I am trying to limit the political commentary on the blog and stick to education issues. So, I tweet the political links that intrigue me and am focusing on education. But this is such a startling story that I felt compelled to share it. Something very frightening is on the horizon. We see its shape, yet find it hard to believe that our politics have veered so sharply to the extremes of white nationalism.
Business Insider reports that Trump’s National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn held a meeting at Trump Tower a few weeks ago with the leader of the far-right Austrian party., the “Freedom Party.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, met with the leader of a far-right Austrian political party that has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Austrian leader said.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, wrote on his Facebook page Monday that he met with Flynn “and a few other high-ranking US politicians” a few weeks ago at Trump Tower.
He noted in the post that his party had recently signed a cooperation deal with Putin’s United Russia party, which “outlined plans for regular meetings and collaboration where suitable on economic, business, and political projects,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Flynn’s relationship with the Kremlin has been under scrutiny since he was tapped by Trump to be the national security adviser. Photos have emerged of the former lieutenant general with Putin in Moscow celebrating the 10th anniversary of the state-sponsored news agency Russia Today, which has featured him as a commentator.
The fact that Flynn appears to have granted an audience to Strache in New York raises more questions about the influence that far-right populism and white nationalism may have on the incoming Trump administration.
The Freedom Party was founded in 1956, and its first leader was the far-right Austrian politician and Nazi Anton Reinthaller.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m glad you pointed this out. Any more questions that this administration is fascist to the core? Gleichschaltung is no longer a theoretical matter. It’s coming. Right after the next big terrorist attack on U.S. soil (I refuse to use the double-speak term everyone bought into after September 11th to create a new cabinet department).
LikeLike
Odd that Trump is close to Israel and pushing to move the capital to Jerusalem yet meeting with hateful people.
Where is the reality if there is any?
LikeLike
There are Semites and then there are Semites in Trump World. Just a matter of degrees ,for now . Following the Muslim registry by one insult aimed at him and one tweet could be the Jewish registry . He may be a latent racist but he surrounds himself with blatant racists at his rallies and now in his cabinet.
LikeLike
I think we (the US) must look like a plum to them, ready for picking. We’re not of course–not if the party-brains in Congress understand the seriousness of the situation.
As far as Trump is concerned, I find myself wondering if he, like so many who voted for him (see that Mother Jones article for a good view of many of these voters), has no sense of history; or what those, who DO have a historical sense, are seeing, and how dangerous it is. Trump is all of the psychological “issues” that have been repeated about him here and across the land for a long time; but I’m not sure if he understands, again, the seriousness of what’s going on in the minds of those who are fawning their way into his circle. Could he be the megalomaniac that he is, but really not know he’s being played?
And from what I can tell from watching his children, they think it’s all just the jackpot big business deal of the century; and so probably think everyone else is involved in the same innocuous (to them) way of thinking. In my experience, those who work out of a low and narrow horizon tend to project that view out onto others; so that the danger we and many others are seeing (like the techies who signed that pledge) just doesn’t enter their consciousness.
I do know this: if and when Trump takes the Oath of Office, the Big Lie will become official. .
LikeLike
I was just talking to a lady who lives across the hallway from me in my condo. She said she voted for Trump because he has religion.
I wonder where she gets her news. Trump has no religion other than to tell people anything to get elected. She started talking about the destruction that protestors caused yesterday. I told her that yesterday’s protestors didn’t cause problems but that there were 200 people arrested at the inauguration.
How do we survive this lack of knowledge? What will it take for people to ‘wake up’ to the reality of the monstrosity of what has happened?
LikeLike
Trump’s religion is greed.
LikeLike
carolmalaysia: I think it has to cause them to actually bleed before they wake up; but then they’ll find some way to blame “the democrats.”
LikeLike
Not “democrats”. It’s “liberals”, said with a sneer and spoken between clenched teeth.
