Thursday, June 8, 2017

OpEd: A Trump Retrospective



THE DUOPOLY WATCH | Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

Looking back through my files, I have discovered that I have been writing about Trump, Trumpism, and the Trumpites for quite some time, going back to the old, independent, BuzzFlash in a column that appeared on April 28, 2011. In this column, I am briefly reviewing my Trump columns that have appeared here on The Greanville Post, under my general heading “The Duopoly Watch.” Not too many observers, including myself, thought he could win the Presidency. But hindsight is 20/20.
 
Now, given the strength of his combination of bringing out into the open the Repubs.’ traditional racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and misogyny, and the many weaknesses of the Democratic Party and its candidate, it seems almost inevitable.  So, this column presents something of a time-line following the development of Trumpism along, to the present, where we face the imposition of a 21st century form of fascism on our nation.  That its putative leader was elected by a minority of the voting public, just as Hitler was (indirectly in that case), is no accident.
 
1. “Trump — Racist — Revisited,” was published on August 18, 2015.  I began that column thusly:
 
“Over four years ago, on BuzzFlash, I published a column on Donald Trump entitled “Trump is the Race Card.”  Yes, Trump is a blowhard, and no he doesn’t have any real programs to offer that would have a chance of solving the problems he likes to list (some real; some imagined.  His new [old by Repub. standards] “immigration” policy is a bad joke [see below]).  But like just about every other political commentator on our side around, I still find it irresistible to launch broadsides at him.”
 
2. The next one, on Oct. 2, 2015, was “Hair Trump or Herr Trump?” At the beginning of that one I noted that: “The Web is suddenly crawling with images of Trump as Hitler—the idea has apparently caught on. To what extent this is the weight of the establishment attempting to quash Trump as an unwelcome messenger is anybody’s guess at this time.”  The column explores the historical similarities, as they were apparent in Trump’s case at the time, between himself and his movement and Hitler’s, and the differences as well.
 
Click here for the full article.
 
Source: The Greanville Post

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