When
I am politically incredulous about the events of our time I turn to
intellectual scholars who know much more than I. This time I asked MIT
Professor Noam Chomsky to provide an explanation to me of the Trumpian
phenomena of our time. He does so.
Yes, it is long but the events surrounding you, me and millions of
others in our nation and its impact on the world should spur you to at
least read it and stop being put off by intellectual arguments that take
a little more time and effort to ingest. In other words my suggestion:
READ IT and learn! Scroll down if your interest is peaked.
Professor
Chomsky, I have been a life long progressive. What is happening now in
this country could not be predicted by many. Trump does have some
populism attached to his core message but the
bigotry and the nativist slant reminds me of "Gangs of New York" in its
fever pitch. Can you explain so I can rationally explain this
phenomenon. The rudeness and lewdness of his message is staggering.
I am ashamed for the world to see this not to mention the danger of it.
He makes ISIS job easy and is exactly what they think the US is all
about. The nation has made mistakes that is for sure but a Trump
mistake of this magnitude is unthinkable.
Your views?
Below
is something posted in a discussion on Quora that tries to respond to
your question. You’re right about the danger. IN fact, the world is
looking on with
astonishment and trepidation.
NC
Though we do not have detailed data, it
appears that Trump is appealing primarily to less educated white sectors
of the population, lower middle class and working class, people who are
angry, frustrated, frightened, bitter about the
fact – and it is a fact – that they have been in many ways cast by the
wayside. The neoliberal programs of the past generation have been
harmful to affected populations almost everywhere, sometimes severely
so. Rising global inequality, which has reached
extraordinary proportions, is one (and only one) of the many
indications. Oxfam produces annual reports of poverty and inequality.
In 2014, they found that about 90 individuals held half of total world
wealth. In 2015, the number was reduced to 62. Meanwhile
perhaps 5 million children are dying of starvation every year – more
than 500 an hour, a tragedy that could easily be remedied by available
resources. Among the developed (OECD) societies, inequality is
particularly prominent in the Anglophone countries, with
the US well in the lead. Despite its unique advantages, by most
measures of poverty and social justice the US ranks with the poorest
OECD countries, alongside of Greece, Mexico, Turkey, facts heightened by
lavish displays of concentrated wealth. The disparities
have increased since the latest crash, with some 90% of growth going to
1% of the population. As widely reported, the global rich now live in a
different world from the general population.
In the US, the neoliberal programs have led to
stagnation or decline for much of the population, undermining of
functioning democracy, reduction of benefits and social welfare. People
do not have to read academic studies to know that
real wages for male workers are about what they were in the 1960s while
wealth has concentrated in very few hands; that corporate strategies
have shifted manufacturing abroad; that a considerable majority of the
population is virtually disenfranchised in that
their representatives disregard their attitudes; and much more. Years
ago, academic studies showed that the socioeconomic profile of
abstention in the US matches those sectors in similar countries who vote
for laborite or social democratic parties, lacking
in our political system, which in some ways still reflects the Civil
War. We also cannot overlook the deeply rooted historical background of
white supremacy and racism that has never been overcome, and the
increasing atomization of the society that leaves
people alone and isolated, feeling helpless against forces that are
crushing them. Under these circumstances it is not hard for demagogues
to stir up anger against those who are even more victimized –
immigrants, minorities, “welfare cheats” (demonized by
Reaganite racist slurs) – and to stimulate highly exaggerated fears of
threats ranging from the federal government to Islamic terrorists.
We should also remember that what we are
witnessing is not entirely new. A decade ago, the distinguished scholar
of German history Fritz Stern, writing in the establishment journal
Foreign Affairs, opened a review of “the descent in Germany from decency to Nazi barbarism” in the establishment journal
Foreign Affairs by writing that “Today, I worry about the
immediate future of the United States, the country that gave haven to
German-speaking refugees in the 1930s,” himself included. With
implications for here and now that no reader can fail to discern,
Stern reviewed Hitler’s demonic appeal to his “divine mission” as
“Germany’s savior” in a “pseudoreligious transfiguration of politics”
adapted to “traditional Christian forms,” ruling a government dedicated
to “the basic principles” of the nation, with “Christianity
as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis
of national life.” Hitler’s hostility toward the “liberal secular
state,” shared by much of the Protestant clergy, drove forward “a
historic process in which resentment against a disenchanted
secular world found deliverance in the ecstatic escape of unreason.”
That was ten years ago. The words resonate more ominously today.
It is also useful to compare the current
malaise with the Great Depression in the 1930s, which I’m old enough to
remember. Objectively, conditions were far worse than today.
Subjectively, they were quite different, as I could see even
from my own extended family, many of them unemployed working class with
limited education. Despite the grim conditions, there was a sense of
hopefulness, a belief that we’ll get out of this together. The labor
movement had been virtually crushed by the 1920s,
largely by force, but reconstituted in the ‘30s with organization of
the CIO and militant labor actions that helped induce a fairly
sympathetic administration to institute significant social reforms. The
unions also provided crucial forms of association and
interaction, including educational and cultural opportunities. There
were also lively political organizations – Communist, Socialist, others
-- participating actively in labor and civil rights actions and general
intellectual life in which much of the working
class participated. Business publications warned of “the hazard facing
industrialists” in “the rising political power of the masses,” but were
powerless to stem the tide, though reaction was building up by the late
‘30s and picked up forcefully when the war
ended. This is not the place to review what has happened since, but
one consequence is that the hopefulness of the ‘30s and the social
struggles and achievements that inspired it have been largely supplanted
by fear, despair, and isolation, opening the way
to the Trump phenomenon, which should be cause for deep concern.
Perhaps the most favorable observation that can be made about his
candidacy is that Cruz is even more dangerous, and the other likely
Republican prospect, Rubio, is hardly less of a threat to
the country and the world, at least if he means a word he says.
Professor
Chomsky, I have been a life long progressive. What is happening now in
this country could not be predicted by many. Trump does have some
populism attached to his core message but the
bigotry and the nativist slant reminds me of "Gangs of New York" in its
fever pitch. Can you explain so I can rationally explain this
phenomenon. The rudeness and lewdness of his message is staggering.
I am ashamed for the world to see this not to mention the danger of it.
He makes ISIS job easy and is exactly what they think the US is all
about. The nation has made mistakes that is for sure but a Trump
mistake of this magnitude is unthinkable.
Your views?
