First, Trump tweeted a violation of the War Power Act, and thumbed his nose at Congressional power and the separation of powers doctrine:
For a Twitter thread by Yale prof. Oona Hathaway on the laws broken by this tweets this tweet, click here.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee responds by Tweet reminding the President he’s not a dictator and that we have a thing called the Constitution:
Schumer responded with:
I guess Twitter is the new government meeting room. This what Prof. Timothy Snyder calls “governing by crisis and spectacle.”
Yes, of course it’s a distraction from the impeachment. But Trump has been manufacturing crises since taking office. Snyder explains that it’s actually a fascist form of governing.
“Rather than governing, the leader produces crisis and spectacle.” (quotation from Ilyin, the Russian philosopher whose ideas inspire and guide Putin.)
Information in this thread is from:
Ilyin was a Russian nobleman who went into exile after the communist revolution.
An admirer of Hitler and Mussolini, he wrote guidelines for Russian leaders who would come to power after the fall of communism. (He died in 1954).
Ilyin believed fascism would eventually replace both communism and democracy.
He admired totalitarianism and order.
The nation, for him, was like a body, the citizens the cells. Each remained in its place.
Fascism = order.
Democracy & communism = disorder & chaos.
Ilyin disliked the middle class, which always striving for social advancement. He believed this fractured society and created chaos. He thought the rulers at the top should rule, everyone else must remain in their place.
He thus advocated oligarchy (a few people hold all the power).
The task of government, for Ilyin, is to create stability, which which can’t happen with a middle class always trying to lift itself up.
Thus the task of the oligarchs is to preserve the status quo, which means preserving their own wealth and power.
Thus the task of the oligarchs is to preserve the status quo, which means preserving their own wealth and power. But you can’t tell the people THAT. So you tell them the oligarchs are “redeemers.”
They earn loyalty by protecting the people from enemies.
The fascist way to power is to promise to restore the nation to its mythic greatness.
OK, so if leaders don’t govern in the usual sense (devising policy to better the lives of the citizens) what do they do all day?
They create crisis and spectacle!
The “redeemers” create spectacle by identifying enemies and “neutralizing” them. (Domestic and foreign enemies)
Think of it as finding a scapegoat. Fascist leaders create an “us v. them” mentality; they protect the citizens from “enemies.” For example, when Trump wanted to protect America from the “invading” (homeless, poverty-stricken) migrants.
When a leader governs by crisis and spectacle, news becomes reality TV. It’s all a show.
When Putin came to power, he looked to Illyin as his model, quoting him in speeches, governing according to his ideas.
The oligarchs around Putin adapted Ilyin’s principles into their propaganda. Russian TV presented Ilyin as a moral authority.
OK. Let’s assume (a mind game if you will) that Putin is the mastermind who selected and installed Trump as US president.
Putin consciously adopted Ilyin’s theory for governing. Yes, Trump is doing it on purpose. Before you say he can’t possible manage something like that, consider that he’s a natural. Also it isn’t exactly hard. You just have tell lies and create crises.
Snyder, in his Snyder Speaks YouTube series, suggests that Putin selected Trump because Putin recognized that Trump was a natural and therefore the perfect tool. Trump is a natural at identifying enemies, creating spectacle, and lurching from one crisis to another.
He is an incompetent president of a constitutional republic. He’s an incompetent president of a democracy. He’s also a failed businessman.
But he’s an extraordinarily talented fascist leader. Really, one of the best.
