Three of Erich Fromm’s books were on my favorites shelf of my library from my late 20’s and have not lost any standing since. Escape From Freedom was my first choice, then To Have or to Be, and The Art of Loving.
I appreciate today’s fine piece, Abraham, as well as your respectful comments. Those show such rationality and forbearance. They show knowledge that I don’t possess. So thank you.
Thanks for your support, Susan. There are several books from the 1940s and '50s that tried to understand the supporters of mass movements like Nazism and Communism: who are these people? and why do they fall for these demagogues?
Fromm was one of the first to get at the whole "escape" from individual responsibility and escape from thinking on your own; escape into the mass movement (ie the mob) where you're no longer responsible for your own thoughts or actions and you can vent verbally (Trump, every day) and physically (Jan.6).
It's not about Left or Right, it's about people taking cover under a Demagogue to unleash their worst selves.
Right now it is mostly on Right (the whole MAGA, Q-Anon madness), and my whole point on this site is to help to stop Trumpism from taking root - ie, winning in 2024. So I use my keyboard to fight them, and hopefully to motivate others.
Well you motivated me. I can’t do what you do and I’m so happy for your skills of fairness and diplomacy and that I found your Substack.
I don’t know enough about political history to be of much use in that regard but I’ve been steeped in malignant narcissism over a long time period in the past.
You could say I had the mentality of a Trump follower to stay with it so long. But, I’m an astute observer of behavior so I was privileged to study and learn and finally move on. Fromm helped.
Those devotees of Trump don’t realize there’s no one inside Trump’s head, no leader, and he’s cut off at the heart. But some of those closest to him must know.
This all makes sense if you are emoting over your elite position while standing on your head while submerged in a pickle barrel.
Having just emerged from the most profound pandemic authoritarian power orgasm of the elite ruling class otherwise known as the opposition to making American great again... that same cohort screaming that those they oppressed, subjugated and harmed beyond repair are the real fascist authoritarian threat is not only impossible to take seriously, it reminds the rest of us while that version of the ruling class is unfit to lead and must be neutered of power.
"emoting over your elite position while standing on your head while submerged in a pickle barrel."
Frank, I always enjoy your poetic way with words, but your critical analysis skills are slipping.
First, apart from generalizing and stereotyping (why am I an elite? Because I got an education? Didn't you get an education? Does that make you part of the "elite ruling class"?) you're not really providing any rebuttal to Fromm's observations.
Where do you see the "real fascist authoritarian threat"?
And who says the Left doesn't want to make America great again? It's the MAGA METHODS that are at issue: huge tax breaks to the wealthiest? scapegoating immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, educated people, journalists, non-Q-anon people? reviving Hitler's racist language from the 1930s: political opponents are "vermin [who] are poisoning the blood of America"?
No Frank, we all want to make America great again; but not by relying on the classic fascist playbook.
Okay, you're blaming the elite ruling class for all your (and everyone else's) problems, but stop for a moment: when you talk about "elite the ruling class" - doesn't that include Trump and his billionaire donors and his rich Wall Street partners.
Are you saying that the 80+million voters who voted for Biden are all part of some "elite ruling class"? And you (educated, intelligent, successful) aren't part of the elite ruling class?
I want to add my appreciation of the pickle barrel, and take a somewhat different tack in response to Frank's comment.
First, I think Frank chose a poor pathway for his argument: the pandemic response isn't going to work in this parallel. The reason why I think this is that while Frank wants to portray it as liberal/progressive authoritarians using health policy to attack their political opponents, MAGA followers, the evidence is conclusive that this wasn't so. What evidence? When Covid subsided and new treatments eliminated it as a pandemic the social constraints were eliminated as well. The reason this is so is pretty obvious: the attack wasn't on MAGA, it was on the virus. Left and Right significantly disagreed on how to respond to the virus--and when you go policy by policy, there are ones that the Left was wrong about and others the Right was wrong about--but there was nothing in that dispute that is related to the social dynamic that Fromm is talking about. (I don't actually think that's entirely true, but that's because I think Fromm's dynamic applies to a degree to MAGA leaders' political exploitation of pandemic disputes, which unfortunately led to higher mortality rates in Red states.)
But I think Frank could have made a better argument. In his responses to your last post, AW, Frank was pointing to over-the-top positions taken by progressives on transgender issues and prescriptions for new politically correct speech. Unlike the Right, where MAGA has captured the Republican Party, illiberal progressivism is not in control of the Democratic Party, so the full implications of Left illiberalism are not as visible. (And, I want to add, I think the power of extreme progressivism is now beginning to decline on the Left overall, because people like Frank and many on the Center-Left have been relentlessly pointing out its dangers.) If Frank's argument had been something like, "Look at the features of the extreme Left and its Orwellian new-speak 'propaganda' influencing young Americans, especially the 'elite' who are in college now. Don't you think Fromm would be alarmed at the potential for authoritarianism there?" then I think he would have expressed a valid Right perspective that responsibly replied to your post.
Here is one way to frame it. Consider Joe Biden starting, running and growing a private business. LOL. I do that and Joe Biden does not have the capability to manage the supply room. But he is an elite ruling class leader.
like it or not, and I assume you do no like it, your political ilk are the same establishment war-mongering globalist financial market bosses that your political party used to protest against. You are the covisistas... the dreamers of totalitarian collectivist authoritarianism that showed exactly what you are made of during the pandemic... because you know... you are THE ELECT... the chosen people... those with such impressive academic credentials but lacking impressive accomplishment in real enterprise... the Wall Street bankers, the "think tank" masters... the government and NGO occupiers... the lawyers... the professional class... the managerial class... the ruling class... the people that don't invent, make, build or grow anything of value, but whom skim off the economic production of those that do... you MUST be in charge... to be in control... to "help" all those lesser people have a good life because... you know... they are just incapable of making good decisions without your brilliant direction of rules and enforcement.
To equate MAGA to anti-freedom is just so damn unserious I cannot get up the energy to debate anything of substance. Maybe you should just consider your political ilk's behavior and polling around the concept of free speech. That is just of many examples of authoritarian actions that come from the Democrat cabal and not its opposition you attempt to denigrate for its label Making America Great Again.
I work in an industry that strives to improve economic conditions in the black urban community. The past and present harm being done to those communities has everything to do with your current ideological tribe fueled by corporate money and nothing to do with MAGA. In fact. MAGA as a collection of ideas is the best thing that the black urban community could ever hope for.
Industries that ‘strive’ to improve economic conditions in the black urban community is not a big sell for me, Frank. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Pretty much every single thing you accuse your ‘opponents‘ of being and doing is what my sources and most importantly my observations tell me are precisely what my ‘opponents’ demonstrate every day through the entity Donald Trump.
