TrumpFascism and the Republican National Convention
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
For the last 2/3's of his RNC .acceptance. speech, it my not have looked precisely like this, but it sure sounded this way.
As my regular readers know, I have been writing on Trump and the Trump version of fascism ever since, in 2016, the Republican Party chose Donald Trump as its Presidential candidate. And, as the latest version of that Party has been hoping to roll out some version of a fascist future for the United States, he has become, very conveniently, a central part of Republican policy and program ming. As it happens, I plan several weeks ahead for the topics of my upcoming columns. As it happened further, also quite by chance, the topic that I had slated for this particular end-of-the-week column (which is when I post them, each week), was entitled "The Road to TrumpFascism."
And then, as it happened, the Republican National Convention concluded yesterday. It featured Trump's version of an acceptance speech. So, this column is devoted primarily to the Trump "speech" (which, after the Slow Introduction, was more like a yowl), and the RNC, with for now just a few references to TrumpFascism. (For those who might be interested, in 2022 I published, on Kindle-on-Amazon, a collection of 191 columns that I wrote on Trump between 2015 and 2021. Many of them did, in one way or another, touch on TrumpFascism. [The standard definition of fascism that I use is posted at the end of this column.] Of course, in due course, I will be returning to consider TrumpFascism, as it continues to play out through the Presidential campaign.
I should note at this time, that for the present era I made "Trump" and "Fascism" into one word, because fascism under Trump is a variant of "fascism" as it has been experienced throughout history. But there are certain differences, related to Trump's personality, his (almost non-existent) education-that-had-any-lasting-impact on him, the apparent fact that he doesn't read much of anything, and the ruling class sectors that have lined up behind him, more high-tech and finance, petrochemicals, and-any-company-significantly-affected-by-government-regulation, than the traditional manufacturing sector which historically has been the prime driver for fascism in other countries in whihc it has arisen. In terms of his finacial support, see also "Billionaires for Trump."
As for commentary on the convention itself and the Trump Speech, I must confess that I did watch very little of the former until last night (Thursday, July 18). Then, as for the Trump speech, once he got past the "niceties," such a paying tribute to the poor man who got killed at that rally, and saying (don't know how he managed to, given the racist shtick he has lived on his whole life) that now is a time for national unity, once he got into a usual Trump-diatribe, I decided that I just didn't need to stay up late just to see a re-run of the latter. And so, for the most part, this column contains some observations on the Convention, and particularly Trump's speech, made by others.
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From MSNBC host Larry O'Donnell. First, he noted that National Conventions usually offer at least an acknowledgement, if not a more fulsome recognition of previous high-level office holders and candidates. For this RNC the "distinguished former leaders" comprised a set alright, but none of them were there. That list included former House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner, former President George W. Bush, former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and former Vice-Presidents Mike Pence, Dick Cheney, and Dan Quayle.
Second, Mr. O'Donnell noted that two of Trump's major "achievements" have been accomplished through the Supreme Court, to which he was able to appoint three "Trump-Trump-Trump justices." Without any kind of direct national voting in the case of the ban on freedom-of-choice-in-the-outcome-of-pregnancy-based-on-religious-grounds, Trump of course accomplished the over-turn of Roe v. Wade. That took away the freedom of women and families to decide their own futures (again on the infrequently recognized religious grounds for doing so). Further, in the Presidential immunity" case the Court amended of the Constitution (without the bother of going through the very complicated procedure provided for in the Constitution for so doing. The Amendment added a clause to Article II (which defines the Presidency) that cannot by any stretch be seen to be there: immunity from being charged for crime-commission while on the job. Trump was able use the power of the Presidency, through his appointments to the Supreme Court, plus three other reactionaries who were already there, to achieve major changes in how our nation functions.
Larry O'Donnell also pointed out that if Presidents were elected by popular vote, given the timing of Supreme Court seats becoming vacant over the last 45 years, only Clarence Thomas would be on the Court. And of course, recall that the Electoral Vote system which put all of those electoral-minority Republican in the White House was originally dreamed up to both limit the influence of the "common citizens" in national voting, and give the slave states more power in the Congress than their populations would otherwise have warranted. (See also the "3/5's rule.")
Here's something that I came across before the Convention, and before Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, a former anti-Trumper who is of course now the V-P candidate, had already told us (and it may well have been one of the reasons that Trump picked him) that if Trump gets in the first thing he may well do is declare martial law. Given the configuration of the current Joint Chiefs that might be a bit difficult to do, but if a Trump Militia in the style of the Nazi Sturmabteilung-S.A. (and there will be one) just swooped in and arrested them, and then Trump pushed a new set of Joint Chiefs through what would be an entirely Republican Congress (the Dems. having been arrested by the same Trump-S.A., for treason), it could be done fairly quickly.
It has been my position for quite some time that the best candidate to beat Trump, is Trump. Trump, that is, just as he continues to go off the rails (did I use that one before?) (Of course, the Democrats need a viable candidate. I have written for some weeks now [mainly on Twitter @ https://x.com/tpjmagazine] that Pres. Biden needs to gracefully retire and that the person who will have the most influence on that decision also has the initials "J.B.") My "best choice" for that viable candidate (and the best choice of many other observers), for a variety of reasons is the present VEEP.
In any case, on the other side, here's a cheery note about a J.D. Vance policy proposal that might have clinched the job for him:
"As it happens, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, a former anti-Trumper who is now fully bought into this campaign, has already told us that if Trump gets in the first thing he will do is declare martial law."
