The rise of the NSDAP to power is often seen as inexplicable, but placed in the context of interwar Europe as a whole, is the ascension to power of a radical, nationalist and anti-Semitic party more easily understood?
This is a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately, so I thought I'd write about it for this week's assignment as a way of aligning these new sources I've not read before with what I already had learned. To first answer briefly, I believe that it is not the context of interwar Europe as much as the specific circumstances in late Weimar Germany that make the ascension to power of the NSDAP more easily understood. This is not to say that the generally rightward, authoritarian drift of Europe was not a factor -- it certainly was. However, that the NSDAP came to power, rather than a military-style dictatorship à la Hungary, was quite specific to the personalities involved.
One of the most important things to bear in mind, in my opinion, despite it not often being said, is that Germany essentially stopped being a democracy once the government of Chancellor Hermann Müller collapsed in 1931. Thereafter, no chancellor had the support of the government and government by emergency decree, although, Harold James makes excellent points on how Heinrich Brüning maintained power, both because the SPD feared an even more reactionary government should it participate in a no confidence against him and because, by pursuing a policy of revising the reparations agreement, Brüning kept the animus of the population and political rivals outward, toward France, rather than inward: "Revision had become the principal way of uniting German politics in the face of the centrifugal pressures exerted by the unpleasant nature of economic choices during the depression."[1]
The terms in office of Chancellors Papen, Schleicher, and ultimately Hitler were backroom deals, with the mistaken impression on the part of Hindenburg's inner circle of advisers that Hitler could be reined in -- obviously an impression belied by the Reichstag Fire and subsequent events. In this regard, the situation of Hitler's party being propelled into power is unique. Whether the question is why a fascist, anti-Semitic political party could become the largest party in the country by July 1932 is a more difficult question but still one specific to Germany. The center had clearly collapsed, as witnessed by the massive losses suffered by the SPD and DVP, with their votes going largely to the KPD and Nazis, respectively. The drift of voters on the fence toward the right rather than the left was likely based on the relatively recent memory of Soviet-inspired revolution in Berlin and Munich.
All that said, Eric Hobsbawn offers a nicely concise overview of the context in which democracy had been thrown off increasingly over the 1920s and 1930s across Europe, and this context offers the remainder of the explanation for how the NSDAP ended up in power in January 1933 by explaining why both the power brokers in Germany and the electorate abandoned democracy. In detailing the three types of anti-democratic forces that were emergent in Europe between the wars, Hobsbawm writes, "All were against social revolution, and indeed a reaction against the subversion of the old social order in 1917-20 was at the root of all of them. All were authoritarian and hostile to liberal political institutions, though sometimes for pragmatic reasons rather than on principle."[2] While Germany took the third route of fascism, it could easily have gone one of the other two, had the army or monarchists acted decisively after the suspension of democracy following Müller's ouster.
=====
[1] Harold James, "Economic Reasons for the Collapse of the Weimar Republic," in Weimar: Why Did German Democracy Fail?, ed. Ian Kershaw (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1990), 54.
[2] Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (London: Michael Joseph, 1994), 114.
Showing posts with label authoritarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authoritarianism. Show all posts
Friday, November 2, 2018
Sunday, December 3, 2017
The Medvedev Interregnum
6.1. What was the significance of the Medvedev interregnum?
I think the greatest significance of the Medvedev interregnum was that the period signaled to the world and the country itself that Russia would at least continue to give the outward appearance of democracy, even while ultimate political power continued to be wielded by Putin. For all of the ink (apparently) spilled in considering the extent to which consigning Putin to a term as prime minister as Medvedev ascended to the presidency would change the power dynamic, I don't think that the period was all that significant in terms of genuine changes implemented by Medvedev. Perhaps in making this assessment I am relying too much on knowing the outcome in the five years since Putin has returned to the presidency.
Here, Alexander Baturo and Slava Mikhaylov seem to have made a strong case for Medvedev at least believing for some of the period that he might be an independent actor from Putin in establishing his own policy initiatives. They emphasize his liberalization and modernization schemes, for example, although they note that he mainly enunciated these goals in speeches and writing rather than in concrete proposals. Thus, they conclude, Medvedev "could be regarded as neither a figurehead nor a fully-fledged successor."[1] Simultaneously, they note, Russian regional governors drifted more into Putin's orbit during Medvedev's presidency. Thus, in the end, Medvedev was more of a placeholder than perhaps he himself realized at the time.