The ‘man who is not there’ is run by a program accepted by him from infancy to 5 years old, a program that Trump is not alone in adopting.
there's certainly a whole lot of "projecting" by Trump and company, projecting their own flaws onto their opponents, so Trump calls his opponents liars and crooked and anti-democracy - projecting his own worst elements onto others. Classic narcissist defence mechanism.
He was Senator Joe McCarthy's hitman in the "un-American" sham hearings; then he went to work for the mob, and then to Trump's father where he taught young Trump how to lie, steal, cheat, blackmail your enemies, etc., and also where he got Trump's sister a judgeship (by blackmailing some gay judges - Cohn was a closet gay). Cohn was monster and taught all his dirty tricks to Donald Trump. What a legacy!
He is incapable of a life outside that program and in an attempt to not have to think, and to make life effortless, he has to maintain the walls he has built against a more open and inclusive reality.
His purpose is defeated though because of the tremendous psychological effort he must constantly exert to not succumb to a more compelling and powerful truth.
Frank, You're stereotyping Democrats the way my progressive friends stereotype Republicans. I'm sure you'll listen to me as little as they do, but I've spent an awful lot of time trying to model the idea that if we get to know one another (again) we'll dissolve those stereotypes and realize that our common enemy is extremism of all sorts: extremism in ideas, extremism in behavior, extremism in our relationships as natural political adversaries (an opposition that I feel is absolutely critical to wise government and a healthy country, so long as it's healthy).
But I'm going to tell a story, sad but true, that I thought of as soon as I read your latest response. Five years ago I arranged, with great effort, to have lunch with the most influential Republican in my county--the GOP Chair acknowledged as much. (This fellow was a Tea Party leader who had moved over to MAGA, and when Congressmen or Senators came to the county it was to talk to his group, not the County GOP.) The GOP Chair finally arranged the lunch.
I was impressed. He was an engineer who had retired from a successful career in corporate management--grew up in a small town not far away but went to college and took courses from Milton Friedman. He was a smart conservative. He loved it when we shook hands after lunch and I listed all our topics pointing out that we'd disagreed on every one. He gave me campaign literature from a recent run for office so I could bone up more on his positions. We met again and I introduced him to a number of people, including progressives who I thought were grown up enough to talk to him; of course, I hung around to moderate. But later, at public hearings where I wasn't around, they got into fights and my Leftie friends were very uncivil--they hadn't become convinced like me that he was basically a good guy. I scolded them and supported him. He was civil and had made a real contribution; they were young and more like the caricature you write. Then after a year he moved down to his hometown a county away and we lost touch. His MAGA subgroup among county Republicans disbanded and I figured he'd form another one in his county.
That's the end of the story--except that all of a sudden last Fall I saw his picture in the paper. He was going off to Federal prison for 3+ years having pled guilty to fraudulently setting up shell companies into which he diverted $450,000 of Federal Covid funds for himself and three co-defendants (they were named only by initials in the indictment, so I suppose they flipped on him). He'd actually started the fraud in 2019--when we were still talking--and then Covid funding fell into his lap and he multiplied his efforts. (He was due for another $200K when the Feds caught up with him and canceled the payments.) What do you think my progressive friends will say to me now when his name comes up. (I've completely avoided the topic--I still like that guy and feel bad he's in jail. But how could I have been so taken in? I wonder whether that MAGA group he had going were taken in as well, or were they all fraudsters too--maybe they'd all have fooled me.)
It's been a couple of hours since I thought of that story and I've trying to think, "So what's the moral?" I think it's that people are people no matter which political side they're on, and it's foolish to think there's really any difference in the characters of the people on each side overall. The other side looks bad because they're the other side. Open your eyes and see that your side isn't the salt of the earth--I sure know their are plenty of idiots and charlatans on mine.
Really, I'd visit him in prison if they'd sent him anywhere nearby.
Great story. But I never make the mistake of equating the moral trajectory of individuals as representative of any group. I only assign group behavior to groups as they demonstrate the collective behavior. Remember when the House female caucus all wore the same Cuban kaikai uniforms to protest him during a State of the Union? I think the same one where Nancy Pelosi ripped up his speech like a childish brat?
I live in CA in a liberal college town. I have been active in local politics trying to move the needle to fix many of the problems the city faces. I have PHD-level hours invested in the very type of interactions you mention... coffee with my liberal friends. Conversations on community blogs. Social media interactions. Block party conversations. There was a time when Democrats and Republicans included a minority of rabid partisans and then there was this center like you that could listen and think critically. With respect to the left, that is gone. I still find it in large quantities on the right. Many of my right leaning friends are eager and happy to meet with and debate their ideological opponents... but it is those people that refuse... they stay in their tribe, in their bubble... they don't like to be challenged... they are THE ELECT... their egos are so mated to their need to feel righteous and right about everything, that they just block out all opposing views and degrade to vitriol and invective. These are not just the young leftists... these are Baby Boomer liberals... many that I counted as friends before. I don't think Trump broke them... I think leftism is a mental condition for many... Trump just brought their crazy out into the open.
I am of the mind that we have this problem in our society where left-leaning people were never intended to nor qualified to lead,,, but yet THEY are addicted to gaining power over others. In my City with one of the largest universities in the country these lefties will not allow any peripheral development. The tax base for the city is lower per capita than any other comparable city. The budget is busted. The roads are a mess. The parks are a mess. The cops are underfunded. Homeless ness is exploding. Young professionals and young families are missing and leaving. Yet these liberals will show up to the City Council meeting in busloads to demand that the City Council pass a resolution against Israel. They. Are. Fucking. Insane. Excuse my bad language.
I was always getting blasted by my family and friends for not being respectful enough to their absurd ideas and positions that did not make any rational sense... did not pencil out... would always lead to a spiral downward in more problems. Now those same people tell me that I was not critical enough. I played nice when they had no interest to do the same.
Those days are gone. I am committed to defeating every damn leftist and liberal I can. Maybe after that we will see a rise of the reasonable the thoughtful Democrat again. But today there are so few of them around and they are overwhelmed by what we would have clearly identified as radical before, but is mainstream Democrat today. I have old liberal friends yelling at me that men can get pregnant, that is fine that the border is open with millions of illegal immigrants pouring in, that we can force scarcity of gas and energy and the poor and middle class will just be fine, that we need fewer cops and more crime is a reasonable alternative to busting minorities that are actual criminals, that we need to restrict free speech and eliminate guns and that middle-class construction workers are fascists and need to be locked up.
