Paul McLel 9/1/2020: Trump Plays American Dictator at RNC

We need to wake up. I need to wake up.

A few months ago I wrote you all about why I felt Joe Biden was likely to win this election. I listed the reasons. I thought that Biden’s appeals to “common decency” and “normalcy” (quotes mine) would appeal to the American populace during these unusual pandemic stricken times. I suggested that it was Biden, rather than Trump, who was running the Nixonian silent majority type campaign, appealing to older suburbanites with reassurances like those he gave to wealthy donors last year (“nothing will fundamentally change”). I noted Biden’s success with elderly voters during the primaries, and his (apparent) comfortable lead with them in the polls.

Unfortunately, my thinking has drastically changed. I now would more or less call this election a toss-up, which is a nice way of saying that there is a good chance Donald Trump will be re-elected in November.

I beg you to bare with me. We can turn our heads away in agony, or we can confront reality.

I had a similar realization during the summer of 2016, albeit a brief one. As the world mocked the Republican Convention in Cleveland, I watched candidate Trump’s acceptance speech and felt sick. I couldn’t put it into words then, but I sensed for maybe the first time that Trump’s dark strongman rhetoric was going to appeal to a lot of people (beyond the GOP primary electorate) in an era of widespread social alienation and inequality.

“I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves,” said Trump in an in/famous section of that speech in 2016. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders — he never had a chance.”

I held onto the idea that Trump could very well win until the Access Hollywood tape in mid October 2016. I let my guard down. We should not be so foolish this time.

And so another Trump GOP convention has come and gone. Much as they did in Cleveland in 2016, the Pundit class declared Trump’s acceptance speech a failure. The News Hour’s Amy Walters had a rational but woefully naive take about the speech, namely about Donald Trump’s claims that Joe Biden was at once a radical socialist and a tool of the global capitalist elite.

“… The attacks on Joe Biden were not particularly thematic,” said Walters. “On the one hand [Trump] said [Biden’s] been here for 47 years, and he’s been responsible for some of these terrible trade deals. Basically saying he’s part of the status quo elitists [sic] that have gotten us into all the trouble we’re in right now. But then spent another part of the speech saying [Biden’s] a trojan horse for socialism. So that’s the challenge the President has had… in trying how to figure out ‘how do we attack Joe Biden?”

Some would call that a “challenge”, sure. Some would call it contradictory and dishonest. But one can also refer to it as classic fascist propaganda. I wish the American pundit class, however intelligent and well intentioned their members might be (and Walters is both), understood this.

My dad (who is probably reading this newsletter) reminded me the morning after Trump’s speech that a central Nazi argument in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, perhaps the central Nazi argument, was that their enemies — the enemies of Germany as a whole, namely Jews — were at once radical Marxists and puppets/proprietors of the global capitalist elite obsessed with financial gain. According to the Nazis, there was nothing redeeming about the enemies of Germany (the Jews, the British, the Communists, non-aryans, and so on.) They were pure evil, the cause of all problems, capable of treacherous hypocrisy and shiftiness. During a time of severe economic depression, and after the humiliating defeat of World War 1, millions of Germans bought into these myths as a channel for rage and turmoil. Similar propagandistic myths with equally similar violent results were employed by strongmen in countries like Serbia, Uganda, and Chile later in the 20th century.

And Trump was using the same playbook. In his acceptance speech, given in front of a large crowd (by Coronavirus standards) on the White House lawn, Trump defined his enemies as irredeemably evil, shifty, and hypocritical. Trump thusly presented himself as the singular beacon of light to defeat America’s enemies, an angel of purity incapable of wrongdoing. To call this stuff “lies” is to miss the point. These are fascist myths, and they hold a lot of appeal in an ailing, decaying society like ours.

“This election will decide whether we save the American Dream, or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny,” said Trump early on, setting the scene for the rest of his speech.

Trump presented leftists and the so-called “Democrat Party” as the enemies of America and it’s citizens. Take some of these quotes below.

“Your vote will decide whether we protect law abiding Americans, or whether we give free reign to violent anarchists, agitators, and criminals who threaten our citizens.”

“This election will decide whether we will defend the American Way of Life, or whether we allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.”

But the Pundits focused on the style rather than the substance.

“It was sort of a decaf Donald Trump,” said the News Hour’s Mark Shields.

“It was one of the longest and lowest-energy speeches I have ever seen the president give,” said ABC News’s Jonathan Karl. (quoted from a hollywood reporter article)

“This was unquestionably the best Donald Trump production ever,” said ABC News’s Sara Fagen, a rare voice of approval but nonetheless focused on style. (taken from the above hollywood reporter article).

