It's time to stop making fun of Donald Trump

Comedians love him. Donald Trump is practically a caricature of himself. He's so rediculous he should be an asterisk in the polling results.

Yet Trump leads all Republicans in the polls. Not just one poll, not just one state, and not just one week. Why?
Most people write it off as a fluke. It's not sustainable. It's just a temporary embarrassing moment in American politics.

I believe they are missing the bigger story. There is an ideology at work here.

It's hard to pin down exactly what is Trump's ideology because he tends to say whatever comes into his head. He often contradicts himself, except with the jingoism so popular with the GOP. However, he is consistent on at least three issues.

1) Immigration (complete intolerance and scapegoating)
2) Economic nationalism (shift trade policy to mercantilism)
3) Corporate policy (eliminate corporate taxes)

On all three of these issues Trump is consistent with one of the most sucessful political ideologies of the 20th Century - Fascism.

Since World War II, the ideology he represents has usually lived in dark corners, and we don’t even have a name for it anymore. The right name, the correct name, the historically accurate name, is fascism. I don’t use that word as an insult only. It is accurate.
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 resentment (race, class, sex, religion, economic) and promising a new order of things under his mighty hand.

That's not to say that Trump is a new Hitler. He's not by a long shot.
Trump's ideology is not nearly as developed as the Nazis. Trump is more like the wrong messenger for proto-fascism.
Plus, America today is not in enough of a crisis to be welcoming to fascism.

It's easier to recognize this from a distance. In Europe today we are witnessing the rise of the far-right in midst of the failures of that neoliberal experiment, the Eurozone.
America today is different from Europe, but also has the fingerprints of neoliberal failures.

That being said, just because people laugh at Trump doesn't mean a whole lot. Hitler, also known as the “Bohemian Corporal,” used to be the butt of jokes as well.

The important point is that Trump has tapped into a hidden vein of fascism often ignored by the political establishment. Because of that Trump is unlikely to sink soon in the polls like so many expect him too. What's more, other Republican candidates are watching the polls and some of them will likely adopt Trump's message.

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1) Immigration (complete intolerance and scapegoating)
2) Economic nationalism (shift trade policy to mercantilism)
3) Corporate policy (eliminate corporate taxes)

I can understand why Joe Redneck would lap up #1. I don't see any logic for him supporting 2 or 3, unless he's also a deluded small business owner. In the minds of Trump supporters, how would they possible twist either 2 or 3 into a benefit for him/her?

I have a theory for Trump's standing in the polls. I believe there are huge numbers of people who are just fed up with politicians of every stripe. People have been lied to and used for so long, they're made as hell and don't want to take it anymore. I think this is the reason there is so much support for Bernie Sander the self-described Independent, and Donald Trump the self-described Republican businessman but not Republican politician.

In support of this premise, I offer a remark made by Obama's during his news conference on the Iran deal. I was shocked by his public admission of this scandalous fact, but apparently I was the only one.

OBAMA: Let me answer the question that you asked. It does not give me pause that Mr. Assad or others in Tehran may be trying to spin the deal in a way that they think is favorable to what their constituencies want to hear. That's what politicians do, and that's been the case throughout.

That is exactly why people are pissed off and Trump is first in the polls. It should give him pause, and he should't be lying to us just to "get into our pants". If there was ever an example of privilege, Obama is it.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

hecate's picture

supporters don't even know what is "mercantilism," and could give a shit about corporate taxes. They love him for his ceaseless vile gibberish about "the blacks," and wild-eyed Mexican rapists, and "beating the Chinese." Trump polls best among unwealthy white men, the virulent racist core of the Republican electorate. They love him because he hates.

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There is no doubt that his hate is pushing him along in the polls.
But I think it's a mistake to attribute his hatred to straight-up traditional racism. I believe his hatred is more like xenophobia.
If the nation on our border was full of asian people then he would be calling asian people rapists. Same goes if a bordering nation was full of black people.
Instead he's saved most of his bile for latinos in Mexico and central America.

Maybe that difference, between xenophobia and traditional racism, isn't very large, but I think its important.

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hecate's picture

is certainly playing on fears of people from another, neighboring country. But he is not pounding on Canadians.

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I think it is anti-estaablishment American exceptionalism that Trump is selling. The only thing they hate more than Mexicans and thugs is government. If government would put an army at the border and throw everryone in jail and mind its own business, life would be fine. lol. I guess there's no explaining them.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

hecate's picture

of Trump's shtick is that a great wall needs to go up on the southern border because (brown) would-be bombers enter the country via that route. When in fact history shows that when (brown) would-be bombers do enter the USA overland, they most often come through Canada. Yet Trump has not said word one about throwing up a great wall on the northern border. Because things like history and facts and Reality don't matter to Trump, or to his people. Trump is a racist, and the people who support him are racists. They look to the north and are comforted by a calming sea of white people. They look to the south and are agitated by a boiling cauldron of brown people. Melanin makes them scared. And thus the pee doth flow in their pants.

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Big Al's picture

distracted. The vast majority of people know he's a farce and he takes some of the spotlight off the
overall process which is the greater farce.
We need to remember that about 60% of the voting public have checked out of this undemocratic
system of electing fools to supposedly represent us. So whoever the ruling class media says leads in the polls,
they're only talking about a small percentage of American sheeple.
If we're talking in voting language, the winner by a landslide or super majority is None of the Above.

