Donald Trump wants to build a wall.
But at least he doesn”t want to include a mote, like infamous old-time monarchs. That said, there are still problems with his plan and with the man himself.
Will Meyer
Argonaut
The idea behind his slogan that we are going to “Make America Great Again,” affirms his belief in a chateau located in the depths of the American heart.
Trump has expanded on a plan to strengthen U.S. military prowess, much to the delight of his supporters. But not everything is sunshine and rainbows with this candidate”s ideals.
The U.S. was once deemed “The United States of Amnesia,” by Gore Vidal to characterize Americans constantly forgetting the past. The 2016 presidential race embodies this idea well.
Trump feeds the people who are yearning for something ostensibly new in the political arena. They want someone who will take a new approach to the problems which we have faced in the past. They think Trump fits the bill.
Trump may seem exciting and fresh to some. But these supporters must not remember the presidency of Ronald Reagan – wherein the national debt was tripled in eight years due to military spending.
Reagan, like Trump, used glittering generalities to get to the heart of the American people, often referring to “Godless Communism,” in his speeches.
Trump has said that his wall would not dishevel foreign relations at all. Meanwhile, Reagan thought it would be appropriate to build a military to unfathomable distinction to fight an enemy that never came.
Today, we are left with a distinction to make, and interestingly enough someone has already done it.
In 1964, an American historian pointed out a pattern in the style of American politics which he called “The Paranoid Style.”
In this state of political paranoia, Richard Hofstadter notes a “preconception of “¦ the existence of a vast, insidious preternaturally (unnatural) effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character.”
Someone familiar with American history might look back to the times of McCarthyism as a past example. In the 1950s massive numbers of artists and intellectuals were accused of being Communist conspirators, none of which were true accusations. There have been other similar examples throughout our nation”s history.
But the thing is, none of these so called “enemies,” ever existed.
Trump diligently follows this pattern alongside some recent predecessors such as the entire George W. Bush administration, who managed to invade Iraq without cause.
If Trump manages to convince people that there is yet another nonexistent enemy, like illegal immigrants, he will have won.
The difficulty is finding the implications scattered in today”s political speeches. We are no longer left to confront the “Godless Communists” of before, but instead a more inadvertent “enemy” of immigrants.
Candidates understand that equality is of the utmost value to the American people, but in the paranoid politician”s style, they need only allude to a subversive enemy to distract voters.
The problem Americans face today is one of immense gravity. There is little desire to look into the past, and yet that seems like it would do the most good.
We must find unity in our diversity. This time, let us learn from the past rather than fall for another miracle cure as we have before.
Will Meyer can be reached at [email protected]
anonymous communication
Illegal immigrants are non-existent? What do you call people who immigrate to the US illegally? And if they aren't a threat, then they are at least a drain on society; not contributing taxes but receiving welfare benefits. Enabling this takes rightly earned resources from actual American citizens who pay their government.