LikeLike
Please don’t capitulate to the normalizing misnomer of using the word “populism” to describe demagoguery and outright fascism.
LikeLike
Thank you. There is a real danger in covering up what IS.
LikeLike
As a populist I object to the bastardization of that term.
Trump is no populist.
LikeLike
“Trump is no populist.” No, but he pretends to be one, thought I think he shares with them their historical and political ignorance. I think a huge number of people swallowed whole the “he’s like me” propaganda.
LikeLike
Catherine Blanche King
I think he shares nothing with true populists like Teddy Roosevelt or dare i say Bernie Sanders.
Racism is not populism .Bigotry and demagoguery would be more akin to fascism which melds corporate power with the State and uses a native-ist ,nationalistic appeals.
Sounds like someone we know with the “little hands.”
LikeLike
Joel,
I agree that Trump is no populist. The media use this label indiscriminately. They are wrong. Trump at best is a nationalist, a nativist, a reactionary. At worst, he is a neo-fascist or fascist.
LikeLike
It’s very difficult to understand such an alliance when Trump’s grandchildren are Jewish and he seems to have a lot of love for them and their mom and dad. If Trump doesn’t have the sense to see the problems in this kind of thing, I would think that Ivanka and her husband would intervene and explain it all to him.
LikeLike
There is a difference between being fascist and Nazi. Nazism is a particular virulent strain of fascism that incorporates a cult of personality, anti-Semitism, an aggressive, self-serving foreign policy, and elimination of enemies through violence or deportation.
Fascism at its core is built on an anti-intellectualism that informs the public policy process. In making policy, it relies on a mythology built on a misinterpretation of history that believes perfectibility can only be achieved through instinct and superstition–a superstition built on anti-intellectualism and prejudice. Prejudice, according to a fascist, is a virtue because it confirms historical experiences and traditions. Science is therefore negotiable. If it does not fit preconceived notions, it is suspect and therefore mostly invalid. The idea of prejudice also incorporates the notion that some elites are predestined to lead the masses.
Another core element of fascism is a belief that violence, or at least the palpable fear of violence, is a virtue, a primary policy option, and a valid method to organize society. That, combined with a faith in the progress through irrationality, makes it so unstable. For example, in the post WWII world, it was generally accepted that the goal of foreign and domestic politics and governing was a nebulous idea of peace and prosperity. A fascist would argue that historical evidence would suggest that this “rational” approach has, paradoxically, created the chaos, as they see it, of the modern world. Therefore, irrationality–making deliberate decisions that go against what had previously been considered rational–is actually the path toward progress and prosperity. In modern parlance, this means “conventional wisdom” must be discarded and radical, unproven ideas actually work. Therefore ideas like “public education has failed, so let’s do something radically different,” “industrialism was built on fossil fuels, therefore the idea that we should foster green energy flies in the face of experience,” “labor unions have destroyed the working class, therefore get rid of them and focus on personal responsibility,” “we’ve had extremes in weather in the past, so what’s happening today is just part of a normal cycle,” or “the U.N. and alliances failed to create a lasting peace, so therefore we should discard them and dictate to the world why our historical experience is superior” fit into a fascist worldview. These ideas are founded in notions of anti-intellectualism, prejudice, determinism, and the threat of state-sanctioned violence.
Trump is a fascist, not a Nazi. When we discuss whether he is an anti-Semite, we miss the point. His primary enemies are Muslims, Hispanics, liberals, and anyone else who conflicts with his limited world view. If he has any anti-Semitism, it is selective. He has pragmatically embraced the utilitarian view of Israel and Judaism espoused by the extreme religious right, the view that Jews are not “saved” but are convenient and necessary to fulfill biblical prophecy. This fits into the fascist principles described above.
The one area where Trump embraces Nazism is in the idea of Gleichschaltung. He believes that political opposition is illegitimate. His “to the winner go the spoils” view is extreme. He is not a small “d” democrat. He believes that all governmental agencies and representative bodies must be aligned to his worldview, as limited as it is. The next logical step, if this is effective, is to do the same with non-governmental institutions and individuals.
