The Mob Determined the Theme: Trump is the GOP, the GOP is Trump
Trump and His GOP Defenders
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “The mob is the most ruthless of tyrants.”
The Republican Party that I joined working for the Ford campaign as a teenager before I could vote is long gone, not to say that Nixon, Reagan and others helped prepare the way for the pernicious and petulant mob that calls itself a political party. Unfortunately, Ford, as decent of politician as one could get, pardoned Nixon who never was brought to justice for his crimes, therefore setting a terrible precedent that still is with us today.
Any semblance of normalcy in the GOP is gone. It is a lawless mob intent on destroying our democracy and trampling our Constitution and laws. Their leader incited an insurrection against Congress and his own Vice President in a vain attempt to overturn a valid and legal election, and since has continued to lie about his election loss, spread conspiracy theories, projects his own crimes and ideas on his opponents, ratchet up rage, and incite even more violence. Trump can savage everyone in the GOP primary field, but instead of fighting back they defend him because the are afraid of the MAGA Mob and need to ingratiate themselves to the mob to survive in Trump World.
Trump is twice impeached, twice indicted, and once found liable for sexual assault. The latest indictment is something so serious that it put national se at risk. Since Trump openly admires Vladimir Putin, Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, both who routinely murder or assassinate political, opponents, members of the press, invade neighboring counties, use their oil money to force others to do their bidding, and rule as dictators who want to see the United States as we know it destroyed, with Trump as their willing lap dog.
And what do the elected leaders of the GOP do? The House GOP not only defends him but works to hamper investigations, investigate the investigators, attack law enforcement, the Justice Department, and the courts, and make ad hominem attacks on military leaders including General Mark Milley, and suggest that they be assassinated.
Others echo Trump by saying that they are at war and encourage violence against the government, especially the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. These people not only encourage violence, they align themselves with open Nazis, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Christian Nationalist theocrats, and members of recognized hate groups. They call the insurrectionists that attacked the Capitol who have been convicted of serious felonies “political prisoners” and talk about how their violent followers are being unjustly persecuted.
Very few in the GOP dare to criticize Trump because they see what happened to those that criticized h during his first term or voted for his impeachment. With the exception of former governors Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie, none of the declared presidential candidates dare criticize him, and among congressmen and Senators almost none dare speak out save Senator Mitt Romney.
Sadly, I knew this was coming as early as 2015 as I watched Trump campaign and people rally to his incendiary and violent talk. I wrote the following on what is now my legacy blog on WordPress on December 10th, 2015. They are not edited.
The Mob Determined the Theme
When Albert Speer discussed the ability of Adolf Hitler to captivate the German people he noted something important. He discussed how Hitler and his minions played to them set by the disgruntled and angry German population. Speer wrote, “The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery and license. The personal unhappiness caused by the breakdown of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded victims. By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions.”
Hitler played to that misery, insecurity and the obsessions of the politically and economically disaffected “conservative base” that no longer trusted the party establishments of the old-line conservative parties. He also played to the deep-rooted racism and anti-Semitism of those people. Hitler was an outsider, he was not indebted to any traditional party hierarchy and as such was able to throw away convention and play to the fear and anger of many Germans.
Donald Trump is doing today and he is running circles around the traditional politicians of the Republican Party. Every time trump says something that would have gotten himself blown out of the race twenty years ago had he said such things, today his poll numbers keep going up. He is now trending around 35% in most polls of GOP voters and my guess is that those numbers are low, as some supporters may not be willing to tell a pollster that they are for Trump, at least yet. My guess is that Trump’s support in the GOP is probably higher than 40% and won’t go down much. The party hierarchy and most of Trump’s primary rivals consistently criticize Trump, but most say that they will back him if he is the nominee. I cannot imagine that being the case twenty years ago when both the party establishment and the voters would have dumped him in a New York minute.
Trump understands the mood of much of the traditionally conservative public better than his Republican establishment competitors. Trump is not stupid, unlike Hitler who actually believed in his message, Trump is not a radical, he cannot be, he has too much invested in the system. Instead, he is a street smart and pragmatic businessman who is exploiting the situation on the ground to his advantage. His opponents and the GOP establishment are frightened, but like the hidebound conservatives of the Weimar Republic who either dismissed or Hitler or thought that they could contain him are not willing to make a stand. As a result, Trump is able to play to the mood of the base and to coin a phrase, to “trump the establishment” by channeling the deepest anger, fear, hatred, xenophobia, and racism that the GOP establishment refuses to acknowledge. When there is a push back by the establishment it further angers the base, and Trump, quite adroitly threatens to leave the party; something which would doom the GOP in the 2016 general election, and possibly shatter the party.
Trump’s GOP opponents should not underestimate him and neither should establishment Democrats. Trump is using his celebrity bombast and the democratic process to take control of a major political party, and he is a lot smarter than most political analysts give him credit. As such, as a non-establishment outsider, Trump has a chance at taking over a major political party, something that has never before happened in the United States.
