Donald Trump: America's Berlusconi?

[SomeGuy]

Quote:I have no use for fascism. I don't see Trump as a fascist.

You're out of your element!

[SomeGuy]

Quote:There's nothing worse than taking a metaphor one step too far. 

On the other hand, applying a judicious helping of Shakespeare can't really hurt.

I don't know, Dave, I think it helps if the metaphor actually, you know, makes sense.  So Trump as Prospero?  Seems a bit of a reach.

Hillary Clinton as Sycorax, OTOH, has some real possibities...

[pbrower2a]

(01-12-2017, 05:51 PM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:29 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 03:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 09:29 AM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:44 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: I agree, you should abandon all hope.

I now have great hope.

you like fascism.

At least he's hopeful.  I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, AT LEAST it's an ethos!

I have no use for fascism. I don't see Trump as a fascist.

We tend to lump all manifestations of fascism together, which means that we often confuse a traditionalism-with-a-human-face, like that of Kurt Schuschnigg, with the genocidal tyranny of Adolf Hitler.  Hitler was the ultimate demagogue, but there is nothing demagogic about Agosto Pinochet.

Surely most of us would far prefer Kurt Schuschnigg to Adolf Hitler.

It is possible that there is 'a fascism' to fit any culture, and any American fascism would have no use for the adulation of Imperial Rome, Wagnerian bombast, or samurai shtick. American fascism would exalt the Indian fighter, the pioneering slave-master,  the brutal boss of the sweatshop, and paradoxically, war heroes all eras of American history. To be sure, there is nothing fascistic about Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, Wilson, Roosevelt (either one), Eisenhower, or Kennedy. But fascism usually twists a national culture to the benefit of the fascist cause. It might even be able to twist Abraham Lincoln into a fascist.

[Eric the Green]

(01-12-2017, 05:51 PM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:29 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 03:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 09:29 AM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:44 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: I agree, you should abandon all hope.

I now have great hope.

you like fascism.

At least he's hopeful.  I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, AT LEAST it's an ethos!

I have no use for fascism. I don't see Trump as a fascist.

You don't want to see, I guess. But no-one who honestly looks at the incompetent robber barons and racists (especially that Senator of yours) he has appointed can conclude anything else but that he's a fascist.

[Odin]

(01-12-2017, 09:29 AM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:44 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: I agree, you should abandon all hope.

I now have great hope.

Yeah, Jeff Sessions, who thinks "secularists" are unfit to be in government and have no right to free speech, is going to be AG, so your side can start creating the vile un-American theocracy you've always wanted.

[Odin]

(01-12-2017, 10:28 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Yeah, cable news in general (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) is pretty terrible in general.  Of course, I really don't watch it because I don't own a television.  Reading became my pastime of choice at a young age, and that is how I prefer to receive information.  My only quibble now with reading the news is that it necessarily comes through the filter of the author's perceptions and biases, and I have simply lost trust in journalism as a profession.

Berlusconi is at least a decent comparison.  These incessant "Trump is Hitler, no, Trump is Mussolini... He's Hitlerini! memes going around are the worst sort of garbage.

I'm beginning to realize that Trump really has no clue what the hell he's doing and is basically in perpetual ego-stroking mode. Underneath him you have a GOP that, despite having complete control of the federal government, has no clue what it stands for and has no ideological unity. You have the far-right populists sucking Putin's dick fighting with the Religious Right fighting with the Neo-Cons fighting with the Reaganite Establishment fighting with the Tea Party Libertarians.

[Odin]

(01-12-2017, 12:10 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 10:28 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Yeah, cable news in general (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) is pretty terrible in general.  Of course, I really don't watch it because I don't own a television.  Reading became my pastime of choice at a young age, and that is how I prefer to receive information.  My only quibble now with reading the news is that it necessarily comes through the filter of the author's perceptions and biases, and I have simply lost trust in journalism as a profession.

Berlusconi is at least a decent comparison.  These incessant "Trump is Hitler, no, Trump is Mussolini... He's Hitlerini! memes going around are the worst sort of garbage.