What I'm left wondering is why Medvedev stayed on with Putin after the latter returned to the presidency. Ola Cichowlas wrote in March of this year that Medvedev had made himself a millionaire several times over via corruption as part of Putin's team, but he was increasingly being seen as a scapegoat for the government as economic misfortune has led to dissatisfaction among the population. "While Putin’s approval ratings have soared as a result of his efforts to play tough with the West and secure military victories abroad," Cichowlas writes, "Medvedev has taken the blame for falling living standards at home. For the past few years, the Russian public, and even some within Putin’s hard-line inner circle, have considered Medvedev both weak and dispensable."[2] Nevertheless, at this writing, Medvedev remains the prime minister. Perhaps he poses more of a danger to Putin's hold on power as a potentially popular figure than as the unpopular man he is today.
======
[1] Alexander Baturo and Slava Mikhaylov, "Reading the Tea Leaves: Medvedev's Presidency Through Political Rhetoric of Federal and Sub-National Actors," Europe-Asia Studies, 66, no. 6 (2014): 974.
[2] Ola Cichowlas, "The Most Hated Man in Russia," Foreign Affairs, March 28, 2017,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/28/the-most-hated-man-in-russia-dmitry-medvedev-protests-putin/, accessed November 27, 2017
I think the greatest significance of the Medvedev interregnum was that the period signaled to the world and the country itself that Russia would at least continue to give the outward appearance of democracy, even while ultimate political power continued to be wielded by Putin. For all of the ink (apparently) spilled in considering the extent to which consigning Putin to a term as prime minister as Medvedev ascended to the presidency would change the power dynamic, I don't think that the period was all that significant in terms of genuine changes implemented by Medvedev. Perhaps in making this assessment I am relying too much on knowing the outcome in the five years since Putin has returned to the presidency.
Here, Alexander Baturo and Slava Mikhaylov seem to have made a strong case for Medvedev at least believing for some of the period that he might be an independent actor from Putin in establishing his own policy initiatives. They emphasize his liberalization and modernization schemes, for example, although they note that he mainly enunciated these goals in speeches and writing rather than in concrete proposals. Thus, they conclude, Medvedev "could be regarded as neither a figurehead nor a fully-fledged successor."[1] Simultaneously, they note, Russian regional governors drifted more into Putin's orbit during Medvedev's presidency. Thus, in the end, Medvedev was more of a placeholder than perhaps he himself realized at the time.
What I'm left wondering is why Medvedev stayed on with Putin after the latter returned to the presidency. Ola Cichowlas wrote in March of this year that Medvedev had made himself a millionaire several times over via corruption as part of Putin's team, but he was increasingly being seen as a scapegoat for the government as economic misfortune has led to dissatisfaction among the population. "While Putin’s approval ratings have soared as a result of his efforts to play tough with the West and secure military victories abroad," Cichowlas writes, "Medvedev has taken the blame for falling living standards at home. For the past few years, the Russian public, and even some within Putin’s hard-line inner circle, have considered Medvedev both weak and dispensable."[2] Nevertheless, at this writing, Medvedev remains the prime minister. Perhaps he poses more of a danger to Putin's hold on power as a potentially popular figure than as the unpopular man he is today.
======
[1] Alexander Baturo and Slava Mikhaylov, "Reading the Tea Leaves: Medvedev's Presidency Through Political Rhetoric of Federal and Sub-National Actors," Europe-Asia Studies, 66, no. 6 (2014): 974.
[2] Ola Cichowlas, "The Most Hated Man in Russia," Foreign Affairs, March 28, 2017,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/28/the-most-hated-man-in-russia-dmitry-medvedev-protests-putin/, accessed November 27, 2017
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Stalinist Totalitarianism
3.1. Stalin’s regime is an archetype (or model) of totalitarianism. Do you agree?
I don't think it's much of a question of whether Stalin's regime was totalitarian. Rather, I think the dispute that has arisen is not over whether it was totalitarian but rather over how well and accurately the term had been defined before the advent of revisionism. This is a question to which I've dedicated quite a bit of thought over the years, but I hope to make my point here without being too verbose. I think there are essentially two points that should be made in justifying Stalin's archetypal status as a totalitarian dictator: the extent to which totalitarianism can be defined abstractly; and the extent to which it can be distinguished from garden-variety authoritarianism.
