Whatever I or others think about the Donald and his qualifications to be President and Head of State of the United States of America, he is not the reincarnation of Hitler, a neo Nazi and Fascist with a capital F (that some of my friends would like to assert) nor is he the Churchill of today who will rescue Western civilization from ISIS cum Daesh (as many of my pro-Trump evangelical supporters naively assert). He is more of a drumpf with some fascist tendencies, fascist being with a small f. (See Jon Oliver’s brilliant comedy sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGc2nN9OguQ where he defines what a drumpf is. If you ask me, comedians are often today’s prophets ). Let me elaborate.
Disclaimer: most of my friends will know I am not a fan of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. Although I would never choose to work with him or for him, I don’t mind him as a business person and an entrepreneur. The Donald is the Donald as far as that goes. But, he is NOT qualified to be President of the United States. He has business acumen and experience and is quite good at self-promotion. These skills are not enough though to qualify him as President and Head of State, combined roles in the American political system. His rhetoric during the campaign is hardly statesmanlike and I can assure you from the perspective of the international community, he is a source of embarrassment and ridicule (something I realize for many Trump supporters is unfortunately something of which to be proud.)
It galls me that so many evangelical Christians are supporting him because he’s bold and brash and they think he’ll fight for them to become mainstream again in American politics. Ben Carson, what in God’s name (and I mean it literally) has gotten into you that you would endorse this man who is antithetical to everything you said you stood for on the campaign trail. They haven’t realized in today’s pluralistic American culture, that ship, where predominately white middle class and blue collar males are the predominant voice and culture in American society, has well and truly sailed. It sailed with the election of Obama in 2008, never to return no matter how vociferous, angry and violent the backlash is in American politics.
That there is a populist, anti-establishment backlash occurring against establishment politicians on the right and the left is not in doubt. Congress’s approval ratings are at an all-time low. People are fed up with gridlock and political posturing that ignores the people on the ground and that does not serve as an authentic voice for their aspirations. What is up for grabs is what will replace it in the short-term. But in the long-term, demographics, if nothing else, means the US will become increasingly pluralistic and the voices of the majority will increasingly have to include those people who are from other than classically ‘white’ ethnic backgrounds where Judaeo-Christian values are still espoused whether or not one is religious.
TRUMP AS CHURCHILL
Trump is not the Churchill for today and he’s not remotely Churchillian. There are so many fallacies with this statement, I don’t know where to begin. First of all, people are wrong to look at the American President as some kind of savior. There is no one who is going to come on a white horse and save us from the Islamic extremism by themselves and the force of their will. No one world leader, even the American President, has that much power or influence. One person can exercise leadership and bring people and coalitions of states together to cooperate to defeat Daesh once and for all. But that takes great statesmanship, something that Trump lacks.
Thus far, he has not provided any evidence that he is a statesman of the caliber of a Roosevelt or a Churchill or even a Reagan (who surprisingly was quite able, despite his conservative cold war rhetoric, to flex and recognize an opportunity to end the Cold War and negotiate with Gorbachev). Trump’s campaign style is defensive and brittle and his tone in the Republican debates and against his opponents or anyone who voices any criticism of him (Megyn Kelly anyone?) is that of a bully engaged in a playground brawl. I was amused by his reaction to Jon Oliver and others who teased him for his small hands. His immediate reaction was to literally and crassly assert his manhood. Who does that? Especially in terms of running for the highest office of the land……by making such comments he has abused the dignity of the office for which he’s running.
Also, instead of looking to be rescued by a savior from outside themselves, what are people doing to make their own lives and the lives of those around them better? What responsibility are people taking for their own circumstances in life? Due to globalization, old jobs are gone. No one has a job for life anymore. What are people doing to re-tool and re-skill? Instead of continuing to mourn a lost way of life and way of earning a living, what are people doing to change? No one has a job for life anymore. Change is the new constant. The brutal and unpalatable reality is that people have to grow and learn and constantly gain new skills or they will be left behind.
And Christians, isn’t Jesus meant to be your only Savior? Aren’t you meant to be trusting in God rather than chariots and the weapons forged by human beings? And aren’t you supposed to be waiting for a better life in Heaven. I thought you eschewed politics as a solution for sin. (Sarcasm here as there are Christians who believe in social justice and equality and a good life here on earth and work towards it. Christians are not one big block either! It is more than ironic that the more dualistic, pietistic evangelical Christians are the ones who are voting in droves for Trump.)
