Unpublished letter submitted to the Toronto Star
Re: Romney: Trump a ‘phoney, a fraud’
Donald Trump’s unfiltered brand of brash neoconservatism has U.S. old-guard Republicans apoplectic – but not because of his right-wing extremist views and values but because he has the temerity to express them openly and without reservation. Republicanism is premised on the ‘great lie’ where soothing, beneficial outcomes are mouthed by business-savvy Republicans while doing the things that Trump talks openly about. What is further perplexing to them is that American Republicans are responding in droves to his carny pitch. We live in the age of reality TV and politics is not immune to the phenomenon. Trump’s popularity however, is a serious lesson in the deep racial, religious and economic divides that polarize America and indeed the world.
Trump has provided an unscripted, revealing window into the ugly reality of neoconservatism that most Americans rarely see, by pulling back the veil of carefully crafted political rhetoric employed by the traditional right to mask their underlying agenda and make their politics more palatable to the undiscerning public. Trump has broken the cardinal rule of the right – never tell the truth or let the public know what you really think and believe. Say one thing and do another or do nothing until you are in power and then do whatever you want. This shell-game politics of deception and polarization that has taken hold in America is what lies at the root of the groundswell of opposition being reflected in the Trump candidacy as well as the populist social democratic campaign of Bernie Sanders. The 99% are fed up with traditional corrupt two-party politics and politicians with their meaningless platitudes and do-nothing governing styles. They want fundamental, deep-seated change in the structure of democracies and the economics they are subject to.
Trump has revealed the ugly underbelly of rich, white, male, racist, sexist, homophobic, openly biased, boorish, aggressive, arbitrary and domination-based core of neoconservatism floated on a bed of economic neoliberalism and self-righteous right-wing evangelical Christianity. It is an ideology of selfish individualism, rabid exclusionism and extremism. It is the core of modern Regan/Thatcher conservatism taken to its ultimate extension and has become more and more unstable and unrestrained as the years have gone by. It was present in Canada in the politics of disdain practiced by Stephen Harper towards the Canadian public, aboriginal people, women and military veterans for a decade while in government; the economic myopia of the Trump pretender Doug Ford who wants to return to the unregulated Wild-West of the Robber Barons if elected as the leader of the Conservative party in Ontario. This followed the debacle of extreme right-wing leader Patrick Brown who similarly hijacked the Ontario Conservative party by appealing to traditionalist far-right factions in Ontario after Tim Hudak’s provincial election loss. What is truly frightening is the number of people in the U.S., in Canada, and around the world who ascribe to these views or sympathize with them. Extremism has not only come to the fore in ISIL but in global politics and local culture everywhere including the U.S. and Canada.
Trump is openly whipping up extremist hatred of minorities. The economic conditions of most Americans (and Canadians) are similarly distressed after the financial crisis of 2008 making them highly suggestible to the rantings of a billionaire megalomaniac in democratic clothing. America is ripe for dictatorship. While its form may not conform to those of the despots of history – it is dictatorship nonetheless. The last two years of his ‘business presidency’ has been a farce with those in the business community coming and going like shoppers at a mall. Trump is a presidency of one. The world should be afraid – be very afraid.