During a speech yesterday, the newly “unshackled” Donald Trump denounced the women who have accused him of sexual harassment and assault as “horrible people” and “horrible, horrible liars.”
But he also devoted a good deal of time to another group that he claims he’s fighting against, a conspiratorial cabal he variously labeled “the establishment,” “those who control the levers of power in Washington,” “the global special interests,” and “people that don’t have your good in mind.”
In Trump’s estimation,
[t]he Washington establishment and the financial and media corporations that fund it exist for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself.
The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. As an example, just one single trade deal they’d like to pass involves trillions of dollars, controlled by many countries, corporations and lobbyists.
As Trump and his speechwriters see it, this shadowy cabal is manipulating politics to serve its own “global” interests.
For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind.
This “group,” Trump insisted, is responsible for the vast majority of America’s economic and political woes:
The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry.
The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories, and our jobs, as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries all around the world. …
It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.
Dogwhistling even harder, Trump accused Hillary Clinton of secret meetings with international bankers who are plotting to destroy our national sovereignty:
The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure. We’ve seen this first hand in the WikiLeaks documents, in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.
Salon’s Heather Digby Parton, borrowing a phrase from political satirist Molly Ivins, joked that Trump’s speech “sounded better in the original German.” On the Daily Kos, a writer quipped that “Trump’s bedside book of Hitler speeches finally paid off.”
But Trump’s speech is also reminiscent of the rhetoric of a famous American conspiracy theorist (and carmaker): Henry Ford.
Before Adolf Hitler had even gotten around to penning Mein Kampf, Ford ran a 91-part series in The Dearborn Independent, his personal newspaper, targeting what he saw as a global conspiracy against the citizens of the United States. (The series was collected into a four-volume set of books; you can find the whole thing here.)
Like Trump’s speechwriters, Ford’s ghostwriters excoriated the evil “international bankers” who were happy to make money off of the misery of Americans. This enemy of America “has his own game to play,” as one Dearborn Independent article put it.
Hard times bring more plums tumbling off the tree into the baskets of the international bankers than does any other kind of times.
Unlike Trump, though, Ford and his ghostwriters didn’t use code words to obscure just who they were talking about. For them, the “International banker” was inevitably the International Jewish banker, or simply the International Jew, which was the name given to the Dearborn Independent series.
In Ford’s eyes, these evil moneylenders manipulated international politics to serve their own interests:
To the International Jewish Financier the ups and downs of war and peace between nations are but the changes of the world’s financial market; and, as frequently the movement of stocks is manipulated for purposes of market strategy, so sometimes international relations are effected for mere financial gain.
These evil globalists regard sovereign countries
not as fatherlands but as customers — and as customers in the Jewish sense. If an army wins or loses, if a government succeeds or fails, what of it? — that is their affair — “we are international bankers,” and we win, whoever loses.
And only a “radical” solution can solve this particular problem:
[T]he revolution which would be necessary to unfasten the International Jewish system from its grip on the world, would probably have to be just as radical as any attempts the Jews have made to attain that grip.
And guess who is today presenting himself as just such a “radical” solution?
Hint: his initials are “Donald J Trump.”
To the evil “people that don’t have your good in mind,” Trump declared yesterday,
Our campaign represents a true existential threat like they haven’t seen before.
This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we the people reclaim control over our government.
Ford’s International Jew series was a great inspiration to Hitler, who referred to Ford in Mein Kampf as a “great man” standing athwart the Jewish menace. Ford’s rhetoric has similarly inspired generations of anti-Semites in the US and around the world.
Now, I doubt that Trump’s speechwriters literally had a reprint edition of Ford’s The International Jew open beside them as they worked the denunciations of “international banks” into Trump’s speech yesterday. But America’s far right — and today’s alt-right — has so thoroughly absorbed Ford’s message, and his language, that any good alt-righter can spew this sort of stuff in his or her sleep.
Is Trump himself even aware of the dark history behind this sort of rhetoric, or is he simply reciting what his handlers have prepared for him? I don’t know, but one thing is for sure: Trump’s fans in the alt-right know exactly what (and who) he’s talking about. Message received, loud and clear.