And evangelical Christians who support Trump, why do you make excuses for his morality when you would not stand the same arrogance, boorishness, rudeness, lack of dignity, or lack of marital fidelity (Bill Clinton anyone?) in a Democratic presidential candidate? Why not support someone grown-up like Kasich, a fellow Republican (because we know Christians can’t possibly be Democrats! NB I am being sarcastic here as I know plenty of Christians who are Democrats) who also happens to be a Christian, who stays above the fray, who actually has government experience as a governor and who has experience building coalitions across the aisle with Democrats. Surely in a time of gridlock you would want to elect a bridge-builder as your candidate? Someone who will restore civility back to American politics and American society, a virtue which is sorely needed in these times.
Let me just pause and say that I know not all evangelical Christians are Trump supporters, but it especially irks me that so many of them are and I see it as being very hypocritical. I can say this as I come from a Christian background. There are atheists and secularists who are voting for Trump in droves as well. To them I would say, what are your ethics that allows you to be seduced by him as someone who is good for the country? I know you are ethical human beings who care about your children and family so why do you think that Trump gives you hope for a better future? I genuinely am curious and would like to know what about him is attractive?
Secondly, and this is true for both cases, Trump as Hitler or Trump as Churchill; it is reductionist. Although there are similarities between the threat posed by the Nazis and the threats posed by ISIS, history has moved on. The similarities are interesting but similar doesn’t mean identical. For instance, there is no doubt that the post-World War II order has broken down and the new world order is still emerging. The end of the Cold War in 1989 has meant that the balance of power between the Soviet and Western bloc changed. 9/11, the war in Iraq, the Arab Spring, the rise of ISIS and the re-emergence of a belligerent Russia has posed threats to the United States and it’s European allies and they present unique challenges for us today. The rise of China, India and Brazil as economic powerhouses and political powers in their own right also challenges the current balance of power—not that this is a bad thing. We need to make more room at the table for them. Refugees from Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (Libya in particular) have posed a threat to social stability in Europe which historically is not as good as the United States at assimilating immigrants. The number of refugees flocking to European shores is reminiscent of the flood of refugees from both immediately before and after World War II. Their sheer numbers threaten to swamp the infrastructure, the culture, and the health and social services of the countries to which they’ve been flocking. How do we positively address this challenge without being fearful or xenophobic?
ISIS and the terrorist threat it poses to the stability of Europe and the United States and other ‘western’ states like Australia, New Zealand and Israel, is real. Leadership is needed to defeat it, and I would definitely agree that Obama’s foreign policy has left a lot to be desired with respect to Syria and Libya. He has been overly cautious to exercise American leadership in today’s current conflicts. His reading of history has also been reductionist—a fear of recreating a Vietnam War like quagmire in the Middle East has made him overly reluctant to assert American leadership to help bring stability in this region. However, like today isn’t the equivalent of the world immediately leading up to World War II, neither is the conflict in the Middle East today the same as the conflict that led up to the Vietnam War. ISIS is not the Viet Cong. In fact, it can be argued that ISIS is the product of the Iraq War, a war which was ill-advised and ill-conceived.
ISIS is not the same as Nazi Germany. National Socialism was a product of Germany’s humiliating defeat in World War I and the Depression. Germany at that time was a nation state with a political structure and bureaucracy to support the state. ISIS is trying to form a type of state, a caliphate, across national boundaries, but is not a State even though it has pretensions to becoming one. It is an insurgency twhich exists in several sovereign states and is in direct conflict with the sovereign leaders of those states. It is fascist in that it promotes one group of people, a certain kind of Muslim, over all others, including other Muslims who are viewed as not being real Muslims. It is fascist in that it is nihilistic—-that it would triumph by destroying all others in service to its vision. It is fascist in the fact it is dogmatic, ahistorical and would destroy and ignore peoples’ histories.
People like to reduce history to serve their ideology. What people don’t realize is that history and interpretations of history are fluid and diverse. Each tribe and nation claims and interprets history to serve it’s own ideology and goals. One saying that has always stayed with me is that history is written by the winners and remembered by the losers. For example, Palestinians very clearly remember and despise Balfour for carving up their territory and creating space for a Jewish homeland in the early 1900’s, long before World War II and its aftermath which resulted in the creation of the nation state of Israel. Most Americans, on the other hand would be more likely say who/what is Balfour?
Also by claiming ownership of Churchill as a type reduces the actual historical real Churchill and his own personal biography and achievements. Those who would compare Trump to Churchill should read Churchill’s’ writings and study his biography. Churchill actually had a long political career and served in the military. Before being elected as Britain’s prime minister, he had decades of experience in politics. He is known for his disastrous military campaign in the Dardanelles long before he ever became the Prime Minister. In fact, that unmitigated disaster was cited as a reason at the time not to elect Churchill. It was only with the hindsight of history that people recognized he was the right leader for the time. He almost didn’t get elected. It was not a sure thing and people who voted for him at the time typically did not have high expectations of him to save them or Europe from the Nazi menace. And as soon as the war was over, a grateful nation did not re-elect him!
