By Ranting Panda, 25 February 2020
Trump is a Psycho-Ceramic.
What are pyscho-ceramics? They are 'the cracked pots of mankind' ... as described in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which went on to observe that 'perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become, Hitler for example'. Trump is testament to this. He is mentally deranged & morally derailed, yet holds the most powerful office in the world ... meanwhile, the increasingly desperate, delusional & degenerate right-wing continue making excuses for him, justifying him and completely ignore the truth.
Take Senator Lindsey Graham for instance, who bizarrely stated that Trump shouldn't be removed from office, because 'he did nothing wrong in his mind' (Moye 2020). So what if his mind is a cracked pot.
There's a lot wrong inside Trump's mind ... If the right tolerate this behaviour, what will they tolerate next?
Trump is a demagogue: he appeals to his voters through manipulating their fears and prejudices, rather than by making rational arguments. His speeches are devoid of facts, heavy on lies and barely more than an incoherent, rambling, alphabet soup of puerile insults and bigotry.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey goes on to observe, 'mental illness could have the aspect of power, power'. Now, this isn't an attack on people with mental illness, it is questioning whether Trump's particular mental illness makes him unsuitable to lead a nation. Psychologists from all ideological persuasions have determined that Trump has 'narcissistic personality disorder' (Psychology Today, n.d.).
This may explain some of his more concerning behaviours, such as gas-lighting, compulsive lying, distortion, disregard and denial of facts, erratic and contradictory statements, paranoia and his snowflake sensitivity to criticism. Most concerning is how this plays out in the lives of innocent people. He has not only imprisoned people seeking asylum in the United States, but torn their children from their arms and separated them from their families. There are at least 26,000 children, many of whom will never be reunited because Trump did not have plans for recording the children's details before separating them (Blitzer 2019). This is the man who represents 'family values' to his followers.
Trump was impeached for extorting Ukraine to provide dirt on one of his political opponents. The Republican-dominated Senate was so sure of his innocence that they refused to allow new witnesses and evidence to be presented. One of the religious nutters who supports Trump, called for an 'angelic army with flaming swords' to protect Trump from impeachment (Hamilton 2020).
Trump was accused of colluding with Russia in fixing his 2016 election win. Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, is currently fighting extradition to the United States on espionage charges. In 2016, Wikileaks published emails that were damaging to Hillary Clinton's election campaign. The lawyer acting for Assange has asserted in court, that Trump offered Assange a presidential pardon if he stated that the emails were not leaked by Russia (Borger 2020).These are not the actions of an innocent man.
It's not just that Trump is a crack-pot. He is a dangerous crack-pot. He has unbelievably managed to herd Christians behind his corrupt, bullying, abusive agenda. He has done this through the equivalent of slapping a 'fish' sticker on his car. In this case, the fish sticker is his abortion policy, which blind, unquestioning Christians think makes Trump a good Christian, while excusing every other immoral, amoral, corrupt, deceitful, bullying action. All these people defending Trump and claiming he is a Christian, claiming he has family morals and values. Yet would they really want their children behaving like Trump?
Even more disturbing is the correlation of increased hate crimes since Trump's election. The FBI reported attacks against Latinos was at a 16-year high (Hassan 2019). Furthermore, a study examining hate crime trends since 1992, concluded that not only was Trump's election win associated with a 'statistically significant surge in reported hate crimes across the United States, even when controlling for alternative explanations', but that this increase was most evident in counties that voted for Trump (Edwards & Rushin 2018). The report was comprehensive and concluded that it wasn't just Trump's 'inflammatory rhetoric throughout the political campaign that caused hate crimes to increase', but that Trump's election 'validated this rhetoric in the eyes of perpetrators and fuelled the hate crime surge'. Further to this, Trump's influence as holder of the most powerful office in the world, has normalised racism globally and legitimised the rise of far-right political parties and their policies of intolerance, prejudice and discrimination (Giani & Meon, 2019).
