COMPREHENDING TRUMPISM

 

“For Donald Trump, any opposition, either personal, ideological, or political is treason.” Rick Wilson, conservative consultant

Processing the actions taken by the soul-rattling, unpredictable Trump administration is a daunting task. Breaking news stories, financial information, and opinion pieces reported in the morning editions of the national press are often outdated by the end of the day. One unexpected tweet on Trump’s social media platform changes the narrative.

Trump’s lighting strikes cause headlines to move from one crisis to another. It is difficult to focus on one issue or to determine the impact. Should we be more concerned about treatment of immigrants, attacks against the President’s designated enemies, or the defunding of our major universities? Should we focus on the crashing stock market, or the firing of thousands of Federal workers in critical positions? Should we make protest signs criticizing Trump and join others on the courthouse steps? Or should we simply sit back and hope that the next election cleans up the mess?

In these extraordinary times, there are no easy answers. However, I would like to share what I have discovered to help me understand, survive and discuss Trump’s relentless, destructive march through our political system, economy, culture, and social values.

It is important to remain emotionally grounded.  It is equally important to not tune out and ignore the carnage.  My goal has been to understand issues with enough detail to reasonably discuss Trumpism with others. Ultimately, the end-game is to win over “one voter at a time.”

We must never take lightly that Trump’s core voters continue to support him. Unfortunately, an early sign of a democratic nation turning into an autocratic one is obedience from supporters who adapt impulsively to their leader’s actions. In these cases, there is no reflection on the harm caused by a new policy. Thankfully, there may be a crack in this tendency. Peggy Noonan recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Donald Trump scared people he hadn’t scared before. He didn’t use to scare his policy allies— small business people, workers, retirees. He did this week. Fear dampens reflexive support.”

My first task in understanding Trumpism was to narrow down the tsunami of print, internet, and television information that washes over us each day. Much of the hard news and even the opinion pieces are repetitive. On complicated issues like tariffs or denial of federal funds to universities, it is helpful to search for panel discussions with different opinions. These wide-ranging discussions often appear in Politico, the national newspapers or on CNN.

In these panel discussions, it is common to find a valid point being made by an expert supporting the president’s actions. For me to comprehend Trumpism, I must understand and respect these arguments that disagree with my position.

It is not enough to dismiss Trump’s policies as authoritarian without learning more about the issues. For example, in the case of tariffs, it is important to know the history of invoking them, what they are intended to achieve and when they have failed. In the case of denying funds to universities, it is helpful to learn how much discretion is given to the government and what options school administrators have to contest the decision.

Once an issue is understood from all viewpoints, it is time to move on to survival and discussion of Trumpism.  Professor Timothy Synder has served as my inspiration and guide through these uncertain times. Synder’s writings place Trumpism within the context of history and offer counsel on what it all means.  

Until recently, Synder was the Richard Levin Professor of History at Yale University. He has specialized in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. His seminal book Bloodlands covered the Stalinist repression and mass murder in Ukraine.

During Trump’s first term, Synder published a book that became an important historical warning on what was to come.  The Road to Unfreedom explained the rise of authoritarianism in Russia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Synder goes into great detail on how Vladamir Putin misused Russian history and built up a myth of “Russia First Inevitability” to erode democratic principles.

In many respects, the Putin roadmap, along with the infamous Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 have been repurposed by Trumpism. In only three months, through executive orders, lawsuits, and misspelled tweets, Trumpism has used authoritarian tactics to pressure judges, law firms, cultural institutions, university presidents, corporate leaders, and media barons into positions of obedience.

In 2017, Synder published another short book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. It immediately became a bestseller and provided readers with a guide for surviving and discussing America’s turn toward authoritarianism.

The president is not mentioned once in the book. However, each time a new Trump policy is implemented, I turn to the “twenty lessons” to determine how similar historical actions have torn down democracy. This book is invaluable in surviving and discussing Trumpism.

What can we do to resist Trumpism’s extreme agenda?  We need to offer support to our neighbors who have come under attack through the Trump agenda. We need to stop preaching to those who agree with us on social media and get out to talk with and register new voters. Lastly, we need to become immediately invested in the midterm elections with more volunteer work and contributions than we committed to the past presidential election.