When we focus on whether he is a Nazi or anti-Semite, it gives him cover and room to act on a whole range of issues. As I have written before, the choices of his cabinet portend a strategy of total war against small “l” liberal democracy. His hope is that the opposition will be split by having to defend on too many fronts and this will cause a collective exhaustion that will open the floodgates for fascist principles to win and become institutionalized and broadly accepted by the public.
Trump and his minions are American fascists, not Nazis.
LikeLike
GregB: Nicely said. I’ll re-blog. But first, I see no quotation marks around your narrative–if it’s quoted material, please post the citation?
I’ve lent my “Origins of Totalitarianism” text (Hannah Arendt) to a friend for the moment; but in that text, we find another “trait” or method of the fascist. That is, their disregard for truth or rules of any sort enables them to morph at will, taking on whatever aura or identity needed to both hide and foster their fundamental intentions, first under one cover, then under another. For instance, Trump is “draining the swamp,” but he’s not, only changing its inhabitants; and now Newt Gingrich has apologized for saying that Trump has changed his mind on that one; and now must go home and wash the brown off his nose.
Also, you have rightly distinguished fascism as a general idea, from Nazism as historically implemented in the extremes, and as having their specific targets (in Hitler’s case, Jews, etc.) in Nazi Germany.
In OUR case, then, and correct me if I am wrong or uninformed here, the Nazi part of the discussion still holds in some sense. That is, the discussion points to the already-noted-here conflict embedded in the concrete Trump situation. That conflict is in (1) the fascists who surround him, some if not all who are also Neo-Nazi alt-anti-Semitic; and (2) Trump’s family as well as many of his other present collaborations, e.g., many who hail from Goldman-Sachs.
Though I think you are right that Trump is not a neo-Nazi, he does have all the markings of a fascist-coming-to-power which are demonstrable every day. First, only his choice of targets differ from the Nazis–Muslims and more generally “foreigners,” and, second, we haven’t seen him cause a murder yet or, God forbid, hint as a Stalin-type purge. Such an occurrence will be the securing of the fascist neo-doctrine, OR it will signal a turning point for Trump and his family, and trigger the inter-domain conflict. And again, the signing of the Oath will formalize The Big Lie that is central to the fascist idea if not ideology.
No one knows where that Nazi-to-Fascist conflict is going; but it does put Trump in a kind of cross-hairs that he may not fully or even partially realize. My view is that Kelly Ann Conway, who was just given the “White House counselor” position, is not a “useful idiot” in the totalitarian sense–to Trump. But I do think she is–to the fascists in his administration. How much she knows what she is doing with regard to the obvious fascist activities that are going on in Trump’s mind and in his administration, is an open question. We already have seen a vindictive attitude emerge in her talks and comportment.
She will be on Rachel Maddow tonight (Thursday 12-22). I wonder if Rachel will ask her if she understands all of the fascist red flags that are going up all around her.
LikeLike
Catherine, please excuse the delay in responding. This was pretty much something I just riffed. I’m sure it’s informed by “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” which I reread during the GOP convention. Also by a lot of Isaiah Berlin, who I read or reread at least once a year. This year it was “Freedom and Its Betrayal.” In addition, the influence of Barrington Moore, Christian Bay, extensive reading on the German resistance in Nazi Germany, and the novels of Erich Maria Remarque and Joseph Roth are all to be found somewhere in this rant.
Yes, I believe the Nazi part of the discussion still holds as well. We just have to be careful of drawing too many analogies. For example, when we veer off into graduations of anti-Semitism, possible internment camps, or eugenics, it takes our eye off the ball, so to speak.
