people are fed up, and they want
to end the madness as they see it, they feel they have no better choice. And that is at the root of it, they
"feel" everything, making this phenom at once based on raw emotional
power and also uncaring for any sense of facts, logic, or reason; to the point
that any notion of nuance is to be destroyed as well.
This is not unlike the anarchists
of old. They were driven to a sense of
utter depravity, unable to reconcile the world they lived in, a world that
largely didn't give them an outlet to even express their grievances, never mind
holding some shared political power.
Destruction, the utter removal of everything that stood in the way, was
their answer. And the more firebrand,
the better. This is why Trump's rather
dystopian acceptance speech[viii]
makes sense in a perverted way: it spoke utterly to the world that these modern
day Gavrilo Princips feel and he pronounces his unfettered leadership to lead them to
their promised land through the utter destruction of our contemporary society;
back when American was great, back when they believe their mythology really did
exist.
And because they want the social,
economic, and political order to be destroyed, they are won over by a strong
man, an authoritarian, who will be their champion. The champion of the fringe and the bigoted
that will knock back progress for non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual
persons, so that the tranquil facade of equality is most provided to them and
their progeny. The champion of the
economically left behind, that will vanquish the multi-national job stealing
corporations, that will raid and demolish the banks that have always fleeced
the common man, and that will guarantee that jobs and wealth will return to the
job creators: those working in honest blue collar jobs. And he will be the knight that bulls through
the halls of Congress bending them to the will of the masses, denying legislators the
chance to stop their will or corrupt their purposes, and telling
the Supreme Court to sit in its corner and be quiet. With the system, in their minds, having no
value, why not have a dictator? "Finally
all those mother-f---ers will get their due!"
What is happening here is not
unprecedented in the history of representative democracies; many a strong man
has come to power on a wave of the mob/populist uprisings. That said, for it to happen here in the USA
beckons back to the mid-19th century Know-Nothings and the Segregationists of
the mid-20th century. And the danger is
that, unlike those previously failed movements, with a patron/strongman like
Trump, they may very well succeed. This
is made all the more possible in that his political opponent is a corrupted
candidate of the first order, creating a ripe atmosphere for a harvest of the
worst kind of fruit. As a consequence,
the dystopia that Trump laid out in his acceptance speech may very well come
true. Not because it is true now, but
because someone so craven and self-absorbed will hold the presidency; a
position that leads the "free world"/the "West" and has
been a locus for the unprecedented collection of power within the strongest
nation that has ever existed on the planet.
This is precisely why this is so dangerous. This is precisely why we can't be ignorant of
the consequences[ix]; even as that is
precisely what the campaign of Trump seeks to do, distract us with showmanship
while all the while destroying statesmanship.
It is precisely the lessons of
history and of statesmanship that we can look to, in order to determine how to
handle the political problem that has led to this rise of modern day anarchism. [x] Like in Austria-Hungary, it’s not through
continued denial of the realities of a changed world or a defunct political
system that we will find an answer. Nor
do we find answers from the ebb tide of the failed nativist and populist
movements from ages past and present.
Rather, we can learn how best to hold back this rising tide by
squelching the pied piper that is leading the mob to its demise as well as
acknowledge and adjust our political/social/economic systems to account for
those that feel left out. Simply put, we
need to call out Mr. Trump for what he is and help those that see him as their
standard bearer, see through the charade that is threadbare.[xi] But beyond this, we need to have a real plan
to provide a bright economic outlook for working class Americans, revamp our
political system (inclusive of amendments to the constitution, to account for
the age we live in and the development of our society), and engage in a
forthright resolution of the history of bigotry, racism, and intolerance that
is an undeniable part of the American psyche.
For, to call out the ring leader without addressing the reasons for
everyone being at the circus, only foments the mob further and more
desperately; and sadly that is exactly what is happening today.
What is critical now is
leadership that can prevent us losing the foremost model of a government “of
the people, by the people, and for the people.” As stated by David Miliband, “Populism is popular, until it gets elected
– then it has to make decisions.”[xii] We need to stem the tide of this wave anarchy,
lest we are found wanting (much as the British are now doing with Brexit) what
we took for granted. The example of the
mid-20th century certainly implies that the needed correction will
take momentous leaders of the type of Churchill or Roosevelt. I pray we find those kinds of leaders soon,
so as to get us back on the long successful path we have had for over two
centuries.
[i] For
instance David Duke’s candidacy for the US Senate: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/david-duke-senate-race/
[ii]
The assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914
[iii]
Joel Gackstetter, Facebook Post, 15 March 2016, https://www.facebook.com/joel.gackstetter/posts/10100270770038471
[iv]
One such conversation is one that I started on 22 July 2016: https://www.facebook.com/erik.backus/posts/10210219096137035
[v]
For Anarchism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism for Authoritarianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism
[vi]
See Bryce Covert’s 16 May 2016 piece on this topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/opinion/campaign-stops/make-america-great-again-for-the-people-it-was-great-for-already.html
[vii]
An interesting 20 July 2016 article that talks about the “elites”
perception: http://qz.com/737452/why-trump-voters-are-not-complete-idiots-a-photo-essay/
[viii]
Text of this 21 July 2016 speech can be retrieved at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-21/leaked-full-text-donald-trumps-convention-speech
[ix]
Note this 26 June 2016 article on the ethics of “voting with your heart,
without a care of the consequences”: http://qz.com/717255/ethicists-say-voting-with-your-heart-without-a-care-about-the-consequences-is-actually-immoral/
[x]
David Brooks in his opinion piece on 12 July 2016 hits on the need for
leadership in today’s context: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/opinion/are-we-on-the-path-to-national-ruin.html
[xi]
Robert Kagan lays this out fairly succinctly in his 18 May 2016 editorial: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html
[xii]
Quote from his visit on Meet the Press on 26 June 2016.
