A Perilous Path

If you’ve paid any attention to the headlines last night or this morning, I hope you’re concerned. No--beyond concerned, more like fearful, terrified, a lump of cold dread sitting deep in the pit of your stomach.

From the Trump ego-stroking rally in Texas last night:

"A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country so much. And you know what? We can't have that. You know, they have a word. It sort of became old-fashioned. It's called a nationalist. And I say, really, we're not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I'm a nationalist, OK? I'm a nationalist.

"Nationalist. Nothing -- use that word. Use that word."

Mr. Trump’s gloating rhetoric is becoming ever more dangerous. The phrase “I’m a nationalist” should set off every alarm, send up every red flag. Trump believes that he embodies the spirit of the United States, that he is imbued with the essence of what it is to be an American and has become the sole arbiter in what it means to be “American.”

Among Mr. Trump's top “American” values: anti-minority, anti-immigrant, anti-democracy, anti-LGBTQI, anti-expert, anti-education, anti-union, anti-environmental, anti-social safety net--anti-anything that has helped to democratize the U.S. or help workers or the impoverished. If you aren’t with him and his frothing-at-the-mouth rally goers, you are apparently anti-American. Noam Chomsky, in his recent documentary “Requiem for the American Dream” discusses the phenomenon of the muting of the voices of dissenters by labeling them as anti-American. It is a convenient ploy for despotic leaders to draw a line in the sand and claim that those who don’t toe that line are enemies of the state. Mr. Trump most definitely sees himself as the Spirit of America incarnate with the power to dictate who the winners are and who is cast out.

In this role of the Avenging Angel of America, complete with red, white and blue rays of light shooting out of his…wherever, he is effectively playing into the hands of white victimhood, using falsehoods, lies, obfuscations, exaggerations, etc. to convince his frenetic mobs that they are being attacked on all fronts by everyone who is not like them. He implores his cultish followers to deride or attack what they hear from anyone save him and his approved mouthpieces. He has repeatedly claimed that his followers should listen only to him and that contrarian views are merely elitist contrivances or (involuntary shudder) “fake news.” Mr. Trump’s adherents, many of whom have felt sold out by the neoliberal myths of meritocracy and prosperity on the horizon for the past few decades, have been incredibly susceptible to this repetitive propaganda, cleaving to this divisive verbiage and accepting that they are the true, patriotic Americans.

Words matter. Ideas matter. Mr. Trump is no longer hiding his ideology with dog whistle catch phrases or a wink and a nod to the “good people” who were chanting reprehensible racist tropes and running down anti-Trump protesters in their cars at Charlottesville, VA. It is not by accident that Mr. Trump unveiled this new phase in his push (or shall I say “putsch”?) towards fascistic hegemony at the time and place he did. Where better to extol the virtues of American mythos than deep in the heart of Texas, where the southern border is about to be invaded by a people displaced by economic hardship, violence and government repression? It must be incredibly bad in places such as Guatemalaand Honduras where the people there are fleeing these things, crossing hostile terrain, in order to face economic hardship, violence and government repression here. I’m sure they will need to get here in order to cash the checks they were given by the DNC in advance, right?

All of this fits right along with the delusional “Make America Great Again” or “Keep America Great” or whatever pithy slogan Team Trump is now using. It all amounts to chasing some ephemeral condition buried in a non-existent past to establish hegemonic control over those perceived to be lesser or “other” and who reside outside of the acceptable bounds of what it means to be a part of the nation as imposed by the despotic headman. It is this notion of the nation that is incredibly disturbing. A nation is not a country nor a state. A nation is a cultural group with a common heritage, history, language, worldview and traditions. The specter of nationalism that Mr. Trump has resurrected judges all according to the accepted norms of this nation. Do groups and individuals meet the litmus test developed by those in charge? If so, then they are welcomed. If not, then they are expendable, they are refuse, they are enemies.

I'm sure that the leaders of other countries, both allies as well as enemies, sat up and took notice of this further challenge to the world order. Mr. Trump has made it clear that he cares little for other countries and the world as a whole through the actions undertaken by his administration. Rescinding the U.S. acceptance of the Paris Accords, exiting the UN Human Rights Council, attacking the International Criminal Court, the impunity in killing civilians and ending the U.S. funding of Palestinian refugees are but a few of the examples of these egregious deeds. Mr. Trump and his administration have definitely lived up to the campaign promise of "America First" as well as the unspoken corollary of "and screw the rest." Mr. Trump's dangerous proclamation of pursuing a course of unbridled nationalism puts the U.S. directly in the crosshairs of every other country. Eschewing cooperation with other countries invites their contempt. This contempt will result in growing isolation of the U.S.

A policy of nationalism becomes a convenient way to sort the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff. It feeds into the divine-like narcissism of those at the head of the table. By claiming that he is a nationalist, Mr. Trump can now “strongly” say who is in and who isn’t. This provides cover for locking children up in cages, disenfranchising minority voters, cutting the social safety net and a whole host of actions, justified by the edicts of the head of the nation. Where does it stop? With whom does it stop? Am I exaggerating? Reading too much into this? I can only hope that I am.

Call me doom and gloom, you wouldn’t be the first, but I feel as if our democratic system is facing an existential crisis. The grand experiment of the United States is coming perilously close to exploding, much like a middle school science fair project gone wrong. Mr. Trump is busy Tweeting while the U.S. disintegrates and the majority of the population is transfixed, either in disbelief or in triumph, at the parade of daily spectacle marching before our eyes, like so much half-baked reality TV of the ilk that catapulted Mr. Trump from the faux boardroom of “The Apprentice” to the real Oval Office in the first place. Mr. Trump and the complicit GOP are leading us down a perilous path while the impotent Democrat Party wrings its collective hands. It is up to us, We the People, to wake up and claim our place as citizens with all of the rights and responsibilities that this entails.