@Playonwords
Older than that, actually; I recall watching a French musical film from the 1930s, and in one scene the protagonist is relaxing by the riverbank when he’s accosted by two cops, who demand to know why he’s not at work. “Connaiz-vous pas qu’en travaille est la liberté?”(Don’t you know that in work there is freedom?). Then it cuts to a scene where a teacher is leading schoolchildren in chanting “En travaille est la liberté!”. Everyone in the room was dumbfounded, and we stopped and rewound to make sure we’d actually heard what we thought we had, and indeed we had. That was a deeply disturbing moment.
I am so sure that the king of shady capitalists is gonna save us from all the other, better-at-being-capitalist capitalists.
Like, it makes me need to bathe in acetone to say that he’s not wrong (that there’s a handful of powerful wealthy people profiting from the misery and disenfranchisement of the vast bulk of humanity), for once, he’s just so, so so intensely profoundly excessively grossly wrong about the cause, class and identity of the profiteers. And also about not being one of them. Augh.
I’ve had to admit that Trumpelstiltskin was semi right about a thing and now I need to enter a decontamination chamber.
2 additional women accuse Trump of sexual assault
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/14/politics/donald-trump-women-accuser/
Ohmigosh, Jim is such a troll. Not even a good one. Like, 14-year-old-at-a-school-computer style. the whole (((brackets)) thing would perhaps be a little less ridiculous if David weren’t currently using them on his Twitter handle, hmm?
Otherwise, that’s enough shoveling, because wow is it heavy right now. The stuff’s half water, so it’s like shoveling mud. Bleagh. I deserve a break!
… aww, but the batch just finished. Guess I had better finish prepping the next one, then…
Hillary? A Jew. Total Jew. The worst. Believe me. Ludicrous. Criminal Jew.
I can’t tell if John Howard is using Trump style speech to mock Trump or imitate him approvingly 🙁
@Alan:
Wingate was an interesting man for what he reveals about society at the time.
On the one hand, even by the standards of the age he was stultifyingly racist. He point-blank refused to use non-white troops for combat duty, relegating even Gurkhas to the status of porters and mule handlers. There are some Wingate quotes which indicate that his primary motivation for pioneering jungle-warfare tactics was that he was offended at the thought that white people were being shown up by non-white people (in this case the Japanese.)
On the other hand he was gay, but unlike his contemporary Alan Turing, he wasn’t persecuted for it.
His attitude towards colonised nations also differed widely. On the one hand, he was famous for his loathing of Arabs, encouraging atrocities against civilians and the killing of wounded combatants. On the other hand, he was ardent in his support of an independent Ethiopia and took it as a personal slight that British diplomats barred him from speaking to Emperor Haile Selassie.
An odd egg, as one might say. It’s difficult to imagine any other milieu giving rise to such a character.
Christ, what is with conspiracy idiots and globalism lately? There’s nothing insidious about caring about other countries!
Oh yay, (((triple brackets)))!!! I always think of them as the internet designation for (((applause))).
(((Think clapping hands, and echoes radiating through a concert hall with perfect acoustics.)))
(((Not exactly what these Drumpfites want them to mean, in other words.)))
I may or may not have just gone all the way to the mall at the other end of town purely to buy the smallest Dashie they had. I am an adult.
@Paradoxy
If you possibly could, I’d owe you forever. <3
(Disregard trolls, acquire ponies.)
ᶜᵃᶰ⋅⋅⋅ ᶜᵃᶰ ʸᵒᵘ ᵗᵃᵏᵉ ᵃ ᵖᶦᶜᵗᵘʳᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ᵗᶦᶰʸ ᵖᵒᶰʸ﹖
@ EJ
An odd egg, as one might say.
That’s putting it mildly! 🙂
Like you say his attitudes were pretty complex. It’s interesting to see how they evolved through his life. He was obviously the product of an imperial culture, and that seems to have initially influenced his views. But it’s that old thing of perception changing when you actually get to meet people yourself. As you point out he had massive admiration for the Ethiopians, the Chindits, Jewish people etc. Basically once he got to know people he liked them.
Of course his less than orthodox views on empire and colonialism is why he ultimately fell out of favour with the establishment. Of course training up groups to attack British troops will do that.
As for his sexuality, again it’s complex. Most of his contemporaries describe him in a way that seems to fit asexual though rather than gay. (I have copies of his letters between himself and his wife. They she’d some intriguing light on all that.)