I first became alarmed about the reality of Trump’s fascism, as I have written before on this blog, when, upon returning from his much publicized trip to Mexico, he announced that he would initiate a process of “ideological certification” for immigrants. Sadly, little-to-nothing has been written about it; few remember it. But this is, for me, the very definition of fascism and the greatest threat to the Constitution. Logically, such a policy would bleed into all aspects of our lives. First, how would the State implement this? What would be the “approved” or “mandated” ideology? It could lead to loyalty tests for employment, government services, travel, media…pretty much anything Trump and a pliant Congress and judiciary would approve. I am currently rereading a collection of excerpted documents titled “Everyday under Hitler (Alltag unter Hitler)” which has many examples of how “ideological certification” was incorporated into daily life. Today I came across the 1935 law requiring public service of all Germans under the age of 25. The law specifies that the type and length of service is left to the discretion of the Fuehrer. So he had the power to rule as he saw fit. I see eerie parallels in Newt Gingrich’s recent conclusion that the president pretty much can do what he wants: preemptively pardon administration nominees, ignore nepotism, defy conflict of interest laws, and stay involved with his business interests. That to me is fascism and has many apt parallels in Nazi history.
LikeLike
“I see eerie parallels in Newt Gingrich’s recent conclusion that the president pretty much can do what he wants: preemptively pardon administration nominees, ignore nepotism, defy conflict of interest laws, and stay involved with his business interests. That to me is fascism and has many apt parallels in Nazi history.”
I listened to that interview, too, Greg. Gingrich was a little more level headed than I’m used to, but that section of the interview raised my antennae, too. And he was echoing something that I keep hearing, as well: we’ve never had a president with this kind of wealth before. As though that exempts him from following the dictates and expected decorum of the office.
LikeLike
To gitapik who writes: “And he (Gingrich) was echoing something that I keep hearing, as well: we’ve never had a president with this kind of wealth before. As though that exempts him from following the dictates and expected decorum of the office.”
I would have thought that Gingrich, who claims to have read just a bit of history, would be able to recognize, earlier than most, the marks of fascism as they come clear in Trump’s movements. And wealth is one of those marks when it combines with political power to become what it is. No surprises there.
LikeLike
Wow…that’s odd…and very disturbing.
I don’t know, Diane. I understand and accept when you say that you are, “trying to limit the political commentary on the blog and stick to education issues”. But what if things get so crazy in our country that you have no other choice but to wade into this thing in a much more political way? I find myself feeling the same way sometimes and then I’m pulled right back into this vortex….
I’ve come to trust your site not just for education issues but for its trustworthy coverage of national and global events. In a “post-truth” world, amidst a medium that can be incredibly nasty, your internet blog is an island of civility and rational discourse. At least that’s how I experience it.
LikeLike
They can not be separated. Education and access to education is inherently wound into politics and the economy. Powell knew that in 1972 as did Jefferson in the 1700s. Governance (politics)is about who gets what.
LikeLike
Education and politics: Yes–if the slaves can read, then they might begin to understand what’s wrong with their situation.
LikeLike
“Knowledge is Power”
LikeLike
John O,
Education is inextricably tied up with politics. It is hard to avoid political subjects.
LikeLike
I was listening to an interview with a Republican strategist soon after Trump won the election. He was saying that we’ve had 4 decades of people expressing their “feelings” and that’s about to come to an end. He was saying that feelings don’t matter. We need to pay attention to “facts”. He cited Black Lives Matter as an example of putting too much emphasis on feelings (he never explained that one, though).
This viewpoint immediately brought back the memory of David Coleman’s infamous, “…nobody gives a shit what you think or feel…” quote. And the CCSS focus on informational text over fiction.
Definitely a connection there, imo.
Big money is front and center in politics and education, now. Not even bothering to hide behind the scenes. Whether they intentionally want to squelch our imaginations and ability to question might be debatable, but programs that discourage trusting and acting on our feelings could aid in producing this effect.