I sympathize with your experience, Frank. Here's a quick Sunday morning response. For years I was involved with a national group called Better Angels (now Braver Angels--some trademark issue!) which brought "Red" and "Blue" people together to talk on a regular basis (after everyone had gone through an all-day workshop about *how* to talk across ideological barriers . . . Keep breathing deeply!). My experience was just like yours in reverse: even though the GOP party chair was a co-chair of the group we couldn't find enough Red folks to join. There were some fine conservatives (including the GOP chair, who supported Trump), but others would behave so poorly that their colleagues would come apologize afterward. (That happened once with a Blue guy for one session that I missed. The other Blue members took him to lunch and told him not to return to the group.)
There was a written rule that nothing said in the group could be repeated outside it with attribution--we all agreed never to say, "So-and-so said such-and-such" in telling others about our conversations. Moderators always noted the rule when our lunch meetings began because it was essential to openness and trust. I left the group when a vociferous non-member, a full-on MAGA person whom I had never met personally, began to attack me on our local newspaper online comment boards, using bizarrely distorted versions of comments I'd made in the group. I don't know whether the people who leaked to him were hearing me in bizarre ways or whether this guy was twisting things himself. No one would cop to the rule violations and I could no longer speak freely so I had to drop out. (I knew which people were leaking but I couldn't call them out. We still have friendly conversations when we meet at the supermarket. They do the talking and I smile and ask after their health.)
Frank, from your description of your experiences with California progressives-in-power I can understand your frustrations, but as you imply in your opening sentence, it's mistake to generalize from individual (or small group) events to the wider public.
I enjoy watching Bill Maher and he relates many of the same experiences, and I agree that there are many absurd ideas and positions among progressives - but it's mistake to generalize from them to ALL Democrats. We don't ALL support the kinds of initiatives you're experiencing there - for example, I don't think biological males (however they identify in their minds and souls) should compete in female sports. That's like if a Grade 10 student identifies as a Grade 6er: does he get to write the Grade 6 tests?
I do believe that some women are born in men's bodies, and that some men are born in women's bodies, and it must be very tough for them. It's not a choice, that's how God made (or mis-made them) and I wish them well, but on some points - like biological men competing in women's sports - I gotta say no, sorry, that's unfair to the women.
But - and here's my main point - these issues involve a very small percentage of the population, but eat up a very large percentage of the public debate.
What about climate change? Why isn't that front and center in political debates? It's costing America billions and trillions and will only get worse - but it's barely mentioned in town halls or debates.
So there's lots of loony lefty stuff, and lots of loony righty stuff, and lots of really serious problems that need reasonable people to sit down and try to solve. Maybe you and me. And Robert Eno. And the other readers here - we could probably do a better job of finding solutions than all those Big Names out there - on both sides.
Well it's getting late in the libtard east, so it's time to lock up my gold, sip some free-range latte, and hit my non-Pillow-Guy sack.
Robert, thanks for your efforts to illustrate "civil" discourse. All this name-calling and dehumanizing (on both sides) doesn't improve anything, and simply makes finding solutions more difficult.
And yes, there are "plenty of idiots and charlatans" on both sides, and they seem to be the ones that get the headlines - as in MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and then there's the "squad". There's book called "Wing Nuts" about how the extremists take over political parties (I think it's about MAGA taking over the Republican Party) but it applies anywhere. Here's a question that most Americans can't answer: name the Member of Congress from (Nebraska 4th district? Ohio 2nd? Oregon 3rd?).
And you're right about the generalizations and stereotyping on both sides: MAGAs are red-neck AR-15-carrying morons who think Trump is in the blood-line from Jesus himself (by way of Elvis); and Lefties are all latte-sipping East Coast elite ruling-class billionaires who care more about trans-bathrooms than saving America.
Well, both are wrong.
And the whole point of this week's review of Fromm's "Escape from Freedom" was to provide someone's attempt to understanding how millions of his countrymen fell under the spell of a narcissistic racist psychopath who led them into a world war and into the operation of genocidal death camps.
(the next book, Hoffer's "True Believers" shows a very similar trajectory for some people into both right (fascist) and left (communist) mass movements. The goal is to try to UNDERSTAND why and how people (of any political bent) can fall under the spell of these demagogues. That's what I'm trying to do in this series about Trump supports. Not to denigrate them, but to understand what's going on in the their minds. There are a lot of factors (First Installment "Fisher's Law" was a tongue-in-cheek explanation (half population is below average intelligence) with a grain of truth that applies to some (but surely not all) Trump loyalists. Fromm provided insight from his own experience (he escaped Nazi Germany) but not before seeing his countrymen go ga-ga over their "Savior" who would make their nation great again.
So thanks again for engaging in civil discourse and sharing your thoughts and experiences. I hope are friend Frank has a better response than to simply call you names and blame Biden for everything.
AW, Frank's response to me personally was, "and then there was this center like you that could listen and think critically." I was complimented.
(BTW, am I supposed to know the Member from Nebraska's 4th? I think anyone who can rattle off the 438 Members, assigned to their districts, needs to get a life . . . I hope you can't!)
HI Robert, my point was, we all know MTG and company because they're headline-grabbers, they're in it for the fame & glory & me,me,me, but there are hundreds who (I hope) are in it for their districts and their country, but because they're not performance artists and attention-grabbers, no one knows their names. The few loudmouths get the news and get interviewed and get followed around by packs of journalists with mics out to capture their latest blather - while the hard-working representatives are unknown. I can't name any of them, because, hopefully, they're doing their jobs instead of chasing headlines.
Frank, I'm not saying making America great is a bad thing, I'm saying that Trump lifted "Make America Great Again" from Hitler's (winning) 1932 campaign slogan "Make Germany Great Again." Goebbels probably would have thought of red hats too but "MGGA" just didn't roll off the tongue.
And what's with this Dems are all: "THE ELECT... the chosen people... the Wall Street bankers ... the lawyers" Seems to me Trump is literally SURROUNDED with Wall Street bankers and lawyers. (Guiliani, Sidney Barrow, Jenna Elllis, etc? )And aren't Ted Cruz and Steve Bannon and Ron DeSantis and a dozen other Trump acolytes Harvard Law School grads? So Dems are all evil lawyers?
Come on now. A few bottom feeding bit players does not measure up to Larry Fink, Mortimer Buckly, Ronald O'Malley. And then their globalist pals like Klaus Scwab and George Soros. Together these billionaires have controlling ownership in most large corporations. This is the power seat of the global corporotocracy that pays off the administrative ruling class like Joe Biden. The American political establishment is in bed with it. So are administrators around the West. All of the Democrat leadership and 30% of the Republican leadership are part of the cabal. The 70% that is against the establishment and Wall Street powered global corporotocracy is your political foe.
Making America Great Again is about taking the country away from these tyrannical looters and giving it back to the people.
... ever heard of the Koch brothers? Elon Musk? Or other billionaire supporters of Trump? Forbes has a good long list of "Billionaires who contributed to Trump's 2020 campaign."
