American Demogogue

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I AM YOUR VOICE!
I AM YOUR RETRIBUTION!
I ALONE CAN FIX IT!

(Liz Garbus, American Carnage, The Fourth Estate: The NY Times and Trump, Episode 3, 2018)

Well, Doctor, what have we got:

• a Republic, or
• a Monarchy?

A Republic, if you can keep it.

— Mrs Powel of Philada & Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 90), Constitutional Convention, 1787.


America for Americans.
The government must not interfere with business.
Reduce taxes.
Our national debt is something shocking. …
What this country needs is a businessman for President.

— John Ford (1894 1973), Stagecoach, 1939.


When somebody's the President of the United States, the authority is total.
And that's the way it's got to be.

— Donald Trump (1946)


In the Trump era, there’s no room for disagreement.
The era where the senators, the members of Congress, asserted their prerogatives, their power, would stand up to a president, seems largely to be over in the United States today.

— Stephen Schmidt (1970)


Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible:
There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

— Liz Cheney (1966), January 6 commission.


Demogogue:
A political agitator appealing to popular wishes or prejudices.

— The Oxford Reference Dictionary

Even after the attack that would leave five people dead and many injured, 147 Republican members of Congress stood with the president, voting to overturn the election results.

Mike Pence (1959) [48th Vice President of the United States]:
President Donald Trump has been fighting for you, and now it’s our turn to fight for him.

Donald Trump (1946):
All I want to do is this:
I just want to find 11,780 votes.
So what are we going to do here, folks?
I only need 11,000 votes. …
Give me a break.
(Phone call to Brad Raffensperger, 29th Secretary of State of Georgia)

We will never give up.
We will never concede.
It doesn’t happen.
You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.

Evan Osnos (1976) [Staff Writer, The New Yorker]:
[Donald Trump] came out of [the first impeachment] convinced, not only that he had total impunity … but that he also had the support of almost every Republican leader in Congress behind him. …
It was a kind of moment of permission.
[All] the guardrails fell away.
He had nothing to be afraid of … he could do whatever he wanted.
(Michael Kirk, Trump's American Carnage, PBS Frontline, 2021)

(image flipped)

(ABC Planet America, 22 January 2021)

Michael Kirk & Mike Wiser:
The Trump strategy:

• Make it TV drama.
• Play to the base. …

Using conflict and outrage, Donald Trump had galvanized an angry base and won over the reluctant Republican establishment. …

Charlie Sykes (1954) [Conservative Commentator]:
[It’s] not so much that Trump took over the Republican Party; it’s that the Republican Party completely capitulated to him.
They’re all united in believing that in order to survive politically, and not lose in a primary, they have to stick as close to him as possible.
Even when he puts out racist tweets, you cannot criticize him in public.
Even when he engages in the most reckless behavior, you cannot break with him in public. …

Peter Baker (1967):
He is about division.
His presidency is predicated on that.
He wants division; he craves it.
He enjoys finding seams and driving right into them.
There's no fight he doesn't want to be part of, and there are plenty of fights he'd like to start.
The fight is the goal.
[There's] no reward, from his point of view, in unity. …

Frank Luntz (1962) [Republican Strategist]:
We were far more divided in the Civil War, far more divided during the Great Depression.
But we've always had hope in the future.
And that hope, we're losing it with this division. …

Joshua Green (1972):
Nunberg had realized that this issue of immigration has real salience with Republican voters.
The problem they had was they couldn’t get Trump to stay on topic.
Famously short attention span.
And so Sam Nunberg came up with this idea, essentially a mnemonic device to keep Trump focused on the issue of immigration.

Sam Nunberg (1981) [Political Consultant]:
So I said:

Well, why don’t we say you’re going to build a wall, because it’s bigger.
You’re going to build a wall, and you’ll get Mexico to pay for it.

