It’s almost like Trump spends his day devising ways to enrage and insult people, divide us, and inflict pain.
Today, to thrill his Evangelical base, enrage everyone else, and call out American Jews, he tweeted this:
Yesterday he said this about Jews who vote Democrat (most but not all of us): “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat – I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge, or great disloyalty.”
The headline sounds like he meant disloyal to him. I took the clip to be “disloyal to Israel.” I also saw it as giving ammunition for some Jews to use against others.
Leaders like Obama try to solve problems and make life better for the people. Trump—borrowing Putin’s methods—does the opposite. He tries to take away health care. He gives tax cuts to the rich.
It’s sadopopulism again, Timothy Snyder’s term for policies that deliberately cause pain, the method by which oligarchs (and would-be oligarchs) maintain both wealth and power.
Fascism is based on a hierarchy: oligarchs and would-be oligarchs at the top. If they allow the lower and middle classes to advance economically, others can challenge their place at the top.
To keep lower people in their places, they enact policies that hurt them.
Policies like taking away health care, giving tax cuts to the rich, and destroying the environment creates an abundance of suffering. (Recall that Trump and pals profit from trade in hydrocarbons.) Trump isn’t just a climate change denier. He’s global warmer. Warming the globe is thus win-win. He and his pals get rich everyone else suffers.
After inflicting pain, the would-be oligarch then creates and identifies “enemies” and blames the people’s suffering on their “enemies.”
The enemies are immigrants, migrants and the Democrats and minority communities who protect them.
The formula is simple:
- Inflict pain
- Create an enemy
- Blame the people’s pain on their enemies
- Promise to protect the people from their enemies
- Do battle with the enemies
Doing battle with enemies really just means calling them names, insulting and enraging them (which thrills his supporters).
Starting actual wars is very 20th century. Modern oligarchs create suffering, drama & crisis without risking actual bombs falling on their own heads.
The final step, “do battle with enemies” has an added benefit: Create spectacle.
Nonsense like this. . .
. . . keeps us from focusing on issues like global warming or looking for ways to solve the migrant crisis. Nobody has time to wonder why the leaders aren’t improving our lives.
After Obama, people are shocked by a president who tries to make trouble (instead of solve problems).
Let’s take the most recent trouble-making spectacle, which culminated in calling Jews who don’t vote GOP disloyal & ignorant.
- First, the Israeli government agreed to admit 2 American Congresswomen for a visit.
- Then Trump then put “intense pressure” on Israel not to admit the (Muslim) Congresswomen.
Thus, in an unprecedented move, Trump targeted the Muslim Congresswomen who are also his “domestic opponents” and sought to have a foreign government refuse admission to American lawmakers. This is part of his re-election strategy, which is to make Muslim Congresswomen the face of the Democratic Party (and try to exacerbate divisions).
He’s obviously counting on anti-Muslim sentiments to swing voters to the GOP in 2020.
This is an attempt to break the longstanding alliance between American Jews and the Democratic Party by saying the Muslim Congresswomen hate Israel.
Consider how devious this entire Jewish American-Israel sequence was. Consider how much time the President of the United States spends figuring out ways to cause trouble. Meanwhile, he looks for ways to cause pain, like policies that hurt migrant children.
Fact: Trump spends his working day as US president devising ways to cause pain and trouble, and blaming the ensuing pain on “enemies” he creates. He masks all this with a parade of crisis and spectacle of his own making.
It isn’t going to stop until he’s voted out.
A Twitter follower responded with this:
Exactly. None of it makes any sense. It doesn’t have to. The less sense the better.
The divisive methods are very effective. A recent conversation:
Me: “But he supports neo-Nazis who shoot synagogues.”
Other Jewish person: “But he supports Israel.”
Me:
