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The German-American philosopher-historian Hannah Arendt was one of the 20th century’s wisest and respected interpreters. In her famous book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1968), she wrote: “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. .
.. Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.
The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” Her frame of reference was life and thought in Germany and the Soviet Union under Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. What is staggering about the passage is the extent to which it is prequel to the MAGA world anticipated by Donald Trump, J.
D. Vance and followers — a world of lies and distortions, of detailed plans to obtain authoritarian power and use it to eliminate the Constitution and government institutions such as the Department of Education. These two men and their surrogates have plainly said and written as much.
They would follow Hitler’s fascist design, in which Jews were at first barred from public life, by dismissing thousands of U.S. civil servants, government employees who they think can’t be trusted.
They would create concentration camps, at first to hold undocumented persons before deporting them. Everyone should read at least a summary of the 922-page document created by the extreme right Heritage Foundation called Project 2025. It outlines measures so extreme that Trump tries to distance himself from it.
Nonetheless, if elected he fully intends to follow it. We are reminded here of the similar Republican treatise, Project for the New American Century’s “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (2000). It was a 90-page document prepared by Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives (neocons) under guidance of University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss.
This document called for a repositioned, globally dominant U.S. military force, promoted hundreds of bases and continental commands, steered the U.
S. into invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and completely destabilized the Middle East. Article continues after.
.. Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess Abraham Lincoln’s example had created a very popular people-centered Republican Party to which, out of habit, people remained loyal, even when the party shifted to support of big business.
From Ronald Reagan forward, the party became quite hostile to liberal, people-centered initiatives. It takes a powerful event like the Supreme Court’s banning of abortion to break such voting habits. Who could have imagined the looming nightmare of MAGA, a fantasy to recreate our country as it was in the 1950s — Christian and controlled by white men, with persons of color and women denied basic rights.
We have experienced Trump in the White House, a man whose name had been brazened by a TV role, who managed inherited wealth, had schemed to increase it in the presidency — the ultimate opportunity to make deals. Corruption was something we had seen in that office before. Added now was incompetence.
When in December 2019, China announced the outbreak of COVID and Trump blocked flights from China, the virus swamped cities like New York, as travelers from China came in via other countries. He downplayed the threat by saying “it will just go away” and offered foolish cures, like possibly drinking bleach. Fortunately, medical experts were on hand to steer a better response.
Still, the U.S., possessing the best preventive medicine in the world, failed during the Trump watch.
More than a million died. The wealthy and corporations were provided tax breaks. According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, under Trump 2.
7 million jobs were lost, our trade deficit increased by 36%, home prices rose 27%, federal debt increased dramatically, handgun production rose 12%, and the murder rate reached the highest level in 20 years. Trump’s new targets include Social Security, Medicare and the Department of Justice. He tried to end the popular Affordable Care Act, but failed.
In those years, he was just getting started. Wrote Arendt, “Totalitarian movements have been called secret societies established in broad daylight.” Charlemont resident Carl Doerner is an investigative journalist and historian, currently editing his newest work, “Breaking the Silence: Revisioning the American Narrative.
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