Trump is touring his political base, delivering speeches heavy with increasingly nasty verbal insults and personal attacks on Democrats, on Californians, and targeting imagined enemies both internal (immigrants) and foreign (Canadians,Europeans, Chinese, etc. etc.)–a harbinger of things to come perhaps after the midterm elections regardless of the outcome.

Listen to my 19 minute interview today, October 23, on the Critical Hour radio show, commenting on Trump’s speech today, during which he declared that he is a true ‘nationalist’ and a true patriot–while those who differed with him were globalists and not patriots.

GO TO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UKm_XjGLsw6qUqG0xcVdlqzjwK791xmd/view

Listen to my explanation of how Trump’s meaning of ‘Nationalist’ parallels that of another ‘nationalist’ whose public speeches and rallies also railed against imagined ‘enemies’ within and without; also vilified and threatened opponents with incarceration and worse; also declared he would make his country ‘great again’ by purging it of its enemies. And to do this he would, if necessary, sweep away institutions of democratic government, while employing the racist card and piling lie upon lie to agitate and mobilize his supporters to hate and violence against his opponents.

You know who I mean, folks. It’s time to use the ‘H’ word.

Immigrants and people of color are Trump’s ‘enemy within’, just as the jew was considered the immigrant that had invaded the German nation, who was not part of the ‘volk’, and should therefore be expelled. While the enemy ‘without’ were those countries who dared to assume military superiority, so that unparalleled military buildup was the answer to restore the country’s ‘greatness’ externally as well. His speeches, like Trump’s, were also laden with attacks on his parliamentary opposition who he claimed were responsible for undermining the country in the past. They too were against the restoration of the nation’s greatness, i.e. were anti-nationalists.

The enemy ‘without’ had taken advantage of the country in the wake of the 1st world war and, together with weak German politicians, had destroyed the country’s former greatness. Germany was for Germans, not for the foreign influence within, i.e. the jews; just as America is for (white) Americans and therefore the immigrant (of color) should be expelled as well, if necessary their families broken up and incarcerated at the border. To restore Germany to greatness, the immigrant(jew) must be expelled, the weak politicians who sold out the country thrown in jail or worse, and a new vast military buildup should be undertaken so it could regain its ‘respect’ in the eyes of other countries. Those opposed to his kind of Nationalism were unpatriots, and even traitors.

Trump is not a fascist (yet), but is clearly moving down the road to that with his meaning of nationalism, his appeal to racist rhetoric and suggestions of violence against immigrants and political opponents, his clear advocacy of tyranny as he sees himself above the law and is prepared to pardon himself if indicted or impeached, his fawning of everything military, his rush to a massive new military buildup, his cultivating and courting of a political base that believes he can do no wrong, his incendiary speeches, his clear affinity toward authoritarian ‘strongmen’ throughout the world, his disdain for those who exercise their civil liberties to protest and demonstrate (i.e. the ‘mob’ as he now calls them), his calls to throw politicians in jail, his uncensored egoism and vanity, and his constant resort to habitual lying to advance his historically un-American meaning of Nationalism and patriotism.

Trump is a wannabe fascist, a would be tyrant, and a wrecker of the American nation.

Dr. Jack Rasmus, Ph.D Political Economy, teaches economics at St. Mary’s College in California. He is the author and producer of the various nonfiction and fictional workers, including the books The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Bush, Clarity Press, October 2019. Jack is the host of the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, on the Progressive Radio Network, and a journalist writing on economic, political and labor issues for various magazines, including European Financial Review, World Financial Review, World Review of Political Economy, ‘Z‘ magazine, and others.


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