Friends & Colleagues
Donald Trump and Trumpism haunt us. For good reason. His regaining
the White House threatens to bring an end to the national saga as we
have known it – in reality as well as in legend. Whatever the outcome,
our polity has been transformed in drastic,
sinister ways. The country has suffered a serious degradation of its
public institutions, political culture and Constitutional legal
foundation – not entirely due to Trump. Already, its ethical
underpinnings are shattered by our complicity – and now co-belligerency
- in the most heinous, sadistic and calculated crimes against humanity
since the Nazis were doing their thing. The damage is irreparable to how
we are seen in the eyes of the world- and, over time – to our own
self-respect. These body blows to the commonweal
are setting ourselves up for the culminating act in our
self-destruction that Trump et al are preparing.
Pondering the Trump phenomenon produced these thoughts which were
first composed in 2021. No need for updates – just add exclamation
points.
Cheers
Michael Brenner
TRUMPIAN BLACK MASS
The years of the Trump Presidency were an odd sort of Black Mass for
tens of millions of Americans. The oddest thing about it is that the
celebrants believed and felt that they were upholding the True Faith –
indeed, that they had mobilized themselves against
a heretical threat – insidiously designed and directed by agents of The
Evil One. What do they do when it ends? Well, for them it doesn’t really end. For them, it never ends.
They may have lost a skirmish but the crusade must continue using
all means that they can contrive. It was a gross error for their
opponents to think that, once expelled from the Temple,
these emotionally exhausted warriors would slump in front of the TV
to console themselves with reruns of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
So, the Presidential election of 2020 was not decisive; indeed, it could
not be because the forces of Darkness – the Democrats – at worst had
won only a nominal battle for the souls of Americans; in fact, they had
devilishly stolen it. That protracted struggle
between the dark humors of the national soul and the would-be exorcists
to possess the inert mass that is the American public will go on until
the preordained decisive climax of Armageddon arrives - with the
intervention by the combined forces of Jesus Christ
and the Founding Fathers. Yes, the other side, too, counts on victory;
they anticipate an incremental, not an apocalyptic victory, by following
the path illuminated by clear thinking and good intentions without an
assist from the Heavenly powers. But in today’s
America that marks them as insentient to the world around them.
At least 73 million voters regret bitterly Trump’s (temporary)
dethronement. His tenure was not a catharsis; rather, it stoked their
fury and redoubled their passion for combat. The same should be said of
Trump himself who cannot find peace in his Mar-a-Largo
hermitage. Neither he nor his impassioned followers crave ‘healing,’
that wimpish aspiration of the weak – the ‘losers’. They will play the
highlight reel etched in their minds of their romp through the neat
precincts of the unbelievers as a prelude to the
next battles to come.
These furies, along with the simpler congregants who were stirred by,
and in turn stirred the prophet/saviour, are armored for the cause.
After all, they came not just for the spectacle. Their dream of ultimate
triumph was so close that they could almost taste
it. Now that taste is bitter as the enemy’s diabolical machinations
stole their victory. They cannot as much as raise their eyes without
seeing the repellant anti-Christ enthroned in the seat of power.
They feel that their life depends on ultimate vindication. For in a
sense it does. The core of Trump’s shock troops are consumed by a great
grievance: that they have been short-changed in life – unfairly. In a
curious inversion of the American creed of individual
responsibility they claim to be fighting for, the true believers accept
no responsibility for that failure; rather, they blame others. Their
enemies are multiple: Latino immigrants who have stolen jobs, stolen the
Treasury, stolen the very identity and complexion
of America; blacks: Muslims; liberal elitists; the ‘deep state;’ the
Establishment media; the Democrats who are their political instrument.
Devils aplenty. And for the neo-Fascist, the devil on whom you can focus
your wrath is far more important than a concrete
vision of the New Jerusalem. Just as the gratification of destruction
eclipses any impulse to construct – other than restoration of some
starry-eyed vision of America that lives only in their imaginings. How
could it be otherwise: the source that fires their
anger lies within themselves. It demands discharge – not inspiration.