(And, speaking of billionaires and global conspiracies, why do you think a Saudi prince gave Jared Kushner $2 billion?)
And surely you're not saying that FOX is part of this great left-wing conspiracy.
When it comes to "tyrannical looters" there's plenty of blame to go around on all sides of the political spectrum (it's politics!) and if you think Trump isn't a first-class grifter then I've got a bridge in the Bahamas that I'll sell you real cheap. Believe me.
And ps, when it comes to "giving it back to the people" there's something called "elections" which Republicans apparently don't believe in (unless they win) and court systems that Republicans apparently don't believe in (unless they win).
Fromm's book is an attempt to explain how people with unsatisfactory lives are susceptible (en mass) to the lies and absurdities of skilled politicians of any political bent. Did you even read the article, or is just another: AW writes BS, attack him and his ruling class elites.
And you keep avoiding the question: you're educated and financially successful: doesn't that make YOU part of the elite ruling class?
Trump represents the pragmatists... the 70% of the country that are NOT the over-educated, elite snobs, vulnerable narcissists, social cynics & malcontents, economic looters and rent-seekers, political charlatans and general psychotherapy needing people. He is funny because he targets this other 30% that are a hot mess of childish bad behavior and idiotic luxury beliefs. He goes too far at a times... pulling some political opponents that are more of the pragmatist cohort into the opposition hive, but he generally gets it right. I hear quite often from some of the 70% that they wish we would have a more bipartisan candidate. Well, I have lived with and debated that 30% for several decades, and I support the Trump approach for the simple reason that the 30% are generally insane and have the power... and those two things together have proven too dangerous for playing nice.
Kotch Brothers are anti-Trump. Musk isn't a Trump supporter. However, he supports things like free speech which apparently your party no longer supports.
The Saudis did not give $2 billion to Jared Kusher, they deposited $2 billion into the investment firm he works for. It is peanuts compared to the trillions of Democrat billionaire dollars in Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street investment accounts.
Fox is just another of the corporate media controlled by these Wall Street firms... as is big tech except for Twitter.
Republicans believe in fair and honest elections. Those that do not allow mass mail in ballots because ballot harvesting happens and cannot be proven. Why do you Democrats refuse to support a national ID like all other OECD countries require? Stacey Abrams supports it? Your black brethren are confused as to why their elite Democrat handlers think they are too stupid to have their own IDs.
I am educated and a one-percenter, but I came from nothing and my interest is to make sure the country supports people like me for future generations.
Keith, here's an American novel written in 1935 describing "what could happen if Trump has his way." This was written as Hitler was on the rise, before the mass insanity, war, and genocide to follow. But the author knew how a demagogue got to power - by fooling the public into thinking he was "for the people".
It's an old story, foretelling a moral apocalypse (the author won a Nobel Prize) and it can happen here. It's already happening; Trump has his mass of followers who believe him; now he just has to retake power, and the old apocalypse is new yet again.
Amazing how history repeats itself, repeats itself, repeats itself, repeats itself!!!
Reminds me of the great saying, “the definition of insanity, keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. Historians try to save us from ourselves.
you got it, Keith; but knowing history requires Reading, not 3-syllable bumper-sticker slogans (Drain the Swamp, Build the Wall, USA) and it also requires Honesty and Sanity and Reality, all of which are sadly missing from the Republicans who refuse to admit that Trump is a charlatan and a conman who is just telling them what they want to hear, and stirring up emotional resentment and hatred.
I'm proud of including book reviews here: they provide some historical context and they are all warnings that this has happened before and can happen again.
And for the Trumpers among us, I'm not an apologist for Biden or the Dems, but any Honest reading of history shows that Trumpism can easily morph into Fascism.
Madeleine Albright's "Fascism: A Warning" inspired this site and its title.
My 8 book reviews were designed to give readers weeks/months of reading in 5-minute nutshell recaps, and I hope more of you take advantage. If only we could open the eyes of those who have surrendered their freedom of thought, and submerged their identities into the Great Leader, the Strongman, the Savior.
But if there's one and only one review that Trumpers read here, I suggest Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style in American Politics" - he's describing the rise of the "Radical Right" in the 1950s and 60s, but it's a prophecy of what's happening today.
I'm just pulling together the insights I've found in reading about mass movements and their followers.
Adorno's clinical studies of Authoritarian Personalities (1951) and Hoffer's "True Believers" (also 1951) provide further insights. And I think I'll revisit Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style of American Politics" and Bell's "The Radical Right."
It's worth the effort to try to open some minds and break the trance of those who seem to be caught inside Trump's bubble of absurdities. But there are people here who will probably see things differently.
But thanks for reading and commenting on my posts.
My wife and I just watched an episode of “FBI True” about the Oklahoma City bombing of the Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. They interviewed the FBI agents that were involved with the investigation that brought them to justice.
Yes, Germany eventually rebounded, but between Hitler's ascension to power in 1932 and the end of WW2, how many tens of millions died, what unbelievable atrocities were committed, how much destruction of property and lives? All in an effort to Make Germany Great Again. Surely the echoes in this book sound disturbingly familiar.
Maybe, let me speculate, when the support structures of earth can no longer support the quickly burgeoning population. The common consciousness of mankind decides (unconsciously) to create a situation that will kill off huge numbers of us.
couple hundred years ago a guy named Malthus came up with the "natural" solution to over-population: war, famine, and disease.
With increasing climate change and global travel, we'll probably be seeing a lot more famine and disease, not to mention the wars promoted by unchained authoritarian leaders. The world sure needs some Great Leaders right now.
As if Climate Change, Nuclear Proliferation, Artificial Intelligence weren't worrying enough, we now face the possibility of a neo-fascist leadership in America, and by extension in the world.
ps, as a Canadian, Penfist, do you see the rise of so-called "populism" (always leading inevitably to fascism) a serious threat of coming to power? PM Trudeau seems to be in trouble, and Conservative leader Poilievre is following Trump's populist playbook. Is the "American disease" spreading to Canada?
Disgruntled people always look for someone to blame for their own misfortunes, someone to hate, easy solutions and false promises, and there's always an opportunistic politician eager to exploit all that fear and resentment. Your "Freedom Convoy" invasion of Ottawa should have been an early warning sign.
Three of Erich Fromm’s books were on my favorites shelf of my library from my late 20’s and have not lost any standing since. Escape From Freedom was my first choice, then To Have or to Be, and The Art of Loving.
I appreciate today’s fine piece, Abraham, as well as your respectful comments. Those show such rationality and forbearance. They show knowledge that I don’t possess. So thank you.
Thanks for your support, Susan. There are several books from the 1940s and '50s that tried to understand the supporters of mass movements like Nazism and Communism: who are these people? and why do they fall for these demagogues?
