It Ain't Just Trump
"A Vote for 'ABBB' (Any Body But Biden) is a Vote for Trump and Republo-Fascism"
(S. Jonas, March, 2024)
Fred Trump in the 1980s. Oh Fred. Where are you when Donald REALLY needs you?
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer) Details Source DMCA
Many of us have read how important it is, in terms of finding, maintaining and improving your self-esteem, to "reach for your inner-self." Well, on the national political/historical stage, truly has there never been a person with lower self-esteem than Donald Trump. (At least I cannot think of one and I am rather familiar with U.S. history and government, going back to the Founding.) This (low-self-esteem), of course, along with $400,000,000, was the primary gift/legacy he received from his father. It is a gift that keeps on "giving" (ho-ho-ho) in driving Trump further off-the-wall, further in the fascist (see below) direction, as he keeps trying somehow to find it.
Why the low self-esteem? Well, at some level, buried deeply (or perhaps not so deeply) in his sub-conscious he knows: A) that, as now is being revealed in a variety of Federal and New York State criminal and civil actions, he has never been worth nearly as much money as what he has publicly claimed he has (e.g. see the problems that he is having raising the surety for his fraud and sexual-assault-defamation convictions in New York State, while he appeals). Source for that one? None other than his ghost-writer for the book "Art of the Deal," Tony Schwartz. (Who, by the way, has publicly stated that if Trump wins in November, he [Schwartz] will be very quickly leaving the country, for his own safety.) B) as the New York Times' Maggie Haberman has documented, Trump can be labelled (as I, not Ms. Haberman, have done) as "History's Greatest Con Man." And of course he knows it. Every con artist, from the one (or ones) who started the 17th Century Holland Tulip Mania, through P.T. Barnum, to Trump, has known that he or she is one.
For example (in terms of whether he really won the 2020 election):
" 'During the ninth and possibly final hearing, the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection shared new testimony from Alyssa Farah, a former White House aide, who said that a week after the election was called in favor of Biden, Trump was watching Biden on the television in the Oval Office, and said: " 'Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?' "
"In another (new) clip of testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, she shared that Trump told Meadows: 'I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out.' "
And now we are seeing Trump go further off the rails with threats of "bloodbaths, if I do win," "Biden is a criminal," "[Various people and peoples] are 'vermin'," and "I'm going to be a Dictator-on-Day-one." (Of course, on the First Day he would be declaring himself dictator for a number of additional days, into the future.) We know that while Trump doesn't read much, he has, at least according to Ivana, read something of the speeches of Adolf Hitler. Apparently, however, he has never read the Constitution. DONALD (fyi): nowhere in it is there a provision for dictatorship.
But what has accounted for his success so far, that is as much as he has had success so far --- after all, he has been President. (That is even though he never won a popular vote for the Office.) One major reason for the success he has had, and it is a topic on which I have written in the past (and will be doing so again in the not-too-distant future), RACE is the Trump Card. With that, and the xenophobia and the mysogny and the subtle (yes, on this one Trump is subtle) anti-Semitism, since 2015, after he came down the Golden Staircase, Trump has dominated US electoral politics. But even for Trump and his raging bellicosity, that, and his fundamental RACISM, would not have been enough, if he had not had major support from major elements of the U.S. capitalist ruling class.
Presently, some of those elements are known, while others who maintain their support also do their best to hide that fact. However, while some who have supported him in the past have left him. At least for some of them, the best way to maintain their control of the U.S. political economy is through a form of bourgeois Constitutional democracy, such as we presently have in the United States. But be that as it may, there are still plenty who are with him, a subject with which I have dealt before, and am dealing with in the balance of this column.
As I have said previously, under capitalism the 'ruling class' is the grouping of economically dominant individual and corporate owners of the means of production, distribution, finance, and exchange, that are the primary engines of any economy. Under capitalism, their primary function is the production of 'profit,' that is excess-revenue/surplus-value above the costs of production, both for personal use and for further investment in productive resources. Of course, they also produce what they produce and sell in goods and services.
"Fascism" (about which there is an increasing amount of talk lately [wonder why?]) can be (relatively) briefly defined as:
"Fascism is a system of government in which there is no separation of powers and the Executive is in control of all branches of the State apparatus, including the judiciary. It is designed to maintain and expand the power of the State for the benefit of a capitalist ruling class. Fascism is characterized by the use of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, in various proportions, as well as force and terror, to maintain its control. The State may have a single charismatic leader. There may be a single national ideology supported by law, but if not, certain ideologies are banned by law. There are no independent media."
In the industrialized countries in which fascism appeared in the 20th century, the dominant sector of the ruling class was the owners of industry. (This held true to a lesser extent in Hungary and Spain, which were less industrialized than Germany, Italy, and Japan.) Of course, in the 21st United States, the ruling class is much more complex than it was in any of the 20th century fascist nations. Just some of its elements are: manufacturing (to be sure), finance (as a means of profit-making, not just supplying capital to the manufacturing sector, as it was in the 20th century), mass media (of an increasing number of varieties), advertising, publishing, computer-based electronic communications, transportation (of goods and people), mass-retail (as in Amazon/Walmart), data-management, fossil fuels/petro-chemicals, and so on and so forth.
