How Trump's Language likens that of Classical Authoritarians
It makes sense to allege Donald J. Trump of equipping a language comparable to that of Adolf Hitler¹, especially since he has become more fond of likening his political opponents to vermin and the likes; he is only one tad away of calling them a disease begetting the American popular body² (Volkskörper), if he hasn't already--I don't keep up with his public iterations, online or offline. Overall, it is needless to say that his speech has become more dehumanising by the minute, after having become more ressentiment-laden during the Biden presidency³. We know that he has blamed incumbent POTUS Joe Biden for the two assassinations⁴ (and the one that was firstly suspected and contradicted later), as well as his VPOTUS Kamala Harris who he likes to call "comrade", although he has yet to prove either of the two implicit allegations: That Biden instigated assassination attempts against Trump--so far, he has only once made a remark that affiliated Trump to (semi-)Fascism⁵, and even that has been uttered years ago, while Trump usually refers to presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a Socialist, again totally unsubstantiated⁶. Altogether, if there is one candidate in the presidential race tainting the other with hateful language that had the potential to provoke violent actions, it would be Mr. Trump.
Today it also dawned on me that this pursuit of the opposition's dehumanisation has also been proven by scholars of the Third Reich to achieve just that: That the dehumanisation will trigger more violent policies towards the subjects-matter. Before the Nazis came to power and before they erected the concentration camps, they propagated both the guilt of the minorities for the ailments that befell the general populace, and their subhumanity, both in order to make policies targeting their eradication and displacement more palatable to the people. That's what Hannah Arendt has pointed out in her “Origins of Totalitarianism”. As she has written in two spots in said book:
„Gleich anderen totalitären Formen der Politik kann diese Methode, den zu Ermordenden als einen Sterbenden hinzustellen ,sich voll nur unter den Bedingungen einer totalitären Diktatur durchsetzen.”
„Der Gegner ist, wie die nazistische Rechtswissenschaft mit Recht feststellte, gleich einem Bazillenträger, objektiv gefährlich als Träger bestimmter Tendenzen; und die in Sowjetrußland tödliche Anklage des Konterrevolutionärs wird erhoben und ist bewiesen, »bevor die Frage nach dem Verhalten des Angeklagten sich überhaupt gestellt hat«.”⁷
The Jewish professor of Romance languages, Viktor Klemperer, who because he married a German “pure-blooded” woman was deemed the protective status of a “half-Jew” (Halbjude), has joined in on the understanding of the Nazis' anti-Semitism as another symptom of their racial ideology separating between Aryans and the degraded rest. As he has written:
„Zu allen früheren Zeiten galt die Feindschaft gegen die Juden einzig dem außerhalb des christlichen Glaubens und der christlichen Gesellschaft stehenden Menschen; die Annahme der Landeskonfessionen und -sitte wirkte ausgleichend und (mindestens für die nachfolgenden Generationen) verwischend. Indem der Rassegedanke den Unterschied zwischen Juden und Nichtjuden in das Blut verlagert, macht er jeden Ausgleich unmöglich, verewigt die Scheidung und legitimiert sie als gottgewollt.”
Two pages onwards, Klemperer also referred to Arthur de Gobineau's « Essai sur l'Inégalité des races humaines » to explain where the Nazis found their philosophical façade for their racism⁸. We know that Trump, while having stoked hatred against Haitian immigrants after instrumentalising a photograph of a man carrying two dead Canadian geese on the streets of Columbus⁹ (which he moreover misidentified as Springfield, Ohio), he has not been plainly outspoken in any racist ways or means during his political career, unlike in his past when he still worked as a realtor in New York City¹⁰. It may seem awkward at times when he points out non-Caucasian supporters within his audience realms, or when those supporters themselves heave their identity on the frontline, in the fashion of “X for Trump”; but perhaps this is just the outside view on US politics that at times differs starkly from that in, say, Western Europe. Either way, polls suggest that minorities, perhaps except for Latin@s who have fled from authoritarian Meso-American countries, favour Harris over Trump in the 2024 General Election¹¹. We could of course assume that those voter groups are traditionally astute Democratic voters so that someone like Trump couldn't haze their determination. Still, Trump is in dire need to earn a tip ahead of his Democratic adversary as the race remains tight, with leads well within the statistical error of two to five percent. Hateful, divisive language is unlikely to do the trick.
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| Citation in the footnotes.* |
« Lorsque l'homme aura été entièrement adapté à cette société, lorsqu'il aura fini par obéir avec enthousiasme, parce que persuadé de l'excellence de ce qu'on lui fait faire, la contrainte d'organisation ne sera plus ressentie, à la vérité elle ne sera plus contrainte, et la police n'aura plus que faire. La bonne volonté civique et technicienne et l'enthousiasme du mythe social, créés par la propagande, auront résolu définitivement le problème de l'homme. »¹⁴
To finish with a little lighter language, my advice would thus be: Don't let them fool you, don't take their word for granted. Always question whether the words you just heard bear merit and are not just a supply of hot air trying to tear people's bonds apart to make being controlled easier for 'them'. And by them, I of course mean the populists who shout, ramble and sow anger, vitriol and suspicion.
