The End of America, starring Donald Trump

Never underestimate the power of fascist propaganda…that’s what I’ve been repeatedly telling you readers for the past year anyway.

In fact, on February 22, 2016, I posted this op-ed on The Richfield Patch with the following headline:
Why Donald Trump Should NEVER be President (HINT: He's an all-American racist boor with no emotional intelligence)
And the following sub-headline:
(The Donald VS. The Pope: Why this latest scandal is only more Trumped-up PR gone bad.)

Then I went on to explain and clarify why the Trump Presidency would be a disastrous one. Now that I’m reviewing my editorial, though, I can see how it also describes why so many people voted for him:

“Donald Trump is the worst kind of American: the kind who thinks he can do and say anything he wants just because he has money.

Step away from the Rose Garden, Mr. Trump — Now!

What’s really frightening is how so many voters at various income levels are actually buying into his shameless self-promotion as a Presidential candidate. Almost as though an entire spectrum of US citizens now believes that having a lot of money will somehow qualify a racist boor like The Donald to live in The White House. It can’t. It won’t.

Remember, money is merely a tool that can help us achieve goals more easily and more effectively. It’s not some kind of magic wand that can turn thoughtless mortals into compassionate Gods overnight. It’s not an enchanted talisman that can give anyone the essential expertise, necessary fortitude, and emotional intelligence to become President of the United States. It’s only money, after all. But too many people are starting to equate personal wealth with personal integrity.

Too many people have become so impressed with his capitalistic ventures that they’re accepting his personalized brand of fascism as a solution to America’s problems. Bad idea. That kind of acceptance goes beyond UN-democratic thought into the realm of UN-American ideology…”

But Trump was able to sway voters with tales of his monetary exploits and entertaining attacks on his political opponents. Then he regaled them with his colorful swagger and unapologetic bluntness. He got people to like him by appealing to their emotions — not their intellect. Despite his inherit fascism, Trump cajoled voters in our democracy to toss aside cherished democratic values and elect him to the Presidency. How did he do it?

By shrewdly and systematically using fascist propaganda, that’s how.

And that’s why his ascent to power could very well mean the end of America — no more freedom for everyone.

Oh, wait. You don’t think Americans could ever lose those precious freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution? You don’t think it could ever happen here? Think again.

Donald Trump has all the earmarks of a belligerent demagogue. He’s an imperious, overbearing narcissist with very little impulse control. Always ready for a fight, he’s equally ready to create conflict in the face of tranquility. He needs enemies because he believes they challenge — and improve — him. He appeals primarily to the emotions of his constituency rather than their minds or common sense. He also hides his inherent fascism behind the mask of a self-proclaimed “successful” businessman.

Most significant of all, he lies. He continually lies. He lies so much that he actually believes his own lies are truth. Not a good job description for someone who wants to be our President and leader of the free world. But he certainly has what it would take to erode, then ultimately destroy, our democracy.

Still not convinced? Don’t take my word for it. Try a higher source. Try reading The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf.

Regardless of your political inclination, you’ll be intrigued and informed by the work of this former Rhodes Scholar, social critic, political activist, and acclaimed author.

Read it and discover a chilling playbook that explains what Trump’s been up to — and predicts (!!!) what he’s going to do next. As Wolf points out in her book’s preface, citizens need to “…understand how despots have gone about their work. They need a primer so they and those around them can be well equipped for the fight that lies ahead.”

Wolf does more than just equip us, though. She manages to effectively explain and clarify exactly what’s been going on with Trump in 2017 — although she wrote this primer ten years earlier, in 2007. Even back then, she explains, our freedoms were being dismantled, and citizens were being disconnected from their own democracy. What’s especially startling here is how deliberate and systematic freedom’s erosion usually is — and has been throughout the ages! Yes, it’s happened before, and America isn’t immune to the loss of liberty.

No, Wolf doesn’t believe that America will be facing any dramatic coups or massacres anytime soon. “But certain threads are emerging that have connections to the past,” she writes.
“I am calling your attention to important lessons from history about how fragile civil liberties are and how quickly freedom can be lost. I ask you to quiet your understandable aversion long enough to walk with me though the material I have to show you.”

Do yourself a big favor and read The End of America. But start with the preface, then skip over to Chapter Nine: “Restrict The Press.” In less than nineteen pages, Wolf walks you though what Trump has been doing and, more importantly, tells you WHY he’s doing it — a tactic that’s been eluding too many experts these days.

Too many reporters, commentators, and pundits still don’t get it. They’re not connecting the dots between fake news and lies and propaganda. Wolf does, and she makes it easy to understand without “dumbing down” and insulting readers:

“Propaganda is part of both fascist and democratic advocacy: American political ads, for instance, are a form of propaganda. But, while exaggeration and ‘spin’ are part of democracy’s playbook, flat-out lies and false documents are not.

“Dictatorships specialize in faking news and falsifying documents. Hitler wrote that ‘all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand’…”

Hmmm… harping on the same things, the same slogans? Kind of like what Trump’s doing with Obama now. First he harped about how Obama left him a “big mess,” then how Obamacare was a “disaster,” and now, how Obama wiretapped his Trump Tower. Suddenly, all this brouhaha about fake news is beginning to make sense. Here are more of Wolf’s insights on the significance of lying when it comes to fake news:
“After a certain point in a fascist shift, it doesn’t matter whether most people believe the faked news or not — eventually they simply don’t have access to enough good information to assess what is real and what is not…”

“History shows us some reasons why the administration (be it Bush’s or Trump’s) may be so intent on sending lies into the press stream and accusing those who tell the truth of lying.

“Perhaps the barrage of lies serves a more substantial purpose than simply advancing a certain position. Sending a current of lies into the information stream is part of classic psychological operations to generate a larger shift — a new reality in which the truth can no longer be ascertained and no longer counts.

“In this reality citizens no longer feel empowered or able to establish the truth on either side — and therefore give up their agency. At this point people can be manipulated into supporting almost any state action. For how can citizens know what is right? Truth itself has been cheapened, made subjective and internal, not absolute and external.”

Aha! So there’s a method to The Donald’s madness after all! By continually flooding the information stream with misinformation, flat-out lies, and fake news, he is creating his own self-serving reality. He is intentionally confusing the American public so much that very soon there will be no way to separate fact from fiction.

Very soon we’ll all be so exasperated with “the news” that we’ll tune it out completely. We’ll completely ignore whatever he’s doing or saying. But by the time we collectively connect our exasperation to his fascist tactics, it’ll be too late. President Trump will then control America’s information — and “the truth.”

But why is truth so essential to the survival of any democracy? Wolf explains it well:
“Why does this matter so much? Why does a government’s promotion of lying help facilitate a fascist shift? What does the truth have to do with democracy?

“Democracy depends on a social agreement that is so obvious to us that it usually goes unspoken: There is such a thing as truth. In an open society, we know facts may be hedged and spun in the back-and-forth of debate, but truth is the ground from which the hedging or spinning begins. Democracy depends upon accountability; accountability requires us to be able to tell truth from lies; and to be able to tell truth from lies, we all first must agree that truth matters.

“If the ground of democracy is truth, the ground of dictatorship is assertion. In dictatorship, reality belongs to whoever has the greatest power to assert.”

No, you don’t have to worry yourself sick over the antics of POTUS # 45. But you can’t ignore what he’s doing, either. You can’t become so complacent that you remain silent and inactive while freedoms are dissolving before your eyes. The Donald IS a clear and present danger to our Constitution and our liberties. As citizens, we have an obligation to use our freedoms of speech, of the press, and to peaceably assemble so we can legally stand up to the bullying of our Constitution.