berg80
Diamond Member
- Oct 28, 2017
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.......that I thought would be interesting to discuss. Boiled down to its essence it is that Trump is not the essential element animating Trumpery. Trumpery being defined (by me) as the rise of nativism, the advent of power concentrated in the hands of the nation's leader, challenging the prior constitutional order, an isolationist bent, targeting minorities as being responsible for a variety of societal ills, and sloganeering as a substitute for nuanced policy.
She recently did a town hall style meeting with Chris Hayes during which he asked her why it is, in her opinion, that some authoritarian figures in history fail to gain support while others succeed. IOW, can success or failure of these figures be predicted. Her answer was the country, any country, has to be previously receptive to the message being projected. That no one can start from ground zero and orchestrate an authoritarian movement unless citizens in the country, some of them at least, are ready for it.
Probably the best example of this being Germany before Hitler (I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler). The seeds for being receptive to fascism were planted by the onerous terms Germany was forced to submit to after WW I.
So what was happening here that allowed for the sublimated acceptance of, if not desire for, autocracy to bubble to the surface? Technological advances bringing about economic instability? The "browning" of the country causing anxiety among certain factions?
Or is Rachel's theory just wrong?
She recently did a town hall style meeting with Chris Hayes during which he asked her why it is, in her opinion, that some authoritarian figures in history fail to gain support while others succeed. IOW, can success or failure of these figures be predicted. Her answer was the country, any country, has to be previously receptive to the message being projected. That no one can start from ground zero and orchestrate an authoritarian movement unless citizens in the country, some of them at least, are ready for it.
Probably the best example of this being Germany before Hitler (I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler). The seeds for being receptive to fascism were planted by the onerous terms Germany was forced to submit to after WW I.
So what was happening here that allowed for the sublimated acceptance of, if not desire for, autocracy to bubble to the surface? Technological advances bringing about economic instability? The "browning" of the country causing anxiety among certain factions?
Or is Rachel's theory just wrong?