Fromm was one of the first to get at the whole "escape" from individual responsibility and escape from thinking on your own; escape into the mass movement (ie the mob) where you're no longer responsible for your own thoughts or actions and you can vent verbally (Trump, every day) and physically (Jan.6).
It's not about Left or Right, it's about people taking cover under a Demagogue to unleash their worst selves.
Right now it is mostly on Right (the whole MAGA, Q-Anon madness), and my whole point on this site is to help to stop Trumpism from taking root - ie, winning in 2024. So I use my keyboard to fight them, and hopefully to motivate others.
Well you motivated me. I can’t do what you do and I’m so happy for your skills of fairness and diplomacy and that I found your Substack.
I don’t know enough about political history to be of much use in that regard but I’ve been steeped in malignant narcissism over a long time period in the past.
You could say I had the mentality of a Trump follower to stay with it so long. But, I’m an astute observer of behavior so I was privileged to study and learn and finally move on. Fromm helped.
Those devotees of Trump don’t realize there’s no one inside Trump’s head, no leader, and he’s cut off at the heart. But some of those closest to him must know.
This all makes sense if you are emoting over your elite position while standing on your head while submerged in a pickle barrel.
Having just emerged from the most profound pandemic authoritarian power orgasm of the elite ruling class otherwise known as the opposition to making American great again... that same cohort screaming that those they oppressed, subjugated and harmed beyond repair are the real fascist authoritarian threat is not only impossible to take seriously, it reminds the rest of us while that version of the ruling class is unfit to lead and must be neutered of power.
"emoting over your elite position while standing on your head while submerged in a pickle barrel."
Frank, I always enjoy your poetic way with words, but your critical analysis skills are slipping.
First, apart from generalizing and stereotyping (why am I an elite? Because I got an education? Didn't you get an education? Does that make you part of the "elite ruling class"?) you're not really providing any rebuttal to Fromm's observations.
Where do you see the "real fascist authoritarian threat"?
And who says the Left doesn't want to make America great again? It's the MAGA METHODS that are at issue: huge tax breaks to the wealthiest? scapegoating immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, educated people, journalists, non-Q-anon people? reviving Hitler's racist language from the 1930s: political opponents are "vermin [who] are poisoning the blood of America"?
No Frank, we all want to make America great again; but not by relying on the classic fascist playbook.
Okay, you're blaming the elite ruling class for all your (and everyone else's) problems, but stop for a moment: when you talk about "elite the ruling class" - doesn't that include Trump and his billionaire donors and his rich Wall Street partners.
Are you saying that the 80+million voters who voted for Biden are all part of some "elite ruling class"? And you (educated, intelligent, successful) aren't part of the elite ruling class?
I want to add my appreciation of the pickle barrel, and take a somewhat different tack in response to Frank's comment.
First, I think Frank chose a poor pathway for his argument: the pandemic response isn't going to work in this parallel. The reason why I think this is that while Frank wants to portray it as liberal/progressive authoritarians using health policy to attack their political opponents, MAGA followers, the evidence is conclusive that this wasn't so. What evidence? When Covid subsided and new treatments eliminated it as a pandemic the social constraints were eliminated as well. The reason this is so is pretty obvious: the attack wasn't on MAGA, it was on the virus. Left and Right significantly disagreed on how to respond to the virus--and when you go policy by policy, there are ones that the Left was wrong about and others the Right was wrong about--but there was nothing in that dispute that is related to the social dynamic that Fromm is talking about. (I don't actually think that's entirely true, but that's because I think Fromm's dynamic applies to a degree to MAGA leaders' political exploitation of pandemic disputes, which unfortunately led to higher mortality rates in Red states.)
But I think Frank could have made a better argument. In his responses to your last post, AW, Frank was pointing to over-the-top positions taken by progressives on transgender issues and prescriptions for new politically correct speech. Unlike the Right, where MAGA has captured the Republican Party, illiberal progressivism is not in control of the Democratic Party, so the full implications of Left illiberalism are not as visible. (And, I want to add, I think the power of extreme progressivism is now beginning to decline on the Left overall, because people like Frank and many on the Center-Left have been relentlessly pointing out its dangers.) If Frank's argument had been something like, "Look at the features of the extreme Left and its Orwellian new-speak 'propaganda' influencing young Americans, especially the 'elite' who are in college now. Don't you think Fromm would be alarmed at the potential for authoritarianism there?" then I think he would have expressed a valid Right perspective that responsibly replied to your post.
Here is one way to frame it. Consider Joe Biden starting, running and growing a private business. LOL. I do that and Joe Biden does not have the capability to manage the supply room. But he is an elite ruling class leader.
like it or not, and I assume you do no like it, your political ilk are the same establishment war-mongering globalist financial market bosses that your political party used to protest against. You are the covisistas... the dreamers of totalitarian collectivist authoritarianism that showed exactly what you are made of during the pandemic... because you know... you are THE ELECT... the chosen people... those with such impressive academic credentials but lacking impressive accomplishment in real enterprise... the Wall Street bankers, the "think tank" masters... the government and NGO occupiers... the lawyers... the professional class... the managerial class... the ruling class... the people that don't invent, make, build or grow anything of value, but whom skim off the economic production of those that do... you MUST be in charge... to be in control... to "help" all those lesser people have a good life because... you know... they are just incapable of making good decisions without your brilliant direction of rules and enforcement.
To equate MAGA to anti-freedom is just so damn unserious I cannot get up the energy to debate anything of substance. Maybe you should just consider your political ilk's behavior and polling around the concept of free speech. That is just of many examples of authoritarian actions that come from the Democrat cabal and not its opposition you attempt to denigrate for its label Making America Great Again.
I work in an industry that strives to improve economic conditions in the black urban community. The past and present harm being done to those communities has everything to do with your current ideological tribe fueled by corporate money and nothing to do with MAGA. In fact. MAGA as a collection of ideas is the best thing that the black urban community could ever hope for.
Industries that ‘strive’ to improve economic conditions in the black urban community is not a big sell for me, Frank. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Pretty much every single thing you accuse your ‘opponents‘ of being and doing is what my sources and most importantly my observations tell me are precisely what my ‘opponents’ demonstrate every day through the entity Donald Trump.
The ‘man who is not there’ is run by a program accepted by him from infancy to 5 years old, a program that Trump is not alone in adopting.
there's certainly a whole lot of "projecting" by Trump and company, projecting their own flaws onto their opponents, so Trump calls his opponents liars and crooked and anti-democracy - projecting his own worst elements onto others. Classic narcissist defence mechanism.
Yes it is his most used defense. But it may also be one of his mentor Ray Cohn’s list of do’s and don’ts.
Cohen was a monster; I saw a Netflix documentary.