Then there's Trump's so-called 'peace plans' for Israel. This particularly appeals to Zionist Christians, and of course, Israel. Meanwhile, it legitimises Israel's war-crimes and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Firstly, he relocated the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested area of Jerusalem. Trump stated, 'God decided Jerusalem was the capital of Israel more than 3,000 years ago during the time of King David' (Usher 2018). Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers were shooting Palestinian protesters, leaving more than 50 dead (Davis 2018). More recently, Trump proudly unveiled his 'peace plan', which has an uncanny resemblance to the apartheid of South Africa, of which Israel was the greatest contributing external party, providing diplomatic support, financial aid, military weapons, and other resources for building and maintaining the bantustans (Liel 2020). Trump's peace plan was developed without any Palestinian input. Instead of returning land to Palestinians, which had been illegally taken and occupied by Israel, Trump's plan will create enclaves in the West Bank for Palestinians. It is no different to the bantustans of South Africa. All of this plays into the hands of Israel and Zionist Christians who have white-washed Palestinians from history, claiming they don't exist and have no rights over the land. The very creation of modern Israel was based on the myth of a 'land without people for a people without a land'. The land did have people and they had occupied it for thousands of years (Brownfield 1998). Trump's rhetoric, actions and 'peace plan', legitimise the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from history and the land ... all in the name of God.
Trump claims to be a Christian, but the bible does state, 'by their fruits you shall know them'. Trump's fruit is racism, hate-speech, hate-crimes, apartheid, war-crimes and the justification of ethnic cleansing.
To quote the 1971 song 'One Tin Soldier':
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
It is from the movie, Billy Jack. The song, One Tin Soldier, tells the story of an age-old battle for a buried treasure, and the blood spilled in pursuit of it. The song ends with the treasure being revealed. Rather than the treasure being gold, silver or jewels, it is simply a message: 'Peace on earth'.
This message reflects Carl Sagan's powerful, poignant, perceptive observation of the 'Pale Blue Dot'. Sagan describes the Earth as a 'mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam'. Sagan goes onto to poignantly observe:'The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds'.
War has existed for millenia, with people fighting for power, for control, for land. Yet, underpinning the belief-systems of many of these warriors are religions that claim they want 'peace on earth'.
There are Christians who follow Trump, yet cheered him on as he took the world to the brink of war against Iran (Grant 2020). Christians supported President George W. Bush and the 'Coalition of the Willing' in their illegal invasion of Iraq that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Christians supported Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in their wars in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. Christians supported the wars in Vietnam and Korea. Christians supported Adolf Hitler in the wars he waged and his persecution and genocide of Jews, communists, gypsies, unionists and many others.
Why is this so important? Because many of these same people will criticise Islam for being inherently violent because of terrorist attacks waged by Muslim extremists. Meanwhile, these Christians fail to understand that Christian-led wars have killed far more people than any other religion. This inability and unwillingness to self-critique provides a firm platform for Trump and his ilk to harvest votes from xenophobic messaging and politics.
These behaviours are described so eloquently by French philosopher, Blaise Pascall, when he stated, 'Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction'.
For many years, right-wing voters have been seduced by fear-mongering messages aimed at 'othering' to create division and hatred between people. The following message is similar to that presented by many right-wing parties across the globe. They create an enemy, they create fear, and then they use this to remove people's rights. It turns the people against each other, rather than against those people who promote hate and fear. And from this, war is justified, persecution of minorities is justified, authoritarianism is justified ... exactly what we are seeing with Trump.
'The streets of our country are in turmoil. The Universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might and the republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order. Yes, without law and order our nation cannot survive. Elect us and we shall restore law and order'.By the way, that statement was made by Adolf Hitler, but it echoes the messages of politicians, such as Donald Trump and his ilk, which includes Australia's Scott Morrison. It is a message being reflected by right-wing parties across the globe, such as the German far-right party, Alternative for Germany, which has broken decades old laws about curtailing Nazism, in Spain there is the far-right Vox party, Austria's Freedom Party, France's National Front led by Marine Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Finland's Finns Party, the Conservative People's Party of Estonia, Poland's Confederation Party, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Slovenian Democratic Party led by former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, and in Greece there is the Greek Solution and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn (BBC 2019). All of these parties and politicians have common messages and policies around anti-intellectualism, anti-socialism/communism, anti-unionism, anti-migration, stronger law and order. They do so through messages of fear that demonise Muslim refugees as terrorists and blame them for destroying the economy, or that socialism is infiltrating schools and universities through science, climate change, gender-fluidity, and political correctness.
