Healthy societies revel in who they are. Unhealthy societies view
themselves in terms of either an ignominious past, current enemies who
endanger them, or internal elements degrading the true, virtuous nature
of the commune and sapping its strength. The
United States through most of its history was in the first category.
Today, it is clearly in the second. Therein lies our national tragedy –
and our precipitous slide into Fascism American style.
This historic shift - with profound implications – has not been
driven by tangible factors, originating within itself or externally, but
strikingly by intangibles. The country has not experienced any
traumatic shocks. No ruinous, humiliating wartime defeat
and occupation. No economic crash. No civil war. No deeply rooted
conflicts between Church and secular forces. Think of inter-war Europe:
by comparison, the United States has been living in a benign
environment. American exceptionalism. Stresses and strains,
yes – nothing, though, of the magnitude that could explain so drastic a
transformation.
YET, there is a pervasive feeling that things are not quite right,
vague feelings of dread hover, that something awful may happen that we
can neither anticipate, avert nor cope with, that America is ‘losing
it.’ Free floating unease and apprehension. A
United States that senses it is losing control, losing mastery of its
environment and of itself, naturally will look for scapegoats. Why?
Corrective action to straighten out what’s gone wrong requires
constructive ideas, rigorous thinking, self-confidence.
They don’t exist. Little is positive or constructive. Tearing down,
destruction, perverting, corrupting predominate instead.* The negative
prevails. Let’s look at current scene – at public discourse, politics,
the dominant themes, the level and type of citizen
engagement.
What marks the landscape are:
emotions eclipsing thought, intellectual aridity, the erasure of all
boundaries to words or actions, the triumph of crude willpower.
The rapid success of the Trump-led MAGA movement in putting in place
the building blocks for a quai-Fascist regime is stunning testimony to
how potent are the forces of negativity, to how pathetically weak the
resistance of institutions, of organized political
opposition, of civil society.
Instead of deliberate reflection, we round on “enemies” – abroad and at home.
ABROAD
Today, there is near unanimity in the vilification of Russia cast as a
reincarnate Soviet Union, in portraying China as a menace bent on
supplanting the U.S. as a global hegemon by foul and illicit means, in
denouncing Iran as fanatically dedicated in its
attacks on American interests. Then, there are the Arab terrorists – an
all-purpose label to be stuck on whichever groups in the Greater Middle
East fight against American/Israeli domination and defy American
dictation: inter alia Hezbullah, Hamas,
ISIS, the Houthis, al-Shabab. Al-Qaeda. which authored the trauma and
humiliation of 9/11, has lost its pride of place on the enemies list now
that Washington has joined with its Syrian branch to topple Assad, head
of Syria’s anti-Israel Arab nationalist government.
They are the hostiles who we say are conniving to bring America low.
They represent an unprecedentedly multi-pronged threat to the national
interest, to American self-esteem. They are assailing us ruthlessly in
ever domain – military security, commerce and
finance, our moral authority, even the political integrity of our
impeccably democratic system by campaigns to disrupt and manipulate its
workings.
These propositions enjoy the allegiance of almost the entire American political class. Nary
a single influential member of the Congress (Sanders, Yes; AOC,
No) disputes them – as evinced by endorsement of Trump’s arbitrary
sanctions warfare despite a Constitutional stipulation that only
Congress has the authority to impose sanctions, by drastic boosts in the
Pentagon/Intelligence budgets, by sustained applause
for the homicidal fanatic who has lured us into a genocidal campaign
against Palestine’s Muslim Arabs, and by blanket support for war
preparations against the PRC. Not a single MSM outlet submits this hard
core of the nation’s foreign policy precepts to skeptical
examination. The major think tanks supply endless justifications. The
only debates focus on tactics and priorities. Moral considerations are
banned by common – silent – consent.
[Stroll along Washington’s think tank rows of Massachusetts Avenue
and ‘K’ Street and an attentive ear hears one uninterrupted declamation
issuing from the minds that shape and propel American thinking about the
world.]
Noticeably absent is the ideological component.
