THE DEEPEST REACHES OF TRUMP'S DESTRUCTION

The Trump administration is hellbent on tearing down our democracy. But beyond even political destruction, we witness assault on our most fundamental values

We are living in a nightmare. Trump has succeeded in normalizing the abnormal. It is extraordinary how much damage one man can do.

Those brought up on the understanding that Nazism and Hitler exemplified the greatest evils imaginable could find some consolation in knowing that the horrors of the mid-twentieth century were consigned to the past. Given the expansion of the democratic ideal in post-War America, the reality that I and my contemporaries experienced was far happier. The question “could it happen here?” was tinged with the remoteness of an abstraction.

But no longer. The Yale historian, Timothy Snyder, in his concise volume, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century, gave us fair warning. Yes, it could happen here: Our democracy is rapidly slipping away and being replaced before our eyes by authoritarianism and fascism.

The death of democracy is our most palpable danger. We see it in the concentration of power in the executive branch which is rapidly steamrolling Congress. We see it in the commandeering of the judiciary, which is becoming a handmaiden to Trump's grab for power. We witness it in the absence of demonstrative counter-leadership emergent from the Democratic Party and other sectors of society. And we see it in the fretful merger of political power and plutocrats possessing extraordinary wealth.

Nazism was characterized by the merger of the authoritarian state with the power of industry. Here the role of heavy industry, played by mid-century Germany, is filled by the tech industries and their barons. Democracy's demise is not inevitable. However, respect for the power of the Constitution is being overwhelmed by the assaults of a power-hungry, pathological narcissist who flails around like an out-of-control beast, unrestrained by norms and customs, sowing wanton destruction, chaos and fear. Trump has no allegiance to limits or to the values and structures of liberal democracy encoded in our Constitution. Once the Constitution is rendered powerless, it's over. The scaffolding on which democracy is built is gone.

I would, however, maintain that the damage done reaches even more deeply than the savaging of our political forms. It is damage which, in my view, has not received requisite attention in the media and elsewhere. Our deepest foundations are crumbling. Trump could not attain his political ends without first conditioning his followers via the destructive transformation of values necessary to sustain a democratic society, indeed any society that is decent and humane. Just as the perpetration of genocide needs to be preceded by a process of dehumanization, so the destruction of democracy cannot take place unless conditions are set in place in the minds of the public that enable authoritarianism to replace it. Trump, in an amazingly brief period of time, has been able to shred the foundations of our social existence. What follows is a short list of these foundations:

The erosion of truth, reason, and the rules of evidence.

Trump's relentless lying has created an alternative reality. Facts are replaced by fictions that, through time and continuous reinforcement, gain increased credibility. When a person holding the reins of authority repeats a falsehood often enough, people start believing it. Truth and facts are, in great measure, socially constructed and reinforced; but not totally. When ideas become popular, it is easier for individuals to give their assent and accept them. It is easier for a person to believe what others believe. Not only social reinforcement but our emotions play a powerful role in the solidifying of belief.

As Plato made clear, our reason and emotions are in conflict, and it was Freud who affirmed that our emotions, driven by our instincts, are more powerful determinants of what we believe. By preying on the emotions, primarily fear and hate, Trump has been able to transform and manipulate the beliefs of his followers to an extraordinary degree. Reason challenges our emotional proclivities and drives. It is a salient feature of our humanity upon which civilization has been built. Since the Enlightenment of the 17^th century, reason has been a major engine, not only of scientific knowledge, but also of social progress. But reason can be readily overcome by our emotions.

Trump is an inveterate and chronic liar; having told tens of thousands of lies. By virtue of his appeal, he has eroded the place of truth and truthfulness in the minds of large swaths of the public. This is a consequence that is unspeakably damaging. Without a consensual commitment to facts, and veneration to the centrality of truth and truthfulness in human affairs, society ultimately breaks down. Social relations fall apart and society ceases to function. Indeed, commitment to truth, or lack thereof, has become a major dividing line in society as a whole. It is a marker of tribal lines that speaks to the ominous divisions characterizing American society in this dangerous moment.

Truth is bolstered by the rule of evidence. For many of us, assent is withheld until proof is provided. But Trump models a casual regard for evidence, basing his proclamations on hunches, the word of unspecified authorities - “they say” - or on his “gut.” Ominously, this spurning of evidence, the negation of legitimate and earned authority, has been picked up by his followers, and further submerges the governing role of truth in human affairs.