Have we forgotten the lessons of Nazi Germany? The Germans in Nazi Germany did not realise just how far Hitler would take them, however, they embraced his message and did his bidding. We should be concerned when these parties are elected into positions of power.
In the United States, Trump ran a similar message in his electioneering and was installed into the highest office in the land. He is not articulate, his messages are rambling and irrational, but while they lack substance, they appeal to his supporters. This is not unlike Hitler, who was also rambling and irrational. In Australia, it is very similar with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has no substance to his policies, but continues the irrational and rambling messages of his predecessors, such as Tony Abbott and John Howard. The messages of each of these appeal to the masses because they invoke fear and hatred of the 'other'. They demonise minorities and blame them for economic ills, while providing greater freedom to the wealthy who continue to exploit minorities and the poor.
In the opening scene of the movie, Billy Jack, Billy confronts the sheriff for trying to shoot horses on Indian land. The sheriff declares 'We have the law here'. Billy Jack retorts, 'When policemen break the law, then there isn't any law; just a fight for survival'. This could be modernised to reflect Trump's approach to the law. He has consistently broken it, then criticises police for investigating it, while pardoning criminals with connections to him (Baker et al, 2020).
Ironically, those who support the idiocracy of Trump, claim they support democracy. They don't understand that democracy has died through the division of society, through turning the people against each other, through making some people less human or less deserving of rights than others. Dare I quote Padme from 'Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith', when she stated, 'So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause . . .'
The hate-speech of the far-right is often masked in neo-liberal economics, which argues for free-market trade, deregulation, privatisation, small government, user-pays systems for health and education, and no welfare. The victims of neo-liberalism are the poor, so it is inherent in neo-liberal strategies to turn the population, including the poor, against a common enemy. That common enemy should be the neo-liberal politicians and big businesses who are only interested in profit over people. However, the common enemy becomes minorities in western countries, such as refugees, LGBTIQ+ people, Muslims, and even the poor themselves. Neo-liberalism is intimately entwined with neo-fascism, neo-Nazism and racism.
Why are these simplistic messages of hate so powerful? Abbott and Morrison both used three-word slogans, such as 'stop the boats', 'lifters not leaners', 'debt and deficit', 'axe the tax'. (Quiggin 2015). These slogans had no substance, no explanation, and were aimed at spreading fear and division. Most people did not go beyond the superficial messaging. Trump is the same. He spreads a simple message of hate. He declared that all Mexicans are murderers and rapists (Jacobs 2018). He continues to wage prejudicial campaigns against Muslims, declaring that 'Islam hates us'. He banned all Muslims from entering the USA. Following the mosque terrorist attacks in New Zealand that killed 51 Muslims and injured many others, he tweeted a link to far-right site Breitbart that had declared Muslim refugees were 'rapefugees'. Trump has retweeted hate speech videos by neo-fascists who wage campaigns of violence against Muslims while claiming to be Christians (Klaas 2019). While Trump claims he isn't racist, his language and actions have empowered Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists (Simon & Sidner 2019). Hitler also used these simplistic, rambling messages of hate, fear and division. Hitler claimed he was doing the 'work of the Lord' in attacking communists, Jews and others. Each of these leaders wrapped their messages in Christian beliefs to mask their terrible agendas while seducing Christians into thinking they are defending moral values.
The common theme in these simplistic messages of intolerance and fear is absolutism.
Right-wing politicians will deplore 'moral relativism'. Yet the opposite of relativism is absolutism. Relativism looks at context and nuance. Absolutism does not. Absolutism fails to recognise the differences in people, societies, cultures, perspective. It rejects science because science requires relativism. Absolutism finds fertile ground in religion, because it is easy to manipulate the religious into a superstitious fear of judgement and condemnation by their supreme being if they dare to question. For example, Trump appointed a spiritual adviser, Paula White-Cain, who proclaimed that 'To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God' (Thomas 2019). Wow! Talk about feeding the superstitious fears of the gullible.