These passions may not inflame the hearts and minds of all 73 million or
so. Roughly half are just devout Republicans indulging their tribal
atavisms. As for the wealthy and powerful who for generations have been
the underwriters of Republican orthodoxy, they
reconciled themselves to Trumpism with the first flow of tax breaks and
deregulation. Most will not break that allegiance even though the
Democratic Party leadership covets their financial support. In return,
those leaders have dedicated themselves to suppressing
any move that seriously curbs their privileges. As Lloyd Blankstein,
former chief of Goldman Sachs, threatened: if the Democrats were to do
anything so rash as to nominate the Bolshevik Bernie Sanders, he would
throw his full support behind Donald Trump. Patriotism
a la Wall Street. That embodies the attitude of the country’s economic
elites – the Franz von Papens of our era.
It’s the militants, though, who are in the driver’s seat. They burn with
varying intensity. They are stoked with varieties of kindling:
Evangelical cravings for the true End Days; die-hard pseudo-patriots
holding fiercely to their guns and manhood; flinty moralists
tossing Planned Parenthood pamphlets into the bonfires of their
Righteousness; the privileged who figure that Trump will give them an
even better deal than the Democrats despite the latter’s being to the
Right of Eisenhower or Nixon; and legions of folks who
simply cannot accept that a black could rule over them – the true-blue
Americans.
So it is: the spewing of hate speech, the wallowing in conspiracy
theories, their crude assaults on democratic practice in the state
legislatures, the gratification at hurting the weak and vulnerable whom
they despise – because of the subliminal fear that they
might become them. Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress drive their
regimented phalanxes relentlessly forward to stymie every single White
House initiative – whatever its merits, whether they agree with its
substance of not. That has been their
modus operandi ever since the early Clinton years. It has worked
magnificently: denying the Democrats the powers of office, pushing them
further and further in a conservative direction, and gratifying the
animal instincts of their MAGA militants. It’s
an approach that largely has immunized officeholders from Tea Party
vigilantes without exposing themselves to massive defeats by the inept
Democratic Party – except when it comes to Presidential elections.
So, a Trump congregant in a place like Texas gets his daily bite of raw
meat and an endless string of vicarious thrills – such as when the State
Education Board considers adopting a state-wide high school Social
Studies text that refers to black slaves as “migrant
workers’ and calls Mexicans “lazy” people who didn’t deserve to keep
their lands. An added adrenaline boost is provided by the Governor’s
pitched battle to repulse by armed force any influx of aliens from
across the Rio Grande, to preserve Texans’ freedom
to embrace the Covid virus at any cost, and to attack remorselessly
whomever could endanger the serene tranquility of the Lone Star state.
That is some compensation for the postponement of Armageddon.
Let’s be honest: this is the perverted Trumpian variant of a more
general national trend. Many Americans have become world class
complainers. They bitch and whine at whatever annoys them, thwarts them
or frustrates them. They proudly wear the label “Survivor”
when mishap befalls them.
One of the oddities of the contemporary American psyche is the
contradiction between the still abundant faith in the country’s
superiority – the pride in living in the greatest country the world ever
has known, and the ready _expression_ of grievance that
so many things people experience aren’t right. The compulsive “I want”
is now routinely followed by the instinctive “it’s not fair that I
can’t.” This is the feeling that the Tea Party/MAGA movement so
effectively tapped to promote its own radical agenda.
Diverting these free-floating discontents from the legitimate targets
that have made their economic lives precarious and insecure, cynical
leaders have directed it against Washington and an array of scapegoats.
In truth, this is more nihilistic primal scream
than political program. Trump’s contribution is to validate the
_expression_ of this anger in 4-letter words while proving how far you can
get with nothing but 4-letter thoughts. That attitude is now embedded
in American political culture.