The Fourth Estate failed us miserably during the presidential campaign.  The movie Network has proved so prescient.  When TV news departments became profit centers, ratings became the name of the game, the truth be damned.  Look up the comments of the CBS executive when pressed as to why Trump was getting the lion's share of TV news coverage.  I recently watched the movie Truth about the fall of CBS news anchor Dan Rather, with Robert Redford in the starring role.  Of course, Rather comes off looking like a hero. But the dramatization of events tends to gloss over the sloppy journalistic work of him and his assistants in developing their expose of George W. Bush's alleged "absence without leave" while serving in the Texas Air National Guard.  The film simply reinforced my jaundiced view of modern journalism--its depiction of the rush to get a "scoop" right before the re-election of Bush.  It's becoming harder and harder to discern the truth from "fake news," and I'd like to think that I'm a discriminating reader, as I assume some posters on this forum are as well.  But even I must admit that the blurring of truth and "truthiness" has posed an especial challenge for me in our "post-fact" world.  That, coupled with what I perceive to be a growing civic ignorance, is a dagger aimed at the very heart of our democracy.  .

I ran into an enlightening exchange on Reddit's /r/politics board last night when a poster mentioned that it's not that we don't have good news, we still have PBS "Newshour" and NPR News, it's just that the vast majority doesn't give a shit, they don't WANT to be informed, they want to be entertained.

[David Horn]

(01-10-2017, 04:11 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 06:24 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Pumpkin pie is delicious, especially with a scoop of ice cream.

I'm on team, apple.  It figures

Pumpkin, apple, lemon meringue, key lime, French Silk or damned near any other for that mater.  Pie is good.

[David Horn]

(01-12-2017, 12:10 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: My fear all along is not so much Trump the man, but the Trumpism that may survive him.  After all, McCarthyism has reared its head now and again, long after that disgraced senator from Wisconsin passed from the scene.  Once we allow any space at all for political leaders-- above all, our presidents--to defy the Constitution or international law, we set ourselves on a very dangerous path... 

Which brings us to Thomas Jefferson and his quip about a little revolution from time to time.  I not so sure that the Constitution isn't part of the problem.  It was created to solve the problems of the time, using the tools of the time.  Neither have been fully applicable for a long time.  We applied some band-aids after the ACW, and fixed the funding problem in 1913.  Other than that, the structure remains as it was in the beginning.  The institutions it created are becoming more and more sclerotic, and they simply don't resonate with anyone not already a political junkie.  The last 8 years have shown that they can made ineffectual by a small but vociferous minority.  Fixing it as a general case would involve the never-used Constitutional Convention, which I think we can all agree is not going to happen.  So we're stuck, at least for now.

[David Horn]

(01-12-2017, 05:51 PM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:29 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 03:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 09:29 AM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:44 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: I agree, you should abandon all hope.

I now have great hope.

you like fascism.

At least he's hopeful.  I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, AT LEAST it's an ethos!

I have no use for fascism. I don't see Trump as a fascist.

I just try to see the man under the mask.  He's a poor-little-rich-kid who never got told 'no'.  Yes, I know he attended military school.  Do you think that had any impact at all?  Nothing was ever asked of him, nor did he give willingly.  He's the narcissist his upbringing created. 

We have four years to live with the guy.  It won't take that long to see how this will play.

[pbrower2a]

(01-13-2017, 08:54 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:51 PM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 05:29 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 03:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 09:29 AM)radind Wrote: I now have great hope.

you like fascism.

At least he's hopeful.  I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, AT LEAST it's an ethos!

I have no use for fascism. I don't see Trump as a fascist.

I just try to see the man under the mask.  He's a poor-little-rich-kid who never got told 'no'.  Yes, I know he attended military school.  Do you think that had any impact at all?  Nothing was ever asked of him, nor did he give willingly.  He's the narcissist his upbringing created. 

We have four years to live with the guy.  It won't take that long to see how this will play.