Without the shared valorization of truth, there can be no trust. Our trust of others is predicated on the presumption that they are telling the truth, and if truth is unknown or ambiguous, they are at least attempting to be truthful with us. If trust is lost, there can be no social bonds to hold us together and enable us to function as a society. Assumptions of good will are lost, and eventually there can be no love. Truth, trust, and love are mutually validating and are held together by a common commitment to their centrality in human affairs. In his self-serving and power-grabbing bombast, in his shredding of truth, honesty, reason, and rules of evidence, Trump has created an epistemic swamp bearing unfathomable social consequences.

The destruction of kindness

An aspect of Trump's character and the politics that flow from it, which does not garner sufficient attention, is the sadism and cruelty which drives it. His is a politics that appeals to hatred and denigration of others, especially the most vulnerable in society. As the Nazis learned and practiced, scapegoating the weak and marginalized is an effective way to marshal power. Trump's world-view is a crude one, based on dominance, power and submission. He expresses not a scintilla of compassion or empathy.

Examples are legion, from referring to immigrants as “criminals,” “murderers,” even “animals,” to his denigration of women, minorities and the disabled. As the Nazis denigrated the Jews as “vermin,” so Trump employs the term to refer to his political adversaries who he names as “enemies.” Trump appeals to the worst impulses of those who find release in expressing contempt and hatred to those different from themselves. Add to this, Trump's belittlement of fallen soldiers as “suckers” and “losers.” Trump, without a shred of evidence, stupidly blamed the recent airline collision over the Potomac, in which 67 people were killed, on D.E.I. initiatives in the traffic controller profession, implying, no doubt, that it wouldn't have happened had there been more whites and fewer Blacks and women in the control room.

Now we witness in his unconstitutional move to usurp the power of Congress by commandeering its authority to allocate the raising and disbursement of public funds. Trump, with his destruction of the U.S.A.I.D. program, in addition to destroying 60,000 American jobs providing goods and services for among the world's neediest, will lead to human suffering that is beyond measure. We need to think up close of the millions who will die of disease, the mothers who will watch their children die of starvation, and those who will go without lifesaving surgeries.

According to a New York Times article on January 5^th, “Two weeks into President Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid, H.I.V. groups abroad have not received any funding, jeopardizing the health of more than 20 million people, including 500,000 children.” And in an opinion piece in the same paper on January 8^th, Samantha Power, director of U.S.A.I.D in the Biden administration, stated,

“Some investments save lives almost immediately — like the medicines dispensed to 500,000 children with H.I.V., or the nutrient-rich food manufactured in states like Rhode Island and Georgia that pulls starving children from the brink of death. Out of the $38 billion that U.S.A.I.D. spent in fiscal year 2023, nearly $20 billion was for health programs (such as those that combat malaria, tuberculosis, H.I.V./AIDS and infectious disease outbreaks) and humanitarian assistance to respond to emergencies and help stabilize war-torn regions. Other U.S.A.I.D. investments are less visible but pay dividends in the longer term, such as giving girls a chance to get an education and enter the work force, or growing local economies.”

It was Elon Musk, Trump's unelected henchman, given control of the American budget, who described USAID as “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America,” “evil” and “a criminal organization.” Such pronouncements by the world's richest man, which will lead to the augmented misery and deaths of vulnerable children, their mothers, and others in desperate need, are beyond obscene.

Unmitigated cruelty lies at the base of Trump's politics, which will place immeasurable power and wealth into the hands of unrestrained plutocrats at the expense of the rest of us. It is the stuff of which fascism is made, but, as I contend, its destructive effects extend even more deeply than politics and the erosion of liberal democracy. What we are undergoing in our public life is the disappearance of empathy, kindness and respect for dignity, qualities we equate with our very humanity.

At the moment, many of us who are alert to the dangers have been thrown off balance and have turned inward and to each other to manage our emotions. This is necessary. As countervailing forces emerge and take form, we need to recommit ourselves to the fray. We can start by holding fast to the fundamental values I have noted and to the practices that flow from them – to the assertion of truth, reason, and the rules of evidence, and to empathy and kindness in our relations to others. And beyond the values that reside in the private sphere, the fate of democracy requires that we exert multiple forms of resistance, including demanding that our political representatives act upon what is no less than a dire emergency.

The dangers we face are unprecedented. They are real and inescapable. They compel us to be as adamant and relentless as we can be.

Our response needs to be militant.