LikeLike
gitapik: I’m on track with your thought, but don’t let the propaganda machine equate a call for justice with feeling, as if the justice called for in the Black Lives movement were just about hurting someone’s feeling and certainly not as important as real facts, especially where those facts are: that racism exists and still drives the arm of justice in many cases in our culture.
And since when are the right-wing of the Republican Party so concerned with real facts anyway. I have to say “real” because to many of those jokers, facts don’t mean what is really the case. Rather, facts mean the magical thinking of dictatorial minds.
LikeLike
That was what struck me about the interview, Catherine. The interviewer didn’t press him. I’m sitting there, driving to work, yelling, “What are the ‘facts’ he’s talking about!!?? ASK HIM!!!!!”.
But the guy got a pass and was allowed to just hum on through with his talking points garbage.
LikeLike
I love the Press–both as many people and on principle, but sometimes I find myself jumping up and screaming at the television. . . .don’t let them get away with THAT! . . .
LikeLike
I hope you do keep posting political news. People need to become aware more than ever what Trump is doing once he gets into office.
It is costing New York taxpayers $500,000 a day to keep security at Trump Tower. I’m sure the state of New York does have many other issues, such as proper funding of schools, that could use that money.
LikeLike
Too many political posts drown out the education news, which is what we all are here for. I find it frustrating.
LikeLike
Show us some BROAD education issues that you can separate from politics. ALEC, the Business RoundTable and the National Chamber of Commerce do not think you can. Which is why they and the Philanthropy Round Table have invested so heavily in time and cash.
LikeLike
More Nazis: lovely!
LikeLike
I used to wonder how the smart Germans of the 1930s allowed a maniac to rule. Now I see what blind (and not so blind) anger stirred up in huge crowds can do to a country. I wonder if we have enough intelligent Republicans in Congress who can put country before party and burn the rubber stamps. I suspect it’s up to citizens from all sides to start conversations that might save us from the bleak looking future.
LikeLike
Fascism:
“A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.”
Don’t count on Republicans
LikeLike
Agreed. We have to get the tribes to mix at the grassroots level but I fear their paths no longer even meet very often. Jonathan Haidt describes the situation https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind
LikeLike
So how can this kind of thing fly under the radar of the members of Congress (Republican and Democrat, alike)?
LikeLike
Agreed. We have to get the tribes to mix at the grassroots level but I fear their paths no longer even meet very often. Jonathan Haidt describes the situation https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind
LikeLike
gitapik: How can fascism fly under the radar in Congress? If your question is not merely rhetorical, for some of the same reasons Trump got elected–a combination of party-only politics and ignorance of the political darkness that Trump is, and that is now engulfing the nation. Even though Trump fostered violence during the campaign and is a kind of “accidental fascist,” I doubt, at least at present, that he is into murder (historically, as you probably know, murder is just one of the fascist panoply of methods).
But I have wondered if those in Congress are aware of the potential-for and acceptance-of it (murder) in those who are surrounding Trump. (Some do, like McCain.) But the key to stopping it is in those in Congress who understand that white nationalists with obvious fascist leanings have ZERO respect for the law or for the Constitution. They’ll do what they can get away with. Period.
LikeLike
Trump’s excesses might help to create a more bi-partisan spirit in Congress. That would be nice. We’re definitely going to need it.
LikeLike
I think it will be a fascism 2.0, where the Balkanization of (irrationally) self identified tribes is promoted, maintained and advanced by and for the ideological beliefs of a few and the financial and political benefits of the fewer. In a seperate and unequal system, those who are of the most use to the oligarchs will be given the greatest benefits, but never enough to allow them the comfort of relaxing their suspicion and suppression of “the other”, a dynamic which perfectly suits the systems operators. The white nationalists will serve as an unpaid thug squad whose only compensation is the continuing validation of their ersatz sense of racial/cultural/moral superiority.