(Michael Kirk, America’s Great Divide: From Obama to Trump, PBS Frontline, WGBH, 2020)

Very Fine People

And you had some very bad people [at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.]
But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. …

These are my people.

Proud Boys, stand back and stand by!
[Somebody's] got to do something about antifa and the left.

— Donald Trump (1946)

(Geeta Gandbhir & Sam Pollard, Why We Hate, 2019)

American Fascism: The Good Old Days

I love the old days.
You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this?
They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks. …
I'd like to punch him in the face …

If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?
Seriously. …
I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. …

And you had some very bad people [at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.]
But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. …

These are my people.

— Donald Trump (1946)


We must secure

• the existence of our people, and
• a future for white children.

— David Lane (1938 – 2007)

(The 1940s, America in Color, Episode 3, 2017)



(Rally by the German American Bund funded by the German Nazi Party, Madison Square Garden, 20 February 1939)




(Danny O'Brien, America, Hitler's World, Episode 1, 2018)

(Julian Jones, The Rise of the Nazis, BBC, 2019)

(Adam Thompson, Documenting Hate: Charlottesville, PBS Frontline & Pro Publica, 2018)

Donald Trump (1946):
I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.
People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.

John Kelly (1950) [White House Chief of Staff to Donald Trump]:
[German generals] tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.

Donald Trump (1946):
No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him. …
Hitler did some good things: [he] rebuilt the economy.

John Kelly (1950) [White House Chief of Staff to Donald Trump]:
I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.

Jeffrey Goldberg:
Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel.
(Jeffrey Goldberg, Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’, The Atlantic, October 2024)

Mark Milley (1958) [Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff]:
[Trump] is now the most dangerous person to this country..
A fascist to the core.
(Martin Pengelly, Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says, The Guardian, 11 October 2024)

Jennfier Mercieca: What makes Trump a 'fascist'?

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The Liberal Reward of Labour

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[A] house divided against itself shall not stand.

— Matthew 12:25 , KJV Standard, 1769.


At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

— Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE)


War can make murders out of otherwise decent people.
That may come as a shock to some of the viewers who perceive these mass murderers as horrible beasts.
Not so.

— Ben Ferencz (1920 – 2023), Prosecuting Evil, 2018.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!

(13 November 1789)


Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity?
Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?

(The Somersett Case and the Slave Trade, The London Chronicle, 20 June 1772)


Well, Doctor, what have we got:

• a Republic, or
• a Monarchy?

A Republic, if you can keep it.

(Mrs Powel of Philada & Benjamin Franklin, Constitutional Convention, 1787)

The Liberal Reward of Labour

Naomi Oreskes (1958):
In recent months 14 states have introduced or passed laws weakening labor protections for minors, even in notoriously dangerous industries, such as meatpacking.
Nonenforcement of existing laws that limit the hours and types of work that can be performed by kids is also on the rise.
This past year the number of minors illegally employed—including children as young as 13—increased by 37 percent. …
Advocates of weakened protections for children claim that the states—not the federal government—should decide; that attempts to regulate the workplace represent a federal power grab; and that the defenders of strict limits on child labor are socialists …
(Child Labor Laws Under Attack, Scientific American, September 2003, p 82)

The persistence of hyperconcentrated wealth

	Europe		United States
Wealth Cohort	1913	2018	2018
Top 10%	89%	55%	74%
Middle 40%	10%	40%	14%
Bottom 50%	1%	5%	2%
Top 10% : Bottom 50%	445:1	55:1	185:1
Europe = Average of United Kingdom, France, and Sweden.

Thomas Piketty (1971):
The sharp increase of the top decile share, especially in the United States, reflects a gradual and worrisome erosion of the share owned by the rest of the population.
The lack of diffusion of wealth is a central issue for the twenty-first century, which may undermine the confidence of the lower and middle classes in the economic system …
(Figure 13.10, Capital and Ideology, 2020)

Financial assets held in tax havens

Thomas Piketty (1971):
By exploiting anomalies in international financial statistics and breakdowns by country of residence from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB), one can estimate that the share of financial assets held in tax havens is:

• 4 percent for the United States,
• 10 percent for Europe, and
• 50 percent for Russia.

