Point by Pericles21 to be made further down:
it is likely that Trump is not leading a movement but is 'surfing' a socio-economic swell of disaffection that already existed for decades but just needed a channel (demagogue) to curl and break. Trump is that demagogue. But Trump just might wake up one morning (like the English Labour Party's quick backing away from it's 'Leaving' support only 4 days after the Brexit referendum) and realize that he is not really in control of his 'own' movement and that he could be run over and shoveled aside like road-kill when he becomes a known factor and, consequently, boring. Further, Trump's main constituency - disaffected, white male, working class, self entitled but job-threatened - have reasonably and with savviness found mutual, real sharing of self-interest in Bernie Sanders (thus refuting the lie about their lack of intelligence) Hopefully. Trump's base will find their new home in Elisabeth Warren, who Pericles21 champions as someone whose integrity and message are what America needs.
To be blunt,'Trumpism'is an American phenomenon - a pornography of the ego, typical American 'candy' - that appeals to the very large American population sector that has for several decades suffered serious ego-damage by loss of jobs through outsourcing, loss of real wages and a fair share of income and wealth ('inequality')and just being ignored. America has for decades abandoned the founding principle of the Common Good and turned the Constitution upside down from the rule of law, 'Lex Regis', to become in Trump, 'Rex Legis', the king is law. -
This post was drafted a week ago but things are happening fast in the world, beginning in Europe with the June 23 UK referendum vote for the UK to leave the European Union. This is not a total surprise, but it is unexpected because economically the expectation is that Great Britain will suffer. Also, 'Leaving' doesn't appear to be in the best interests of the constituency most strongly supporting 'Leaving - the working class, the older and the less well-off who live outside the major urban hub of London - the statistics show the radically different degree of support between 'town and country', 'heeled and working' and of course the old 'them and us' racial divide. All of this was barely under the surface, with occasional outbreaks but constantly seething emotions regarded as just the hardly-quaint inability of certain neighborhoods (e.g., Brixton) to adapt to modern multi-culture, multi-nation cooperatives all based on supposedly mutual economic advantages. But, of course, as we have been jolted awake to recognize in the past several years, the vast bulk of economic advantages have gone to the top 5% of every population on the planet. In summary, the referendum paints a picture of Great Britain as a divided union that has been divided since the end of the second world war around 1945.
Why did the referendum turn out the way it did? The better question might be, 'Why did it take this long for the truth about England's ill-at-ease attitude to ward joining the European Union to come to a head? The answer is the referendum outcome is the culmination of a long-recognized drift towards a new global nationalism (Economic Jihadism) that threatens to break apart the European Union - additionally 5 to 7 other Eu countries might be expected to join England's exodus - along with similar disaffections in other treaty arrangement, and return that the planet to a kind of neo-colonial assemblage of distrusting trans-continental princedoms.
'Brexit' has happened. Ostensibly, England (and the rest of the United Kingdom) will proceed to implement June 23'rds referendum mandate to unlink from the European Union and go search for the holy grail of recovering Great Britain's (or at least working class England's) national virginity. This is not too much of an exaggeration and so is the resemblance to America's 'Trumpism' as revealed by the personal-declared alliance between Donald Trump and the assumed next Prime Minister - the right wing, super nationalist, Boris Johnson. Trump has also declared that part of his mission is to recover America's 'Greatness'.
Why is Brexit addended to this post? Because a possible Trump Presidency may mirror what will happen in the UK now that the 'voice of the people' has voted and prevailed.
So let us all pay careful attention to what will happen over the next few weeks in Great Britain. Will there be an 'exit contagion' of a copy-cat sort that will lead Scotland and Northern Ireland (who overall favored remaining in the EU) to leave Great Britain (i.e., leave formal ties with England who is now revealed as having a distinctly different national outlook on being a member of the EU)? Or will Scotland and Northern Ireland cast their lot with independence from the UK and remain with the EU?
What does this 'New Nationalism' movement have to do with Trumpism? The path of nationalism in England, and the potential break-up of te United Kingdom, may foretell the disruption that may occur in America resulting from a totally self-focused, self-centered Trump foreign policy and domestic primitiveness, a new Isolationism.
But back to Donald Trump.
'Trump' is a kind of anti-heroic villain. He is the natural spawn of an un-natural, sinful, evil, inhumane culmination of a century of rabid, run-wild, limitless greed and exploitation put upon the American people by Big Bucks interests and their puppets - bought and sold Washington politicians and leeches of both political parties.