LikeLike
It Can’t Happen Here is a semi-satirical 1935 political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis, and a 1936 play adapted from the novel by Lewis and John C. Moffitt.
Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a Democrat and United States Senator who is elected to the presidency after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and “traditional” values.
After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic/totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of Adolf Hitler and the SS.
The novel’s plot centers on journalist Doremus Jessup’s opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can't_Happen_Here
LikeLike
While the superficial parallels to today are obvious, this novel is arguably the weakest of Lewis’s eight novels that I’ve read. It starts strongly and then quickly tapers off toward an aimless ending. “Elmer Gantry” and “Kingsblood Royal” are more relevant, in my opinion, to today, the latter especially on issues of race.
Although I argued about that Trump is no Nazi and we should be careful to make too many analogies, I will be somewhat of a hypocrite to recommend Victor Klemperer’s “I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941.” It is the translation and first of a two volume set. Klemperer was a Jewish intellectual living in Dresden who was married to a woman deemed Aryan by the Nazis. His day-to-day descriptions of life under totalitarianism and how his neighbors acted is becoming more and more relevant today. I would also recommend Klemperer’s “The Language of the Third Reich: LTI–Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist’s Notebook.” It predates Orwell’s writings on language. Had it been more accessible, we might be using the term Klempererarian rather than Orwellian. (Trivial trivia: Victor Klemperer was a cousin of Otto Klemperer, the great conductor, and his son Werner, who is best known for playing Colonel Klink in Hogan’s Heroes.)
LikeLike
Why was Strache at Trump Tower any way?
LikeLike
Unreal. Or too real.
LikeLike
Power, greed and con art.
The American Dream has become a con game. It was almost always illusory, but now it is more con than illusion. It’s not just big money, it’s long, wide con. The good and conscientious scrape by, and are denigrated.
Must stop, Absolutely must stop. Our political machines must stop. The false ideologies must stop. The shilling must stop. Our bumbling billionaires must stop.
LikeLike
To GregB who writes: “The choices of his (Trump’s) cabinet portend a strategy of total war against small “l” liberal democracy. His hope is that the opposition will be split by having to defend on too many fronts and this will cause a collective exhaustion that will open the floodgates for fascist principles to win and become institutionalized and broadly accepted by the public.”
I’m feeling the “collective exhaustion” which describes what The Trump Company has been up to since the start with his everyday insults to the democratic and moral sensitivities of all of us, and since he said that he could shoot someone in Times Square and get away with it with his followers. In fact, they would cheer.
And you hear it on the news shows everyday: they make comments like “It’s troubling” or some other such inane hand-wringing. Trump is revealing his hand, perhaps way too early (before he takes office, and the Huffington Post reports that even Veterans groups are being ignored and feeling it). And so those in power (Congress and Obama) really have no excuse for NOT taking some sort of action to protect the Constitution from being torn to shreds while we speak.
It’s not so much this or that slippage, though the trashing of the emoluments clause can hardly be called “slippage,” but rather the constant precedent that’s being set so that, when the time comes, the Constitution will have been whittled down to mean nothing–scientific reductionism and social relativism will be there to help us say: it’s just a piece of paper anyway, or some dead male’s opinion; if anything, just something The Trump Company can easily talk its way around. Maybe we could ask him if we could just keep it in the museum for awhile and provide crying towels for visitors. And maybe we’ve been living in a mythical dream, and now we’ve waked up to the fascist neo-reality.
I’ll use those e-mails to protest–thank you to the person who posted them–and God Bless Elizabeth Warren. And thank you to GregB–that was probably the best, most insightful, but also scary post I’ve seen on this site.
LikeLike
Thank you, Catherine. Your last remark is quite humbling given the many wise and helpful things you and so many others have posted on Diane’s blog (not to mention Diane’s consistent brilliance). While we don’t always agree, I love most of the debate and information everyone posts. There are some exceptions and I’m slowly learning to ignore them.
