I'm writing this with less than six weeks to go in the disastrous Trump presidency. Contrary to many dire predictions, it is increasingly likely that he will leave office with more of a whimper than a bang. He has unleashed a lot of discord, but no war. It is also true, unfortunately, that his whimpers will be amplified by his followers, the cacophony of which will give democracy a headache for a long time to come.
Nevertheless, democracy has won. His attempts to overthrow the presidential election have failed. But, to give a contemporary example, would democracy have won in Belarus? And what about the golden example of Fool's Gold in the past? How was democracy so easily overturned by Hitler?
I think a brief discussion of the disastrous German past can give us reason to be cautiously optimistic about recent American politics.
After Germany lost the First World War, democracy was imposed upon the country by the victorious allies. There had not been a strong tradition of freedom in the country, however, and there were no laws comparable to the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution to guarantee it. Obeying authority with echoes of St. Paul and Martin Luther were stressed. The Weimar Constitution, written with considerable input from the United States was modeled on the American original. It lasted until 1933.
There was a fatal flaw in the document, Paragraph 48, the so-called Notstandsgesetz, The Emergency Law. The Paragraph stated that, "If public security and order are seriously disturbed or endangered within the German Reich, the President of the Reich may take measures necessary for their restoration, intervening if necessary with the assistance of the armed forces." In a country used to authoritarian rule, this was a dangerous directive, which could prove fatal to the rule of law. And so it did.
The codicil was used sparingly during the turbulent twenties, and shouldn't have been used at all. Any use of it gave the impression of rule by fiat. An example of its use was dissolving Parliament and calling for new elections. Note that the assumption of the Emergency Law was that it was intended to be temporary; the return of democracy was to be as soon as possible.
Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933. On February 27, 1933, the Parliament, the Reichstag, was partially destroyed by fire. No one knows to this day what caused the fire, but the Nazis were most likely responsible. Hitler blamed it on the Communists. He subsequently declared martial law, citing paragraph 48. He did this as a means to consolidate power. He never rescinded it. Democracy was finished, until its restoration, after a horrendous war, twelve years later.
In Germany there was no tradition of strong measures of checks and balances; no faith in an independent judiciary or in an independent parliament.
Trump may be seen as a comic, incompetent version of a classic dictator. Modern day Charlie Chaplins e.g. Seth Meyer, Trevor Noah, Steven Colbert, have had no shortage of material. The joke has been on democracy, on us, but, due to Trump's incompetence and America's strong tradition of judicial checks and balances, it has remained on a farcical level. For the time being--victories of democracy are always provisional--democracy has won.
If the country I'm writing from was, say, Belarus, we'd be in a lot more trouble than we are in now.
Trump is like a ladybug; during her lifetime, she never changes her spots. When Trump was just an incompetent real estate mogul, he, as is well known, often stiffed his employees, cheating them out of their salaries. He did this by intimidation: he might be incompetent, but he is an expert in bullying. His wealth enabled him to hire lawyers at will; individual employees didn't have a chance. Throughout his career, he frequently sued them; his suits were often absurd. As an example, he sued Bill Maher for libel because he found a similarity--a joke--between the mean man's mien and that of an orangutan! He was able to do this as a businessman; his strategy was less successful as a president, since government is able to hire lawyers as well. As President, Trump's lawsuits are frequently reported by the press; ridiculous lawsuits thus became ridiculously apparent.
He got away with his use of the courts as a means of bullying, but not recently. After he lost reelection, he tried to overturn the results with scores of lawsuits, all of which have been thrown out. The recent suit, backed by Trump, where the attorney general of Texas tried to overthrow the results in four swing states--Texas has jurisdiction only over Texas, making the suit doubly ridiculous--was perhaps the most egregious example of Trump's failed strategy. The bully's bulbous nose has become apparent; this fascist is a clown.
Trump, as I have pointed out in many articles, is a pathological narcissist. The worst thing for someone like Trump to come to terms with is defeat. He never encountered defeat before. The fact that he was not impeached, which he interpreted as a stunning success, even though Muller hardly exonerated him, hurtled him into outer/inner space, as it were, much as a rocket uses the orbit of Jupiter as an energy boost to hurl it into the beyond.
Look into his face during recent photos; the apparent anger and misery indicates that he knows he lost. (A chorus of Loser! Loser! or Lock Him Up! during a rally would undoubtedly drive him wild).
Many of us felt confident that Biden would win--I expected him to win by a greater margin, however-- we were worried of the damage he could do in the lame-duck period. I'm still worried--at the time of this writing we have a month of the lame duck's White Spite to go--but I basically agree with Mary Trump, the President's niece. She has full confidence in his lack of ability. He is basically a Mouth Hero. That, and the American system of checks and balances, is what reveal Trump as playing the clown to Hitler's devil. They are both fascists, but only one had the competence to realize his agenda. And, of course, Trump has no agenda than being the object of adoration; coming out on top is his only ideology.
Although democracy has won, much damage has been done. In a previous article, I presented the image of a "negative pyramid". Trump, at its apex, would fall flat on his face without the support of his base, The boulders immediately under him are the vast majority of Republicans who mostly still support him.
Most Republicans in office have supported Trump's insane attempts to overthrow the will of the people in the last election. They are not stupid; most realize that Trump's view that he won the election is nonsense. They are putting greed before the interest of the nation. They are afraid that a whimper of criticism would lead to their removal from office by Trump's irate yet faithful base.
The self-destruction of the Republican party is indeed bad news; the preservation of a two-party system is vital.
Trump's inane claims that there was widespread fraud in the election is nothing short of another example of a conspiracy theory. This is especially dangerous in our polarized times. Trump is encouraging these theories; he often passes them on via his tweets. It's like giving testosterone shots to men with prostate cancer. Encouraging metastasis of poison in poisonous times--this is the cancer that Trump has been spreading.
Trump is mentally ill--does he really believe what he is saying? Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps, like Hitler, he is a shrewd populist--perhaps he is knowingly spreading his lies as a means to keep the support of his fanatical base at fever-pitch. I don't know; but it really doesn't matter. Either way, the damage that Trump has done will take years to repair, but it can be repaired. For now, though, I am cautiously optimistic, for democracy has, for the time being, won. Hurrah!
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