Given the configuration of the current Joint Chiefs, that might be a bit difficult to do. But if the Trump-S.A. (and again, there will be one) just swooped in and arrested them, and then Trump pushed a new set through what would be entirely Republican Congress (the Dems. having been arrested by the same Trump-S.A. for treason), it could be done fairly quickly.
"At an event organized by Principles First, which calls itself 'a nationwide grassroots movement of pro-democracy, anti-Trump conservatives. . . Heath Mayo, president and founder of the group, told the crowd that 'The Republican Party is sick, okay -- it has been led astray by populist demagogues and it has abandoned its principles.' He condemned a convention speaker for saying the Russian invasion of Ukraine 'wasn't Vladimir Putin's fault' but instead that of the United States. 'That is absurd. It's dangerous,' Mayo said. 'It is absolutely antithetical to anything the Republican Party has ever stood for.' [Now there's at least one Republican I can agree with.] And Mayo summarized a recurring sentiment he heard while watching the convention: 'That there are certain Americans out there -- whether it's based on their race, their religion, their job or their occupation, who are real Americans,' while others for the same reason are 'not quite real Americans.' " That kind of sums up TrumpFascism, doesn't it?
In her heathercoxrichardson|AT|substack.com Email address">column of July 19, 2024, the esteemed Heather Cox Richrdson noted that:
"Paul Manafort walking onto the floor of the Republican National Convention yesterday illustrated that the Republican Party under Trump has become thoroughly corrupted into an authoritarian party aligned with foreign dictators.
"Manafort first advised and then managed Trump's 2016 campaign. A long-time Republican political operative, he came to the job after the Ukrainian people threw his client, Viktor Yanukovych out of Ukraine's presidency in 2014. Yanukovych was backed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was determined to prevent Ukraine from turning toward Europe and to install a puppet government that would extend his power over the neighboring country. Beginning in 2004, Manafort had worked to install and then keep Yanukovych and his party in power. His efforts won him a fortune thanks to his new friends, especially Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Then in 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power in what is known as the Revolution of Dignity."
And then she goes on to detail the Manafort-corruption for which he eventually went to prison (where he stayed until, along with Roger Stone and Charles Kushner [father of Jared], he was pardoned by Trump). He was the operative who changed the 2016 Republican Platform from an anti-Putin position on Ukraine to a "pro-Putin" one. So Manafort, a convicted felon just like Trump, is back somewhere in the leadership of the Trumpublican Party. By the way, convicted felon Peter Navarro got a speaking role at the RNC, the liable-for-tons-of-money-payments-for-slander Giuliani was in the hall (although he did fall down trying to get into his seat --- quite a bit of speculation as to the cause of the fall followed). Sadly, for the TrumpFascists, the No.1 "who needs Democracy anyway" booster, Steve Bannon, was off serving his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. (At least the poor guy is going to have some time to shave.)
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Mike Allen of Axios (July 19, 2024) noted that in his speech: "The 'new' Donald Trump soothed and silenced the nation for 28 minutes last night. Then the old Trump returned and bellowed, barked, and bored America for 64 minutes more . . . " going on-and-on-and-on (without proof of course) about the "immigrant invasion," "killing thousands of Americans," and etc. (Here is just one reference that totally debunks that claim.) But of course, at the RNC it was nowhere noted that there had been a deal on the table between Pres. Biden and Congressional Republicans to enact the toughest anti-border-crossing-immigrants legislation ever, until Trump told Mike Johnson to scuttle it because he wanted to use the issue in the campaign. (Want a definition of opportunism/cynicism, here 'tis.) And Trump did use the "immigrant invasion" issue to a fare-thee-well in his "Acceptance" speech. (Welcome to Trump-world, Mikey.) One wonders whether he plans this stuff out, or it just comes to him, while he is railing onwards.
Of course, Trump's policy/position was emphasized in the Hall by the appearance of the large, multi-colored "Mass Deportation Now" posters, "proudly" held up by delegates (all of whom, of course, going back one generation or more, are the children of immigrants).
The actual set of legal processes concerned with finding, arresting, and then deporting persons who would/could be determined to be "illegal" immigrants not entitled to any sort(s) of legal protection(s) is, according to a recent article in The New York Times extremely complicated. Of course, a Trump administration might just ignore all the legalities and the Trump-S.A. militias do the rounding-- up-and-deportation with dispatch.
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Several pertinent columns on the RNC appeared in The Bulwark on July 19, including "The Republican Capitulation Is Complete, Donald Trump's speech capped a GOP convention shaped around one man like never before" (by William Kristol and Andrew Egger).
In her Substack column of July 19, Mary Trump noted "The Complete Embrace of Violence." Again, so much for the pivot to unity.
And then there's "Project 2025," which Trump and the Repub. Party leadership are now trying to run away from as fast as their little legs can carry them. But if the TrumpRepubs win, believe me, its implementation will be right at the top of the agenda. From BoldProgressives.org: "Over 100 far-right organizations contributed to the plan, and they've openly stated their goal: turn America into a Christian nationalist state;" Ah yes, the Christian Nationalism that is actually at the top of the TrumpRepub Agenda. I shall be returning to that one for sure.
Finally, there is an article in The New York Times, of July. 19, 2024, by the redoubtable Johnathan Swan, Shan Goldmacher, and Maggie Haberman: "How Trump Stifled [the] GOP And Remade its Platform" using language like "This is something that ultimately you'll pass. You'll pass it quickly." [Forget the bad English in the first of these two sentences. Welcome to fascist dictatorship, Republicans.]
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Fascism: "There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of a capitalist ruling class that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using the big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."