Compromised Equilibrium

“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.” Frederick Douglass

Subtlety isn’t part of the Trump toolbox. First the White House issues a cruel and ridiculous travel ban targeting people from seven predominantly muslim nations, and then they begin to attack the corporate media for not fully covering all the acts of terror (committed by deranged muslims, of course) that occur around the world. The media quickly and easily proves that most of the attacks were reported, some of them extensively, but facts hardly matter in this sad new world.

Trump and Co. whip up FEAR of muslims by design, thus justifying, after the imperial decree, the ban and at the same time further casting the corporate media as lazy, biased, incompetent, and so on. Common tactic of totalitarian regimes: debase the press, make the people look to the strong man for answers. Trust Trump and only Trump.

To justify its existence and share of the federal purse, the US military-security-surveillance apparatus must always have an enemy at the ready, and that enemy must be painted as implacable, lethal, and omnipresent. At the moment the Trumpsters are fixated on ISIS, but when that interest fades (or is no longer useful) there is Iran (always a target) and perhaps, now that making war on Russia appears less likely, China will emerge as our Enemy No. 1.  

Who knows?

The learning curve for Trump’s is steep; he lacks even rudimentary understanding of the Constitution and the system of checks and balances between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. Trump is accustomed to issuing orders and having them obeyed; he views any dissent -- from the press, the courts, or state governments -- as affronts to both his office and his person. How dare underlings question the CEO of America, Incorporated! Trump has even less respect for democracy or the will of the governed. He is an oligarch who sincerely believes, at his cellular level, that having come from money, or having earned money (no matter by what means), makes one smarter and more deserving than someone of lesser means. In an unmoored, exploitative, and predatory system of capitalism this sort of thinking, however warped and narrow, makes a perverse kind of sense. When every human activity is judged and measured by a dollar sign, having money equals nobility.

I worry about protest fatigue. I also worry that sooner or later a protest will turn violent or destructive and play into the hands of the security state, kept on edge and high alert by Trump’s authoritarian logic, leading to a smothering of all dissent. When a country’s equilibrium is already compromised, it takes relatively little to tip it over. I worry that people will focus so much on Trump that we lose sight of the desperate need to advocate for radical systemic changes that promote the general welfare, shrink the footprint of the US empire by drastically cutting the Pentagon budget, reduce poverty and income inequality, and protect the environment from further degradation.

The early actions of the Trump gang are ominous. As Andrew Levine wrote for Counterpunch recently, “Nearly everyone who is not filthy rich is going to suffer.”