These pundits have chosen to swim in the shallowest end of the political swimming pool. They assume that voters will be turned off by Trump’s demagoguing. They have not learned from 2016 nor 20th century history.

The pundits, for instance, overlooked the biblical, Christ-like way Trump presented himself in this speech. Take some of these quotes:

“… From the moment I left my former life behind, and a good life it was, I have done nothing but fight for you.”

“… I did what our political establishment never expected and could never forgive, breaking the cardinal rule of Washington Politics. I kept my promises. Together, we have ended the rule of the failed political class — and they are desperate to get their power back by any means necessary. They are angry at me because instead of putting them first, I put America first!”

“…Liberal politicians claim to be concerned about the strength of American institutions. But who, exactly, is attacking them? Who is hiring the radical professors, judges, and prosecutors? Who is trying to abolish immigration enforcement, and establish speech codes designed to muzzle dissent? In every case, the attacks on American institutions are being waged by the radical left. Always Remember: they are coming after me, because I am fighting for you.”

“…We must reclaim our independence from the left’s repressive mandates. Americans are exhausted trying to keep up with the latest list of approved words and phrases, and the ever-more restrictive political decrees. Many things have a different name now, and the rules are constantly changing. The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated, and driven from society as we know it. The far-left wants to coerce you into saying what you know to be false, and scare you out of saying what you know to be true.”

I am good and pure, Trump suggests, while the enemies of America, the left, are evil and do everything in bad faith.

This theme was persistent throughout. Good vs. evil. Me vs. them. Take note of the outrageous way he spoke of his handling of the coronavirus:

“When the China Virus hit, we launched the largest national mobilization since World War II. Invoking the Defense Production Act, we produced the world’s largest supply of ventilators. Not a single American who has needed a ventilator has been denied a ventilator. We shipped hundreds of millions of masks, gloves and gowns to our front line healthcare workers. To protect our nation’s seniors, we rushed supplies, testing kits, and personnel to nursing homes and long term care facilities. The Army Corps of Engineers built field hospitals, and the Navy deployed our great hospital ships.

We developed, from scratch, the largest and most advanced testing system in the world. America has tested more than every country in Europe put together, and more than every nation in the Western Hemisphere combined. We have conducted 40 million more tests than the next closest nation.

We developed a wide array of effective treatments, including a powerful anti-body treatment known as Convalescent Plasma that will save thousands of lives. Thanks to advances we have pioneered, the fatality rate has been reduced by 80 percent since April.

The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country in the world. The European Union’s case fatality rate is nearly three times higher than ours. Altogether, the nations of Europe have experienced a 30 percent greater increase in excess mortality than the United States.

We enacted the largest package of financial relief in American history. Thanks to our Paycheck Protection Program, we have saved or supported more than 50 million American jobs. As a result, we have seen the smallest economic contraction of any major western nation, and we are recovering much faster. Over the past three months, we have gained over 9 million jobs, a new record.”

But, ‘my god!’, suggested Trump next. The enemies of America are so cynical and unfair!

“Unfortunately, from the beginning, our opponents have shown themselves capable of nothing but a partisan ability to criticize. When I took bold action to issue a travel ban on China, Joe Biden called it hysterical and xenophobic. If we had listened to Joe, hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died.”

The implicit suggestion here is that Trump is by contrast non-partisan and heroic, and that the enemies of America cannot stand the purity and kindness of its leader. This is why I say calling this shit “lies” doesn’t cut it. It goes so beyond reality and truth the one can only call it fascist myth.

“Our country wasn’t built by cancel culture, speech codes, and soul-crushing conformity,” Trump assures us. “We are not a nation of timid spirits. We are a nation of fierce, proud, and independent American Patriots.” The “we” he speaks of are not the leftist and “democrat” enemies he has pontificated about. They are not a part of the America he is envisioning.

Then, towards the merciful end of the speech, we are treated to a call to arms.

“Whenever our way of life was threatened, our heroes answered the call. From Yorktown to Gettysburg, from Normandy to Iwo Jima, American Patriots raced into cannon blasts, bullets and bayonets to rescue American Liberty.”

I hope that my previous predictions of a Biden victory prove true. I hope that enough voters in this country reject the fascist myth making seen above. No matter what happens, the sentiment expressed by Trump and his base of supporters are not going anywhere. In fact, a Biden victory — a victory, of an enemy of America, so to speak — may only embolden it. Coronavirus vaccine or not, this is going to be one hell of a turbulent decade, and we need to learn to combat the new rising American fascism. That starts with calling it out when we see it and not relying on clueless pundits to do the work for us. We all need to wake up.