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MarilynW's picture

We never thought he would get in, his fake service record, his inability to talk in paragraphs, the stupid things he said. And yet...

Don't underestimate the numbers he will get from the same type of people who voted for Bush and those who would have elected McCain/Palin.

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To thine own self be true.

shaharazade's picture

I don't think I can stomach adding my consent to this madness. Does Bernie talk about restoring the rule of law and our basic civil and human rights? So far he talks a lot about economic disparity but not much about the police/surveillance state we now live in. How about repealing some of these appalling anti-constitutional Act's like the Patriot Act or the AUFM. Good policemen are an oxymoron. I may vote for him but the more he pumps the Democratic as the so called lesser evil in this complicit one party state the less I feel like voting for him. The fact that he's running as a Democrat and caucuses with the Dem. weasel congress critters kind of makes me queasy. At least he didn't tell these protestors to Shut Up! like he did the people at a town meeting who dared to criticize the Israelis massacre in Gaza.

I too like #black lives matter think that lukewarm changes in our economic policy alone will not stem the killing of black people by our governments armed and dangerous goon squads. Be they local state or Feds they are stone killers unleashed on humans both here and globally. We need the rule of law that took centuries to develop restored. I am getting more and more radicalized by what passes for politics in this fascist lawless anti-democratic country. Who can blame ordinary people for both hating the broken corporately owned, militarized, government and refusing to vote for any of the rat bastard pols that call themselves Democrat's. I live in a solid 85% Democratic city that's a prime example of what corrupt Democrat's do when they are given power. Not voting these days means voting to protect your democratic 'interests' as lets face it all of them mean 'we the people' harm.

My little rant. Perhaps I should stop thinking and reading what passes for news. Maybe I need a time out. I'm involved in local politics that are not partisan but are fighting the pols and greedy1%ers that are hell bent on destroying the environment and my city, state and region. Even if Bernie beats the odds and wins he's got two fascist lawless parties that are armed and dangerous to contend with. Will he instead caucus with these war criminals and thieves who represent the global 'powerful interests' and then declare that complicity is a 'victory for compromise' .

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Big Al's picture

politician who talks in generalities running as a Democratic party candidate.
But they can't say they weren't warned. Not this time.

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shaharazade's picture

that he leads in the R polls. I also find the drift towards full blown fascism that our society has embraced, regardless of political party affiliation, since 9/11 even more alarming. When they took the rule of law off the table and our rights became tools they needed to to fight the GWOT with everyone everywhere becoming a pre-criminal or potential enemy of the state I thought it was a RW coup. Turns out it was a by-partisan coup.

There has always been and always will be a certain percentage about 25-30% of anti-democratic bat shit crazy pig ignorant people in this country. They did not have as much power politically as they do now. I think the fascist Democrat's the neoliberal/neocon establishment empower the lunatic fringe by not 'obstructing' them in congress and by implementing the same agenda minus the theocratic insanity. Even the fundamentalist American Taliban are given equivalency and allowed to wield powers that have no place in a secular democratic republic. Then there is the absolutely surreal culture war that distracts us all from the real damage being done to democracy, justice, our common good and the rule of law by the owners of the place.

When Bush jr. ran I made the mistake of thinking seriously? This damaged psycho good ol' frat boy, idiot cannot win. Well actually he didn't and the Democrat's including Gore just folded like cheap tents. Now I've come full circle and cannot say that Trump is too crazy and nasty to win because our whole society seems to be a variation on the theme of screw you I've got mine and believes that killing, war and austerity for profiteers is our only option. It Axelrod's world as we find it. Meanwhile the media even the net catapults the fear and hate and has made formerly unthinkable, cruel viscous anti-humanistic agenda and policy conventional wisdom.

So yeah maybe the bad hair casino asshole loonie will win but do not blame the sane portion of the populist who see's this electoral scam for what it is. Blame the true believers of both sides who think 'terrist's are gonna kill yer family' and no socialist can ever win and why don't you go live in Russia you far lefty Dr. Commie Rat. While I fear the growing global specter of fascism that is a nationalistic political reaction to this global takeover by actual fascists disguised as pols or savvy businessmen. Regardless of which asshole gets elected Goldman Sachs and it's ilk will rule the world.

The only remedy is for ordinary people everywhere to stand up and say enough and hit the streets. That includes Bernie. Meanwhile maybe like the Soviet Union which collapsed on it's own disregard for parliamentary representation or the common good of the people or Iceland that later said get out of here, people everywhere will get out there pots and pans and drive this lot of want to rule the world assholes out. But then again like the soviet Union the Oligarchical Collectivists will once again get power and go too far. A classic historical battle that has gone on forever. They are not inevitable they are fascistic, authoritarian, pillagers and death dealing power hungry psycho's. Another constant percentage of people that needs to be reined in.

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Big Al's picture

manage the world and it's clear now that some of the systems, particularly representative government for the rich and
unfettered/gangster capitalism, are broken, corrupt and need to be replaced. Private central banking needs to be
replaced by public banking. We as humans could certainly come up with something better if we were to have an
honest debate. But we can't because the systems won't allow it. It's a Catch 22, which is appropriate because we've
gone into Orwell time.

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elenacarlena's picture

You have a point, however. Some of us might need to take him seriously. The biggest danger, I think, is that others will imitate him to pander to the right-wing electorate. But then I'll make fun of them too. Smile

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