He was Senator Joe McCarthy's hitman in the "un-American" sham hearings; then he went to work for the mob, and then to Trump's father where he taught young Trump how to lie, steal, cheat, blackmail your enemies, etc., and also where he got Trump's sister a judgeship (by blackmailing some gay judges - Cohn was a closet gay). Cohn was monster and taught all his dirty tricks to Donald Trump. What a legacy!
Roy Cohn
He is incapable of a life outside that program and in an attempt to not have to think, and to make life effortless, he has to maintain the walls he has built against a more open and inclusive reality.
His purpose is defeated though because of the tremendous psychological effort he must constantly exert to not succumb to a more compelling and powerful truth.
Frank, You're stereotyping Democrats the way my progressive friends stereotype Republicans. I'm sure you'll listen to me as little as they do, but I've spent an awful lot of time trying to model the idea that if we get to know one another (again) we'll dissolve those stereotypes and realize that our common enemy is extremism of all sorts: extremism in ideas, extremism in behavior, extremism in our relationships as natural political adversaries (an opposition that I feel is absolutely critical to wise government and a healthy country, so long as it's healthy).
But I'm going to tell a story, sad but true, that I thought of as soon as I read your latest response. Five years ago I arranged, with great effort, to have lunch with the most influential Republican in my county--the GOP Chair acknowledged as much. (This fellow was a Tea Party leader who had moved over to MAGA, and when Congressmen or Senators came to the county it was to talk to his group, not the County GOP.) The GOP Chair finally arranged the lunch.
I was impressed. He was an engineer who had retired from a successful career in corporate management--grew up in a small town not far away but went to college and took courses from Milton Friedman. He was a smart conservative. He loved it when we shook hands after lunch and I listed all our topics pointing out that we'd disagreed on every one. He gave me campaign literature from a recent run for office so I could bone up more on his positions. We met again and I introduced him to a number of people, including progressives who I thought were grown up enough to talk to him; of course, I hung around to moderate. But later, at public hearings where I wasn't around, they got into fights and my Leftie friends were very uncivil--they hadn't become convinced like me that he was basically a good guy. I scolded them and supported him. He was civil and had made a real contribution; they were young and more like the caricature you write. Then after a year he moved down to his hometown a county away and we lost touch. His MAGA subgroup among county Republicans disbanded and I figured he'd form another one in his county.
That's the end of the story--except that all of a sudden last Fall I saw his picture in the paper. He was going off to Federal prison for 3+ years having pled guilty to fraudulently setting up shell companies into which he diverted $450,000 of Federal Covid funds for himself and three co-defendants (they were named only by initials in the indictment, so I suppose they flipped on him). He'd actually started the fraud in 2019--when we were still talking--and then Covid funding fell into his lap and he multiplied his efforts. (He was due for another $200K when the Feds caught up with him and canceled the payments.) What do you think my progressive friends will say to me now when his name comes up. (I've completely avoided the topic--I still like that guy and feel bad he's in jail. But how could I have been so taken in? I wonder whether that MAGA group he had going were taken in as well, or were they all fraudsters too--maybe they'd all have fooled me.)
It's been a couple of hours since I thought of that story and I've trying to think, "So what's the moral?" I think it's that people are people no matter which political side they're on, and it's foolish to think there's really any difference in the characters of the people on each side overall. The other side looks bad because they're the other side. Open your eyes and see that your side isn't the salt of the earth--I sure know their are plenty of idiots and charlatans on mine.
Really, I'd visit him in prison if they'd sent him anywhere nearby.
Great story. But I never make the mistake of equating the moral trajectory of individuals as representative of any group. I only assign group behavior to groups as they demonstrate the collective behavior. Remember when the House female caucus all wore the same Cuban kaikai uniforms to protest him during a State of the Union? I think the same one where Nancy Pelosi ripped up his speech like a childish brat?
I live in CA in a liberal college town. I have been active in local politics trying to move the needle to fix many of the problems the city faces. I have PHD-level hours invested in the very type of interactions you mention... coffee with my liberal friends. Conversations on community blogs. Social media interactions. Block party conversations. There was a time when Democrats and Republicans included a minority of rabid partisans and then there was this center like you that could listen and think critically. With respect to the left, that is gone. I still find it in large quantities on the right. Many of my right leaning friends are eager and happy to meet with and debate their ideological opponents... but it is those people that refuse... they stay in their tribe, in their bubble... they don't like to be challenged... they are THE ELECT... their egos are so mated to their need to feel righteous and right about everything, that they just block out all opposing views and degrade to vitriol and invective. These are not just the young leftists... these are Baby Boomer liberals... many that I counted as friends before. I don't think Trump broke them... I think leftism is a mental condition for many... Trump just brought their crazy out into the open.
I am of the mind that we have this problem in our society where left-leaning people were never intended to nor qualified to lead,,, but yet THEY are addicted to gaining power over others. In my City with one of the largest universities in the country these lefties will not allow any peripheral development. The tax base for the city is lower per capita than any other comparable city. The budget is busted. The roads are a mess. The parks are a mess. The cops are underfunded. Homeless ness is exploding. Young professionals and young families are missing and leaving. Yet these liberals will show up to the City Council meeting in busloads to demand that the City Council pass a resolution against Israel. They. Are. Fucking. Insane. Excuse my bad language.
I was always getting blasted by my family and friends for not being respectful enough to their absurd ideas and positions that did not make any rational sense... did not pencil out... would always lead to a spiral downward in more problems. Now those same people tell me that I was not critical enough. I played nice when they had no interest to do the same.
Those days are gone. I am committed to defeating every damn leftist and liberal I can. Maybe after that we will see a rise of the reasonable the thoughtful Democrat again. But today there are so few of them around and they are overwhelmed by what we would have clearly identified as radical before, but is mainstream Democrat today. I have old liberal friends yelling at me that men can get pregnant, that is fine that the border is open with millions of illegal immigrants pouring in, that we can force scarcity of gas and energy and the poor and middle class will just be fine, that we need fewer cops and more crime is a reasonable alternative to busting minorities that are actual criminals, that we need to restrict free speech and eliminate guns and that middle-class construction workers are fascists and need to be locked up.
WTH happened to these people?
I sympathize with your experience, Frank. Here's a quick Sunday morning response. For years I was involved with a national group called Better Angels (now Braver Angels--some trademark issue!) which brought "Red" and "Blue" people together to talk on a regular basis (after everyone had gone through an all-day workshop about *how* to talk across ideological barriers . . . Keep breathing deeply!). My experience was just like yours in reverse: even though the GOP party chair was a co-chair of the group we couldn't find enough Red folks to join. There were some fine conservatives (including the GOP chair, who supported Trump), but others would behave so poorly that their colleagues would come apologize afterward. (That happened once with a Blue guy for one session that I missed. The other Blue members took him to lunch and told him not to return to the group.)