A century of ripping off America - and principally America's working citizens - has resulted in a huge socio-economic imbalance of wealth and income. Currently 5% of American's population owns or earns as much as the other 95%. We have experienced three decades of declining real wages for working Americans. There has been a steady loss of sustaining manufacturing jobs because of off-shore outsourcing to cheap labor markets. Overall, with the rush to greater profits and no countervailing resistance to abandonment of common Americans in the 'lower'95%, there has been an overt, undisguised neglect of the Common Weal. This neglect is reflected in the erosion and abandonment of common weal principles - substantive work, access to education and health ('Obamacare' the only bright exception to this trend)...it goes on in sad, embarrassing sameness, example after example of rampant, capitalist greed and the raping of America - it's resources and people.
But here comes a hero, it seems, of the down-trodden. Trump the billionaire capitalist. 'What?' Billionaire? Isn't he the epitome of who and what has killed the American spirit and social contract? Yes, he is the epitome but he is still the hero of his class's antithesis.
But perhaps the most striking aspect of Trump is he doesn't hide anything but the truth. In other words Trump lies, or rather he 'mis-states' but without apology or offering self-corrections - and somehow, this sits pretty well with his constituency, the mostly male, white and working class American. Trump's message seems to be a 20016 version of McCluhanism where the medium is a given venue of the message but now the 'message' is not the words but how they are spoken. Trump's 'message' is not his words but the emotion and volume of his presentation...and his presentation and anger - even if his anger is mostly off-the-mark and (underneath it all) not serving the best interests of his white male, working class constituency - appears to be unscripted and genuine.
'Unscripted and Genuine' Are these tow attributes of Trump so rare in current America that what Trump's words say or not is just not that critical? Look at the picture. There is a billionaire, trust fund baby, having (apparently) made it bigger, leading a working class movement, although admittedly racist-driven in part. Why do Trump's supporters follow his lead so eagerly and strongly?
The answer is likely that Trump is not leading but is 'surfing' the swell that already existed but just needed a reason (demagogue) to break. Trump just might wake up one morning (like the English Labour Party's quick backing away from it's 'Leaving' support only 4 days after the referendum) and realize that he is not really in control of his 'own' movement and he is about to be run over and shoveled aside like road-kill.
In this respect, Trump has declared 'war' with the American media sector - and has offered them no quarter but to see it his way or get out of the way. Every lie, mis-statement and twisted curve of his psyche is laid open for all to see. And the Media and Democrats and alarmed Republicans indeed see it all. But wtf, it hasn't mattered one bit, Trump's aura protects him from harm and every arrow shot his way seems to look good leaving the bow but turns to dust as it nears his thick skin or is merely deflected straight back to the shooter.
Donald Trump is on the scene. The tension, the tension - it's 'Friday the 13th' every day now, but Trump is nastier, bigger and badder than Freddy ever was. And it will get nastier because the Republican party controllers who lost control are emerging from their cloudy confusion and weak-spined whining and are salivating in anticipation of the skullduggery tricks and dirty tactics they plan to dump on Trump at the Convention. 'Just wait' they are thinking, the GOP Convention will be the 'show of shows' for sure,...a shot-in-the-eye, kick-in-the-pants spectacle. But Pericles21 is betting that Trump and his thugs will turn the tables and complete the destruction of the Party. The Convention will be a debacle of violent emotions and violent retributions. And the worst of it will be a descent into Hell at the Convention will be what Trump's supporters want and will be proud of. The Trumpists need that kind of outlet for the rabid emotions Trump will generate as only he can.
But who, what and why is Trump?
A book review of Michael Kimmel's, 'Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era' (2013, Nation Books)
This review is from Hanna Rosin's NYTimes review of Michael Kimmels Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era (Nation Books, 2013)
Kimmel's 'AWM' doesn't offer solutions but it very adequately explains the 'why's' of angry white men and this brings a kind of relief - at with understanding assisted by Kimmel, least there might be a beginning to a solution and resolution. Personally, from reading between the lines written by the author, there seems to be a 'forgotten' segment of American society, i.e., white men and specifically working class and under-employed (economically poor) white men. I say 'forgotten' because while virtually everyone else (minorities and women of all races) was being 'freed' and brought into equality, white men as a collective profile were regarded as the reference point against which new freedoms were and still are) measured. But we forgot to 'release'(reprogram with understanding and support) white men from the social programming that had entrapped them into their self-entitled (and too often self destructive) corner to begin with. Instead, our media messages from film to television continue to reinforce the idea of privileged, all-powerful, king-of-the-hill, American white males as the only white male worthy of respect - this is almost a criminal misleading of younger white males who must grow up and function in a very different world from the simplistic ones portrayed in the media. This continuing media image leads to dysfunctional self-expectations and acting out from frustration and confusion that the media profiles and formulae for masculine 'success' don't work. We can hope that books like 'AWM' will lead to educating younger generations of white males how to exist (happily) as co-inhabitants in a new America.
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