It’s been making a big comeback. And yes, corporatism is socialism. In fact, it could be said to be a form of national socialism. It sure as hell has nothing to do with the free market.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just heard Trump speak live. The speech lasted an hour, and my jaw was on the floor most of the time. I’ve never before witnessed such a brazen display of nativistic jingoism, along with a complete disregard for economic reality. It was an awesome experience, a perfect repudiation of all good sense and intellectual sobriety.
Yes, he is. But no more so than Barack Obama.
Or Hillary Clinton.
Assuming Trump can be classified as a fascist (using the real-world historical and economic criteria for identifying fascism, not “liberal” fantasy-world criteria, which, like “racism,” usually comes down to “whatever I don’t like”), “liberals” would have a problem with him. Trump’s isn’t the brand of fascism they like.
I cannot but roll my eyes at the overheated, pearl-clutching tone of the article at Newsweek. “Er mah gerd! Fascisms!”
When people who call Trump ignorant of economics–and he may well be ignorant of a great many things, but I am not sure we can call a self-made billionaire ignorant of the economy and how it works–it reminds me how enthusiastic this same magazine’s editorial writers were for NAFTA and for giving Most Favored Nation status to the People’s Republic of China. How’d those work out for us, again? Wasn’t there a fellow named Perot who warned us? Didn’t the news-entertainment media call him a “fascist” too, to the point where even twenty years on, a lot of people can’t hear his name without mentally appending “dey terk er jerbs” and a laughtrack?
I have previously noted that Mr. Trump’s claimed lack of enthusiasm for the policies of Mr. Obama and the Clintons is contradicted by the vast sums of money he’s shoveled into their war chests over the years. I am not convinced that this flirtation with politics is serious, that Mr. Trump is serious, that Mr. Trump has any principles in particular, nor any principles whatsoever beyond “Hi there, I’m The Donald, you should give me money and power because I’m awesome. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” I am saddened by the state of small-c conservatism in the US when a left-leaning Wall Street limousine Marxist like Trump can be taken seriously as a Republican candidate just because he went out in public and spoke a few uncomfortable truths that everyone else on the GOP side is too cowardly to acknowledge.
Others have predicted that we may see with Mr. Trump’s run a repeat of 1992 and 1996, when conservatives were genuinely angry with the status quo and genuinely energized but split their votes between a wishy-washy, status-quo, go-along-to-get-along, spineless, lukewarm Rockefeller Republican and a populist outsider who spoke uncomfortable truths without shame or apology, allowing a foaming-at-the-mouth Maoist crank to get into the White House with a smallish plurality of the vote–which, you may have noticed, was perfectly acceptable to the Left until 2000, when suddenly the popular vote count was held to be the holy of holies.
I am amused by Mr. Trump’s posturing. He’s saying in public what three quarters, if not more, of the population has been thinking for a long time now. Would that someone, anyone, were running on the Republican side who were so willing to speak truth to power. But I’m not convinced that this is anything but an exercise in massaging The Donald’s notorious ego, which enters the room half a minute before he does, and I’m not convinced that he’s quite so interested in speaking truth to power as to hearing a crowd cheer and fantasizing about tearing down Mt. Rushmore and erecting Mt. Trump in its place.
I am not sure we can call a self-made billionaire ignorant of the economy and how it works
Don’t fall for the PR. The self-made billionaire was Donald’s father, Fred Trump. Donald inherited his fortune and real-estate empire. Since that time, he has filed for bankuptcy repeatedly but creditors keep bailing him out because he is, as they say, too big to fail. Like many real-estate developers, Trump owes his success more to political wheeling and dealing than sound economic decisions.
Of course, Oprah Winfrey is a self-made billionaire, and I wouldn’t nominate her for a Nobel Prize in economics, either. There is no real connection between the two.
Donald Trump is not someone, at least at the present time and based on what I know of him, to whom I would want to turn over the keys to the country. However, I think this criticism is rather unfair. He has expanded the fortune he inherited many times over. How many others from similar circumstances can say the same?
The important thing in life is not where you ended, but where you ended relative to where you started. Trump’s done pretty well on that score.
“self-made billionaire”
Edward beat me to it. I read The Art of The Deal; Donald basically said his daddy gave him $250 million when he turned 18.
If I had that kind of money handed to me at 18 back in 1986, we’d have cities on the moon by now.
The article at Newsweek is largely hyperbole.
I don’t trust Trump, at all, and don’t like him, but Trump a fascist? The only link to that that I see in him is his love for eminent domain theft of property to hand it over to corporate hands (in many cases, his).
His opinions on Mexico and illegals? He’s currently the Republican frontrunner because what he’s saying on that issue is largely right. Further, the flaw in the free trade dogma has always been that it makes no distinction between free trade with similar economies (Canada) and free trade with dissimilar economies (Mexico.) NAFTA with Canada has been good, while by any metric, having Mexico in NAFTA has been bad (massive trade deficit, massive amounts of jobs lost as companies relocate there for cheap labor, etc, etc).
Free trade with China is likewise a very bad thing, and not just economically; it’s taking a country that has malevolent and expensionist intent and creating a superpower, one that, unlike the Soviet Union, is surpassing us in GDP (and thus has far more intrinsic capacities than the Soviets did). It is nothing less than a clear and present danger, moreso than Russia and radical islam.
