I am curious to know what makes him tick and why so many think he is relevant. I am really perplexed about his poll numbers.
Trump’s power is based on the unconditional allegiance of an uneducated, aging white population. The conservatives put their trust in Trump. And that is how he will be able to make his worldview, his politics and his hate those of an entire nation.
Niccolò Machiavelli said that love or fear were the most effective tools in securing power. But "perhaps it is best," the Florentine political theorist said, "to wish to be both loved and feared." It is that amalgamate of feelings that binds the conservatives to Trump.
But why? What does this man from New York convey so effectively to racist, uneducated white people?
Trump's appeal has always been, and continues to be, attributed to his charisma. Trump himself uses the term, as if there is a mythical bond between the Führer and his people. But there is nothing heavenly about the conservatives' entanglement with Trump.
As in every lasting relationship, it began with a spontaneous connection, which emerged from shared cultural and mythological legacy.
But there are also tangible elements. His charisma was a pretext, masking the joint interests of the conservatives and Trump. What connects the Führer and his people is fear of the modern age, or in other words, the future.
Modernism meant the endeavor to subject all thought and action to reason, thereby making decisions and actions comprehensible and verifiable. This is an attitude that requires the rejection of any metaphysical rationalization.
Modern thought was never able to develop as fully in conservative white America as it did elsewhere. The baby of individual freedom, epitomized by Washington, Jefferson and many others, was thrown out with the bathwater of September 11.
The vast majority of the American bourgeoisie was more interested in aligning itself with the nationalist idealism of conservative philosophers Bush, or Karl Roves’ newly invented world of neo-conservative myths. Indeed, they veritably fled to those comforts, instead of subjecting their political, social and cultural awareness to objectively verifiable criteria.
That attitude gained currency following the trauma of defeat in Iraq and the socio-economic crisis the Bush economy brought in its wake.
Instead of rationally tackling and overcoming the difficulties that loomed at the beginning of the 21st century, the conservatives sought escape in an intoxication of chauvinism - the same jingoism that had already contributed so much to their misery during Vietnam and thereafter.
The conservatives felt, and indeed were, threatened by modernism, since they had, to a great degree, closed their eyes to the principles of lucid reason. Trump also considered himself a victim of modernism and blamed it for Americas’ failures. Trump and his Make America Great movement gave true voice to the fears of the white conservative class. He told the conservatives that Muslims and Hispanics were the only cause of all their misery.
But Trump was not satisfied just to denounce the Muslims and Hispanics. His goal is to lead a war of “liberation” from all non-whites, activating the racism in conservative white America.
The Republicans fueled those racist beliefs until they escalated into a war against minorities, which found its ultimate expression in coldly executed mass hysteria.
