It’s not too interesting to say that Donald Trump is a nationalist
and aspiring despot who is manipulating bourgeois resentment, nativism, and
ignorance to feed his power lust. It’s uninteresting because it is obviously
true. It’s so true that stating it sounds more like an observation than a
criticism.
I just heard Trump speak live. It was an awesome experience, like an
interwar séance of once-powerful dictators who inspired multitudes, drove
countries into the ground, and died grim deaths.
His speech at FreedomFest lasted a full hour, and I consider myself
fortunate for having heard it. It was a magnificent exposure to an ideology
that is very much present in American life, though hardly acknowledged. It
lives mostly hidden in dark corners, and we don’t even have a name for it. You
bump into it at neighborhood barbecues, at Thanksgiving dinner when Uncle Harry
has the floor, at the hardware store when two old friends in line to checkout
mutter about the state of the country.
The ideology is a 21st century version of right fascism — one of the
most politically successful ideological strains of 20th century politics.
Though hardly anyone talks about it today, we really should. It is still real.
It exists. It is distinct. It is not going away. Trump has tapped into it,
absorbing unto his own political ambitions every conceivable bourgeois
resentment: race, class, sex, religion, economic. You would have to be
hopelessly ignorant of modern history not to see the outlines and where they
end up.
For now, Trump seems more like comedy than reality. I want to laugh
about what he said, like reading a comic-book version of Franco, Mussolini, or
Hitler. And truly I did laugh, as when he denounced the existence of tech
support in India that serves American companies (“how can it be cheaper to call
people there than here?” — as if he still thinks that long-distance charges
apply).
Let’s hope this laughter doesn’t turn to tears.
As an aside, I mean no criticism of FreedomFest’s organizer Mark
Skousen in allowing Trump to speak at this largely libertarian gathering. Mark
invited every Republican candidate to address the 2,200-plus crowd. Only two accepted.
Moreover, Mark is a very savvy businessman himself, and this conference
operates on a for-profit basis. He does not have the luxury of giving the
microphone to only people who pass the libertarian litmus test. His goal is to
put on display the ideas that matter in our time and assess them by the
standards of true liberty.
In my view, it was a brilliant decision to let him speak. Lovers of
freedom need to confront the views of a man with views like this. What’s more,
of all the speeches I heard at FreedomFest, I learned more from this one than
any other. I heard, for the first time in my life, what a modern iteration of a
consistently statist but non-leftist outlook on politics sounds and feels like
in our own time. And I watched as most of the audience undulated between
delight and disgust — with perhaps only 10% actually cheering his descent into
vituperative anti-intellectualism. That was gratifying.
As of this writing, Trump is leading in the polls in the Republican
field. He is hated by the media, which is a plus for the hoi polloi in the GOP.
He says things he should not, which is also a plus for his supporters. He is
brilliant at making belligerent noises rather than having worked out policy
plans. He knows that real people don’t care about the details; they only want a
strongman who shares their values. He makes fun of the intellectuals, of
course, as all populists must do. Along with this penchant, Trump encourages a
kind of nihilistic throwing out of rationality in favor of a trust in his own genius.
And people respond, as we can see.
So, what does Trump actually believe? He does have a philosophy,
though it takes a bit of insight and historical understanding to discern it. Of
course race baiting is essential to the ideology, and there was plenty of that.
When a Hispanic man asked a question, Trump interrupted him and asked if he had
been sent by the Mexican government. He took it a step further, dividing blacks
from Hispanics by inviting a black man to the microphone to tell how his own
son was killed by an illegal immigrant.
Because Trump is the only one who speaks this way, he can count on
support from the darkest elements of American life. He doesn’t need to actually
advocate racial homogeneity, call for a whites-only sign to be hung at
immigration control, or push for expulsion or extermination of undesirables.
Because such views are verboten, he has the field alone, and he can count on
the support of those who think that way by making the right noises.
Trump also tosses little bones to the Christian Right, enough to
allow them to believe that he represents their interests. Yes, it’s implausible
and hilarious. But the crowd who looks for this is easily won with winks and
nudges, and those he did give. At the speech I heard, he railed against ISIS
and its war against Christians, pointing out further than he is a Presbyterian
and thus personally affected every time ISIS beheads a Christian. This entire
section of his speech was structured to rally the nationalist Christian strain
that was the bulwark of support for the last four Republican presidents.
But as much as racialist and religious resentment is part of his
rhetorical apparatus, it is not his core. His core is about business, his own
business and his acumen thereof. He is living proof that being a successful
capitalist is no predictor of one’s appreciation for an actual free market (stealing
not trading is more his style). It only implies a love of money and a longing
for the power that comes with it. Trump has both.
