This might sound a bit extreme, but the more I watch the continued success of Donald Trump, the more I'm reminded of the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1930s Germany. Now, before you dismiss me as just another frustrated Trump opponent, consider the ways in which the men are undeniably similar:
1.Both men are racists and fearmongers who have singled out specific groups: Hitler had the Jews. For Trump, it's Mexicans and Muslims. Trump has accused Mexico of sending "rapists and murderers" to our country. He has called for a ban on Muslims coming to this country and supports the creation of a Muslim registry. Hitler forced Jews to wear the Star of David. The creation of such a registry would only be a high-tech version of the same thing.
2. Hitler promised to make Germany great again after the humiliation of World War I. Trump, too, is promising to "Make America Great Again:" Now, granted, unlike postwar Germany, our economy isn't in shambles and our currency isn't worthless. But like Hitler, Trump is playing on the anger and frustration of the electorate. He is appealing strictly to people's emotions and counting on those emotions to override their logic. He is encouraging the idea that America has somehow grown weaker and lost the world's respect. And like Hitler, he has positioned himself as the savior, the only one capable of restoring that strength and giving us back that respect, at the point of a gun, if need be.
3. Trump believes in torture: Trump has said repeatedly that he would bring back water boarding and other forms of torture because "torture works." Hitler had his concentration camps where unspeakable acts of torture and human degradation were committed. Enough said.
4. Like Hitler, Trump can't stand any kind of criticism and wants to silence any opposing voices: Hitler had Joseph Goebbels and his propaganda ministry, who controlled every piece of information fed to the German people. Trump said recently that if elected, he would rewrite the libel laws to make it easier for politicians to sue the media. This, of course, goes against decades of U.S. Supreme Court precedent protecting the media and insults both the spirit and intent of the First Amendment, which guarantees a free press, something vital to a healthy democracy. There can be only one reason for such a move: To intimidate the press and attempt to silence opposing voices, in fact, any voice but his own. This is the move of a dictator.
5. Hitler had his soldiers swear loyalty to him. Trump is asking the same thing of his supporters: It was reported recently that at one of his rallies, Trump had those in attendance swear to turn out, rain or shine, to vote for him. Does this not sound eerily similar to those oaths required of Nazi soldiers?
Now, I'm not saying that Trump is Hitler, or that he will bring about a second Holocaust. But it's clear that both men share similar ideologies and that he has borrowed heavily from Hitler's playbook when it comes to gaining power. It's important that we're aware what he's doing. If we simply ignore what's right in front of us, history might very well repeat itself.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Why Trump doesn't really want to be president
I don't believe Donald Trump really wants to be our next president. I've said before that Trunp doesn't really believe the garbage he's spouting. So why does he persist in running for the nation's top job? In this, I agree with my wife: I think he's trying to make some twisted point that our electoral system is irreparably broken. He's trying to prove to us that our votes no longer count, that the presidency is bought, not elected.
Trunp is an incurable egomaniac, and perhaps part of him does believe that he does have the answers for fixing our country's problems. But in his heart of hearts, I don't believe he really wants the job. And why would he? Consider: Trump is a billionaire, worth at least $4 billion. The presidency only pays $435,000 a year. Not bad, but Trump has more than that in his couch cushions. Why would he willingly take such a huge pay cut? If Trump wins, he will have to divest himself of all his massive holdings and give up control of his empire, at least for the next four years. I just can't really see him doing that. And really, why would he?
Trump is a control freak. He's used to getting his way, to having people ask "how high?" When he says, "jump." If he becomes president, he's going to learn quickly that he can't run the country the same way he does one of his businesses. He's going to have to learn to work with Congress. He's going to have to learn that he won't be able to do everything he wants. He's going to have to learn to compromise. And given his "my way or the highway" personality, I just can't see that happening.
Trump is making a mockery of our electoral system, and if he wins the nomination, he'll make a mockery of the general election, and maybe even the presidency. To Trump, this whole thing is some kind of game, some sort of twisted reality show. To borrow a term I heard recently from some comedian, it's "Celebrity Select-A-President." To Trump, winning the presidency is some kind of challenge. This whole fiasco is the ultimate feather in his cap. It's designed to stroke his already massive ego.
The best case scenario I can see if Trump wins is that he will soon tire of the job, the constant scrutiny and the criticism. In that case, let's pray that he selects well when it comes to picking a Vice President. Another possibility is that his candidacy will be the mirror the GOP needs to realize that they have drifted too far to the right and it will cause them to pull the party back toward where it truly belongs: in the political middle. If that happens, perhaps this misguided exercise in ego won't have been a complete waste after all.
Trunp is an incurable egomaniac, and perhaps part of him does believe that he does have the answers for fixing our country's problems. But in his heart of hearts, I don't believe he really wants the job. And why would he? Consider: Trump is a billionaire, worth at least $4 billion. The presidency only pays $435,000 a year. Not bad, but Trump has more than that in his couch cushions. Why would he willingly take such a huge pay cut? If Trump wins, he will have to divest himself of all his massive holdings and give up control of his empire, at least for the next four years. I just can't really see him doing that. And really, why would he?
Trump is a control freak. He's used to getting his way, to having people ask "how high?" When he says, "jump." If he becomes president, he's going to learn quickly that he can't run the country the same way he does one of his businesses. He's going to have to learn to work with Congress. He's going to have to learn that he won't be able to do everything he wants. He's going to have to learn to compromise. And given his "my way or the highway" personality, I just can't see that happening.
Trump is making a mockery of our electoral system, and if he wins the nomination, he'll make a mockery of the general election, and maybe even the presidency. To Trump, this whole thing is some kind of game, some sort of twisted reality show. To borrow a term I heard recently from some comedian, it's "Celebrity Select-A-President." To Trump, winning the presidency is some kind of challenge. This whole fiasco is the ultimate feather in his cap. It's designed to stroke his already massive ego.