Is Trump starting to reach out to blacks by stating the glaringly obvious that they more than most bear the ill effects of mass immigration? Yep, and that’s something Republicans ought to do, because it’s true, and also politically beneficial. It’s also playing a card the Dems love to play, identity politics. Trump seems to be living proof that even a broken cuckoo clock is right twice a day.
IMHO, the real reason Trump is doing so well in the polls is he’s hammering on issues that other candidates have been too afraid (or have flat out sold out on) to address, thus making them his. He may well be (And I hope so) a flash in the pan, but if the party doesn’t wake up on some of these issues that matter to a hell of a lot of Americans, Trump may very well be the nominee. (If he is, I predict a sizable win by the D candidate, perhaps as much as if Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio is the nominee).
And while I’m at it, I absolutely despise McCain, but I found Trump’s attacks on his military service vile and disgusting. (and even more outrageous because Trump has never served).
I think if Rubio is chosen and they prep him properly he’ll win the election easily. I kind of doubt anyone takes Trump too seriously. Even in his own party.
Corporatism and marxism are old as dirt. Even if they are dressed into new trappings. Corporatism is just neo-feudalism. Marxism is akin to the absolute monarchies in that it is a totalitarian system where the elite with the aid of a bureaucratic class control all aspects of life.
Rubio is damaged goods, all the spin in the world won’t help. A lot of us remember very well that he ran for the senate as being against amnesty, then no sooner had he got to Washington than he started yapping about the “Dream” act, which gave Obama the political cover to enact it by fiat. Rubio then became one of the “gang of 8″ which produced an even broader amnesty bill.
As a result of these and other lies and deceptions, there are a lot of Republicans who absolutely will not vote for him, or donate, if he’s the nominee. I’m one of them. Even if it’s just a small percentage of Republicans in a few purple states, that’s enough to result in a R loss in the general.
As for Trump, do I take him seriously as a potential nominee? Sort of (This does not mean I support him; I don’t) because I remember how no one took a candidate at this point in the 2008 race seriously; he was polling in low single digits, and it became a running joke how dead and futile his campaign was, and everyone was so darn sure he’d quit well before the primaries. Yet, he won the nomination. (McCain). And come to think of it, no one was taking Obama seriously at this point in that race, and everyone was talking about the inevitability” that Clinton would get the nomination. IMHO, it’s never wise to dismiss any candidate as unserious, especially one that’s leading the pack in the polls.
Oh I do not doubt Trump is serious about it. I just doubt others seem his candidature seriously.
Meh. He’s not doing that well in the polls. He has name recognition and a lot of the other candidates split their votes.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/two-good-reasons-not-to-take-the-donald-trump-surge-seriously/
I think if Newsweek hates Trump, he’s worth a look.
And I think if the GOPe pushes Jeb, Marco, or any other “Illegals First!” Democrat-Lite, I’ll be supporting Trump’s third-party bid… even if it means President Hill.
And I think the GOPe has nobody but themselves to blame for that.
I understand the sentiment. I voted for Perot twice, without apology or regret. If the Dead Elephant Party wants my vote they know where to find me.
If you would vote for a narcissistic moron like Trump over someone like Rubio, who has a 98% lifetime ACU rating, “even if it means
President Hill,” then you, sir, are an idiot.
Gee, Dave, what do you think is gonna happen to the demographics of the electoral college when the 25+MILLION illegal immigrants Marco Rubio wants to grant amnesty to start to vote? After all, the recipients of the last few amnesties only vote 75-90% Democrat, that can’t shift anything… right?
Trump is a lot of bad things, but he’s also the ONLY candidate to have used the word “Mexican” in the same sentence as “Illegal Immigrant”. Or hell, to have used the phrase “Illegal Immigrant” at all.
Or do you think they all came from Canada?
Go back to your battered wives’ shelter and tell the other inmates you put the whacko bird in his place… and don’t worry Dave, that black eye is just because the Party loves you.
I’m not sure even Trump believes in all the crazy sh1t Trump says. He’s such a caricature of himself now, nothing he says carries any weight. On the political or believability ‘gravitas’ scale, they guy is weightless.
He’s doing a schtick based on what found out during the Mexigate Incident a few weeks back. Plenty of voters ‘think’ like he [supposedly] does, or so say the ‘polls’. So he’s shooting for the lowest common denominator he can find, the supposed racist attitude of the White Right. Does that make him a Fascist?
No.
Only getting elected and turning the Mexicans / Illegal Aliens into the ‘New Evil Jews’ will make him a Fascist. On second thought, maybe the question is wrongly put. Perhaps a better question would or should be, “IS Trump a Nazi?”
I’d give that resounding yes.
I’ll be checking the on hand ammo level here at Casa der Schtumpy, IF Trump EVER starts channeling Howard Dean [who was channeling old Adolph!] by rattling off all the places where his campaign would be going next.
I saw this yesterday. While I don’t have any great illusions about Trump, read it to see how the GOPe intends to game the primary schedule to nominate their preferred candidate.* It’s pretty depressing.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/07/13/why-i-support-donald-trumps-campaign-and-its-probably-not-what-you-think/
*I’m not convinced it’s Bush. I think it’s Rubio.