To: The People of the United States, March 12, 2020
Trumpism
By Mark Albertson
Trumpism is the antithesis of the founding principles of the American Republic, or what the Connecticut wordsmith Noah Webster once characterized during the period of the Constitutional Convention as an Empire of Reason. Lending reality to Benjamin Franklin’s prognostication offered in Philadelphia in 1787: I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well-administered; and I believe farther it is likely to be well-administered for a Course of Years and can only end in despotism as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.[1]
The Mobocracy that is Trumpism is that of a magistracy of illiberalism—Boss Rule instead of Rule of Law. The ascension to the nation’s highest office by a base-born knave was hardly possible without that collective intellectual dystrophy that is deeply ingrained in a base of ignorance to which the Gauleiter from Queens owes his existence.
A movement oblivious to the notion that the hallmark of true liberty is a functioning system of representative government, which is the true despotism against tyranny. The preservation of legitimate elective politics solicits no compromise to the founding principle of this nation, consent of the governed, to the extent that all those who value same above all else are wedded to its preservation; obligated to not only profess same, but exercise that Revolutionary Right afforded them by the Founders, and as put forth in this Nation’s Article of Faith, known as the Declaration of Independence: But when the long train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a Design to reduce them [that is, the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and provide new guardians for their future security.
Trumpism, then, is the reflection of a nation, once regarded as the gold standard of representative government, but which over the decades, lost its luster. Same is the result of a poverty of regard for representative government—by the people, enough of whom saw to the ascension to power of a smaller-than-life Chancellor from Gotham, as opposed to the alternative, a poisonous defective made available from the competing faction known as Democrats, another grouping—who like Republicans—seem ready, willing and able to sell out the Constitution for the benefit of their corrupted donors, rendering both complicit to the demise of the Republic. For political, economic and social freedom is not possible when rapacious monopolies control the money and government in an effort to make society work for the few.
The reckless optimism borne of Trumpism is the result of the brilliant use of fear and ignorance, weaponized as they are to mold the mind for the collective obedience of an easily channeled dutiful base. Trumpism, then, is not the constable of public opinion, nor is it the servant of the people—as opposed to having an unquenchable desire to become their master. The result is L’etats c’est moi or I am the state! “I know the problems and only I can fix them.” “I know more than the generals!” And in the wake of Xi Jinping’s success in achieving an unlimited term of office as president, “Gee, that’s great; we ought to try that here.” Such is the essence of the Fuhrerprinzip.
Indeed, what the popular media covers as Trump rallies are essentially mini-Munichs, assemblages of the guileless to which a superficial Sawdust Caesar is able to manipulate the collective mind to elicit such aggregate responses as “Lock her up!” and “Build that Wall!” Messages of simplicity which lend to the reality of an unthinking citizenry: The mass does not think, but the individual does.
What occurs in America today can be found in Mein Kampf: “The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses’ attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision . . . The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. . . . its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect. All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to . . . The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through the psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence the heart of the broad masses . . . It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction . . . The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous.”[2]
Trumpism, as a doctrine that appeals to the shallow and simplistic, engenders violence. For instance:
November 21, 2015, Birmingham, Alabama. At a Trump rally, a black opponent to Trump’s candidacy was punched, kicked and choked.
December 14, 2015, a Trump rally in Las Vegas. Some Trump backers bellowed “Sieg Heil,” adding, “Light the motherfucker,” as a black protester was escorted away by security guards.
March 8, 2016, Jupiter, Florida, according to Politico, Trump Campaign manager, Corey Lowandowsky, grabbed a female reporter from Breitbart News and nearly took her to the ground for asking a question after a Trump press conference.
April 26, 2016, Anaheim, California. Pro versus anti-Trumpers became embroiled in a physical confrontation, including the use of pepper spray.
June 16, 2016, at a Trump rally in Dallas, Texas. A photographer was struck in the head with a rock; though it was uncertain as to whether it was a Trump supporter or antagonist who hurled the missile.[3]
The rise of groups espousing extreme-Rightist, neo-Nazi, White Supremacist agendas are becoming more fashionable in America as the Rule of Law withers on the vine. The lack of a functioning system of representative government is a breeding ground for extremism, be it from the Right or the Left. And it is this lack of representative government that has led to the rise of extremism as people feel marginalized from the political system; ostracized from society; that economic advantages once open to them have been closed, all leading to an uncertain future. Perhaps the time has arrived to create a new political reality. Perhaps, too, the time for thinking is over and the time for action has begun. Hence tragedies like Charlottesville.