On the first point, as I mentioned in class on Thursday, Jan Gross (in Revolution From Abroad) offers an interesting definition of totalitarianism, using Stalin's regime as a test case. If we consider totalitarianism from the standpoint of the tendency of totalitarian governments to eliminate public, collective forms of action unless it sponsors those forms itself, then, as Gross writes, "it thus appears that the totalitarian state confiscates the private realm."[1] However, he continues, this is untrue; it is in fact the opposite "because of the privatization of the public realm."[2] What Gross means is that the Soviets established totalitarian control – at least in its occupation of the Kresy from September 1939 to June 1941, was to make people feel as if participation in public forms of collection action was a way to express private desires, whether it was personal empowerment or settling scores with one's enemies. Clearly Stalin's methods in evoking denunciations, e.g., falls under this definition.
On the second point, since it's unlikely that one would define Stalin as anyone but one or the other (authoritarian or totalitarian), I found an article by Paul C. Sondrol particularly helpful in distinguishing the two terms.[3] Comparison Fidel Castro (totalitarian) to Alfredo Stroessner (the Paraguayan authoritarian dictators), Sondrol suggests seven criteria by which to judge an historical situation: Stalin meets six of these seven (role conception as a function, public ends of power, minimal corruption, official ideology, lack of pluralism, and high legitimacy). Where Stalin seems to have fallen short of one of Sondrol's criteria is in lacking personal charisma, although as noted by Philip Boobbyer remarks, among others, Stalin is able to form a personality cult by advancing one for Lenin and connecting himself as the nature evolution in the Soviet leadership.[4]
====
[1] Jan T. Gross, Revolution From Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1988), 117, italics in original.
[2] Ibid, italics in original.
[3] Paul C. Sondrol, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfred Stroessner," Journal of Latin American Studies, 23, no. 3 (1991): 599-620.
[4] Philip Boobyer, The Stalin Era (London: Routledge, 2000), 15-16.
On the first point, as I mentioned in class on Thursday, Jan Gross (in Revolution From Abroad) offers an interesting definition of totalitarianism, using Stalin's regime as a test case. If we consider totalitarianism from the standpoint of the tendency of totalitarian governments to eliminate public, collective forms of action unless it sponsors those forms itself, then, as Gross writes, "it thus appears that the totalitarian state confiscates the private realm."[1] However, he continues, this is untrue; it is in fact the opposite "because of the privatization of the public realm."[2] What Gross means is that the Soviets established totalitarian control – at least in its occupation of the Kresy from September 1939 to June 1941, was to make people feel as if participation in public forms of collection action was a way to express private desires, whether it was personal empowerment or settling scores with one's enemies. Clearly Stalin's methods in evoking denunciations, e.g., falls under this definition.
On the second point, since it's unlikely that one would define Stalin as anyone but one or the other (authoritarian or totalitarian), I found an article by Paul C. Sondrol particularly helpful in distinguishing the two terms.[3] Comparison Fidel Castro (totalitarian) to Alfredo Stroessner (the Paraguayan authoritarian dictators), Sondrol suggests seven criteria by which to judge an historical situation: Stalin meets six of these seven (role conception as a function, public ends of power, minimal corruption, official ideology, lack of pluralism, and high legitimacy). Where Stalin seems to have fallen short of one of Sondrol's criteria is in lacking personal charisma, although as noted by Philip Boobbyer remarks, among others, Stalin is able to form a personality cult by advancing one for Lenin and connecting himself as the nature evolution in the Soviet leadership.[4]
====
[1] Jan T. Gross, Revolution From Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1988), 117, italics in original.
[2] Ibid, italics in original.
[3] Paul C. Sondrol, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfred Stroessner," Journal of Latin American Studies, 23, no. 3 (1991): 599-620.
[4] Philip Boobyer, The Stalin Era (London: Routledge, 2000), 15-16.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Softening the Ground
This post will probably be long and perhaps only tangentially connected to history, but it's important, I think, to write down some things I've seen going on. I'm not alone in having seen these things, but perhaps can offer a perspective not yet put forward. My topics will be two, one specific and one general. They are, respectively, Stefan Molyneux and authoritarianism.
On Molyneux much has been said. Rather than retread old ground, such as allegations of cultish behaviors, blatant lying, perhaps most notoriously on Joe Rogan's podcast, and rank hypocrisy against his own earnestly stated personal principles, it suffices here to say that, until a couple of years ago, Molyneux was marketing himself as an anarcho-capitalist or hard libertarian: lots of talk about free markets and rising tides lifting all boats. That sort of thing. Then, he took a disturbing turn, even for him.