There was a written rule that nothing said in the group could be repeated outside it with attribution--we all agreed never to say, "So-and-so said such-and-such" in telling others about our conversations. Moderators always noted the rule when our lunch meetings began because it was essential to openness and trust. I left the group when a vociferous non-member, a full-on MAGA person whom I had never met personally, began to attack me on our local newspaper online comment boards, using bizarrely distorted versions of comments I'd made in the group. I don't know whether the people who leaked to him were hearing me in bizarre ways or whether this guy was twisting things himself. No one would cop to the rule violations and I could no longer speak freely so I had to drop out. (I knew which people were leaking but I couldn't call them out. We still have friendly conversations when we meet at the supermarket. They do the talking and I smile and ask after their health.)
Frank, from your description of your experiences with California progressives-in-power I can understand your frustrations, but as you imply in your opening sentence, it's mistake to generalize from individual (or small group) events to the wider public.
I enjoy watching Bill Maher and he relates many of the same experiences, and I agree that there are many absurd ideas and positions among progressives - but it's mistake to generalize from them to ALL Democrats. We don't ALL support the kinds of initiatives you're experiencing there - for example, I don't think biological males (however they identify in their minds and souls) should compete in female sports. That's like if a Grade 10 student identifies as a Grade 6er: does he get to write the Grade 6 tests?
I do believe that some women are born in men's bodies, and that some men are born in women's bodies, and it must be very tough for them. It's not a choice, that's how God made (or mis-made them) and I wish them well, but on some points - like biological men competing in women's sports - I gotta say no, sorry, that's unfair to the women.
But - and here's my main point - these issues involve a very small percentage of the population, but eat up a very large percentage of the public debate.
What about climate change? Why isn't that front and center in political debates? It's costing America billions and trillions and will only get worse - but it's barely mentioned in town halls or debates.
So there's lots of loony lefty stuff, and lots of loony righty stuff, and lots of really serious problems that need reasonable people to sit down and try to solve. Maybe you and me. And Robert Eno. And the other readers here - we could probably do a better job of finding solutions than all those Big Names out there - on both sides.
Well it's getting late in the libtard east, so it's time to lock up my gold, sip some free-range latte, and hit my non-Pillow-Guy sack.
: D
Robert, thanks for your efforts to illustrate "civil" discourse. All this name-calling and dehumanizing (on both sides) doesn't improve anything, and simply makes finding solutions more difficult.
And yes, there are "plenty of idiots and charlatans" on both sides, and they seem to be the ones that get the headlines - as in MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and then there's the "squad". There's book called "Wing Nuts" about how the extremists take over political parties (I think it's about MAGA taking over the Republican Party) but it applies anywhere. Here's a question that most Americans can't answer: name the Member of Congress from (Nebraska 4th district? Ohio 2nd? Oregon 3rd?).
And you're right about the generalizations and stereotyping on both sides: MAGAs are red-neck AR-15-carrying morons who think Trump is in the blood-line from Jesus himself (by way of Elvis); and Lefties are all latte-sipping East Coast elite ruling-class billionaires who care more about trans-bathrooms than saving America.
Well, both are wrong.
And the whole point of this week's review of Fromm's "Escape from Freedom" was to provide someone's attempt to understanding how millions of his countrymen fell under the spell of a narcissistic racist psychopath who led them into a world war and into the operation of genocidal death camps.
(the next book, Hoffer's "True Believers" shows a very similar trajectory for some people into both right (fascist) and left (communist) mass movements. The goal is to try to UNDERSTAND why and how people (of any political bent) can fall under the spell of these demagogues. That's what I'm trying to do in this series about Trump supports. Not to denigrate them, but to understand what's going on in the their minds. There are a lot of factors (First Installment "Fisher's Law" was a tongue-in-cheek explanation (half population is below average intelligence) with a grain of truth that applies to some (but surely not all) Trump loyalists. Fromm provided insight from his own experience (he escaped Nazi Germany) but not before seeing his countrymen go ga-ga over their "Savior" who would make their nation great again.
So thanks again for engaging in civil discourse and sharing your thoughts and experiences. I hope are friend Frank has a better response than to simply call you names and blame Biden for everything.
AW, Frank's response to me personally was, "and then there was this center like you that could listen and think critically." I was complimented.
(BTW, am I supposed to know the Member from Nebraska's 4th? I think anyone who can rattle off the 438 Members, assigned to their districts, needs to get a life . . . I hope you can't!)
HI Robert, my point was, we all know MTG and company because they're headline-grabbers, they're in it for the fame & glory & me,me,me, but there are hundreds who (I hope) are in it for their districts and their country, but because they're not performance artists and attention-grabbers, no one knows their names. The few loudmouths get the news and get interviewed and get followed around by packs of journalists with mics out to capture their latest blather - while the hard-working representatives are unknown. I can't name any of them, because, hopefully, they're doing their jobs instead of chasing headlines.
Frank, I'm not saying making America great is a bad thing, I'm saying that Trump lifted "Make America Great Again" from Hitler's (winning) 1932 campaign slogan "Make Germany Great Again." Goebbels probably would have thought of red hats too but "MGGA" just didn't roll off the tongue.
And what's with this Dems are all: "THE ELECT... the chosen people... the Wall Street bankers ... the lawyers" Seems to me Trump is literally SURROUNDED with Wall Street bankers and lawyers. (Guiliani, Sidney Barrow, Jenna Elllis, etc? )And aren't Ted Cruz and Steve Bannon and Ron DeSantis and a dozen other Trump acolytes Harvard Law School grads? So Dems are all evil lawyers?
Come on now. A few bottom feeding bit players does not measure up to Larry Fink, Mortimer Buckly, Ronald O'Malley. And then their globalist pals like Klaus Scwab and George Soros. Together these billionaires have controlling ownership in most large corporations. This is the power seat of the global corporotocracy that pays off the administrative ruling class like Joe Biden. The American political establishment is in bed with it. So are administrators around the West. All of the Democrat leadership and 30% of the Republican leadership are part of the cabal. The 70% that is against the establishment and Wall Street powered global corporotocracy is your political foe.
Making America Great Again is about taking the country away from these tyrannical looters and giving it back to the people.
... ever heard of the Koch brothers? Elon Musk? Or other billionaire supporters of Trump? Forbes has a good long list of "Billionaires who contributed to Trump's 2020 campaign."
(And, speaking of billionaires and global conspiracies, why do you think a Saudi prince gave Jared Kushner $2 billion?)
And surely you're not saying that FOX is part of this great left-wing conspiracy.
When it comes to "tyrannical looters" there's plenty of blame to go around on all sides of the political spectrum (it's politics!) and if you think Trump isn't a first-class grifter then I've got a bridge in the Bahamas that I'll sell you real cheap. Believe me.