In the Cold War, the
historic contest between democratic capitalism and Communism
overshadowed all else. In its place, we have the contrived effort to
promote a specious – and mortal – combat between Democracy
vs Autocracy. In the American camp are such paragons of democracy as
Netanyahu, Bolsonaro, Zelensky, Bukele (el Salvador), Mohammed
bin-Salman, the Gulf sheikhs, and Abu Mohammad al-Jalani – ex-al-Qaeda
emir installed as President of Syria. Democrat Netanyahu
bombed democrat Jalani’s capital Damascus a week ago. If Washington
does anything to calm that intramural ruckus, Trump no doubt would cite
it as the capstone to his fabulous record as peacemaker to claim the
Nobel Prize. Donald Trump is the lodestar for all
of these faux democrats, the cynosure of Democratic values.
American elites and the citizenry overall seem to have no inkling as
how far the country’s standing in the world has fallen – that we are
seen as moral hypocrites and bullies everywhere outside the Collective
West (its political class, anyway). That our
reputation as a model of enlightened government and generator of public
goods is shattered beyond restoration.
We are living in a fantasy world of our own imaginings that is only tenuously connected to reality.
In that fictitious
domain, fixed consensus exists in believing the most outlandish – and
reckless – notions. So, we are mistreated to an extraordinary array of
misconceptions about declared foes and what
we can do to subdue them. Most dangerous of these unsupportable
propositions are those that vastly exaggerate – indeed, misrepresent –
the threat that they pose. Those articles of faith, in turn, evoke
extraordinarily extreme actions and plans for war. In
the former category, we find these gems: Putin’s ambition is to wash
his boots in the English Channel; Russia will crumble under the stress
of sanctions and defeat by Ukraine’s ‘liberation’ forces; Putin’s regime
will be replaced by a West-friendly, oligarch-led
sober version of the Yeltsin-era set-up; Russian weaponry is
significantly inferior to American weaponry; Russia can be split away
from China and/or China split away from Russia. China is weaker than it
looks; Beijing can be coerced into yielding its claim
to Taiwan as an integral part of China – an agreed principle dating
back 50 years abrogated unilaterally by Washington; the U.S. has the
upper hand in any economic duel with the PRC; therefore, we can impose a
Maginot line of technological deprivation that
will put an end to China’s challenge to American global dominance. A
prideful India will hamstring its growing economy by boycotting Russian
energy supplies at Washington’s command; prideful Indians eagerly will
sign up as Sepoy auxiliaries in the American
campaign to yolk China. Unlimited, unqualified backing for Israel’s
imperial ambitions serves American national interests; there is no
reason to modify that judgment in the face of its genocide of the
Palestinians – nor should it be modified in the face of
its military aggressions in Lebanon, Syria and its unrelenting
(successful) attempt to embroil the U.S. in an all-out war with Iran.
The answer to Iran’s resistance to Israeli-American hegemony in the
Middle East is regime change in Tehran. Airborne attacks
will trigger a popular uprising. American precision weapons can destroy
Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles, its centrifuges and related nuclear
facilities. {They have not. They never reached the inner chamber where
the centrifuges were located – according
to the most astute, neutral scientific assessment. Anyway, the High
Enriched Uranium (HEU) and most of the centrifuges probably had been
removed beforehand. Claims to the contrary emanating from the White
House, the National Intelligence Agency (Tulsi Gabbard)
and the Pentagon (Pete Hegseth) are outright lies referencing no
pertinent data. Closer to home, there is the convenient belief that
America’s drug addiction problem will disappear if we could dam the flow
of narcotics from Mexico.
Our faith-based supposition is that the outcome of these intertwined
projects will be a stronger, more secure United States; elimination or
grave weakening of our enemies; and enhanced respect/influence round the
world. The exact opposite has occurred.
Actions to achieve that outcome match the extremity of ambition. Policy
elites are monolingual – they know only the lexicon of coercion,
especially military coercion.
Diplomacy is a dirty word, negotiations abhorrent. We dictate, we make
demands, we intimidate, we set deadlines – we don’t discuss. We
envision the outcome of a successful negotiation as resembling the
Japanese surrender on the deck of the Missouri in Tokyo
Bay. An unwitting parody of Tom Lehrer’s “Send In The Marines.” Failure
– repeated, ignominious failure – is filtered out. **
The consequences have been dire:
costly for American well-being, murderously destructive out there,
disintegrating of those international institutions and accords,
arduously accomplished, that have lent a modicum of order
and stability to inter-state dealings, and portents of nuclear war.
