Donald Trump doesn’t control ‘Trumpism’. He is merely the current voice of the radicalised base.
Credit: Bryan R. Smith/AFP/
The author Tom Wolfe once wrote: “The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.” He was reflecting a consensus, shared by public and scholars alike, that far right politics is a European phenomenon, at odds with “American values”. It is a conviction so deeply held that it has left the US blind to reality.
Any example of far-right politics is explained away as exceptional, not representative of the “real” America, from “lone wolf” terrorists such as the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to the rise of Trumpism.
Rather than address the structural conditions that have made anti-government militias a permanent presence in the US, but not in any other advanced democracy, or which have fuelled previous populist radical right movements such as the Tea Party, explanations focus on individuals such as Donald Trump or their Rasputin figures such as
This reminds me of the way that the Nazis gradually took control of Germany and we know the eventual outcome of that disaster. I sure hope it does not get to that extreme here, although it would appear that it is headed that way if looked at from the outside.