Daily Stormer is a case in point. A White Supremacist, neo-Nazi, Holocaust denier group. Founded on July 4, 2013 by Andrew Anglin, from Worthington, Ohio, whose previous effort was Total Fascism. The name Daily Stormer is reputed to have been taken from Der Sturmer, a low-rent publication with a most pornographic approach to its anti-Jewish content and edited by one Julius Streicher, a vulgar smut peddler who once wrote, “The male sperm in cohabitation of a Jew with an Aryan woman is sufficient to poison her blood forever. Never again will she be able to bear purely Aryan children, even when married to an Aryan. They will all be bastards.”[4]
To Anglin, the November 2016 presidential sweepstakes was not an election; rather, a referendum on the international Jewish agenda. Indeed a blow against multi-culturalism, which Daily Stormer, like many such groups, see as a plot by International Jewry. And with Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, Daily Stormer celebrated. “We won, brothers. Our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor. Make no mistake about it: we did this. If it were not for us, it wouldn’t have been possible.” This was followed by a banner on the website. “The Daily Stormer, ‘America’s #1 Most-Trusted Republican News Source.’ First in facts—First in integrity!”[5] Included were photos of Reagan and Trump.
Anglin acknowledged that he had supported the land developer from Queens seventeen months before the election.
Groups such as Daily Stormer feel emboldened, even confident with Trump. Indeed, when Trump refused to denounce the White Supremacists after Charlottesville, Andrew Anglin blared: “God bless him” . . . adding, that Charlottesville “was our Beer Hall Putsch,”[6] referencing, of course, Hitler’s failed bid for power with the Munich Putsch, November 8, 1923. Such extremists, then, comprise a portion of Trump’s base.
The namesake of Trumpism is devoid of a political ideology, as opposed to being a rank capitalist/opportunist. Too, Trumpism is not a disease; rather, it is the symptom of a disease known as the Lack of a Functioning System of Representative Government. A national affliction owing to the lack of regard for true Republican Representative Government as outlined in the Nation’s blueprint for government, the Constitution; as well as a seeming indifference towards the protections against the infringement of government known as the Bill of Rights.
America’s Royalty in the form of colossal corporations, monolithic finance and followed by individuals and families of immense wealth, control the Nation’s political and economic fortunes. Filling a void left by the troubled masses who are finding less and less solace in a system of government reputed to be underscored by Consent of the Governed.
Trump, then, considered an anti-Establishment candidate, like Sanders of the Democrats, has given the Corporate State what it desired: Undeserved tax breaks; relaxation of standards for clean air, water and preservation of the environment; installed judges of the rightmost persuasion who will preserve the political power of America’s Royalty; bestowed upon the Military-Industrial-Financial-Security-Congressional Complex a financial largess that will insure that continuum of corporate serial wars for the aggrandizement of resources; sold off parcels of public lands to monolithic energy companies, land developers and other parasitic opportunists. . . All in direct contravention of a campaign promise as fraudulent as his predecessor’s “Hope and Change” known as “Drain the Swamp.” Indeed, the present administration has seen fit to continue that progression of privilege for the few at the expense of the many, leaving the Nation’s capital as a conduit of financial and franchised perversion, rendering Washington as little better than that off-ramp on I-95 between Sodom and Gomorra.
Endnotes
[1] See page 682, “Last Speech,” Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiographical Writings, Edited by Carl Van Doren.
[2] See pages 179 and 180, Chapter VI, “War Propaganda,” Vol. 1, Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler.
[3] Roster of violence from “A Continually Growing List of Violent Incidents at Trump Events,” The Slatest, by Ben Mathis-Lilley.
[4] See page 382, Chapter 43, “The Venomous Vulgarian: Streicher,” Justice at Nuremberg, by Robert E. Conot.
[5] See page 2, “Eye of the Stormer,” Southern Poverty Law Center,” by Keegan Hankes.
[6] See page 33, “The Making of an American Nazi,” The Atlantic, by Luke O’Brian, December 2017.
Bibliography
Conot, Robert E., Justice at Nuremberg, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., New York, NY., 1983.
Hankes, Keegan, “Eye of the Stormer,” Intelligence Report, Southern Policy Law Center, February 9, 2017. www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2017/eye-stormer
Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Mass., 1943. Originally published, 1925, by Verlag FRZ EHER NACHF, G.M.B.H.
Mathis-Lilley, Ben, “A Continually Growing List of Violent Incidents at Trump Events,” The Slatest, April 25, 2016.
O’Brien, Luke, “The Making of an American Nazi,” The Atlantic, December 1917 issue. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/the-making-of-an-america-nazi/544119/
Van Doren, Carl, Editor, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiographical Writings, The Viking Press, New York, 1945.