Let’s turn our attention to the last mentioned. Over the post-war
years, the great powers came to the common conclusion that there was no
such thing as victory in a nuclear war. Therefore, they bent to the task
of controlling “The Bomb,” i.e. taking concrete
measures to ensure that there could be no activation of nuclear weapons
by miscalculation, technical error, or accident. Stability and control
were the aims codified in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB), the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF),
the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and the follow-on Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty – all now abandoned or ignored by Washington.
They were complemented by clear understanding that the ‘rules of the
road” governing their rivalry called for extreme caution in avoiding
conflictual situations involving the U.S., the USSR or – later – China.
Proxy wars, yes, but with restrictions. There
was only one episode of Russian and American forces exchanging fire.
That occurred in occasional dog fights between jets over the Yalu River
separating Korea and the PRC. (A famous participant was Ted Williams of
baseball legend).
Today, Washington leaders – civilian and military – have deviated from the path of prudence. Senior officials
speak openly about the inevitability of a
Sino-American war over a Taiwan Straits crisis. That scenario tops the
list of the Pentagon’s strategic planning aims and purposes. Military
budgets and force structures reflect it. A slew of articles and
documents are emerging from government security bodies,
affiliated think tanks (e.g. the Hudson Institute), institutes and
Establishment journals like
Foreign Affairs that analyze in minute details how that war could
be conducted under diverse circumstances. Most often, the prospect of
it escalating to the level of strategic nuclear exchanges is minimized.
Some even talk about which side would have
an advantage in the event.
The hard truth is that any conflict that entails American munitions
hitting China proper has something like a 90% chance of escalating to
nuclear war; 95% if the scatterbrained psychopath is in the Oval
Office.** That should be the premise incorporated in
any plan for war against China. The casual way that these ‘strategists’
contemplate great power combat testifies to the fact that once minds,
and emotions, take up residence in a fanciful universe of their
imagining the prospect grows of their divorcing totally
from reality.
[“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; if the bomb blast don’t get you, the
fallout must” – pithy words of a renowned nuclear strategist]
In regard to Iran, the United States has markedly increased
the likelihood of its building a nuclear capability by giving up the
international controls incorporated in the JPOA, by our implacable
hostility and sanctions, and now by the heavy attack
on Iran itself, an attack that has done little damage to Tehran’s
nuclear capabilities while vastly strengthening incentives for it to go
nuclear.
Most alarming are the unprecedented
American strikes against Russia proper. At this moment, and as has been
the case for two years at least, serving officers physically in Ukraine
play the critical role in the launching
of a variety of missiles supplied by the U.S.: HIMARs, (High Mobility
Artillery Rocket System) and ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System). They
provide the critical targeting Intelligence, they insert the codes that
activate the weapons, and initiate the firing.
Ukrainian military men do nothing more than “press the button.” In short, we are waging war against Russia –
carrying out direct attacks. on
Russian soil. Moreover, we have encouraged the British, the French and
the Germans to do exactly the same – some employing American provided
weapons whose use requires explicit approval from Washington. It is the
Kremlin’s restraint that has prevented this
provocation from leading to dangerous escalation – up until now.
Set in this context, it should have been apparent that the Trump
administration could not accept the humiliating defeat represented by a
Ukraine settlement on any terms that met Russia’s core demands; nor
could it engage seriously with Iran; nor could
it consider reining in Israel; nor could it address China as an equal.
No more than Biden or Trump in his first term.
AT HOME
The domestic scene offers a variation of this dismal reality. The
Trump-led corps of suited militants and disciples are using coercive
force of various kinds in random acts of destruction propelled by
emotional drives for unfettered power, control and domination.
The United States is being pushed down the path of Fascism
American-style with stunning rapidity. Already, in critical respects we
have ceased to be a Constitutional democracy.
Daily, the Trump Falange takes truthless, arbitrary actions that defy
the law and the Constitution, that shut down entire departments of
government duly established by Congress, that suppress programs
dedicated to preserve public health and other citizens’
services, that reject guarantees of due process at every level of
government. The Bill of Rights is being gutted – the 1st and
4th Amendments already are null and void. Trump cavalierly uses the
Department of Justice as a weapon in vendettas against whomever
he dislikes.