Similarly, I suspect we won’t know until decades from now whether or not whomever gets elected as American President is/was the right leader for this time. We can only hope and pray that the person we elect is flexible, insightful and creative and can grow into the role. The question people should be asking is how resilient and flexible the candidates are, what is their overall personal ethos as that ethos will provide the framework for their actions as president; what are their values, their vision? Can they deal with complexities? Can they compromise, can they take a back seat when they need to, do they have the ability to build rather than destroy?
The point of all of this is to illustrate the importance of studying history and histories. This blog does not even begin to attempt to provide a comprehensive analysis of how today is different from the period leading up to World War II and its aftermath. Rather it’s meant to encourage each individual to read history for themselves and understand how people manipulate it to serve their ideologies and goals. Think critically for yourself. Indeed one of the reasons for studying history is to avoid it from repeating.
What about immigrants—is it possible that today’s Syrian immigrants are the Jews who were fleeing Nazi Germany of yesteryear? If so, is Trump’s response to immigrants and to Muslims the right one? What about opening the door to them? All I’m saying is that there are many ways to think about how the current world situation and what should be done about it.
TRUMP AS HITLER
That brings me to Trump as Hitler. Fellow liberals, Trump is not Hitler either! Please spare me the faux analogies and rhetoric here as well. To compare Trump to Hitler detracts and minimizes the historical reality of Hitler, who he was, and what he actually did. There is no denying that Hitler was awful and is responsible for the death of six million Jews. Trump is similar to Hitler in that he is a bully, he is xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-intellectual, a populist leader, and bombastic.
However, he has not written today’s equivalent of the political manifesto of Mien Kampf. Does Trump even have a political ideology? Hitler’s was Fascism with a capital F. Does Trump believe in social engineering to the point that there is a master race and that we should breed a new master race? Does he believe in the corporatism of political Fascism? Or is he more of a fan of market capitalism? I am not sure what he actually believes. His statements about Muslims are worrying and are racist. But, we’re a long way from a Kristallnatch (A massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich on the night of November 9, 1938, into the next day, has come to be known as Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht) and I would vouchsafe that American democracy is far more robust than German democracy ever was prior to World War II (Germany was a very weak democracy from its unification by Metternich in the 1870s when it first became a nation state until post WWII in 1945). If there were some attempt at a Kristallnatch involving American Muslims, there are millions of Americans today who would take to the streets in protest.
Is Trump a potential authoritarian and dictatorial leader? Yes, possibly. I honestly don’t know. He may end up being worse than Hitler (frankly I don’t think Trump is that smart) or better than Winston Churchill (I will eat my hat if that happens, but ya never know). What I do know is that he panders to our lesser rather than our higher angels. His politics is one of fear, not of hope. It is one of destruction and destroying others. Where is his compassion for the poor or the less fortunate?
It is ironic that so many of the 99% would vote for someone who is clearly the 1% who lives in a golden plated penthouse apartment and who probably has at least as many homes as a Romney or a McCain. People like him because they say he’s not owned. Of course not! He is an owner! He is one of the 1% who already owns the people who are naively voting for him. How will he stand up to the lobbies and special interests since he’s made his millions exploiting them and the people he’s meant to serve? He is not going to stand up to them because he is them. People say he is authentic. Yes, an authentic liar and panderer who has flip flopped on his positions so many times that he doesn’t stand for anything. He was a Democrat, then he was a Republican, he spoke for Hilary Clinton, now he’s against her. Donald Trump’s ideology is about the Donald and his ego, nothing more nothing less. Jesus was a servant leader. How can any evangelical Christian say that Trump is even remotely a servant leader?
What Trump is at the moment is Donald Drumpf, himself married to an immigrant and who himself has the ancestry of an immigrant. He is a second generation immigrant who profited from being born and raised in the United States. The United States is a nation of immigrants where achieving the American dream, whilst it has become more difficult, is still possible.
To me, he is neither a potential Churchill nor a potential Hitler. He is a silly little man with a fragile ego who is more likely than not to perpetuate rather than halt America’s decline, a drumpf. He has not espoused any positive vision for the future and until he does, I am skeptical that he is the American leader who is needed to promote the change necessary to deal with the nihilistic vision of Daesh and to deal with the economic, social, cultural and political challenges that face the United States and its allies today.
My hope is that the American people, of whom I am one, will vote out of wisdom and hope, not out of fear and anger.