Donald Trump Tyranny A Realistic Threat
Leading political commentator Andrew Sullivan predicted this week that Donald Trump’s ‘ugly, thuggish populism’ has a realistic chance of making it to America’s White House in November, in a detailed analysis of his campaign tactics to become US president.
“While a critical element of 20th-century fascism — its organized street violence — is missing, you can begin to see it in embryonic form,” Sullivan noted in the New Yorker Magazine.
“Neo-fascist movements do not advance gradually by persuasion,” he continued, “they first transform the terms of the debate, create a new movement based on untrammeled emotion, take over existing institutions, and then ruthlessly exploit events.” (NYMag.com)
His assessment matched the views of media expert Zeynep Tufekci, who suggested on Twitter this week that the Republican candidate ‘is not a bumbling celebrity; he is a politician deeply in touch with his own, polarized base.’
“Forces propelling Trump in the GOP are no mystery. They’ve been showing up in polls and academic research,” the assistant professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina continued.
“People’s frustration with upheavals of inequality, globalization and technology blending with xenophobia or racism? Old story, too,” she added.
“Anti-semitism is the socialism of fools” is a German saying from 1890s. That old. The response can’t be tsk-tsk’ing. This will burn us all.”
“If we can’t offer people a path other than “go to an elite school, maybe become a coder, and be very lucky” we will reap the whirlwind,” she warned. (Twitter)
Zeynep Tufekci in the New York Times, March 2016: “Mr. Trump doesn’t only speak outrageous falsehoods; he also voices truths . . . that have been largely ignored, especially by Republican elites . . .”)