These literally mindless assaults on state infrastructure put in
place over more than a century are accompanied by attacks on scientific
knowledge, on our most notable research institutions, on our
universities. Trump and his henchman are literal “know-nothings”
who indeed know nothing, and don’t want to know since knowledge is a
constraint on the destructive impulse and the lust for absolute
‘freedom’ to do as they please. It follows that there is no tolerance
for an official who speaks factual truth without first
checking that it conforms to whatever wavelength the boss is on that
day. Thus, Tulsi Gabbard is admonished that she will walk the plank
unless she immediately contradicts herself on the “obliteration” of
Iranian nuclear facilities. She, another D.C. careerist,
obliges without hesitation. Both parties are pleased by the outcome.
Thus, Erika McEntarfer - the poor woman who directed the Bureau
of Labor Statistics - is kicked out unceremoniously because she
innocently believed that arithmetic is politically uncontroversial.
One party is pleased by the outcome.
This rampage subjugates one institution after another like the German
blitzkrieg overrunning hapless cities. In Congress, the Republicans are
cowed into regimented automatons who resemble Prussian infantry or
deputies to the old Supreme Soviet; the Democrats
have reached the terminal point of their passive political suicide –
comatose for so long that one barely notices their vanishing act; Barack
Obama, who was the nation’s leader for 8 years, amuses himself
producing documentaries for Netflix while the country
descends into perdition; the Supreme Court majority under John Roberts
are a tacit, yet vital accomplice - rewriting the Constitution as suits
them; the economic powerhouses – financial barons, business moguls,
Silicon Valley buccaneers – are licking their
chops at the feast spread before them by the Trump-Musk-Bessent pillage
of the national economy; the MSM are shills or neutered; church
denominations and civic society play mute or mumble
sotto voce; Trump’s lucrative extortion-protection racket
targeting blue chip law firms and Ivy League schools would make Vito
Genovese blush; universities in particular are disgracing themselves in
their abject surrender. The great debates at the highest
reaches of our elite universities appear to be on whether to deal with
Trump from a kneeling position or a supine position.
A striking feature of this
descent into unbridled autocracy, is that there is no ideological
passion fueling it, no doctrine, no philosophy, no religious zeal. It is
all about discharging emotions spawned in the
depths of their roiled psyches.
Just raw, crude tantrums committing flagrant acts of destruction and
hurt. We must keep in mind that it is not only Trump. He has ignited
and assembled a crew of wackos and misfits such a Robert Kennedy jr. who
seemingly spends his waking hours devising
ways to impair the health of Americans: cannibalizing the Center for
Disease Control, slashing the National Institute of Health, restricting
development and distribution of vaccines, suppressing scientific
research at universities, demeaning those who actually
know what they are talking about. Not surprisingly, this is someone who
was diagnosed with worms in his brain and whose previous acts of civic
behavior include strewing parts of a dismembered bear around Central
Park in NYC Civilization has experienced nothing
like this since the Dark Ages dropped the curtain on classical learning
in the 6th and 7th centuries.
[The Democrats, for their part, are equally non-ideological. They
offer no coherent refutation of Trump’s amputations of the national
government or his recission of every enlightened federal program
initiated over the past 90 years. This tragic turn was
foreshadowed by Bill Clinton’s public declaration in 1997 that “the era
of big government is over,” and his promotion of the Bowles-Simpson
Commission’s plan to cut deeply into Social Security and Medicare in his
2012 speech at the Democratic Convention renominating
Barack Obama. Today, their message in opposition is nothing more than
an anti-Trump screed.]
Instead of ideology or doctrine we have a perverted Americanism. An artless blend of myth, doctored history and chauvinism, it has been inflated into an encompassing
revelation that explains all, inspires all, justifies all. A one-size-fits-all creed
cum faith that embraces every person, every circumstance, every
act. Americanism acts as a Unified Field Theory of self-identity,
collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring meaning. When one
element is felt to be jeopardy, the integrity of the
whole edifice becomes vulnerable. The drama of the American
experience, our collective pageant of progress, used to be the great
booster of morale and imparter of meaning. That tonic has lost much of
its potency- in good part because it’s not the same
country, and we no longer reign supreme in the world. So, crude
attempts at restoration become the imperative for a shaky collective
identity and impoverished individual self-esteem.
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 more and more distant from reality.