For me the defining incident in his life occurred whilst he was at school. He was hideously bullied in the most cruel way. One day though when he had been selected once again to ‘run the gauntlet’ he just stripped off and instead of running he just slowly walked down the line and allowed everyone to strike him in their own time. By the time he got to the end everyone just stopped and he just stood in front of his major tormentors. They didn’t hit him either.
The people who knew him at the time say that’s when a major personality change occurred, and that seems to have been the major influence on the rest of his life.
Fascinating person .
@Scild
http://i.imgur.com/vNEz3iB.jpg
(She has a slight case of Hasbro Quality Control, but that’s nothing a little paint won’t fix. =P)
http://i1156.photobucket.com/albums/p570/bolemis/133571769709.gif
Oh, those are Fashems, right? The little squishy pones.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ca7rj_vA9dA/VOoplszZWtI/AAAAAAAAPkc/SoIS327yBWo/s1600/Fluttershy-Series-2-Fashem.jpg
There’s like five series’ (serieses?) of those. They sell them where I work, and they’re pretty squishy from what I’ve seen. I think they might be sold in Canada if you wanna take a look, Scild. They’re little blind capsules so you can’t see what’s inside before you buy, but I’m sure someone will sell opened ones online if you want a specific one without the hassle of buying lots of toys. XD
And if you’d like SFHC, my email is [email protected]. Feel free to send me an email so I have your address, so I can be sure to email you when I have a spare Dashie for you. I might also see about throwing in other pony items that I find, if that’s okay? I don’t know what all y’all have in Australia. : 3
Speaking of tiny ponies, I discovered that Tiny!Fluttershy makes for a good doll prop for a 12 inch doll.
Side note: Guy!Roommate has a box full of unorganized Pokemon cards, and this travesty cannot stand. I am going to be spending most of my day tomorrow organizing hundreds of cards into a binder and card sleeve pages. : I
(Apparently, he bought the box from a guy before he moved to NC for forty bucks.)
@Paradoxy
Yep! You don’t have to buy open ones, though, the capsules have little safety holes you can just about see through. I had to sift through two boxes of the things to find a Dashie. =P
Also, email sent!
@Dalillama : I am interested in that musical, or more precisely on the movement they refer too, because it would likely teach me some things about the far right of my country.
I am more aware of the “Travail, Famille, Patrie” (“work, family, nation”) from Vichy, as well as of the Boulangisme (a political movement of the end of the XIXth century who was a mix of nationalism and socialism ; it however did not feature racism all that much, it was more elite hatred coupled with a bit of personality cult of the founder of the movement), but that one look new to me. Maybe it’s a facet of the movements that became later the Vichy Government.
Currently I’m using ((multiple)) brackets in my thesis to denote ‘am I chatting shit here?’, or uncertainty, like:
‘… X-ray ((provoked)) changes…’
So now whenever I see them, I can’t help but feel the author is talking bollocks.
@Alan:
I think it’s important to remember that Wingate was not a man who softened in his racism once he got to know people. He was born in India after all, but that didn’t stop him from hating Indian people. Conversely, he loved the idea of Ethiopia from a distance, even before he’d come into contact with the actual people. Basically, you could flip a coin to decide whether he loved or hated your ethnic group, and that coin flip was final.
The interesting thing, however, is that this was not remarked upon by his contemporaries. Those who supported him (like Archibald Wavell) didn’t feel the need to defend these attitudes; and those who hated him (like Bill Slim or “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell) didn’t feel the need to attack him for them. It was just accepted that, unlike his habit of wearing an alarm clock around his neck like an early-model Flavor Flav, this sort of racism was within the Overton Window of society at the time.
The same can be said for his war crimes, of course. Wingate did things in Palestine for which people have been hanged by courts of law; and neither his friends nor his enemies considered them as remarkable as the fact that he scrubbed himself with raw onions.
It tells us something about society at the time.
@Ohlmann
I honestly know very little about the context, and the filmmakers clearly did not approve of this tendency, but the movie is called À Nous la Liberté, and is rather good.
Thanks. It do look interesting.
I grew up in what was left of the North American auto industry and Henry Ford is still very much a celebrated American hero, despite his union bashing and blatant Jew hating history. I’ll refrain from going on my “Henry Ford was a Dumpster Fire” rant here, but c’mon. He got a friggin’ Nazi medal, but he still gets to have a museum named after him.
@PI: About the last thing I ever did with my Magic cards was organize them into sheets….