FINIS
Postscriptum:
I have also written another text the day before on a related issue. If you would like to read that too, follow right here: https://politique-rationale.blogspot.com/2024/10/reflections-on-excerpt-from-aleksei.html#more
Second Postscriptum:
Recently, presidential candidate has made the news again with a now infamous campaign event in New York City's Madison Square Garden, where featured speakers like stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and David Rem, amongst others, have uttered blatantly sexist and racist remarks¹⁵. Aside of that being his most openly fringe appearance to date, proving further that his presidency would lead to abundant collateral damage for the US in terms of reputation and the societal faults it would widen, it has also shown that despite not having intervened into the running speeches, he felt the need to conduct some damage control to not risk his reëlection efforts, one week before the official election date¹⁶. We can expect that he felt that need when even incumbent Republican officials condemned those remarks¹⁷, although most of them were concerned about the remark referring to Puerto Rico, a US overseas department in the Caribbean area, as a “garbage island”. If I had to comment on the overall appearance of the “Golden Pony”, it would be that: Insulting someone is not to make jokes about that person. Alleging Latinos of not being able to “make babies” is not a joke, it's an allegation, perhaps embedded in racist or otherwise deteriorating stereotypes. On Wikipedia, one can read that he professes in “roasts”, so that I see where he is coming from, but that still doesn't justify being overtly racist. That's the same lame method with which Eric Cartman in “South Park” tried to shield being a prick before Kyle Broflovski, claiming that he suffered from Tourette syndrom. If he wanted to learn how to make jokes about other people, specifically about other cultures, he should see Tony Orlando's appearance on The Roast of Muhammad Ali, hosted by Dean Martin in 1976. Of course he, like some of the other attendants, made jokes based on stereotypes, but they all were still less insulting than he was, because they didn't tear down an entire culture or people for the sake of dunking on someone. Hinchcliffe lacked all subtlety and any sign of a punchline, preceded by the onset of an actual joke. Instead, he dragged a diatribe against non-Caucasian people.
In his defence, Hinchcliffe wrote that people “didn't have a sense of humour” and that he “made fun of everyone”. Perhaps he did, but if it was all in this same fashion, it didn't amend what he said about an already vulnerable people, particularly a people that is often amongst the first to be ravaged by seasonal hurricanes, not to speak of violence instigated by racists. There is no comedy about kicking downwards, just as there isn't about equally uninspired rants about “capitalists” and “the rich”. But the latter often at least had the money to pay bodyguards to protect them in case things went out of control. To speak in the sense of Tony Orlando, all Puerto Ricans had would be knives and pistols.
Hinchcliffe closed his defence in claiming that he didn't need to justify himself for making jokes. If that is his point, then so be it. But one only needs to look back on how his roast against Sino-American stand-up comedian went, and what he considered to be a “joke” back then²⁰. At least Trump didn't need to go on a rando, claiming that he did not intend this to happen and that Hinchcliffe's remarks didn't align with his own, despite his own scandals emerged from more than controversial remarks targeting dissenters of his, calling them vermin and lowlives²¹. This guest for a campaign show therefore aligns well with his language and policy proposals. One furthermore does not need to be a seasoned political scientist in order to understand what a second Trump tenure implied, was it bound to happen: His language continues resembling that of Mussolini and Hitler at once.
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FOOTNOTES:
¹ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/13/how-trumps-rhetoric-compares-hitlers/
² Graf, E. T., & Schiefeneder, F. (2020). Propaganda für einen "gesunden Volkskörper" im Nationalsozialismus. In D. Reifegerste, & C. Sammer (Hrsg.), Gesundheitskommunikation und Geschichte: interdisziplinäre Perspektiven (S. 1-23). Stuttgart: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft e.V. https://doi.org/10.21241/ssoar.70274
³ Kelly, C. R. (2019). Donald J. Trump and the rhetoric of ressentiment. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 106(1), 2–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2019.1698756
⁴ https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-2024-election-assassination-attempt-836523f3bbecf4a183dc46fbefd8230a
⁵ https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/01/biden-called-trumpism-semi-fascism-term-makes-sense-historically/
⁶ He even dug into her family history, finding out that her father studied Marxism at university: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/us/politics/harris-father-marxist-trump.html
Now I as someone who would affiliate himself more towards Neoliberalism, I would have no problem with someone studying Marxism, since as a concept it can be applied scientifically, without steeping into political radicalism. It only shows that Trump has got no clue what he's talking about and only applies this word as a buzz to arouse anger and obtuse vitriol about an abstract concept fewer than a quarter who loudmouth about it actually understand.
⁷ Arendt, Hannah (2001 [1951]. Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft. München, Zürich: Piper Verlag. Pp. 742; 878.
⁸ Klemperer, Viktor (aut.); Fröhlich, Elke (Hrsg.) (2019). LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen. Leipzig: Reclam. Pp. 153; 155.
⁹ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/14/trump-immigrants-haitian-venezuelan-springfield-aurora/
https://observer.case.edu/the-real-consequences-of-trumps-statement-on-springfield-ohio/
¹⁰ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-racism-comments/588067/
¹¹ The last poll that provides distinctive information on the voters' identity I had at hand is the NYT/Siena College poll, which affirms my point: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/13/us/elections/times-siena-poll-likely-electorate-crosstabs.html
¹² https://politique-rationale.blogspot.com/2024/08/Sic-Semper-Tyrannis.html#more
¹³ https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/16/trump-transition-hiring-staffer-ban-00183208
¹⁴ Propagandes (1962), Jacques Ellul, éd. Economica, coll. « classiques des sciences sociales », 1990, p. 14.
¹⁵ https://apnews.com/article/trump-madison-square-garden-new-york-election-fcfe75be7f8281fde7bffa3adb3bba5d
¹⁶ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/28/trump-rally-atlanta-georgia-campaign-election/
¹⁷ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/us/politics/puerto-rico-republicans-trump-msg-rally.html
¹⁸ South Park, season 11, episode 08, “Le Petit Tourette”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995582/
¹⁹ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1836173/
²⁰ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/05/13/comedian-tony-hinchcliffe-under-fire-racial-slur-peng-dang/5070632001/
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/tony-hinchcliffe-racist-peng-dang/
²¹ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-new-hampshire-veterans.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/us/politics/trump-opponents-enemy-within.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/13/how-trumps-rhetoric-compares-hitlers/
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