What Is Really Behind Donald Trump?

We all know the bluster and the seemingly absurd “everyman” language he uses that endears him to many Americans, even the blue-collar set.  Much of it is unclear, vague, and often contradictory.  Each of us thinks we understand what he means.  Perhaps that’s the point.  Speak with “fill-in-the-blanks” vagueness and let the listener hear what they want.  He is the carnival barker of our time.  He can whip an audience into a frenzy and they will do his bidding.

Some might ask, how is it that a wealthy tycoon is relatable to such a wide audience?  He has easily carved out a solid base of hard-core followers estimated to be about one-third of the Republican party. 

He promises simple “magic bullet” solutions to complex problems.  Paint a picture of immigrants as drug-crazed pedophiles and rapists coming to take your jobs, then promise to “build a 2,000-mile steel wall on our southern border and have Mexico pay for it.”  The crowd will cheer.  The crowd won’t see the lunacy in this, or the fact that it still doesn’t solve the problem of immigration.  They just see a simple “solution.”  People understand walls and fences.  People don’t understand that others, facing death and starvation, are highly motivated.  Immigrants will see such a barrier as just another obstacle in a long line of hazards they have already faced.

Trump’s appeal is further enhanced by citizens feeling their government is in chaos and unresponsive to their needs. Who can blame them, it’s true.  You don’t have to be a political scientist to see the dysfunction of our government.  Politicians fight, not just with the opposition, but among themselves. It’s not a pretty picture.  Trump is still seen as an outsider and he is now an “outsider” with four years of experience.

This part of the Trump equation is easy to understand.  What worked for Il Duce (Benito Mussolini) in the 1930s is working for Donald Trump.  Mussolini too was originally a socialist who promised the working class a better life before making a hard turn to the right.  We must remember that Donald Trump was originally a Democrat before his hard right turn.  Mussolini asked to be allowed to ignore existing laws and to be allowed to become a dictator for just one year.  Trump, in recent speeches, promises that his dictatorship will only last one day.  If you believe that, he has some classified documents he will sell you along with pieces of the suit he wore for his mug shot.

The term fascist was created to describe Mussolini’s paramilitary groups which were called “fasci di combattimento” or fascismo.  The word is from the Latin word fasces which is described as a bundle of wooden sticks topped with an ax head used by Roman authority figures to express their rank.  This symbol has been adopted by the alt-right as a favorite icon.  The Charlottesville killer who drove his car into protestors used this symbol.  In ancient Rome, the ax was to be used for punishment when needed.

Mussolini supporters wore black shirts at rallies, not red MAGA hats.  Il Duce spoke theatrically, often in a repetitive manner, expressing opinions that were contradictory and not based on facts.  He was malicious and often used metaphors emphasized with vigorous repetitive gestures.  He inspired the creation of independent militias who terrorized those who might oppose his agenda.  Does any of this sound familiar?

While this perhaps explains a little about Trump and his appeal with some of his hard-core group, it doesn’t explain why he is even in politics beyond his own ego, which is another topic altogether.  What’s in it for him and, more importantly, for others in his class?  What motivates big business and other extremely wealthy people to support the likes of Trump?  What are their motivations and goals?  Using the current chaos in government as cover, and using popular empty rhetoric about lowering the national debt, this group wants to overhaul the constitution, install an authoritarian government that they control, and add to their coffers on the backs of those unaware of their tactics.

ALEC, or the American Legislative Exchange Council, formerly called the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators, was founded in 1973.  The newly anointed Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, was their keynote speaker this year.  Their current initiative is to use Article V of the Constitution to amend that document to benefit businesses.  It all sounds rather innocuous on the surface but their call for an Article V Convention has an agenda that may benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.  This financial shift would be paid for by those who aren’t owners of private Boeing 757s like “Trump Force One.”  [aside-Trump’s jet was formerly a Mexican airliner based in Mexico City]

To invoke Article V, they need 2/3 of the 50 states to support a constitutional convention.  Those living in the conspiracy netherworld should note that 2/3 is point 666.  They need 34 states to call the convention and 38 to ratify any amendments.

