Excerpts from an insightful essay follow the press photo.
I think Jeffrey Tucker has put the dart in the double-bulls-eye.
I just heard Trump speak live. It was an awesome experience, like an interwar séance of once-powerful dictators who inspired multitudes, drove countries into the ground, and died grim deaths.
His speech at FreedomFest lasted a full hour, and I consider myself fortunate for having heard it. It was a magnificent exposure to an ideology that is very much present in American life, though hardly acknowledged. …
The ideology is a 21st century version of right fascism — one of the most politically successful ideological strains of 20th century politics. Though hardly anyone talks about it today, we really should. It is still real. It exists. It is distinct. It is not going away. Trump has tapped into it, …
… I heard, for the first time in my life, what a modern iteration of a consistently statist but non-leftist outlook on politics sounds and feels like in our own time. And I watched as most of the audience undulated between delight and disgust …
… He is brilliant at making belligerent noises rather than having worked out policy plans. He knows that real people don’t care about the details; they only want a strongman who shares their values.
What’s distinct about Trumpism, and the tradition of thought it represents, is that it is non-leftist in its cultural and political outlook and yet still totalitarian in the sense that it seeks total control of society and economy and places no limits on state power. The left has long waged war on bourgeois institutions like family, church, and property. In contrast, right fascism has made its peace with all three. It (very wisely) seeks political strategies that call on the organic matter of the social structure and inspire masses of people to rally around the nation as a personified ideal in history, under the leadership of a great and highly accomplished man.
Trump believes himself to be that man.
Complete essay at Liberty.me
and your point is?…….. There has not been a single candidate this year or any year in the last 120 years who really wanted to be a constitutional president, (with the exception of Ron Paul). Everyone of the current GOP and Dem candidates for every office are phony and will take money , power and opportunity over the Constitutuion every day. Bar none
My point is simple …
When the other republican candidates speak, I hear them and either yawn or want to vomit. They don’t speak a language of liberty and they are generally right-progressives.
When Trump speaks, he resonates with my societal dissatisfaction and political disaffection in such a way that I want to shout AMEN BROTHER. He’s effective.
His ability to over-ride my reason and stoke my emotions makes him very dangerous … for I am the rationalist’s rationalist, yet still susceptible to his delivery.