"When he finally appeared on stage Sunday night at 7:15 p.m., the arena was still jammed. I don’t think I could have picked out more than a handful of empty seats in the whole place. But by 7:30, the aisles were already filling with walkouts. By 8 p.m., when Trump was still only about halfway through his speech, there were lineups at the elevators to the ground floor.
Think about that. Those people stood outside, for four, five, sometimes six hours or more just to get inside the arena. They sat through almost five full hours of repetitive warm up speeches, from b-level political celebrities and d-level comedians just for the chance to see this guy talk. And then, when he finally arrived, when he was still easing into the meat of his signature ramble, thousands of them decided, en masse, to go home."
And his thesis:
"... right now, almost half of voting Americans have faith not in Donald Trump the man, but in his myth. That faith is not going to go away next Tuesday, no matter who gets the most votes or wins the most states. It’s not going to go away if Trump loses or dies or goes to jail, or even if he just goes back to golfing and committing quiet frauds.
Religions don’t end with messiahs. They start with them. It was only sitting in that arena Sunday, after almost nine years of watching, that I finally grasped the enormous, awful gravity of what Donald Trump has started here."
I'm a bit more optimistic than you. You can't get rid of Trumpism, but you might be able to calm it into quiescence. The religious right was always there, and always crazy. But until Nixon, it didn't vote. If Trump is the crazies' Christ, who is their St. Paul? There are a lot of St. Paul wannabees, but they're all competing and it's a difficult job in the first place.
Yeah, I think if Trump goes away -- if he loses, and then goes to jail, or dies of a heart attack -- the MAGA movement will dissolve into infighting.
We just have to win the election on Tuesday, at which point (insert "this isn't even my final form!" gif) Trump will move into Stop the Steal 2.0, and we'll need enough margin and enough lawyering to keep the Supreme Court from coming up with an excuse to try to install him...
Marx wrote re Louis Bonaparte"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. " ( The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon)
Also, LN is important in art history--he allowed the Salon de Refuses with was the first public exhibit of the Impressionists.
Jackson and Louis Napoleon, and perhaps some of the others if one were in a different mood, are hard to categorise because some people believe foremost and perhaps solely in doing exactly what they want. If they are leaders of movements their stamp will be on the movement—I have no idea if, due to Ms Rand's falling for a particular instructor, the Randroids still consider the tango to be the only 'rational' dance, but for a few months at least if they wanted to keep their friends they had better.
Also, as you might have heard, words can be tricky. One might full-throatèdly support 'democracy, the Will of the People' and have idiosyncratic ideas of just who is of 'the People' and know that the only valid measure of their Will the discernment of the Leader, as opposed to faulty, error-prone, and likely-stolen (if lost) elections.
I recommend Richard Warnica's account of attending Trump's Nazipalooza rally at MSG https://www.thestar.com/opinion/i-watched-donald-trumps-supporters-walk-out-on-him-i-couldnt-have-been-more-wrong/article_584612d6-9623-11ef-9308-9fb639ece4ee.html.
His observation:
"When he finally appeared on stage Sunday night at 7:15 p.m., the arena was still jammed. I don’t think I could have picked out more than a handful of empty seats in the whole place. But by 7:30, the aisles were already filling with walkouts. By 8 p.m., when Trump was still only about halfway through his speech, there were lineups at the elevators to the ground floor.
Think about that. Those people stood outside, for four, five, sometimes six hours or more just to get inside the arena. They sat through almost five full hours of repetitive warm up speeches, from b-level political celebrities and d-level comedians just for the chance to see this guy talk. And then, when he finally arrived, when he was still easing into the meat of his signature ramble, thousands of them decided, en masse, to go home."
And his thesis:
"... right now, almost half of voting Americans have faith not in Donald Trump the man, but in his myth. That faith is not going to go away next Tuesday, no matter who gets the most votes or wins the most states. It’s not going to go away if Trump loses or dies or goes to jail, or even if he just goes back to golfing and committing quiet frauds.
Religions don’t end with messiahs. They start with them. It was only sitting in that arena Sunday, after almost nine years of watching, that I finally grasped the enormous, awful gravity of what Donald Trump has started here."
I'm a bit more optimistic than you. You can't get rid of Trumpism, but you might be able to calm it into quiescence. The religious right was always there, and always crazy. But until Nixon, it didn't vote. If Trump is the crazies' Christ, who is their St. Paul? There are a lot of St. Paul wannabees, but they're all competing and it's a difficult job in the first place.
Yeah, I think if Trump goes away -- if he loses, and then goes to jail, or dies of a heart attack -- the MAGA movement will dissolve into infighting.
We just have to win the election on Tuesday, at which point (insert "this isn't even my final form!" gif) Trump will move into Stop the Steal 2.0, and we'll need enough margin and enough lawyering to keep the Supreme Court from coming up with an excuse to try to install him...
When the label of ‘fascist’ is extended to include Alcibiades I am afraid it loses any historical meaning,
Salon des Refusés
Marx wrote re Louis Bonaparte"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. " ( The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon)
Also, LN is important in art history--he allowed the Salon de Refuses with was the first public exhibit of the Impressionists.
Allen Kamp
Jackson and Louis Napoleon, and perhaps some of the others if one were in a different mood, are hard to categorise because some people believe foremost and perhaps solely in doing exactly what they want. If they are leaders of movements their stamp will be on the movement—I have no idea if, due to Ms Rand's falling for a particular instructor, the Randroids still consider the tango to be the only 'rational' dance, but for a few months at least if they wanted to keep their friends they had better.
Also, as you might have heard, words can be tricky. One might full-throatèdly support 'democracy, the Will of the People' and have idiosyncratic ideas of just who is of 'the People' and know that the only valid measure of their Will the discernment of the Leader, as opposed to faulty, error-prone, and likely-stolen (if lost) elections.