The overall objective seems to be to enforce a conservative agenda by changing the balance of power from the federal government back to the states where they feel they can make changes.  Such changes would be more difficult at the national level.  Currently, 25 states have a conservative advantage with 19 of those having a significant advantage.  At the national level, voter registrations showed Democrats outnumbering Republicans in 2020 by around 12 million.  The count in October of that year was 48.5M Democrats, 36.1M Republicans, and 34.8M fence-sitters.

So, if ALEC can get enough states to back their call for a convention, they can then amend our Constitution to suit their needs.  This can be done through the individual state legislatures and Congress has no say.  They currently have petitions circulating with innocuous language that few could find egregious.  Terms like, “impose restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and calling for term limits for members of Congress,” all sound like the only question should be, “Where do I sign?”  If you expand the details of their petition, you will see that it also calls for the elimination of “crushing regulation.”

American Legislative Exchange Council

If you go further into their plans and read their brochure, you will see that they feel businesses are being forced to comply with onerous regulations enacted by agencies that are not directly accountable to citizens.  While I would agree that this is the case, I would question the sanity of having everyday people voting on how much E. coli O157:H7 is safe in our ground beef. 

Some might argue that, if you cook all your hamburgers well and make them look like charcoal briquettes, it is not much of a problem.  Certainly, the meat packing industry would like those regulations to go away.  It costs them money to comply with these rules.  They could make larger profits without regulations.  In fact, most businesses could see larger profits if government regulations went away.  Let me pollute that stream with my industrial runoff because everyone can switch to bottled water.

This group also sees Social Security and other so-called “entitlement” programs as part of a problem that they need to fix.  I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how billionaires would decide to fix Social Security.  I seriously doubt that they would like to eliminate or raise the current $160,200 cap beyond which income is no longer subject to that FICA tax.  The current tax rate is 6.2% for employees and a similar amount for the employer.  Big business, and the very wealthy, don’t see much benefit from Social Security and view it as a government intrusion into their ability to make maximum profits.

The “Article V Convention of States Pocket Guide” further identifies their goal as shifting more control to the states.  The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision would be an example of such a shift.  The conservative SCOTUS ruled that since the Constitution did not specifically list abortion as a right, that issue must be decided individually by each state.  It apparently did not matter that, until the mid-19^th century, abortion was legal as established by common law.

ALEC supports the NRA and the expansion of “stand-your-ground” laws.  They want voter ID voting requirements to limit access to the polls, laws that require all immigrants over 18 to “carry their papers” of alien registration with them at all times, and laws that would outlaw the filming of livestock farms by animal rights activists where violators would be placed in a terrorist registry. 

ALEC wants to privatize prisons as profit centers for the penal-industrial complex.  They want to limit EPA restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and limit access to environmental agencies’ right to track fracking contaminants that may leak into drinking water.  They want to penalize homeowners who install private solar panels and want to sell electricity back on the grid.  They support the total privatization of education.  They would outlaw public broadband services in favor of big business control by the likes of ATT and Verizon.  They want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act.  They promote the idea that homosexuality leads to pedophilia and recruitment.  [Russia just outlawed gay]

ALEC supports all these things and actively writes the legislation and bills that participating officials can sponsor.  Their model legislation comes with training and assistance as a “resource” made available to legislators.  Their authorship is not disclosed, and ALEC membership is a guarded secret.  In one instance, however, a Florida-sponsored bill (by Rep. Rachel Burgin) was introduced that mistakenly included the “boilerplate” mission statement of ALEC.  This group has been called “a dating agency for Republican legislators and big corporations.”

If you are still in doubt as to the goal of ALEC, just know that it is fully endorsed by Ron DeSantis, Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Greg Abbott, Andrew Napolitano, Mark Meadows, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, and Bobby Jindal.  While I support their call for term limits for members of Congress and SCOTUS, I doubt that such limits would make the final cut.

Trump’s broad appeal to the uber-wealthy and the blue-collar set, who would not seem to have similar goals, comes from his careful crafting of his pliable positions on the issues.  He has garnered support from ultra-conservatives and the religious right with his anti-abortion stance.  He has paired this with his desire to be an authoritarian strongman who could force-feed their agenda against the will of most Americans.  His anti-regulation, anti-tax, and small government posture gets the support of big business and the uber-wealthy.  His racism and xenophobia win votes from others who share those views.

