I am, of course, appalled and shocked about the attack on our U.S. Capitol by Alt Right insurrectionists. But I am not surprised. What surprises me are the numerous talking heads on mass media who are asking: “how could this happen? We’re better than this. How did we get here? It never should have happened.”
I find myself absolutely astonished almost as much by those questions (and answers) as by the seditious acts of this Right-wing mob. How did this come about?” It has been in the making for the past four years (or more) of rule by a fascist sympathizer who has confessed his love for certain dictators. And perhaps has gone back a whole lot further to Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and others. Having said that, let me count some of the reasons we got here recently.
TRUMP ELECTED. We got here because in 2016,
the electorate chose a man who was not only flawed but was obsessed with narcissism
and “Absolute Power.” To be accurate, we would have to say that the electorate chose
Hillary Clinton by their direct votes, but Trump won the Electoral College vote
by careful (planned) targeting of certain districts in swing states. Of course, there will always be that Russian
interference thing that may have contributed to that Electoral College
victory but Trump let that go without much fanfare!
THE VOTERS. This fascist wannabe dictator was
placed in this position by voters, and those voters are part of the reason we
are at this point in our history where our entire system has been placed under
attack. Up front, he called on these
people to come to Washington and protest, and to march to the Capitol to ‘take
back’ their government. He then came before
the mob on the now infamous date of January 6, 2021 and was heard to say that
he would join them in that march but then snuck back to the safe shelter of the
White House after planting another lie in the empty receptive heads of his
followers. But the damage was done. His sycophants believed he was
marching with them and they felt emboldened.
The FAR RIGHT.
This man’s attitudes and background are not related to democracy; they
are anti-democratic, and they are worse than that. He was essentially raised and nurtured to be
an aggressive capitalistic despot, devoid of empathy, ready to devastate or to
destroy a rival or competitor. He was taught by his father to use people and formal
structures like courts and other institutions to advance himself and bring down
his detractors. Mostly, he was taught to
put profit and winning at all costs at the forefront of his existence. And, who told us this? He did. (So did his niece, Mary -- but that's another story!)
He told us, and too many ignored or underestimated or undervalued
his words and behaviors. He told us who
he is, and we demurred. Some of what he
said about himself (thanks to CNN and reporters, Glover and Preston) includes:
- He considers himself a member of “the lucky sperm club” which apparently entitles him to claim some sense of superiority.
- He trusts no one and places a premium on revenge. (“If you do not get even, you are just a schmuck!”)
- “The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.”
- relentlessly mocked his opponents, lashed out at reporters and scorned the status quo.
- trusted his instincts, refused to apologize amid controversy, stood by his allies and sought to destroy his foes
- focused on the big picture (“Make America Great Again”) rather than on policy details
- authored more than a dozen books about his experiences in the business world that shaped this outlook – most of them self-help treatises with titles including the 1987 best-seller “The Art of the Deal,” 2004’s “Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life,” and 2007’s “Think Big.”
- recurrent themes in his writings include strength, success, self-confidence, distrust, and revenge.
- often wrote about what he sees as the decline of the United States, a bedrock theme of his presidential campaign.
- “The world is a vicious and brutal place, he wrote in “Think Big.” “Even your friends are out to get you: They want your job, they want your house, they want your money, they want your wife, and they even want your dog.”
- “When people wrong you, go after those people, because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it,” he writes. “I always get even.”
- He denies being a bully but acknowledges being a “very assertive, aggressive kid.” He wrote in 1987’s “The Art of the Deal.”
- “In the second grade I actually gave a teacher a black eye,” he wrote. “I’m not proud of that, but it’s clear evidence that even early on I had a tendency to stand up and make my opinions known in a very forceful way. The difference now is that I like to use my brain instead of my fists.” (In light of his support of the insurrection at the Capitol the favored use of brain over fists cannot be substantiated!).
Trump punctuated the anecdote with several bullet points at the end of the chapter, including:
· “When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades” and
- go for the jugular so that people watching will not want to mess with you.”
- “I believe in an eye for an eye — like the Old Testament says,” he wrote in “The Art of the Comeback.”
- “Some of the people who forgot to lift a finger when I needed them, when I was down, they need my help now, and I’m screwing them against the wall. I’m doing a number…. And I’m having so much fun.”
- Favorite themes are the need for national strength and restoring America’s stature abroad, which he says has been diminishing for decades.
- The billionaire developer has long felt a kinship with blue-collar workers – and he believes the feeling is reciprocated. Indeed, blue-collar workers have shown up at the polls in droves to support his bid for the Republican nomination — often expressing admiration for his success.
·
But, he has also
underpaid them, exploited them, and sued them; even denigrated them in words,
expressing distaste for them.
While Trump’s writings and statements are geared primarily toward the business world, he has routinely weighed in on politics over the years.
· derided the press as being “among the most dishonest people ever created by God” — insisting that reporters have gotten his story wrong time and again.