Right wing domination at the state level, and the liberation of
blasphemous speech, cannot offset entirely the more fanatical elements
of the Trump congregation’s sense of unfairness at being denied what
rightfully is theirs – an American customized to their
psychic as well as material needs and wants. For the True Believer
needs more than the certain knowledge that he is privy to virtue and has
achieved it in his individual self. True believers also are desperate
for the power and validation of that only a mass
of fellow rebellious victims can provide – through action. Although
they prize freedom and freedom of choice in the abstract, their deepest
emotional requirement is to meld themselves into a mass that amplifies
their plaints, a community of worship –
worship of the same vaporous god in mortal combat with the many devils
that taunt them, of the same eternal verities, of the same symbols, of
the same rites and rituals. A pagan or apostate or heretic in the Throne
Room of the White House, surrounded by an
entourage of unbelievers, is a constant insult, a blasphemy, a graphic
denial of their most powerful wants and desires.
As the Grand Inquisitor pithily put it: “man is tormented by no
greater anxiety than to find quickly someone to whom he can hand over
the gift of freedom.” In exchange, they get what they crave - be it
their cherished weapons, their insignia of superior
rank, their creed anointed, their sustaining myths and legends, their
unquenchable hate, the outlets for displacing their sublimated
self-contempt. That such a one is Donald Trump marks the uniqueness of
21st century America. The miracle is that the United
States endures such self-mockery – so far.
Final Word: The United States appeared to be at its zenith in
2016. Only a few discerned the pathogens working beneath the surface. In
a bizarre twist of history, the active agent bringing the Republic to
the brink is an oaf – a vulgar psychopathic bozo
with a criminal rap sheet as long as his red ties. One expects that
great countries can be brought low only by far more formidable persons
and forces. Future historians will marvel that our perhaps final act
resembles a Ruritanian farce.
FANATICAL MOVEMENT: TRAITS
[Quotations are from Eric Hoffer The True Believer 1951
· The appeal of the mass movement to its foot-soldiers and
camp-followers is not as a vehicle for self-advancement – except for the
audacious few with an itch to command and a thirst for adulation. “All
forms of devotion and self-surrender
are in essence a desperate clinging to something that might give worth
and meaning to our futile…lives. The faith we have in the nation [or
ideology} has to be extravagant and uncompromising.”(Hoffer 24) Lack of
political experience along with ignorance help
feed this mindless dedication to a cause and its leader. “A rising
mass movement attracts and holds a following not by doctrine….but by the
refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness of an individual
existence”. (H 4)
· The militants, the physically aggressive, are a subset of the
above. They are the restless sociopath, the bully, the enforcer. They
are misfits who live on the margins – estranged from everything
except a small coterie of fellow mavericks.
Ultimately, they are estranged from themselves. Violence satisfies the
impulse to destroy since they have no conception of what it means to
build or create. They are the recruiting ground for the black shirts,
the brown shirts, the neo-Fascist gangs, the White Supremacists
Their belligerence tugs on the emotional strings of those in the movement who themselves lack the courage to act;
and it prods the leader to raise the level of hostility and castigation
of enemies in his rhetoric. “Violence breeds fanaticism as
fanaticism begets violence.” (H 99)
·
Blind devotion to a cause never in itself is fully satisfying. ”The
fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure.” (H90) Hence, the need
for a constant escalation of vehemence in language and action – the
harangue, the clenched fist.
Those free-floating, simmering anger generates an irrepressible impulse to hit someone
– again and again.
· Trump and his henchman traffic in hate – like all
neo-Fascist demagogues they know instinctively that raw meat provides
more emotional protein than anything else. So it’s “lock her up!; lock
him up.” Insult, denunciations and ridicule.
That provides catharsis as anger is vented, the adrenaline flows as
we ‘punish the enemy’ the way Hajis on pilgrimage to Mecca throw stones
at the Devil. Primitive, but it works – we are dealing with primitive
emotions.