There are many seemingly willing to overlook his lack of integrity and morals in the hope that their little slice of the pie will get bigger.  They are also willing to put our democratic way of life on hold to give authoritarianism a chance.  They seem to think that the examples of other countries where authoritarian rule is the norm couldn’t happen in America.  Russia, China, North Korea, Hungary, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are somehow different.  Authoritarian rule in America would be different.  Trump would only govern by fiat on “day one,” and after that, he would follow the Constitution.

Captain Edward J. Smith
RMS Titanic

I will be the first to admit that the system is broken.  Our government seems to be suffering from “locked-in syndrome” where we are conscious and aware of what is happening but are paralyzed to act on anything.  There are solutions to our problems but electing “Capt. Edward Smith,” disguised as Donald Trump, to right the ship and move full speed ahead, means it is time to start counting the lifeboats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American Democracy, Do You Miss It Yet?

A true democracy is like a good marriage where major decisions are discussed, and each partner gets a vote. If this is a truly good marriage, the husband’s decision will triumph. This is because a good wife will know how to make him think that what she wanted was his idea in the first place. In government, democracy is like a food fight in a kindergarten.

Kindergarten Food Fight

We think of ourselves as a democracy here in the United States but, more accurately, we are a federal democratic republic formed under a constitution. We are a representative democracy with officials elected to govern. We “govern ourselves” indirectly by electing those who will act on our behalf, or so we think.

As declared democratic objectives go, those stated in our Constitution are laudable. In practice, however, slaves, indigenous peoples, and women were excluded from voting. Women were eventually allowed to vote (1919), and indigenous Native Americans got the right to vote with the passage of the Snyder Act of 1924, but we are not a true democracy. While most Americans can vote, some are still restricted from voting. Our political parties use legislative tactics to place a “thumb on the scale” of our electoral processes. We still must constantly fight against gerrymandering, polling location placement, polling times, voter disenfranchisement, and voter disqualification schemes meant to seek political party advantages.

As George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This is even more evident today than when George Orwell wrote his satirical fable loosely covering the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia. We have our own political versions of the Animal Farm pig characters Snowball and Napolean who would like to enforce their version of the “Seven Commandments of Animalism.” In Orwell’s fable, a disagreement over a new modernization plan that involved building a windmill, proposed by Snowball, has Napolean use his dogs to chase Snowball away as he declares himself supreme commander.

Napolean as Supreme Commander of 
Animal Farm

Anyone who reads this refresher excerpt of the Animal Farm plot who doesn’t see parallels in today’s political food fight may want to pay closer attention to what’s happening in the congressional sandbox. Perhaps it would be clearer if I mentioned that after defeating Snowball and taking command, Napolean takes credit for the windmill idea. When the new windmill is blown down in a storm, Napolean blames Snowball for the disaster and begins a purge of those he distrusts. Where have we seen such shenanigans lately?

Orwell published Animal Farm just a few weeks before I was born, but not much has changed in the ensuing 78 years. Corruption of power, the manipulation of information, the emergence of an exploitive elite class, and the erosion of our democratic principles are as much a part of our modern landscape as they were on the Manor Farm run by the alcoholic farmer, Mr. Jones.

The freedoms enjoyed in our hybrid democracy are now at risk. Our tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free are rightfully distrustful and outraged at the poor helmsmanship being provided by our elected officials. We all see the icebergs ahead and the bickering in the wheelhouse of government.

I am reminded of a flight I took some years ago aboard a small commuter jet. Sue and I were the only passengers until one late arrival managed to make it to a seat across the aisle. The cockpit curtain was open, and we could see the two pilots at the controls. Once in the air, we went through a bad thunderstorm. Imagine how our comfort level plummeted as we watched the two pilots bickering. One was pointing to an open manual and the other was arguing and pointing at and tapping some gauges. I didn’t need to know the specifics of their discussion to know that this shouldn’t be happening as the storm was having its way with our airborne cocoon.