· Favorite themes are the need for national strength and restoring America’s stature abroad, ‘Our country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world.”
· In “Think Big,” he criticized then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a smiling, waving lightweight. Trump states without equivocation: “I could negotiate peace in the --Middle East – very few other people could.”
The
point is this: We were told early on --and
continuously-- by this loser in his own words who he was and how he thought and
operated. But we – and his followers in
his base and in the Congress – chose to ignore this information. That was a fatal mistake.
On
Jan. 6, 2021, when he invited his brain-washed followers to invade the Capitol,
we ignored and downplayed his words again, and this time it was
fatal! He strangled our democracy and bears responsibility for those injured or killed in the insurrection! We saw our Capitol invaded and vandalized by
an unruly mob of seditionists intent on destruction of property and the overturning
of a certified national election. Since,
we have learned of another goal of the insurrectionists: the kidnapping or harming
of “traitors” like Mike Pence!
GOP SYCOPHANTS. How
could this happen? It was helped to
happen by Republican Representatives and Senators who clearly decided to support this man instead
of fulfilling their duty to follow their oath to protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States. They
knew who this man was and what his modus operandi was but they chose to support
him and to coddle him in efforts to avoid his ability to “primary” them: and to
assign them to oblivion on Twitter. They feared his power and chose to support
him no matter what he did. Under political
and fiscal pressure, they chose to support this seriously flawed and mentally
fragile man instead of the Law. They
chose loyalty to this man over loyalty to their country and its people. Only after being threatened by mob rule have
some of them come to the realization of the danger to our democracy and our people, liable
to proceed from this man. Some have come
to the realization that the threat of mob rule could catch up to them.
They knew this man’s faults and flaws;
they knew this mob was coming to Washington; they knew this president had
invited them to perform a coup by over-turning any attempt by Congress to
accept the Electoral College results.
They knew, and they did nothing but continue to support this flawed
president, just as they did when they had the chance to vote to impeach
him. The weakling seditious Republican
officials who excused, abetted, and approved what he did and said
throughout his four years in office are partly to blame for the Jan. 6th
attack. They do not deserve to be in any
public office, and they should never have been elected. They should be expelled from Congress and never
allowed to be in public office again – particularly applied to Ted Cruz, Kevin
McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and Josh Hawley. And that
brings us to another partial answer to our question.
The Radical
Right.
How could this happen? It
happened partially because there is a permanent contingent of people in this
country who are anti-democratic in their thinking and in their behaviors, in
their biases and their beliefs. They
have no ability to think critically about anything; they simply accept whatever they have received
from others in terms of concretized and traditional customs and myths passed on
to them by similar people who live in a world that does not ask too much of
them nor reflect reality. What are some
of those illusions and delusions?
- Ø life is rough and everybody is out to get you
so be tough and ready to fight back
- Ø people unlike us are out to take what we have,
so oppose those who are different, from foreign places, or just appear to be
‘strange’
- Ø they often receive stories, sayings, and
beliefs without question from various sources that are accepted as “gospel truth” because
they appear to bolster what they have already accepted as truth for themselves,
even though it may not agree with reality.
Ø One of those myths is male dominance
as taught and espoused in the bible: the male is head of the household or
family; he is strong and in charge and his needs come first; while the woman –
Eve – is seen as inferior and in need of a dominant male to guide, protect and
defend her or perhaps to manipulate, order her around, and instruct her.
Ø Another equally ardent myth is that of success:
that those who work hard will be rewarded; which is one reason why Donald Trump
gets such loyalty from this group – he is seen as someone who
worked hard and made a lot of money—therefore seen as their “kind -of-guy.” It
also speaks to why this group feels betrayed by unions, politicians, and governments
– because the rewards have been few for them
Ø This is a group living on “blind faith”--what
matters to them is not what is said or done, but whether they are being
respected and listened to; and led by someone strong who takes no “guff”
Ø They have come in all shapes, sizes and
stridencies over the years: from the
colonial Boston Tea Party hosts to the Whiskey makers rebellion
of 1794 to Civil War Johnnie Rebs to the Jim Crow Ku Klux Klan to the Ward Bosses
of the growing Cities to the Bootleggers to the Robber Barons (‘Tycoons’) to
the Whiskey Distillers of the Prohibition Era to the Tea Partiers and Proud
Boys of the modern era.
Which
brings us round to another point that cannot be allowed to slip past. We Got to Where We Are, not because of Leftwing
movements or liberal revolutions, or insurrections or rebellions, but because
this mob’s mentality, their macho male
myth; and ‘they are-out-to-get-us’ attitude have threatened our
Democracy at every historic moment when they feel that their cherished
delusions are threatened by forces beyond their control or by government
intervention that tends to override their attempted control of the levers of
power to their advantage.
The greatest threats to our democracy
have always come from the regressive Rightwing, not from the Progressive
Left. And as of January 6, 2021, we have
seen the only incident that has involved domestic
terrorism and mob insurrection against our congressional Capitol: AND IT CAME FROM THE ALT RIGHT!