If he succeeds in his takeover bid, it will forever change American politics, especially if he is able to ride the fear, hatred, and fear to the White House. I don’t think the latter will happen, but I would not exclude it from the realm of the possible. To paraphrase Speer’s words about Hitler and Goebbels: By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Muslims and immigrants, Trump gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions of a disaffected GOP base.
Of course Trump succeeded in taking over the GOP. It is his party. As Goebbels said of Hitler, “the Führer is German, Germany is the Führer.” In the case of Trump, Trump is the GOP, the GOP isTrump.
The angry violent mob is Trump’s GOP, and the scary part is that many, if not the majority claim to be Christians.
In 1837 a 28 year-year old Abraham Lincoln spoke at the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. The time was tumultuous.
We must stand on the side of law that says that all are subject to the same law and justice, and that no one is above the law. Lincoln was concerned with the growing lawlessness among the American people, including President Andrew Jackson who flagrantly disobeyed a Supreme Court ruling regarding taking the land from and driving the people of five Native America nations out of their ancestral homes. Lincoln said:
"There is even now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean that increasing disregard for law which pervades the country -- the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passion in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice. The disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours ... it would be a violation of truth to deny."
Lincoln wasn’t afraid of any foreign invasion, but he was very concerned with the possibility of self-destruction from within. He said:
“At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up among us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.
His concerns were born out over the next 25 years as lawless leaders led their states out of the Union because they opposed the results of an election, leading to the bloodiest war in America history. In his Second Inaugural Address Lincoln spoke of his first address to the nation:
"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it ~ all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place devoted altogether to saving the Union without war insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war ~ seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.”
His words are even more true today than when he spoke them. we are watching the leaders, the propagandists, the an inflamed people of Trump’s mob is doing exactly what Confederate agents were attempting to do in 1861, and by all appearances it seems that Trump and MAGA would rather make war than let the nation survive.
The question is, what will we do? Will we stand for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the founding principal of the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” or will we meekly surrender to tyranny?
So the next time you hear the phrase “Make America Great Again” or the the MAGA logo on a bumper sticker or hat, remember the words of Timothy Snyder: “When exactly was the “again” in the president’s slogan “Make America great again”? Hint: It is the same “again” that we find in “Never again.”
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Albert Speer, was the Nazi illusionist who designed a "cathedral of light" and other delights to distract the beleaguered Germans into believing in their "Aryan superiority" under the guidance of their beloved Fuerer. Speer played to both sides of the isle and claimed to have intended to poison Hitler in 1943, and later during the Nuremberg Trials, he persisted in denying any knowledge of the official Nazi policy of destroying Jewish people to extinction.
But I take exception to Speer's contention that it was "the mob" that "determined the theme" for the destruction of my relatives in Poland and not carefully crafted orders of the duly elected government of Germany. Here's why I respectfully disagree with the premise. Speer, friend and associate of Hitler friend and associate of Hitler from the start of the rise of Nazism, shifting the responsibility for mass-murder which came to be known as genocide when it is selectively targeted. The cleaver and educated Speer, unlike Hitler, was born into prestige and money. And despite his pivotal role in the rise of Nazism, he blithely and cleverly shifted blame to the "mob" of hungry of dissatisfied Germans. This a tactic, presented to Americans after his capture, resulted in his life being spared at the Trials, while other in official positions in the Nazi regime were sentenced to die.
The "mob' was aroused, and murder was sanctioned by those in command. Their hatred was further empowered by clergy in sermons on Sunday contending that all Jews were Christ-killers and deserved revenge killing. The notorious blood libels, and hundreds of years of Church-sanctioned persecution, culminated in this horrific event which has become the hallmark of all things wrong with humanity.
Hitler was democratically elected in 1933 and worked his way up the ladder into a position of absolute power and control with the assist of willing hands. His architect and partner, Albert Speer, achieved the position of Minister of Armaments during the Third Reich, yet denied for years, thathe had any knowledge of the institutional murder of millions of civilian Jews, Roma, homosexuals and political opponents. When Speer was arrested in Glucksburg Castle in 1945, and heavily armed allied,troops burst into his private rooms take him away., he is quoted as saying: “So now the end has come... That’s good. It was all only kind of an opera anyway.”
What kind of entertainment for the masses is America undergoing these days since the rise and fall of our very own supreme leader? How far will this mass delusion continue before "the mob" can reconcile the truth from manufactured "alternative facts"? As it stand now, the "perfect storm" is gathering momentum, and finds itself at our doors, in our schools, distressed shopping malls, in our courts and the Capital!
Remember Goldilocks and "the big bad wolf" threatening to "huff and puff and blow the house down", even as Grandma-ma cowers in her bed. I say this with a heaviness which belies the lightness of a child's story. After all, it's our children and seniors who are most vulnerable. And those with illness, mental and physical. And not just our children, but those strangers at the borders, 100 millions stateless individuals worldwide, seeking shelter from the storm.