The problem today is that, in a blatant fight for power and control, our bickering government is causing people to rethink our commitment to democracy. Some have even expressed an openness to a more authoritarian approach. They too must see the obvious erosion of democratic norms, challenges to the rule of law, attacks on our independent judiciary, and an abandonment of support for a free press. A strongman ruler might seem like a simple solution to the chaos but much of this chaos is being orchestrated. It is being done to make the path easier for them to grab the reins of power. Cause the problem and then offer the solution that creates your advantage.

Some conservatives would point to Viktor Orbán of Hungary with envy. Hungary, like the US, is rated as a “Deficient Democracy.” They have a ceremonial President and Orbán is the head of government with the title of Prime Minister. On August 5, 2022, Orbán spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Viktor Orbán of Hungary at CPAC in Texas

Some US conservatives likely see parallels between Orbán’s history and that of Donald Trump. Orbán first ruled in Hungary from 1998 to 2002 when he lost his reelection bid. Then, he used a rising distrust and dissatisfaction with politicians to sweep the 2010 elections. He also got a two-thirds majority in their parliament which allowed him to make multiple changes to their constitution. He has held his current position since the 2010 election.

With his new powers, he hijacked public institutions, attacked the courts, and destroyed most independent media. He encouraged the abuse of migrants and refugees and criminally attacked any who helped them. He has banned same-sex marriages and has attacked the rights of the LGBTQ community. He has wrapped himself in a “pro-family” rhetoric while turning back the clock on the equality between men and women. He fully supports the activities of white supremacists and their “great replacement” theory. Some US conservatives envy his ability to fix elections, crush any dissent, and advance a nationalism rooted in racism.

In the US there is a trend toward a concentration of power in both national and state governments. We see governors who have already corrupted their state judiciaries and, using a party majority in their legislatures, were able to enact laws that make their power more absolute. The recent attempted coup to overthrow a national election and the subsequent campaign rhetoric that promises a major power grab if reelected, provides a clear roadmap to authoritarian rule in America.

Overthrowing our democracy, flawed as it is, would be like paving over our national forests because we sometimes have fires. Once an authoritarian takeover is allowed, any return to democracy would be doomed. These individuals are using the appeal of nationalism and populism to seize power.

An authoritarian government will quickly see an erosion of civil liberties. Free speech? Sure, if it doesn't contradict the ideology of the current leader. Tolerance of dissenting voices would be met with increased surveillance and restrictions. Opposition would be met with marginalization. With executive control of the courts, legal actions against political rivals would be too easy to resist.

This shift toward authoritarian rule has already seen an erosion of international alliances. International fences have been damaged and the current administration has been hampered by the actions of the previous one. The move toward isolationism as a political rallying point under the guise of nationalism and misplaced patriotism has been destructive. Isolation at a time when the global economy is even more important is a self-inflicted wound we should avoid.

In one ranking of democracies by quality, the United States placed 36th. The top five democracies in this analysis were Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Germany. At the bottom of their list were China, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, North Korea, and Eritrea who were all labeled, “Hard Autocracy.” The United States, in its 36th position, was described as a “Deficient Democracy.”

I, for one, would rather see us struggle as a deficient democracy than be forced to endure the rigors of living under an American version of Kim Jong Un. Quick and simple solutions may look attractive if one doesn’t assess the potential risks and consequences of the one-way street to authoritarian rule. I say, not only does Comrade Trump not deserve a second bite at the apple, but that he should also probably end up in jail. This should happen only when he is convicted of a crime under the rules of our deficient democracy. He’s lucky in this regard that we are still a democracy because an authoritarian president might have had his head on a pike on Pennsylvania Avenue by now.

At the conclusion of Animal Farm, the human farmer Jones is dead, and the leaders of the rebellion are aging. The pigs who advocated that four-legged animals are better than two-legged humans, now walk upright. Napolean holds a dinner party and invites the local human farmers to form a new alliance. During a card game, both Napolean and a human farmer play the Ace of Spades and an argument breaks out about who cheated. Animals on the outside looking at the mayhem inside the farmhouse can’t distinguish between humans and pigs. Flip on C-SPAN and see if you can see the difference.

[Postscript]

Orwell’s original manuscript was nearly destroyed in 1944 when a German V-1 flying bomb hit his London home. He luckily managed to retrieve it from the rubble.