These figures exclude nonfinancial assets (such as real estate) and financial assets unreported to BIS and SNB, and should be considered minimum estimates.
(Figure 12.5, Capital and Ideology, 2020, emphasis added)

Adam Smith (1723 – 90)

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. …

Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality.
For every rich man, you must have hundred poor.
And that rich man must live every time in fear because of the jealousy of others.
And if it is not for the firm hand of the magistrate … he would not be able to keep his capital safe. …
[Civil government,] in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense

• of the rich against the poor, or
• of those who have some property against those who have none …

Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent, marriage.
It seems even to be favourable to generation.
A half-starved Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three.
Barrenness, so frequent among women of fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station.
Luxury, in the fair sex, while it inflames, perhaps, the passion for enjoyment, seems always to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogether, the powers of generation. …

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children.
It is not uncommon, I have been frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland, for a mother who has born twenty children not to have two alive. …
This great mortality, however will everywhere be found chiefly among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of better station.
Though their marriages are generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller proportion of their children arrive at maturity. …

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it.
But in civilized society, it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce. …

The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits.
It deserves to be remarked, too, that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. …
It is in this manner that the demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men,

• quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and
• stops it when it advances too fast.

It is this demand which regulates and determines the state of propagation in all the different countries …

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the effect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population.
To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the greatest public prosperity.

(The Wealth of Nations, 1776)


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All for ourselves, and nothing for anyone else, seems, in every age, to have been the vile maxim of the Masters of Mankind.


Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality.
For every rich man, you must have hundred poor.
And that rich man must live every time in fear because of the jealousy of others.
And if it is not for the firm hand of the magistrate … he would not be able to keep his capital safe. …
[Civil government,] in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense

• of the rich against the poor, or
• of those who have some property against those who have none …

— The Wealth of Nations, 1779.

Adam Smith (1723 – 90)

The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

[The illusion that the accumulation of possessions brings real satisfaction is the] deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. …

The great source of both the misery and disorders and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another …
Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others …
[But] none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us

• to violate the rules either:
  • of prudence, or
  • of justice; or
• to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either:
  • by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or
  • by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations (1776)

According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to …

• the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; …
• the duty of protecting, so far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice, and …
• the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and … institutions, which can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals to erect and maintain …

In spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, [the rich] are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessities of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus, without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. …

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.

(Chapter 2, Book 1)


What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same.
The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible.
The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.
The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.

We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it.
In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer.
A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired.
Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. …

Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. …
Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.
These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution …

(Chapter 8, Book 1)


Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods, both at home and abroad.
They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits;

• they are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains;
• they complain only of those of other people.

(Chapter 9, Book 1)


No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. …

Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent, marriage.
It seems even to be favourable to generation.
A half-starved Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three.
Barrenness, so frequent among women of fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station.
Luxury, in the fair sex, while it inflames, perhaps, the passion for enjoyment, seems always to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogether, the powers of generation. …

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children.
It is not uncommon, I have been frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland, for a mother who has born twenty children not to have two alive. …
This great mortality, however will everywhere be found chiefly among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of better station.
Though their marriages are generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller proportion of their children arrive at maturity. …

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it.
But in civilized society, it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce. …

The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits.
It deserves to be remarked, too, that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. …
It is in this manner that the demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men,

• quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and
• stops it when it advances too fast.

It is this demand which regulates and determines the state of propagation in all the different countries …

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the effect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population.
To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the greatest public prosperity.

(Chapter 10, Book 1)


The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations … generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it it is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment …
Of the great and extensive interests of his own country he is altogether incapable of judging …

(Part 2, Chapter 10, Book 1)


All for ourselves, and nothing for anyone else, seems, in every age, to have been the vile maxim of the Masters of Mankind.