I so appreciate all the voices because I don’t have many chances to have intelligent discussions about politics and education–especially education. Wish there was some way many of us could get together over dinner and drinks every now and then. You’ve all become valuable friends who remind me that there likely is a light at the end of this dark tunnel we’re traveling through. Wishing you and everyone the very best of holidays. We’ve got some important work ahead of us.
LikeLike
GregB: I feel the same way about Diane and the people here on this blog. Other kinds of conversation are so shallow, prickly, and downright wrong-headed–its just a good thing to be civil, even if it’s not intelligent discourse. Sad to say, but true for me. But I do think as with family, it’s not that we get together, but that we don’t get together enough.
LikeLike
Catherine, I am so pleased that you joined the blog!
LikeLike
The post about why working class whites vote against their self interest is back. I found it in the trash.
LikeLike
Oh, good–glad you found that heading. I was getting leary . . . Bill Maher said pretty much the same thing. He said he used to criticize Bush, and anyone else, as if from a glass-bottom boat where he could SEE the sharks, but they couldn’t get at him. But NOW he feels the sharks CAN get at him. Big difference. But not yet perhaps. Whew.
LikeLike
:o)
LikeLike
GregB,
I learn from you every time you comment.
LikeLike
Diane, that is about the nicest Christmas gift I’ve ever received. Thank you!
LikeLike
Sorry…it’s Christmas morning, a time to reflect on the joy and beauty of life, but I just saw this and am sending it onward.
“Hail Trump with Nazi salutes” is not what this country needs. How sad that these people believe Trump will be their liberator.
Watch on The Atlantic:
Atlantic Documentaries
Rebranding White Nationalism: Inside the Alt-Right
Dec 15, 2016
Video by The Atlantic
Richard B. Spencer greeted an audience of more than 200 at an alt-right conference in Washington D.C. last month with the cry, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” He was met with enthusiastic cheers and Nazi salutes, and The Atlantic’s clip made headlines. In this documentary, we go further inside Spencer’s ethnocentric worldview to understand what his plans are for the so-called alt-right—namely, to bring white nationalism out of the shadows. “I don’t see myself as a marginal figure who’s going to be hated by society. I see myself as a mainstream figure,” he said. Spencer and other alt-right leaders see Donald Trump’s rise as the first step towards a whites-only state. “Our lived experience is being a young, white person in 21st century America, [and] seeing your identity be demeaned,” Spencer said. “I’ve lived in this multicultural mess for years and I’m trying to get out of it.”
Beyond Diversity is a project of The Atlantic, supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.
Author: Daniel Lombroso
LikeLike
“I’ve lived in this multicultural mess for years and I’m trying to get out of it.”
Spencer can’t abide being part of the whole. He needs himself and others who are just like him to BE the whole. And he’s obviously been feeling this way for a long, long time.
One man’s meat is another man’s poison. Some enjoy diversity. Some are threatened by it.
I saw the reports of this “rally” both here, in Diane’s blog, and other places as well, just after it took place. Very disturbing…and the fact that it would take place in a Federal building makes it that much worse. Very disturbing, too, that Heinz-Christian Strache would have a meeting in Trump Tower with our soon to be National Security Advisor.
I read GregB’s interpretation of Trump as a fascist rather than Nazi and found it to be intelligent and well thought out. But I’m concerned that this kind of behavior might spread and become bigger than Trump. Like letting the genie out of the bottle. I’m not seeing, reading, or hearing any outrage over these events in the media. Just “reporting”. Very unsettling.
LikeLike
Carolmalasia: In your note, the article quotes Spencer: “‘Our lived experience is being a young, white person in 21st century America, [and] seeing your identity be demeaned,’ Spencer said. ‘I’ve lived in this multicultural mess for years and I’m trying to get out of it.’”
