Live from Mayfair: : The Truth About Donald Trump’s Populism: "There’s a reason the saying ‘anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools’...
...made so much sense in Weimar Germany. Why has Donald Trump been so successful? Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, thinks he has the answer.
He writes:
Reporters have focused quite a lot on the crazy/race-baiting/nativist themes in Trump’s campaign.... These comprise a very small part of his usual presentation. His speeches increasingly are strikingly populist in their content.’ Trump’s pitch, which Taibbi seems at least partially to accept:
He’s rich, he won’t owe anyone anything upon election, and therefore he won’t do what both Democratic and Republican politicians unfailingly do upon taking office, i.e. approve rotten/regressive policies that screw ordinary people....
No, the core inanity... is an ignorance of a simple historical fact: Every fascist achieves and cements his power by pledging to rescue ordinary people from the depredations of economic elites. That’s how fascism works.... What Trump fans told The Nation’s Sasha Abramsky. ‘I’d give ‘em a choice,’ said one un-cherry-picked voter, concerning Muslims in America. ‘A trench on one side or a ticket out of here.’
Build infrastructure, jail banksters: Hell, I’m for all that, too. It shouldn’t take electing thugs to do it. There’s a reason the saying ‘anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools’ made so much sense in Weimar Germany: Socialism and barbarism can look very similar in their surface appeals. The real fools are the media sophisticates who don’t bother to look a bare inch underneath.