[At the psychological level, this approach is understandable since it
plays to the United States’ strength: overweening self-confidence
coupled to military power - thereby perpetuating the national myths of
being destined to remain the world’s No. 1 forever,
and of being in a position to shape the world system according to
American principles and interests. The tension for a nation so
constituted encountering objective reality does not favor heightened
self-awareness or a change in behavior. Today, there is no
foreign policy debate whatsoever. In addition, our vassal governments
in Europe and elsewhere either have a national interest in preserving
the warped American view of the world (Israel, Poland) or have been so
denatured over the decades that they are incapable
0f doing other than to follow Washington obediently – despite already
having tumbled over a number of cliffs and staring at a potentially
fatal abyss re. China and Russia]
MAGA DYNAMICS
To understand what forces are turbocharging the MAGA war on pre-Trump
America, one must face squarely the abnormal elements in the movement’s
make-up.
A. A cult-like movement such as MAGA can do without a god "but never without a devil."1
For the neo-Fascist, the devil(s) on whom you focus your wrath is far
more important than a prophet who offers a vision of a New Jerusalem or
some other utopia. Just as the gratification of destruction eclipses
any impulse to construct – other than restoration
of some starry-eyed vision of an America that never existed.
B. There are Devils galore. Enemy states, clandestine
networks of evil-doers at home and abroad, the racial “them,” and all
who manipulate or facilitate them by not joining the paranoid crusade to
purge those malignant forces. In a bizarre way
so it is with the Palestinians whose tragic fate is to become the
surrogate for all the above objects of scorn - permitting our complicity
in their inhumane treatment. They are stand-ins for every social
grouping that we – or some segment of us – hate, fear,
despise, scapegoat. At once Islamo-terrorists , the Iranian mullahs,
Russian saboteurs, Commies, drug cartels, illegal immigrants from
inter alia Mexico, South America, Haiti, Afghanistan, Somalia,
blacks, gays & transgenders, liberal elitists, abrasive feminists
etc. etc. etc. All loom behind the Palestinian face in the mind’s eye of
those in thrall to the demons of violent prejudice.
When the mix of inchoate emotions reaches a critical mass, and demands
discharge, they find a substitute for whatever fixates them. The
unrecognized Palestinian becomes a blank canvas on which to paint the
bête noir that obsesses you. In a bitter coda to this
tale of depraved humanity, might there be vestigial bigots – in Europe
and America – who in their twisted psyche project onto the anonymous
Palestinian an image of “The Jew” - getting his comeuppance? For most,
it is remarkable good fortune that the murderers
and torturers are Jews – thus shielding them from stray pangs of
conscience since we can congratulate ourselves on making up for the
2,000-years persecution of them.
B. Displays of
belligerence in word and deed tug on the emotional strings of those in the movement - even those who themselves lack the courage to act. Hence,
the heroic savior is encouraged
to raise the levl of hostility and castigation of enemies in the
rhetoric. He knows that "violence breeds fanaticism begets violence."2
C. The unspeakable has become the vernacular for Trump, his henchmen, his shock troops.
Aggressive, hostile words - like violent deeds – nourish the lusts
of the initiates while emboldening their prophet. Blind trust in the
demagogic leader requires no collateral.
D. In
the light of the above, a fanatical mass movement can only intensify
and reach new heights of extremity. It can be suppressed – but it cannot
moderate.
Once it reaches a certain threshold its own momentum will propel it to a
climax of one sort or another - invariably a destructive climax.
CONCLUSION
Fascism or neo-Fascism does not
emerge spontaneously from the depths like the Creature From The Black
Lagoon. Conditions must be ripe, the
ground prepared: combustible
militants nursing their resentments must reach a critical mass, an
inert populace must be numbed, a political class turned in on
themselves, innate moral instincts sublimated, conventional norms of
decency discredited. In this sense, Trump’s MAGA is the culmination
of a degenerative process – not its cause.***
We seem to have experienced a unique case of an auto-immune political cataclysm. The
body politic’s instinctive
mechanisms for reacting against (false) signs of a (fictitious)
threatening invader become disoriented and begin to attack the host
itself. A case of self-generated – if unintended - iatrogenic suicide.
What was the perceived/felt threat catalyzing this process?
9/11 twenty-four years ago? There’s the puzzle.
In truth, there are no tangible, overt threats to the American body
politic which, by any reasonable measure, should cause such an extreme
reaction. We must look elsewhere – into the minds and emotions of a
disturbed society. One with a defective gyroscope.