Staying with the Star Wars quotes, Obi Wan Kenobi stated 'Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must'. Ok, we don't have Sith Lords, but we do have powerful politicians claiming they are doing the work of the Lord. We have politicians dealing in absolutes, because that makes it easier to demonise and divide. It makes it easier to control the gullible to do their bidding. The key though is fear. Send the message that there is an attack on their freedoms, create an imaginary enemy, and the gullible are ripe for manipulation.
Truth and facts? Nah. What use are these when being told what to believe by Trump or other clowns.
Remember when Press Secretary Sean Spicer grossly inflated the attendance numbers for Trump's inauguration? Counsellor to the President, Kelly-Anne Conway decided to cover for him by declaring that these were 'alternative facts'. Chuck Todd, of Meet the Press, explained to Conway, 'Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods' (Blake 2017).For instance, when politicians or commentators are called out for racism or bigotry, they will either deny it or gaslight it. There may be video footage of the exact statement and they will say that they never said it. Or, they will indignantly declare that their freedom of speech is being attacked by politically correctness 'gone mad', by socialist snowflakes. It is reminiscent of Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, 'The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command'.
Another great quote from Billy Jack, is when Billy states, 'It's funny isn't it? Only the white man wants everything put in writing. And only then, so he can use it against you in court. You know among the Indians, a promise is good enough'.
Trump throws even this on its head. It doesn't matter whether it is in writing or there is video evidence of what he has said, he will blatantly lie and deny. It's not just that he is corrupt, but that he treats people with contempt and knows that his supporter base are so gullible, they will defend him no matter what he does. He is the embodiment of corruption and his supporters are complicit, easily-led and ... suckers.
Unbelievably, his supporters will deny facts simply because Trump tells them to. Speak to the brain-washed Trump fans and they will claim he is an amazing president who has turned the economy around. Many of the economic indicators show that Trump has just continued on Obama's trajectory without staging any miraculous economic recovery. For example, the following chart shows unemployment rate by racial and ethnic category. Apart from the dates, can anyone show when Trump took over and 'turned this around'? Of course not. Obama had already established policies that had reduced unemployment following the highs of the Global Financial Crisis which occurred under President George W. Bush.
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| Source: Jacobson 2020 |
Clearly, truth does not matter to Trump or many of the other right-wing politicians on the international stage. When people defend Trump or Morrison or any of the others who propagate a culture of deceit, hatred, fear, and division, they are taking their respective nations down a slippery slope that we have seen leads to fascism, authoritarianism and gross human rights abuses.
Trump is a crack-pot.
A dangerous neo-liberal, narcissistic crack-pot.
So how do we counter this threat to democracy?
The left-wing needs to mobilise and unite. Instead of factional in-fighting, it needs to fight against the horrid policies and behaviours of the intolerant right-wing. While Trump and many of those on the right-wing are sensitive to criticism, this shouldn't stop anyone challenging their racist, irrational, damaging politics. Realise that they will attempt to gas-light, they will claim they are victims of political correctness 'gone mad'. Hold them to account for their shallow policies, ask them to explain them and what evidence they have. Sadly, as we have seen, evidence and truth plays no part in their rationale, but they still must be challenged. Identify alternatives to their intolerance and absolutism that still address moral issues, such as caring for the persecuted, creating jobs and establishing living wages. This may be difficult, as many on the right have a warped sense of morality, thinking they are already defending family values and the morals of the bible, and sadly see any assistance for the poor or marginalised as socialism.
It can be discouraging and demoralising trying to hold a rational discussion with the irrational far-right. There could be a case for not holding these discussions. After all, as some anonymous pundit observed, 'Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. It'll just knock over all the pieces, shit on the board, and strut about like it's won anyway'.
Nonetheless, the less anonymous Martin Luther King provides an explanation of why it is so important to challenge the intolerance and harmful politics of neo-liberals, neo-fascists and the far-right. 'In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends'.
Let's not be silent in the face of fascism, intolerance, hatred, fear-mongering and bigotry.
Stand up against bullying by the likes of Trump and challenge the irrational claims of the far right.
References
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Updated 29 February 2020