Now, the way a ruling class exerts its control of a nation is by gaining and maintaining control over State Power, that is the elements of government, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, and the forces of repression/control as necessary. And so, when looking at 20th-century, fascism in the three major industrialized countries in which it occurred, Germany, Italy, and Japan, understanding the ruling classes and their support/installation of that system leading to control of State Power is pretty straight-forward. (In Spain, a powerful Catholic Church played a major role in its instigation, and in Hungary [actually the first fascist-type of state in history, under Admiral Miklos Horthy, beginning in 1919] the old landed-aristocracy as, well as the rising industrial class, led the way.)
But in the 21st century United States, presently, the situation is much more complex. In exerting its ownership and control of the economic system since the founding of the Republic, so-called 'liberal democracy,' with 'separation of powers' and regular elections, has worked very well for the U.S. ruling class. (VERY simply, "bourgeois democracy" is that political system which makes sure, even with voting, that capitalism stays in place.) Control of the political system has shifted back-and-forth between two major political parties over time (each changing their identities to some extent over time), as is well-known.
But now things are changing, and that is precisely why the Trump/MAGA wing of the Republican Party is well on its way to becoming, in practice, the Republo-Fascist Party (as Trump himself tells us). Major elements of its elected, and non-elected (see, e.g., The Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the highly secretive National Council for Policy) leadership have for quite some time seen the future for themselves and their class, were the coming demographic changes be ignored and traditional bourgeois democracy allowed to be continued, as the political-system-in-place, leading to a gradually, but significantly, diminution of their power. Capitalism would not be replaced, of course, but the New Deal on a much grander scale and a significantly strengthened regulatory state might well be instituted. Major elements of the ruling class would not like that at all. And so, how to prevent that from happening?
First came simple voter suppression, going back to my book "The 15 % Solution," it was first developed, in 1989, by an organization called "The Christian Coalition." (See the previous reference for a detailed description of it.) As is well-known, the process has continued and been greatly expanded since that time, from making it ever-increasingly difficult for certain elements of the population to vote, to the Trumpian-tactic of denying the legitimacy of counted outcomes of elections, even in advance of the election (as he did in both 2016 and 2020), to his on-going current campaign to deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election which has led to, among other things, "Jan.6th." And on the non-violent side, as is very well-known by now, it has led to a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona making it clear, repeatedly, that she is prepared to accept the official result of the upcoming election only if she wins, a clear future-denial of the democratic process.
But, none of all of the above can guarantee the continued control of the state apparatus by the dominant section of the ruling class, which is increasingly lining up behind the Republicans. (It has happened already. See: "Meet the mega-donors pumping millions into the 2022 midterms" by Luis Melgar, et al). If, as the population profile changes, a) further limitations on fair and free voting are not undertaken, and then, b) even more seriously, further steps towards instituting a form of 21st century fascism are not implemented, the interests of the majority of the U.S. ruling class will be significantly undermined.
What might those steps be? Of course, down the line I will be dealing with them in some more detail. But for now, consider: 1. the increasing use of political violence --- what else could Trump's glorification of the "Jan. 6" rioters mean? 2. The increasing numbers of Republicans like Tucker Carlson, conspiracy-theorist-extraordinaire (don't worry[!], he'll be back, somewhere prominently), like Paul Manafort, like Kari Lake in AZ, and etc., election deniers all. 3. Increasing un-Constitutional attempts to bring the control of elections under state legislatures (in Republican states, to be sure). 4. Increasing pressure and etc. openly expressed threats of violence exerted on neutral election workers (to get them not to do their jobs).
5. The use to an ever-increasing extent of the Supreme Court as an in-essence 3rd (Republican-controlled) legislative branch, as it functioned in the decision that declared that Sect. 3, (the Insurrection Section) of the 14th Amendment could not be invoked except by an Act of Congress (and an extremely-rare-hard-to-get-one-at-that), and thus that States that held Trump had indeed committed insurrection could not bar him from elections, unless he had been impeached and convicted by Congress first (a provision nowhere to be found in Sect. 3 of the 14th [see the footnote, below]). (Golly gee. Whatever happened to the "States Rights" arguments that were so popular with the Supreme [Court] Right, as in "Shelby," "Heller," and "Dobbs?" But that's another matter.)
And then there is the most recent ex-President, who a) according to the "Jan.6th Committee" encouraged the use of force in an attempt to overturn the 2020 electoral count, and b) has on occasion expressed interest in being, shall we say, "President for Life." All of this, of course, would reinforce the controlling position of the present ruling class and make it even less-subject than it already is to what it hates the most: regulation, taxation, an expansion any kind of programming designed to help the population as a whole, gun control, the expansion of civil rights and civil liberties, and so and so forth.
There will be more to come on this topic. But again, given what the Republican Party was telling us in the 1990s it would do if got the kind of political power it has now, what we are seeing now should come as no surprise. And make no mistake about it. What we are seeing now is not some random agenda made up by the rather dull Sen. Rick Scott. It is an agenda that is purposely and purposefully designed by the leading elements of the U.S. ruling class, for their benefit, and no one else's. (See my recent OEN column on The Heritage Society.) They are not talking too much about it, openly. But their man Trump is. Why? Because he believes it, and because at some level, he knows that he would be nowhere politically without the very strong ruling class support he has, both open and hidden.
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Footnote: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice"'President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two"'thirds of each House, remove such disability."
I have read this document numbers of times. Nowhere can I find a requirement that before the label "insurrectionist" can be applied to a former President, he or she must have first been impeached and convicted by the Congress. But then again, maybe I'm missing something (that the Trumpublicans on the Court found under a rock somewhere)