One where nihilism has blurred cultural and social reference marks,
fostering a cult of selfishness - one of whose manifestations is the
fashioning of fantasy worlds wherein delusional imaginings have no
consequences - backing Trump as a sort of projected
wish fulfillment - just as millions embark on a project of self
-reinvention or play games of make-believe like ‘Fantasy Football.’
Those are the conditions that have generated the perversions, and the
infirmities, that have led to the present perilous state-of-affairs.
To be clear, we are not dealing with flaws of structure or procedure
that could be remedied, mistaken policies that could be corrected, or
sins that could be atoned. Rather, it is a pervasive corruption of our
country’s societal software.
If this interpretation is correct, there is little chance of a reversal or of rectifying the situation. Societies
are incapable of close critical self-examination
except, with great rarity, under the most extreme circumstances. A
complete breakdown as Germany and Japan experienced in WW II. In those
cases, it was made possible by the guiding hand of a relatively
benevolent external party. We Americans are on our own
– tragically, we are lacking the self-awareness to ward off disaster
and to regenerate a measure of collective construction.
* Nazism was a death cult. A very peculiar kind of death
cult. For it reversed a Phoenix-like sequence by first announcing itself
in grandiose construction projects, building autobahns, designing
Albert Speer’s monumental public buildings as well
as putting the Wehrmacht on steroids. Only then did it launch itself on
the path of total destruction. First, the destruction of others; then
the destruction of themselves and Germany. Throughout, its signature was the death head – Totenkopf
– 
still
seen as the emblem of Ukraine’s Azov units and among some Trumpite
militants. Hitler’s own psyche entwined the drive for grandiose totems
of power with intimations of self-annihilation. So, too, for many of his
closest confidantes and fanatical followers.
The Nazis are an extreme case both in the strength of their murderous
impulses and in their readiness to enter into a danse macabre with
Death.
still
seen as the emblem of Ukraine’s Azov units and among some Trumpite
militants. Hitler’s own psyche entwined the drive for grandiose totems
of power with intimations of self-annihilation. So, too, for many of his
closest confidantes and fanatical followers.
The Nazis are an extreme case both in the strength of their murderous
impulses and in their readiness to enter into a danse macabre with
Death.
Aggressive cults dedicated to destruction without the suicidal element are more common.
**The other idea that has surfaced in academic strategic writing
concerns nuclear warfighting. This hardy perennial has risen
Phoenix-like from the critical dust several times. The latest iteration
is set in the context of a conventional war between China
and the United States. The analyst postulates that a “losing” China
could revert to the use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNWs). This
scenario defies credibility on multiple counts.
Above all, the idea that nuclear exchanges could be constrained
below a certain (undefined) threshold is unrealistic in the light of
what we know about human behavior. The absence of any rules means that
confidence margins in the assessment of escalation
probabilities are extremely wide. In addition, it is nearly impossible
to imagine a situation whereby the United States military defeats
Chinese forces to the point of making the country vulnerable to American
occupation or dictation of terms (whatever they
may be). A credible enforcement of submission to any specific diktat
from Washington would have to entail either occupation or threat to
strike cities. The Army that had its hands full pacifying Baghdad is in
no position to rule 1.3 billion Chinese. As to
the possible attack on high value targets, it could be deterred by the
strategic nuclear capabilities that China would retain.
Nuclear strategy is a bit like Marxism or Freudian analysis or
market fundamentalist economics. A lot of superior minds deploy their
talents to concoct ingenious elaborations of received Truth that spin
exercises in impressive abstract logic – but their
conclusions are only tangentially related to reality. Thus, reputations
and careers can be made – and much mischief done.
***In 1968, Governor Ed Muskie, who was the frontrunner for the
Democrats presidential nomination, saw his campaign collapse when he
shed a tear in public in response to reports of how a critic had made
slurs against his wife’s ethnicity. Similarly, Governor
George Romney saw his candidacy for the Republican nomination falter
after a remark that his earlier support for the Vietnam war had been due
to a "brainwashing" by U.S. military and diplomatic officials in
Saigon. Nowadays, the country elects – for the second
time – a clownish Fascist psychopath who instigated, and pardoned, a
violent assault on the Capitol. The United States manifestly is a
degraded polity.
[In Romney’s case, as Gene McCarthy quipped, a quick rinse would have sufficed]
1. Eric Hoffer The True Believer 1951 pg. 85
2. Ibid pg. 99