And ps, when it comes to "giving it back to the people" there's something called "elections" which Republicans apparently don't believe in (unless they win) and court systems that Republicans apparently don't believe in (unless they win).
Fromm's book is an attempt to explain how people with unsatisfactory lives are susceptible (en mass) to the lies and absurdities of skilled politicians of any political bent. Did you even read the article, or is just another: AW writes BS, attack him and his ruling class elites.
And you keep avoiding the question: you're educated and financially successful: doesn't that make YOU part of the elite ruling class?
Trump represents the pragmatists... the 70% of the country that are NOT the over-educated, elite snobs, vulnerable narcissists, social cynics & malcontents, economic looters and rent-seekers, political charlatans and general psychotherapy needing people. He is funny because he targets this other 30% that are a hot mess of childish bad behavior and idiotic luxury beliefs. He goes too far at a times... pulling some political opponents that are more of the pragmatist cohort into the opposition hive, but he generally gets it right. I hear quite often from some of the 70% that they wish we would have a more bipartisan candidate. Well, I have lived with and debated that 30% for several decades, and I support the Trump approach for the simple reason that the 30% are generally insane and have the power... and those two things together have proven too dangerous for playing nice.
Kotch Brothers are anti-Trump. Musk isn't a Trump supporter. However, he supports things like free speech which apparently your party no longer supports.
The Saudis did not give $2 billion to Jared Kusher, they deposited $2 billion into the investment firm he works for. It is peanuts compared to the trillions of Democrat billionaire dollars in Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street investment accounts.
Fox is just another of the corporate media controlled by these Wall Street firms... as is big tech except for Twitter.
Republicans believe in fair and honest elections. Those that do not allow mass mail in ballots because ballot harvesting happens and cannot be proven. Why do you Democrats refuse to support a national ID like all other OECD countries require? Stacey Abrams supports it? Your black brethren are confused as to why their elite Democrat handlers think they are too stupid to have their own IDs.
I am educated and a one-percenter, but I came from nothing and my interest is to make sure the country supports people like me for future generations.
Excellent comparison, Mr. Washington, of what could happen if Trump has his way.
Keith, here's an American novel written in 1935 describing "what could happen if Trump has his way." This was written as Hitler was on the rise, before the mass insanity, war, and genocide to follow. But the author knew how a demagogue got to power - by fooling the public into thinking he was "for the people".
It's an old story, foretelling a moral apocalypse (the author won a Nobel Prize) and it can happen here. It's already happening; Trump has his mass of followers who believe him; now he just has to retake power, and the old apocalypse is new yet again.
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/it-cant-happen-here
Amazing how history repeats itself, repeats itself, repeats itself, repeats itself!!!
Reminds me of the great saying, “the definition of insanity, keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. Historians try to save us from ourselves.
you got it, Keith; but knowing history requires Reading, not 3-syllable bumper-sticker slogans (Drain the Swamp, Build the Wall, USA) and it also requires Honesty and Sanity and Reality, all of which are sadly missing from the Republicans who refuse to admit that Trump is a charlatan and a conman who is just telling them what they want to hear, and stirring up emotional resentment and hatred.
I'm proud of including book reviews here: they provide some historical context and they are all warnings that this has happened before and can happen again.
And for the Trumpers among us, I'm not an apologist for Biden or the Dems, but any Honest reading of history shows that Trumpism can easily morph into Fascism.
Madeleine Albright's "Fascism: A Warning" inspired this site and its title.
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/fascism-a-warning-by-madeleine-albright
My 8 book reviews were designed to give readers weeks/months of reading in 5-minute nutshell recaps, and I hope more of you take advantage. If only we could open the eyes of those who have surrendered their freedom of thought, and submerged their identities into the Great Leader, the Strongman, the Savior.
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/strongmen-mussolini-to-the-present
But if there's one and only one review that Trumpers read here, I suggest Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style in American Politics" - he's describing the rise of the "Radical Right" in the 1950s and 60s, but it's a prophecy of what's happening today.
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics
Awesome thank you
Quite the collection
Thank you Mr. Washington,
Can’t wait to read it
The insight comes from Fromm.
I'm just pulling together the insights I've found in reading about mass movements and their followers.
Adorno's clinical studies of Authoritarian Personalities (1951) and Hoffer's "True Believers" (also 1951) provide further insights. And I think I'll revisit Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style of American Politics" and Bell's "The Radical Right."
It's worth the effort to try to open some minds and break the trance of those who seem to be caught inside Trump's bubble of absurdities. But there are people here who will probably see things differently.
But thanks for reading and commenting on my posts.
My wife and I just watched an episode of “FBI True” about the Oklahoma City bombing of the Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. They interviewed the FBI agents that were involved with the investigation that brought them to justice.
It’s incredible how many people are that easily influenced and manipulated. Trumpism is hatred on steroids!
Germany rebounded. America can too. After the inevitable reboot.
Yes, Germany eventually rebounded, but between Hitler's ascension to power in 1932 and the end of WW2, how many tens of millions died, what unbelievable atrocities were committed, how much destruction of property and lives? All in an effort to Make Germany Great Again. Surely the echoes in this book sound disturbingly familiar.
Maybe, let me speculate, when the support structures of earth can no longer support the quickly burgeoning population. The common consciousness of mankind decides (unconsciously) to create a situation that will kill off huge numbers of us.
couple hundred years ago a guy named Malthus came up with the "natural" solution to over-population: war, famine, and disease.
With increasing climate change and global travel, we'll probably be seeing a lot more famine and disease, not to mention the wars promoted by unchained authoritarian leaders. The world sure needs some Great Leaders right now.
And Trump sure ain't one of them.
Yes, it will take someone with courage enough to step into the pit.
Zelensky recently showed us that kind of courage and leadership. Many were finally able to exhale after his show of strength.
Do you think he’d run?
Absolutely. This is the human condition. I worry it will destroy our species.
As if Climate Change, Nuclear Proliferation, Artificial Intelligence weren't worrying enough, we now face the possibility of a neo-fascist leadership in America, and by extension in the world.
ps, as a Canadian, Penfist, do you see the rise of so-called "populism" (always leading inevitably to fascism) a serious threat of coming to power? PM Trudeau seems to be in trouble, and Conservative leader Poilievre is following Trump's populist playbook. Is the "American disease" spreading to Canada?
Yes. The MAGA cult is already rife in Canada.
Disgruntled people always look for someone to blame for their own misfortunes, someone to hate, easy solutions and false promises, and there's always an opportunistic politician eager to exploit all that fear and resentment. Your "Freedom Convoy" invasion of Ottawa should have been an early warning sign.
FYI. I am a US citizen too. I watch my native country from the southern vantage point.