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Fate of the True Believer [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-24
Hanna Arendt’s classic book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is frightening. Not that long ago it could be read with academic detachment, but no longer. Now, it is about us. Our moment and what is coming. History rhymes. On the horizon, we hear the drums beating. Comes again, the gathering storm.
Democracy is always threatened by the totalitarian impulse. It is, at its center, empty, unfinished. Or, as the ancients said, it has no telos, that is, of itself, it has no end. Its purpose is our purpose. It breaks when we break, when we no longer know who we are. When we can no longer tell fact from fiction.
And when the burden of freedom is too great.
People don’t vote for totalitarian governments. They vote to restore their economic well-being. They vote to restore the norms and traditions that once anchored their lives. They vote to fix what is broken, namely, themselves. Tragically, this is always betrayed.
And they vote to satiate their anger and hate. Which is not betrayed.
No one believes that Trump’s special inaugural guests, Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerburg, three of the richest men in the world, are interested in fixing rural America, bringing back the jobs, the schools, and the hospitals, or building communities where doctors want to live. We all know better.
So does Maga, but Trump is betting they will settle for the satisfaction of their rage.
Which is why this will be so very ugly.
For a malignant narcissist such as Trump, the con is not complete until he is able to parade his billionaire donors and confidants, and his real intentions, in front of his victims. Of course, the victims will be slow to publicly acknowledge that they were duped. But Trump will force the issue, to his great satisfaction. Which will only fuel their anger.
Anything could happen. And will.
Trump issues a crypto coin to enrich himself, to sell the powers of the Presidency; he threatens to take back the Panama Canal by military force, and MAGA cheers.
Trump threatens to use tariffs to force Canada to accept becoming the 51st. State; he threatens war with Denmark to take Greenland, and MAGA cheers.
Trump threatens war with Mexico, that is, war against the cartels that control much of the Mexican side of the border. And Maga cheers.
It is in Trump’s nature to kick down. So much easier to threaten weak friends than strong enemies.
Maga will cheer as the tech bros upend what little is left of their world. Such is the fate of the true believer.
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