Increasingly the term “fascist” is being used as Donald
Trump’s hate mongering propels him to a commanding (insurmountable?) lead in
the Republican Party’s presidential primary race. Why is this happening?
The Republicans have nothing to offer for the
improvement of ordinary people’s lives. Indeed, they only make things worse
when they pursue presidential power in order to increase the flow of money to
the wealthy.
This absence of value for the common citizen means they
must seek the votes they need by some other means. In this country, as in so
many other democracies, that “means” is fear. Fear not only provides a highly
effective way to control a society, it also is good business for the wealthy as
they peddle arms to the domestic masses, as well as globally to warring states
and factions thereof. This process occurs, I repeat, because the Republicans
have nothing of substance to better the lives of the people. Do they display any
effort to improve the income of ordinary people? Do they seek to provide better
public education? Do they seek to mitigate the economic and social inequality
of this country? None of it! And it
should be made clear to every citizen. The Republicans have nothing to offer
the majority of Americans except fear and anxiety.
This gross failure to meet the needs of the majority of
Americans is the central fact surrounding the presidential politics in 2016.
The Republicans, increasingly under the leadership of
Donald Trump, are prepared to use this situation to promote fascism. The
Democratic Party, while at this stage less virulent, under the massive
influence of Wall Street is little better than the Republicans in addressing
the needs of ordinary Americans.
This country is in bad shape. We need to recognize the
danger our current political process has and is placing us in. The major danger
we face is not ISIS, but is the fear of ISIS and the malevolence of those who
are trying to turn that fear into mass xenophobia of all that is different and
to create a garrison state and the tyranny that goes with it. It happened in
Germany using fear of the Jews.
There is an antidote. It is called Bernie Sanders, who
sees the staggering economic inequality of this country and its social deprivations. He sees the means and has the will to address
it. For a raft of reasons, the grip of the wealthy on this country must be
broken. That wealth should be used to create an economy of widely distributed
wealth, in which money is constantly turning over, creating additional wealth
instead of lying dormant in the bank accounts of the wealthy in the Cayman
Islands.
It is clear to me that we are at the critical point at
which we either let money, which we can neither eat nor drink, rule us from the
megabanks of Wall Street or we take people and their welfare as the focus of
our society. Money with no purpose but to create more money is a deadly social
vice that will corrupt and misguide any democracy that succumbs to it. David Korten calls this wealth “phantom
wealth” because it is not connected to any reality. This is the wealth of
speculation, in which money is its own commodity.
Money is power, and concentrated money is concentrated
power. Unfortunately, the power of this speculative wealth, having no necessary
attachment to the real world, creates an unpredictable and capricious source of
great power. This power can result in overspeculation responsible for recessions,
depressions, and even war, which finds its roots in the crushing poverty of
such economic disasters.
We see this kind
of wealth on display in Donald Trump. His wealth alone made him a viable
candidate for President of the United States. He focuses on the fault lines of
American society by pitting one group against another, promoting economic and
social inequality, and making one of the most powerful nations on earth “great
again.” This is the practice and language of fascism. We must stop the insanity
we see in Trump and the deluded masses that follow him. We need to make America
work for everybody, not just the wealthy.
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