Molyneux as a public figure has always been conservative and right wing (terms that intersect quite a bit but not entirely). However, the far right turn he's taken over the last few years is more sinister. He's begun broadcasting explicitly racist positions, including a lot of pieces on the race-IQ correlation, with his conclusion (unsurprisingly) being that this correlation is both overwhelmingly genetic and immutable. He's blended in quite a bit attacking Islam generally, a subject with which I perhaps disagree with him less but that nevertheless he paints with an overly broad brush. Therefore, when Trump emerged politically, Molyneux was almost immediately on board, jettisoning in practice certain principles that, at least in theory, he'd long held, such as laissez faire (Trump is a protectionist) and moral absolutism (think about it for a second).
Of course, Trumpists aren't rare and right wingers aren't experiencing a shortage on the Internet, where Molyneux primarily resides. What's disturbing about Molyneux's case is the mainstream attention that he has received. Leaving aside an appearance on his YouTube channel a few years ago by Noam Chomsky, during which Molyneux largely kept his reactionary views to himself, Molyneux's right-wing guests have run the gamut from mainstream conservatives (e.g., Dave Rubin) to fringe mainstream figures (Ann Coulter) to alt-right mainstays (Mike Cernovich). As a result, Molyneux now gets retweeted by the President's sons, and this is where the danger really lies.
Before the general situation I mentioned above, however, a final specific point about Molyneux. His guest today (July 6, 2017) was Axel Kaiser, a Chilean writer and journalist with libertarian leanings who joined Molyneux to discuss "the untold story of Augusto Pinochet." Kaiser presented the standard mainstream right-wing case, i.e., Pinochet was bad but Allende was worse. He argued that Allende intended to institute a Marxist totalitarian dictatorship (false), committed horrendous violence (partially true), etc., but I didn't hear anything particularly surprising in what he said. Molyneux, however, pushed his luck. Isn't it true, he asked, that Allende was arming leftist terrorist groups? They were being armed, Kaiser answered, but probably not by Allende. In fact, he continued, many of the most violent leftist rhetoricians of the Allende period shrank away in cowardice rather than have to fight the junta that Pinochet led. Molyneux responded that he found that most leftists preferred to exert statist violence against the helpless and wilted when having to face a real military.
The obvious counterexample of the Viet Cong aside, one must note what Molyneux is doing here. He is painting the left as an inherently violent body of ideologies. Now place this within a larger context of the last few months or so, during which we have seen an overexaggeration of leftist violence against Trump supporters and either denial or weak excuses for right wing violence, not to mention a complete lack of responsibility to answer for Trump's clear exhortations to violence during the campaign. To be clear, violence is in general not something to be admired, and although the mere fact of punching a Nazi says more about the person that evokes such a response and how historically Nazis have had to be dealt with than it does about the person doing the punching, I accept as well that there is an inherent danger in defining the whole right as Nazis.
So we have the left being painted as violent and unhinged. Just think about the most recent episodes of right-wing outrage at Kathy Griffin's ham-handed kabuki theater of beheading the President or at the staging of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in Central Park in New York with the title character decked out in Trumpian finery, and you'll notice a trend. Now couple this with the ongoing attacks on the media. Last week it was a dust-up between the President and Mika Brzenzinksi. This week, it's outrage that CNN found the creator of a video in which the President, in a clip from his WWE days, wrestles a person to the ground, the person having the CNN logo pasted over his face. "CNN has blackmailed this young man!" we are told by Molyneux and others. It is all part of a delegitimation of the left.
It’s worth noting that the interior logic here is sound, although the premises are heavily flawed. If the media against Trump is leftist, and leftists are violent, then of course the media are potentially violent enemies who would commit blackmail. That the U.S. media is overwhelmingly corporate, rather than liberal, is beside the point. So is the overwhelming lack of violence since the 1970s on the left, a large proportion of which supported a rather centrist candidate for President just a few months ago. The right has been significantly more violent in recent decades: the Order, Oklahoma City, and Eric Rudolph come to mind.