· “Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents.….The
fanatic quivers with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into
one flaming unit.” A mass movement can do without a god “but never
without belief in a devil.” (H
85) A scapegoat is imperative. All the better if it is some group
that you have wronged, e.g. blacks. A flight from blame is even more
intense if all faults can be transposed. That explains not only the
recrudescence of racism, but also the support for
more and more abusive treatment of Latino immigrants to the extreme of
abducting children and scattering then to the four winds. The more acute
the atrocities revealed, the greater the escapism.
· Cultivated paranoia is a feature of neo-Fascist movements and the autocratic mind set.
It has proven an effective way to mobilize free-floating fears from
diverse sources and channeling them in a direction that maximizes the
power and control
of those at the top. A staple of demagogues the world over, its
remarkable achievement at present is to stimulate acute paranoia where
there are no serious threats – objectively speaking. The United States
is trail-blazing this pernicious tendency – as it
does all post-modern phenomena.
· Chaos is welcomed. This is so not only due to
rejection of the order that is in place; also because in chaos
egalitarianism reigns. One’s sense of failure, of inadequacy is lost in
the maelstrom of tumult and destruction. Stability will
return once the ‘New Order” is in place.
· “Charlatanism ….is indispensable for effective leadership” of a fanatical mass movement.
Deliberate misrepresentation of the facts is necessary because
declarations must be simple and direct, unencumbered by qualification or
exception. It
is the narrative drama that counts, not factual accuracy. The tensile
strength of the movement is tempered by the white heat of hostile words
and deeds.
Blind trust in the demagogic leader requires no collateral.
· The demagogic leader is at once born and self-made.
Born in the sense that it is his twisted personality that disposes him
to aberrant ways of viewing himself and the world. Initial success in
gaining power and a following, strengthens
all those impulses and actions. You yourself become the true believer
in the mad persona you have concocted for yourself. In effect, you
become the caricature of yourself.
· There is ample evidence that a peculiar form of American neo-Fascism is now implanted in the body politic. The Trump phenomenon is unprecedented in breadth and depth. It has penetrated the very marrow of our public institutions and political
culture. The open question is how far it will spread, the strength of the antibodies it generates and the society’s capacity for regeneration.
· The Christian Right is a growing, formidable, intractable element in the political equation.1 Its
leadership has managed to achieve a remarkable fusion of the
Evangelical wave with the rising radical/reactionary Trumpian movement –
each reinforcing
the other. They tap the same demographic, share the same vague
discontents and employ the same methods. The phenomenon has antecedents
dating from the fascist past centered in Eastern Europe. They
represented a modification of the Italian and Germany models.
(Mussolini’s early career was that of an anti-clerical
socialist. Naziism was an avowed an enemy of all religious
institutions). All of these fascist governments propagated a blend of
hyper-nationalism with Catholic dogma.
· This last feature distinguishes those cases from the American
Christian Right. The latter draws membership overwhelmingly from
Protestant denominations, especially Evangelical churches that have been
growing at the expense of the traditional mainline
churches. The latter have been remarkably passive in the face of this
radical shift and its political consequences. Juggling gender pronouns
for the Trinity absorbs more attention than the American sins of abuse,
blasphemy and genocide.
· The peculiar features of this union of ecstatic religion and
hyper-nationalism we are experiencing needs to be understood as uniquely
American. What binds them together is a transcendent ‘Americanism.’
Americanism provides a Unified Field Theory of
self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring
meaning. The blend had been a feature of American life from the very
beginning – as delineated by Ales de Tocqueville. While its original,
main driving force was Protestant, it came to transcend sectarian
boundaries in a universally held belief that the country itself was born
with a Providential blessing and mission. When one element is felt to
be jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice
becomes vulnerable. In the past, American mythology energized the
country in ways that helped it to thrive. Today, it is a dangerous
hallucinogen that traps Americans in a time warp
cum parallel universe more and more distant from reality.