...Just as addicts typically deny that they have problem with substances, narcissists fail to recognize their pathology. One need not call oneself a fascist to be a fascist. To be sure, practically everything about fascism is pathology, and the nastiest systems that have ever existed have pathology defining them. It's the pathology, and not the label, that matters.  Donald Trump is accustomed to ordering people about because in his business world, he can. "Military school" is often full of rich kids with problems. The idea is that the partial simulation of the ways of a military academy can give someone discipline and respect for authority. Once out of it, he is back to his 'normal' for him.

If we can elect someone like Donald Trump, then we have a problem. Electoral college? It could have gone the other way. If Hillary Clinton had gotten just under 46% and Donald Trump had gotten 48%, and Hillary Clinton had won, then our nation would still have a problem with character. We should find it unthinkable to vote for a mean-spirited demagogue. We should be able to ask whether a politician has made promises that contradict themselves and whether his view of the world is too simplistic to match reality.

I have heard plenty of people say that 'we need government run like a business'. The discipline of profit and loss is good for deciding which restaurant succeeds and which fails, and whether some manufacturing effort keeps going or fizzles. Profit and loss i snot how we deal with criminal law, diplomacy, national defense, or the welfare of the economically-distressed.

Donald Trump is a management-by-fear type... and he will soon find that he has no power to dictate how media cover him, what clergy say in their sermons, whether people decide that they owe their economic masters unpaid overtime, or whether lab results come out as the President or his flunkies want them to come out. He can deny global warming all that he wants, but he can't change the temperature readings. He cannot make college professors re-interpret American history or institutions to be prophecy leading to his Presidency. His command is itself limited, as it may apply to some extent in Detroit but not in Windsor, and in San Diego but not Tijuana. Some of us Americans will find the calls of the Pope more attractive than those of someone who brags about grabbing women by the crotch. It's 2000 years of dealing with ethical issues (and what is more full of ethical issues than economics?) against some 70-year-old who believes that the world revolves around him. Any Jews out there? Your religion has been dealing with that for an even longer time. No Jews, and no Jesus.

[radind]

(01-12-2017, 06:03 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:I have no use for fascism. I don't see Trump as a fascist.

You're out of your element!

No , I am in the real world and not subject to Secular Humanist progressive thought.

[SomeGuy]

(01-13-2017, 10:33 AM)radind Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 06:03 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:I have no use for fascism. I don't see Trump as a fascist.

You're out of your element!

No , I am in the real world and not subject to Secular Humanist progressive thought.

Have you really never seen the Big Lebowski?  This is getting embarassing!

[SomeGuy]

Dave, Eric, Odin, and Others,

And now we're all back to social signalling. 

[TeacherinExile]

(01-13-2017, 08:06 AM)Odin Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 12:10 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(01-12-2017, 10:28 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Yeah, cable news in general (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) is pretty terrible in general.  Of course, I really don't watch it because I don't own a television.  Reading became my pastime of choice at a young age, and that is how I prefer to receive information.  My only quibble now with reading the news is that it necessarily comes through the filter of the author's perceptions and biases, and I have simply lost trust in journalism as a profession.

Berlusconi is at least a decent comparison.  These incessant "Trump is Hitler, no, Trump is Mussolini... He's Hitlerini! memes going around are the worst sort of garbage.

The Fourth Estate failed us miserably during the presidential campaign.  The movie Network has proved so prescient.  When TV news departments became profit centers, ratings became the name of the game, the truth be damned.  Look up the comments of the CBS executive when pressed as to why Trump was getting the lion's share of TV news coverage.  I recently watched the movie Truth about the fall of CBS news anchor Dan Rather, with Robert Redford in the starring role.  Of course, Rather comes off looking like a hero. But the dramatization of events tends to gloss over the sloppy journalistic work of him and his assistants in developing their expose of George W. Bush's alleged "absence without leave" while serving in the Texas Air National Guard.  The film simply reinforced my jaundiced view of modern journalism--its depiction of the rush to get a "scoop" right before the re-election of Bush.  It's becoming harder and harder to discern the truth from "fake news," and I'd like to think that I'm a discriminating reader, as I assume some posters on this forum are as well.  But even I must admit that the blurring of truth and "truthiness" has posed an especial challenge for me in our "post-fact" world.  That, coupled with what I perceive to be a growing civic ignorance, is a dagger aimed at the very heart of our democracy.  .