The most important question is where Molyneux et al. are going with this rhetoric. It seems to me that they are softening the ground for an authoritarian seizure of power. I've done my level-headed best to resist this position for the last several months, but it's become increasingly clear that this is what is going on. Trump is elbows deep in scandal, and some of it will inevitably catch up with him. It seems unlikely to me that he will finish his term as President, although how his term will end is anyone's guess. My wife suggests he has set the stage for an excuse of illness allowing him to resign. That's possible, to be sure. Impeachment, the other realistic way that he leaves office other than illness or death (he's 71 and obese), hinges on the majority party in the Congress, which is Republican in both cases. Obviously, there are Republicans who have taken (and a few who have even kept) principled stances against Trump, but they are few, and the majority of the party seems content to have Trump in office to rubber stamp whatever they are able to get passed, which seems to be the standard Reaganesque fare of deregulation, tax cuts, and making Americans poorer, dumber, and sicker.
If Trump were smart, he'd realize that he'd be impeached the minute he completed the Republicans' legislative agenda. But he isn’t smart, as should be abundantly clear by now, and I'm a pessimist with regard to this agenda and how successful it will be. And then, if my predictions are correct, Trump will face impeachment. The question for consideration here is what the alt-right will do when he does. I suggest that they are preparing for a violent confrontation and are hoping that they have sufficiently prepared the armed population among them for when push comes to shove. They will not allow Trump to be removed from power against their will.
Is Trump involved in this? Probably not, although maybe his sons are. Certainly figures like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon are, I'd imagine; neither of them seems terribly enamored of democracy. The most important question, it seems to me, is whether the President would go along with a scenario like this. Maybe the most important question of all is whether they will even wait until impeachment becomes a viable option or will allow some Reichstag Fire/9-11 type event, whether staged or genuine, to be zero hour.
So what can you do? I'd recommend reading Timothy Snyder's excellent book On Tyranny and following the directions in there. Remember that what's happening in this country isn't normal by any stretch of the imagination and that defending democratic institutions and the rule of law is more important now than perhaps at any time in the last 150 years. Finally, whenever one of these people on the right wing wielding this rhetoric -- whether Molyneux or Cernovich or one of their band of merry men -- has a megaphone, be there to remind everyone within earshot what they are doing. They are preparing the stage to subvert democracy in this country. If that happens, then what happens next isn't pretty, if history is any lesson.
Don't let them win.
On Molyneux much has been said. Rather than retread old ground, such as allegations of cultish behaviors, blatant lying, perhaps most notoriously on Joe Rogan's podcast, and rank hypocrisy against his own earnestly stated personal principles, it suffices here to say that, until a couple of years ago, Molyneux was marketing himself as an anarcho-capitalist or hard libertarian: lots of talk about free markets and rising tides lifting all boats. That sort of thing. Then, he took a disturbing turn, even for him.
Molyneux as a public figure has always been conservative and right wing (terms that intersect quite a bit but not entirely). However, the far right turn he's taken over the last few years is more sinister. He's begun broadcasting explicitly racist positions, including a lot of pieces on the race-IQ correlation, with his conclusion (unsurprisingly) being that this correlation is both overwhelmingly genetic and immutable. He's blended in quite a bit attacking Islam generally, a subject with which I perhaps disagree with him less but that nevertheless he paints with an overly broad brush. Therefore, when Trump emerged politically, Molyneux was almost immediately on board, jettisoning in practice certain principles that, at least in theory, he'd long held, such as laissez faire (Trump is a protectionist) and moral absolutism (think about it for a second).
Of course, Trumpists aren't rare and right wingers aren't experiencing a shortage on the Internet, where Molyneux primarily resides. What's disturbing about Molyneux's case is the mainstream attention that he has received. Leaving aside an appearance on his YouTube channel a few years ago by Noam Chomsky, during which Molyneux largely kept his reactionary views to himself, Molyneux's right-wing guests have run the gamut from mainstream conservatives (e.g., Dave Rubin) to fringe mainstream figures (Ann Coulter) to alt-right mainstays (Mike Cernovich). As a result, Molyneux now gets retweeted by the President's sons, and this is where the danger really lies.
Before the general situation I mentioned above, however, a final specific point about Molyneux. His guest today (July 6, 2017) was Axel Kaiser, a Chilean writer and journalist with libertarian leanings who joined Molyneux to discuss "the untold story of Augusto Pinochet." Kaiser presented the standard mainstream right-wing case, i.e., Pinochet was bad but Allende was worse. He argued that Allende intended to institute a Marxist totalitarian dictatorship (false), committed horrendous violence (partially true), etc., but I didn't hear anything particularly surprising in what he said. Molyneux, however, pushed his luck. Isn't it true, he asked, that Allende was arming leftist terrorist groups? They were being armed, Kaiser answered, but probably not by Allende. In fact, he continued, many of the most violent leftist rhetoricians of the Allende period shrank away in cowardice rather than have to fight the junta that Pinochet led. Molyneux responded that he found that most leftists preferred to exert statist violence against the helpless and wilted when having to face a real military.