My first thought is, Wow, that’s so 1950’s on so many levels. Where did this guy grow up? But, though the words are different, I also see a frightening similarity to the people that the Mother Jones writer focuses on in the South, and their internalized image of white people (mostly males) standing in line and having “others” constantly cutting in ahead of them (him).
I don’t think Spencer and his ilk will ever become “mainstream.” Surely the great “WE” as a whole who are the USA, vote or not, vote for Trump or not, have come too far for that kind of small-minded thinking to really take hold (though I think a very few can make allot of noise about it.) But whatever traction it does get, it will be directly related to those Americans who carry around a similar kind of image in their thinking–such as it is, and who have never really allowed that image to be questioned. Perhaps we need to turn to our artists.
LikeLike
I Love My Country
By Dan Rather, Dan Rather’s Facebook Page
25 December 16
I love my country.
I love it with a clear eye to its failures as well as its triumphs, the hypocrisies it embodies as well as its loftiest ideals. My love for the United States was forged through a child’s eye, shaped by the lessons of my parents and teachers. It was baptized in memorized incantations – like the Pledge of Allegiance and Star Spangled Banner, as well as the hagiographic biographies of men like Washington and Lincoln that one reads in grade school. Over the years, as my experiences grew and my readings deepened in complexity, I sought out a much more nuanced definition of patriotism. It was one that demanded opposition to, and the exposure of, the wrongs inherent to so much of our society. It was a sense of American exceptionalism to be worshiped at the altar of a free and independent press. It was a shining light illuminated by the accomplishments of men and women of reason who had the courage to challenge the conventional wisdoms they saw as outdated, naive, or cynical.
As I grew, I began to see a deep undertow that was also part of our country. It was one fueled by my fellow citizens who were suspicious of growth, skeptical of knowledge, and closed minded to new ideas. Elitism can be a pernicious force in a democracy, but championing and celebrating those who have risen to prominence on the basis of their hard work, mental acuity, wisdom and knowledge is what has made our country great. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Adams “there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.” Our national scaffolding was built by such men – and women.
Of course the path of our national identity has wavered from Jefferson’s ideal on several occasions. In a column in 1980, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
I have seen many societal outbursts of ignorance, and I would argue that we are in an age where that feeling is ascendent. But I have also seen the countervailing forces that have shaped America into the greatest land of science and ingenuity the world has ever known. It is a battle for the soul and destiny of our national narrative. Our future prosperity and strength demands that the forces of reason win out.
But as much as I love my country, I also love humanity. I seek not a zero sum world where America’s victories lie in others nations’ defeats. And here is where I would caution the incoming administration of Donald Trump.
You have appealed to the some of the basest fears and lowest instincts of our electorate. You have appointed men and women as your advisors and to your cabinet who seem outright hostile to science and reason. You mock those who have pursued lifetimes of thought and study and elevate know-nothing over know-something. This has given you a short-term burst of political power but do not think that American greatness is preordained. It needs cultivating and care.
This is a big and wondrous world. There are other places for the best minds to go. This will be America’s great loss if Mr. Trump dims the light of knowledge. I will mourn the passing deeply but I will hope that other nations aren’t so shortsighted. Progress, reason, science, justice… these are human ideals that must flourish for the sake of all of us, in whatever land they can take roon.
I deeply hope that we can still continue to call the United States the greatest nation on Earth because that will mean that we have made the right choices.
In 1969, as Congress was debating a costly particle accelerator to study seemingly abstract physics, the director of the Fermilab, Robert Wilson, was asked in a hearing whether the research might be applicable for military purposes. His famous reply stands not only as a potent symbol of his age, but a North Star by which we must continue to steer our ship of state.
” …this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.”
LikeLike
I did worry when Trump was shown to be close to an advisor who called New York City ‘Hymie-town’, and another who complained that ‘them Jews’ were preventing him from having contact with his former parishoner, and the prominent political supporter who said “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.” Anyone who has such people among their supporters is indeed despicable and a fascist.
LikeLike