What do capitalists on his level do? They beat the competition. What
does he believe he should do as president? Beat the competition, which means other
countries, which means wage a trade war. If you listen to him, you would
suppose that the U.S. is in some sort of massive, epochal struggle for
supremacy with China, India, Malaysia, and, pretty much everyone else in the
world.
It takes a bit to figure out what the heck he could mean. He speaks
of the United States as if it were one thing, one single firm. A business. “We”
are in competition with “them,” as if the U.S. were IBM competing against
Samsung, Apple, or Dell. “We” are not 300 million people pursuing unique dreams
and ideas, with special tastes or interests, cooperating with people around the
world to build prosperity. “We” are doing one thing, and that is being part of
one business.
In effect, he believes that he is running to be the CEO of the
country — not just of the government (as Ross Perot once believed) but of the
entire country. In this capacity, he believes that he will make deals with
other countries that cause the U.S. to come out on top, whatever that could
mean. He conjures up visions of himself or one of his associates sitting across
the table from some Indian or Chinese leader and making wild demands that they
will buy such and such amount of product else “we” won’t buy their product.
Yes, it’s bizarre. As Nick Gillespie said, he has a tenuous grasp on
reality. Trade theory from hundreds of years plays no role in his thinking at
all. To him, America is a homogenous unit, no different from his own business
enterprise. With his run for president, he is really making a takeover bid, not
just for another company to own but for an entire country to manage from the
top down, under his proven and brilliant record of business negotiation,
acquisition, and management.
You see why the whole speech came across as bizarre? It was. And
yet, maybe it was not. In the 18th century, there is a trade theory called
mercantilism that posited something similar: ship the goods out and keep the
money in. It builds up industrial cartels that live at the expense of the
consumer. In the 19th century, this penchant for industrial protectionism and
mercantilism became guild socialism, which mutated later into fascism and then
into Nazism. You can read Mises to find out more on how this works.
What’s distinct about Trumpism, and the tradition of thought it
represents, is that it is non-leftist in its cultural and political outlook and
yet still totalitarian in the sense that it seeks total control of society and
economy and places no limits on state power. The left has long waged war on
bourgeois institutions like family, church, and property. In contrast, right
fascism has made its peace with all three. It (very wisely) seeks political
strategies that call on the organic matter of the social structure and inspire
masses of people to rally around the nation as a personified ideal in history,
under the leadership of a great and highly accomplished man.
Trump believes himself to be that man.
He sounds fresh, exciting, even thrilling, like a man with a plan
and a complete disregard for the existing establishment and all its weakness
and corruption. This is how strongmen take over countries. They say some true
things, boldly, and conjure up visions of national greatness under their leadership.
They’ve got the flags, the music, the hype, the hysteria, the resources, and
they work to extract that thing in many people that seeks heroes and momentous
struggles in which they can prove their greatness.
Think of Commodus (161-192 AD) in his war against the corrupt Roman
senate. His ascension to power came with the promise of renewed Rome. What he
brought was inflation, stagnation, and suffering. Historians have usually dated
the fall of Rome from his leadership. Or, if you prefer pop culture, think of
Bane, the would-be dictator of Gotham in Batman, who promises an end to
democratic corruption, weakness, and loss of civic pride. He sought a
revolution against the prevailing elites in order to gain total power unto
himself.
These people are all the same. They are populists. Oh how they love
the people, and how they hate the establishment. They defy all civic
conventions. Their ideology is somewhat organic to the nation, not a wacky
import like socialism. They promise greatness. They have an obsession with the
problem of trade and mercantilist belligerence as the only solution. They have
zero conception of the social order as a complex and extended ordering of
individual plans, one that functions through freedom and individual rights.
This is a dark history and I seriously doubt that Trump himself is
aware of it. Instead, he just makes it up as he goes along, speaking from his
gut. This penchant has always served him well. It cannot serve a whole nation
well. Indeed, the very prospect is terrifying, and not just for the immigrant
groups and imports he has chosen to scapegoat for all the country’s problems.
It’s a disaster in waiting for everyone.
TRUMP MANIFESTO TO
HIT STREET ON SAME DAY AS DEBATE...
{ Psychopaths all seem to have one, even trump’s idol, adolph hitler, ‘Mein
Kampf’, while in jail before rise … :
abcnews.go.com/US/...cops-chris-dorners-manifesto-speaks/...
Feb 06, 2013 · The rage-filled "manifesto"
written by former police officer Christopher Dorner before he went on an
alleged cop killing spree around the Los Angeles area ...
·