The obvious counterexample of the Viet Cong aside, one must note what Molyneux is doing here. He is painting the left as an inherently violent body of ideologies. Now place this within a larger context of the last few months or so, during which we have seen an overexaggeration of leftist violence against Trump supporters and either denial or weak excuses for right wing violence, not to mention a complete lack of responsibility to answer for Trump's clear exhortations to violence during the campaign. To be clear, violence is in general not something to be admired, and although the mere fact of punching a Nazi says more about the person that evokes such a response and how historically Nazis have had to be dealt with than it does about the person doing the punching, I accept as well that there is an inherent danger in defining the whole right as Nazis.
So we have the left being painted as violent and unhinged. Just think about the most recent episodes of right-wing outrage at Kathy Griffin's ham-handed kabuki theater of beheading the President or at the staging of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in Central Park in New York with the title character decked out in Trumpian finery, and you'll notice a trend. Now couple this with the ongoing attacks on the media. Last week it was a dust-up between the President and Mika Brzenzinksi. This week, it's outrage that CNN found the creator of a video in which the President, in a clip from his WWE days, wrestles a person to the ground, the person having the CNN logo pasted over his face. "CNN has blackmailed this young man!" we are told by Molyneux and others. It is all part of a delegitimation of the left.
It’s worth noting that the interior logic here is sound, although the premises are heavily flawed. If the media against Trump is leftist, and leftists are violent, then of course the media are potentially violent enemies who would commit blackmail. That the U.S. media is overwhelmingly corporate, rather than liberal, is beside the point. So is the overwhelming lack of violence since the 1970s on the left, a large proportion of which supported a rather centrist candidate for President just a few months ago. The right has been significantly more violent in recent decades: the Order, Oklahoma City, and Eric Rudolph come to mind.
The most important question is where Molyneux et al. are going with this rhetoric. It seems to me that they are softening the ground for an authoritarian seizure of power. I've done my level-headed best to resist this position for the last several months, but it's become increasingly clear that this is what is going on. Trump is elbows deep in scandal, and some of it will inevitably catch up with him. It seems unlikely to me that he will finish his term as President, although how his term will end is anyone's guess. My wife suggests he has set the stage for an excuse of illness allowing him to resign. That's possible, to be sure. Impeachment, the other realistic way that he leaves office other than illness or death (he's 71 and obese), hinges on the majority party in the Congress, which is Republican in both cases. Obviously, there are Republicans who have taken (and a few who have even kept) principled stances against Trump, but they are few, and the majority of the party seems content to have Trump in office to rubber stamp whatever they are able to get passed, which seems to be the standard Reaganesque fare of deregulation, tax cuts, and making Americans poorer, dumber, and sicker.
If Trump were smart, he'd realize that he'd be impeached the minute he completed the Republicans' legislative agenda. But he isn’t smart, as should be abundantly clear by now, and I'm a pessimist with regard to this agenda and how successful it will be. And then, if my predictions are correct, Trump will face impeachment. The question for consideration here is what the alt-right will do when he does. I suggest that they are preparing for a violent confrontation and are hoping that they have sufficiently prepared the armed population among them for when push comes to shove. They will not allow Trump to be removed from power against their will.
Is Trump involved in this? Probably not, although maybe his sons are. Certainly figures like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon are, I'd imagine; neither of them seems terribly enamored of democracy. The most important question, it seems to me, is whether the President would go along with a scenario like this. Maybe the most important question of all is whether they will even wait until impeachment becomes a viable option or will allow some Reichstag Fire/9-11 type event, whether staged or genuine, to be zero hour.
So what can you do? I'd recommend reading Timothy Snyder's excellent book On Tyranny and following the directions in there. Remember that what's happening in this country isn't normal by any stretch of the imagination and that defending democratic institutions and the rule of law is more important now than perhaps at any time in the last 150 years. Finally, whenever one of these people on the right wing wielding this rhetoric -- whether Molyneux or Cernovich or one of their band of merry men -- has a megaphone, be there to remind everyone within earshot what they are doing. They are preparing the stage to subvert democracy in this country. If that happens, then what happens next isn't pretty, if history is any lesson.
Don't let them win.
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