Hunter has a brilliantly excellent diary up which explains that “It’s not the Hypocrisy, stupid.” It’s straight up propaganda! For Republican party, lies are like breathing, a method necessary to keep power.
I just read “How Fascism Works” It builds a frame into which the ubiquitous propaganda Hunter describes fits. According to Dr Stanley, Trump enacts Fascist politics. He describes Fascism as is not an ideology but a method.. “They’re using a certain technique to acquire and retain power.”
The key pillars of Fascism (Per Stanley) — See how many you recognize!!
- Mythic past to which we will return (never existed.)
- Propaganda - Everything is opposite -e.g. Fascist is corrupt, but says everyone else is.
- Anti-Intellectualism - Attack Universities, Experts - appeal to populism, ”common man”
- Hierarchy - Anti-democratic - With Father (leader) on top (Patriarchal)
- Victimhood - The dominant group is the greatest victims. (BLM wants to destroy your town, Christians are victims)
- Unreality - Smash Truth - Conspiracy Theories (Birtherism, Qanon) - “What you are seeing is not what is happening” Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears - Loyalty survives. Only trust ME
- Law and Order - The fascist politician promises a regime of law and order not to punish actual criminals, but to criminalize “out groups” — minorities
- Sexual Anxiety (“They” are sending rapists to rape “our women”; Fear/disgust/rejection of homosexuality, etc. )
- Work shall make you free - The out group is lazy and is a drain on the country. Those in power are hardworking.
- Sodom and Gomorrah - Cities are hotbeds of evil and “decadence”, The country is pure.
In this article www.newhavenindependent.org/… Stanley says “Even though Trump does not yet denounce democratic processes like free and open elections, ” It was written in 2018.. Now Trump is indeed attacking elections..
It’s an eye opening book. I’ve found it quite useful. Because it puts into context everything Trump (and indeed all Republicans) are doing. Having the framework helps me retain my sanity, and to understand how all these features fit together and reinforce each other. It also shows the commonalities in the fascist politics we are experiencing in the US, and those in other countries (Turkey/Orban, etc)
The book is a useful rudder in a world of … propaganda.
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.
What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984