(Chapter 4, Book 3)


The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from [the business elite] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention.
[For it] comes from an order of men,

• whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public,
• who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and
• who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

[The individual] is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. …
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

(Chapter 2, Book 4)


Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality.
For every rich man, you must have hundred poor.
And that rich man must live every time in fear because of the jealousy of others.
And if it is not for the firm hand of the magistrate … he would not be able to keep his capital safe. …
[Civil government,] in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense

• of the rich against the poor, or
• of those who have some property against those who have none …

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

(Part 2, Chapter 2, Book 5)

Order and Chaos

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Order and Chaos

Order, the known, appears symbolically associated with masculinity …
This is perhaps because the primary hierarchical structure of human society is masculine, as it is among most animals …
It is because men are, and throughout history have been,

• the builders of towns and cities,
• the engineers, stonemasons, bricklayers, and lumberjacks,
• the operators of heavy machinery.

Order is:

• God the Father, the eternal Judge, ledger-keeper and dispenser of rewards and punishments. …
• the peacetime army of policemen and soldiers. …

Chaos, the eternal feminine, is … the crushing force of sexual selection.

— Jordan Peterson (1962), 12 Rules for Life, 2018.


Fascists did not value masculinity per se – only that of some male members of the dominant race.
Socialists and communists (despite their own macho inclinations) were seen as the fomenters of ‘feminine’ indiscipline – while the fascist revolution was characterized by manly order.
The Nazis saw the Jews and Poles as ‘feminine’ races, achieving their goals through devious plots rather than masculine openness.

— Kevin Passmore (1962), Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, 2002.


[The] Western subjugation of the female is … a function of biblical thinking.

— Joseph Campbell (1904 – 87), Love and the Goddess, The Power of Myth, Episode 5, 1988.


The overthrow of mother right [with the advent of farming and pastoralism] was the world historic defeat of the female sex.
The man took command in the home [and] the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children.
This degraded position of the woman … has gradually been palliated and glossed over, and somewhat clothed in a milder form; [but] in no sense has it been abolished.

— Friedrich Engels (1820 – 95), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1884.


[Even] the most thoughtful and fair-minded of [men] fall back on conservative assumptions about the inevitability of present:

• gender relations, and
• distributions of power,

calling on precedent or sociobiology and psychobiology to demonstrate that male domination is natural and follows inevitably from evolutionary pressures.

— Peggy McIntosh (1934), White Privilege and Male Privilege, 1988.

Kevin Passmore

Proto-fascists drew on contemporary science (or rather pseudoscience) as well as irrationalism. …
Social Darwinists feared that the comforts of modern society, coupled to assistance to the poor, would lead to social degeneration and decadence.
They preached ‘eugenicism’ as the answer …

It is no accident that doctors and lawyers were prominent in the far right.
[They feared] that professions were overcrowded with Jews and women, and [disliked] government plans to introduce ‘socialist’ health-care programmes.
Doctors and lawyers espoused eugenicist theories, which they thought gave them the right to play god. …

This was all the more significant given that it was within the framework of eugenics and racism that many of the elites confronted the advance of democracy at the turn of the century – the much feared ‘age of the masses’.
Racist and eugenicist ideas represented, for some, a new, more effective means to govern and control the dangerous masses. …

[After the Great War, governments became preoccupied with ensuring that their nation was fit to survive in the difficult international situation of the post-war world. …
In its most radical form, adopted by fascists everywhere, national strength implied:

• economic self-sufficiency behind tariff walls,
• repression of socialism and incorporation of the workers into the national community,
• encouragement of women to abandon careers and equality in favour of having babies for the nation,
• assimilation or expulsion of ethnic minorities, and
• the introduction of eugenic social welfare schemes designed to improve the physical fitness of the nation.

(Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002)


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