I ran into an enlightening exchange on Reddit's /r/politics board last night when a poster mentioned that it's not that we don't have good news, we still have PBS "Newshour" and NPR News, it's just that the vast majority doesn't give a shit, they don't WANT to be informed, they want to be entertained.

I hate to admit it--contrary to that last optimistic bone in my body--but you may be right that "the vast majority doesn't give a shit," that "they don't want to be informed, they want to be entertained."  Neil Postman, in his prescient 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, predicted that American society was much closer to manifesting the dystopia of Huxley's Brave New World than that depicted in Orwell's 1984.  (We may yet succumb to both nightmarish visions, in that order.)  If citizens of this country can't pull their heads out their "technological escapism" long enough to see what's going on around them, then they--we-- may one day cede democracy in a time of existential crisis to some kind of totalitarianism. 

I came across this televised interview of former Supreme Court Justice Souter, commenting in stark terms about the danger of America's 'pervasive civic ignorance.'  About four minutes in, he issues an apocalyptic warning about where our civic ignorance--and lack of civic engagement--may take us as a country.  Chilling...   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0

[SomeGuy]

Quote:I hate to admit it--contrary to that last optimistic bone in my body--but you may be right that "the vast majority doesn't give a shit," that "they don't want to be informed, they want to be entertained."  Neil Postman, in his prescient 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, predicted that American society was much closer to manifesting the dystopia of Huxley's Brave New World than that depicted in Orwell's 1984.  (We may yet succumb to both nightmarish visions, in that order.)  If citizens of this country can't pull their heads out their "technological escapism" long enough to see what's going on around them, then they--we-- may one day cede democracy in a time of existential crisis to some kind of totalitarianism. 

I came across this televised interview of former Supreme Court Justice Souter, commenting in stark terms about the danger of America's 'pervasive civic ignorance.'  About four minutes in, he issues an apocalyptic warning about where our civic ignorance--and lack of civic engagement--may take us as a country.  Chilling... 

I have Neil Postman's book on my list of books/authors to acquire, but in the meantime John J. Reilly predicted something similar in Spengler's Future.  We may simply be passing out of the age of the Republic and into the era of bread and circuses for the masses.

[TeacherinExile]

(01-13-2017, 11:04 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:I hate to admit it--contrary to that last optimistic bone in my body--but you may be right that "the vast majority doesn't give a shit," that "they don't want to be informed, they want to be entertained."  Neil Postman, in his prescient 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, predicted that American society was much closer to manifesting the dystopia of Huxley's Brave New World than that depicted in Orwell's 1984.  (We may yet succumb to both nightmarish visions, in that order.)  If citizens of this country can't pull their heads out their "technological escapism" long enough to see what's going on around them, then they--we-- may one day cede democracy in a time of existential crisis to some kind of totalitarianism. 

I came across this televised interview of former Supreme Court Justice Souter, commenting in stark terms about the danger of America's 'pervasive civic ignorance.'  About four minutes in, he issues an apocalyptic warning about where our civic ignorance--and lack of civic engagement--may take us as a country.  Chilling... 

I have Neil Postman's book on my list of books/authors to acquire, but in the meantime John J. Reilly predicted something similar in Spengler's Future.  We may simply be passing out of the age of the Republic and into the era of bread and circuses for the masses.

Another excellent book in a similar vein is Daniel J Boorstin's The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.  A summary of it I have cribbed from amazon.com:

First published in 1962, this wonderfully provocative book introduced the notion of “pseudo-events”—events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported—and the contemporary definition of celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knownness.” Since then Daniel J. Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.

The preponderance of "pseudo-events" in our body politic explains why--for the first time in my life--I passed on the presidential debates: there are plenty of print and online sources outlining the policy proposals and voting records of the candidates.  If I want know what the candidates said in those televised farces (not really debates at all, just free-for-alls where the candidates talk over one another), I'll read the transcript the next day.  And that's bad enough...