The Alt Right has always tried to make
the Progressive Left into the Villain and Destroyer of democracy, but our
history – and our latest events—bear out the fact that diverting attention from
the Right by blaming the Left is one BIG LIE that has led us to this moment (and
even now the Perpetrators are claiming that the mythical leftwing Antifa
infiltrated the attackers and carried out all the damage -- total BS!)
PROGRESSIVE
REFORM & CHANGE MAY MEAN TEMPORARY DISCOMFORT FOR SOME BUT IT IS NOT A
THREAT TO OUR REPUBLIC – and
usually marks a new era of positive reforms from the Left of the political
spectrum.
INSURRECTION AND
INTIMIDATION FROM THE RIGHT
HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE GREATEST THREAT TO THIS DEMOCRACY AS DEMONSTRATED
BY THIS 01/06/2021 ATTACK ON OUR CAPITOL.
So yes, we got here on the wings of
our own devices, and because the Rightwing is the real enemy of government of,
by and for the people. Their destructive
tendency to worship leaders who show absolute strength and power is a danger to
our system of checks and balances, and to our entire system of equality under
law.
OUR OWN COMPLICITY. We Progressives do not escape some
responsibility for this situation for we have fallen prey to complacency based
on a belief that action can be delayed; or on a stretch of credulity that “we
aren’t what was displayed ”even though 75 million voters cast ballots for
Trump. And, we tried to believe that
people like Trump or Cruz will surely be willing to repress their
ambitions. Wrong Again!
So here is a truth we must not omit: we are all to blame in some way for this incident because of the failings that we have left uncorrected or unattended: e.g.
- N not speaking up when we were told by Trump who he was and what he expected to accomplish: namely, the de-construction of federal government
- not opposing racism, sexism, elitism wherever we find it
- not being bold enough about reform when we should have been, i.e. HR #1
The mainstream Media is partly to blame for not continually educating
the public on what fascism means and how Trump was attempting to overthrow our
democratic system. The use of euphemisms
like ‘authoritarian’ was deceptive and cowardly. This man was schooled in fascist values (not
unlike some other millionaires who have promoted similar tenets) and was
promoting them in everything he did; the Media gave him a free pass by not
calling him what he was or clearly naming the system he was promoting. It is better now, but Now is too late – it should have happened
before the 2016 election. (please see my three-part Blog at end of November
2015 where I tried to get the message out early about this man’s
fascist tendencies)
· The national Media failed just as the German
Media failed in 1930s Germany. It could
have focused attention by using a simple
comparison between the Big Lies of Trumpism with the Big Lie philosophy of
Hitler and other fascists. There was a
study by one Italian author that showed similarities that existed in all
potential and functioning fascist governments and I used it to warn against
voting for Trump in my Blog of 11/03/2016).
But when all is said and done, it is the
Trump base who must bear the brunt of reaction to their complicity with
Trumpism. They are his worshippers, paying obeisance to a “Supreme Leader”
without questioning the concept or the consequences. They are like the German citizens of the
1930s who gave a pass to Hitler and his
minions only to find themselves mired in a fascist dictatorship.
And part of that blame must fall on
our public education system which has failed miserably in educating our young
people on the philosophical and physical differences between our form of
government and those of dictatorial ideologies such as fascism and communism. Training for responsible citizenship seems
relegated to our past and has helped bring us to the present acts of anti-democratic demagoguery and sedition.
Finally, we cannot absolve our progressive
movement for their relative silence on calling out the tendencies of this
administration. Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren tried, but were perhaps not specific enough about the dangers
and the myths we were accepting.
The democratic leadership and
representatives in the House had a chance to bring this pattern of behavior to
the people during the first impeachment of Trump. They failed in not showing a destructive pattern
of abuse of power and the growth of fascist tendencies. They chose to concentrate their charges on
just one incident of abuse and lost their chance. A second impeachment cannot make up for that
missed opportunity, but it can provide a forum for bringing forth the
devastation caused by this Nazi sympathizer and Fascist dictator wannabe.
Do they dare? Maybe, but I doubt it. Should they? They better do something spectacular or this spoiled-brat-turned- despot will once again walk away from criminal activity with no consequences imposed, as he has done throughout his lifespan. Let us consider adopting what has already begun as one remedy for this man and his fascist-like Movement: the isolation of him and his followers from mainstream platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. To that we need to add the tried-and-true method of economic boycott and resolve to boycott every product and policy produced by Trump Enterprises.
Most important is a ban on
Trump ever being allowed to stand again for public office. The case needs to be made this time that
Trump has engaged in a despotic pattern of abuse of presidential powers,
culminating in his followers committing seditious insurrection and overthrow of constitutional government and of a
certified election based solely on lies and delusions, never on evidence or
proof. And how about making him pay his fair share of taxes like the rest of us! .
IMPEACH DONALD TRUMP &
BAN HIM FROM PUBLIC OFFICE