The best case scenario I can see if Trump wins is that he will soon tire of the job, the constant scrutiny and the criticism. In that case, let's pray that he selects well when it comes to picking a Vice President. Another possibility is that his candidacy will be the mirror the GOP needs to realize that they have drifted too far to the right and it will cause them to pull the party back toward where it truly belongs: in the political middle. If that happens, perhaps this misguided exercise in ego won't have been a complete waste after all.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Rise of Donald Trump should be no surprise to GOP
I've been following politics for most of my adult life. Still, I've found myself more than a little surprised by the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, the politician. When he first announced, I thought it was novel. I thought that, while he would inject some spice into what promised to be a dull campaign season, he was no one to be taken seriously. I figured his extreme views on immigration, and his embrace of the nutty "birther" movement would drive him from the race before the Iowa caucuses. How wrong I was. Not only is he still in the race, he's now the leading contender for the GOP nomination and has a very real shot at becoming the Republican standard bearer for 2016. What was once unthinkable a short six months ago is now a very scary reality. Upon further reflection, though, Trump's success should come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention for the last 20 years.
What has made Trump so successful? Easy. He's playing into the fears that have been pushed by the Republican Party for the last two decades: fear of Muslims, fear of illegal immigrants "taking over" our country and fear of being the victim of another terrorist attack like we were on 9/11. Above all, Trump is a fearmonger, and he's taken advantage of our fear to drive his own success. But fear isn't the only tool Trump has used to propel his campaign. Trump has also tapped into a very real anger in the American electorate, the feeling that no matter who we elect, nothing will ever change for the better. Trump has successfully positioned himself as a political outsider, someone with new and different answers. This sounds good, right? After all, who wouldn't want to "make America great again?"
Here's the problem with all that. Trump is the embodiment of everything wrong with today's Republican Party. He's a bigot and a xenophobe. He says the things out loud that have been whispered among Republicans for years, but that they would never have dared express. His ideas might seem to make a certain kind of sense, but the truth is, he has very little chance of ever making them a reality. With his bombastic, take-no-prisoners personality, the more likely scenario is that he'll anger leaders in Congress to the point that they will refuse to consider any of his proposals, thus rendering him an ineffective figurehead. Worse, his massive ego and "my way or the highway" approach to everything is likely to alienate our international allies and worsen our standing in the world. The end result of a Trump presidency could very well be the permanent marginalization of the Republican Party as a party of extremists, bigots and xenophobes.
The GOP, to its credit, has been horrified by Trumps's success and has done everything it can to derail his campaign. But if they're honest with themselves, and with the American people, they really have no right to be surprised. The sad truth is, they are solely responsible for creating the Trump phenomenon. He is the end result of the party's decades of fear-mongering and illicit bigotry. That he is now saying out loud what they have been saying secretly among themselves is no one's fault but theirs.
If one good thing might come out of the Trump candidacy, I hope it is this: I hope that the party will realize just how far to the right they have drifted and start to move itself back toward the political middle. I hope that after almost three decades, the party will finally divorce itself from the poisonous pact it forged with the Religious Right and recommit itself to the core principles that made it great and that were embodied by past GOP presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elder: smaller government, less taxes and staying out of people's personal lives. If that happens, then the Trump experiment will not have been in vain, and the entire country will be better for having survived this surreal nightmare.
What has made Trump so successful? Easy. He's playing into the fears that have been pushed by the Republican Party for the last two decades: fear of Muslims, fear of illegal immigrants "taking over" our country and fear of being the victim of another terrorist attack like we were on 9/11. Above all, Trump is a fearmonger, and he's taken advantage of our fear to drive his own success. But fear isn't the only tool Trump has used to propel his campaign. Trump has also tapped into a very real anger in the American electorate, the feeling that no matter who we elect, nothing will ever change for the better. Trump has successfully positioned himself as a political outsider, someone with new and different answers. This sounds good, right? After all, who wouldn't want to "make America great again?"
Here's the problem with all that. Trump is the embodiment of everything wrong with today's Republican Party. He's a bigot and a xenophobe. He says the things out loud that have been whispered among Republicans for years, but that they would never have dared express. His ideas might seem to make a certain kind of sense, but the truth is, he has very little chance of ever making them a reality. With his bombastic, take-no-prisoners personality, the more likely scenario is that he'll anger leaders in Congress to the point that they will refuse to consider any of his proposals, thus rendering him an ineffective figurehead. Worse, his massive ego and "my way or the highway" approach to everything is likely to alienate our international allies and worsen our standing in the world. The end result of a Trump presidency could very well be the permanent marginalization of the Republican Party as a party of extremists, bigots and xenophobes.
The GOP, to its credit, has been horrified by Trumps's success and has done everything it can to derail his campaign. But if they're honest with themselves, and with the American people, they really have no right to be surprised. The sad truth is, they are solely responsible for creating the Trump phenomenon. He is the end result of the party's decades of fear-mongering and illicit bigotry. That he is now saying out loud what they have been saying secretly among themselves is no one's fault but theirs.
If one good thing might come out of the Trump candidacy, I hope it is this: I hope that the party will realize just how far to the right they have drifted and start to move itself back toward the political middle. I hope that after almost three decades, the party will finally divorce itself from the poisonous pact it forged with the Religious Right and recommit itself to the core principles that made it great and that were embodied by past GOP presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elder: smaller government, less taxes and staying out of people's personal lives. If that happens, then the Trump experiment will not have been in vain, and the entire country will be better for having survived this surreal nightmare.
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