[SomeGuy]

Well, strictly speaking we have a little less than a century Caesarism/Civilization/The Universal State to actually congeal, if we go by the Spengler/Toynbee type model of things (Yes, I am aware that their conclusions are not identical, but they both have their Time of Trouble/Modern period starting around the French Revolution and lasting about 300ish years, or a Mega-Saeculum, if you will).  According to Spengler (and his interpreters like Reilly) this period should be one of rising partisan conflict, the role of Money (and its handmaiden the Press), the growth of the great cities at the expense of the rural regions (where a Culture resides), escalating ethnic diversity, etc.  So, you know, today.


On the other hand, this could all be nonsense.  But it is worthwhile to point out that the periods of highest voter participation in American history had more to do with partisan wrangling and the spoils system than they did with an earnest citizenry engaging thoughtfully with the issues of the time.  Even the American Revolution had more to do with an "irate, tireless minority" than it did a true change of opinion in the minds of the masses.

[TeacherinExile]

(01-13-2017, 11:40 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Well, strictly speaking we have a little less than a century Caesarism/Civilization/The Universal State to actually congeal, if we go by the Spengler/Toynbee type model of things (Yes, I am aware that their conclusions are not identical, but they both have their Time of Trouble/Modern period starting around the French Revolution and lasting about 300ish years, or a Mega-Saeculum, if you will).  According to Spengler (and his interpreters like Reilly) this period should be one of rising partisan conflict, the role of Money (and its handmaiden the Press), the growth of the great cities at the expense of the rural regions (where a Culture resides), escalating ethnic diversity, etc.  So, you know, today.


On the other hand, this could all be nonsense.  But it is worthwhile to point out that the periods of highest voter participation in American history had more to do with partisan wrangling and the spoils system than they did with an earnest citizenry engaging thoughtfully with the issues of the time.  Even the American Revolution had more to do with an "irate, tireless minority" than it did a true change of opinion in the minds of the masses.

"According to Spengler (and his interpreters like Reilly) this period should be one of rising partisan conflict, the role of Money (and its handmaiden the Press), the growth of the great cities at the expense of the rural regions (where a Culture resides), escalating ethnic diversity, etc.  So, you know, today."

I'm curious, what does Spengler (or Reilly) say about the role of money?

[radind]

(01-13-2017, 11:28 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote:

(01-13-2017, 11:04 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:I hate to admit it--contrary to that last optimistic bone in my body--but you may be right that "the vast majority doesn't give a shit," that "they don't want to be informed, they want to be entertained."  Neil Postman, in his prescient 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, predicted that American society was much closer to manifesting the dystopia of Huxley's Brave New World than that depicted in Orwell's 1984.  (We may yet succumb to both nightmarish visions, in that order.)  If citizens of this country can't pull their heads out their "technological escapism" long enough to see what's going on around them, then they--we-- may one day cede democracy in a time of existential crisis to some kind of totalitarianism. 

I came across this televised interview of former Supreme Court Justice Souter, commenting in stark terms about the danger of America's 'pervasive civic ignorance.'  About four minutes in, he issues an apocalyptic warning about where our civic ignorance--and lack of civic engagement--may take us as a country.  Chilling... 

I have Neil Postman's book on my list of books/authors to acquire, but in the meantime John J. Reilly predicted something similar in Spengler's Future.  We may simply be passing out of the age of the Republic and into the era of bread and circuses for the masses.

Another excellent book in a similar vein is Daniel J Boorstin's The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.  A summary of it I have cribbed from amazon.com:

First published in 1962, this wonderfully provocative book introduced the notion of “pseudo-events”—events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported—and the contemporary definition of celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knownness.” Since then Daniel J. Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.

The preponderance of "pseudo-events" in our body politic explains why--for the first time in my life--I passed on the presidential debates: there are plenty of print and online sources outlining the policy proposals and voting records of the candidates.  If I want know what the candidates said in those televised farces (not really debates at all, just free-for-alls where the candidates talk over one another), I'll read the transcript the next day.  And that's bad enough...

Daniel Boorstin is my favorite author.