In 2016, I saw the reality we were up against authoritarianism and totalitarian tactics. But I didn't want to even concede it might prevail. So I focused my energy on fact checking, fighting trolls. I even made phone calls. On election day I worked as a poll worker, despite knowing my town, Brunswick would likely go to Trump. Maryland went to Hillary and the benefit of helping everyone else vote, was I was too tired to watch TV all night. I went to sleep relieved. Woke up alarmed and depressed. Don't want that to happen this year.
TRUMPISM AS A TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENT
The thing is, Trumpism is a totalitarian movement that seeks total control of humans, often globally. Totalitarianism seeks total domination. It is a movement that uses terrorism to control whole populations, starting with a mob and then applying terror to paralyze and inflame followers and enemies alike. One can argue that Trump runs a totalitarian movement.
He certainly is succeeding in terrorizing his enemies. But he also terrorizes his friends. He uses fear of "the other" to mobilize fearful followers and inflame their racism. He is replacing a professionalized military with a militarized police. And he is using legitimate and illegitimate means to grab for totalitarian power.
And he was open about intentions in 2015.
TOTALITARIANISM IS ALIVE
The trouble with both fascism and communisim was they were totalitarian. China and Russia dumped their claimed ideologies, but have kept their use of terrorism as a means of control. In other formerly totalitarianism countries the former totalitarian governments receded into movements, political parties and mafias. Usually some went to jail.
Often the fearless leader dies and becomes a totem for popular movements. In some cases, when the movement was less ideological than fan based, the movement splits between left and right. That happened to Peronism.
Arendt saw totalitarianism as a novel form of government, but seeking total control is the goal of most utopian movements and nearly all tyrants. Perhaps such movements are a spectrum of terror enabled by mass media. In any case fear is dangerous, because as Frank Herbert put it, it's the mind killer. The antidote is awakening the brain.
Trump is a dark, totalitarian wannabe. He's explicitly oriented to Vladimir, and owned by, Putin. The Senate Intel committee released vol 5 of its intel report yesterday, confirming that Konstantin Kilimnik is a Russian operative, his former employee Manafort, also, and Trump a Russian asset. What is going on in Belarus shows we need to march and vote.
Sources and further reading
- https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report
