“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”—Sinclair Lewis

This is the second of two essays on Trumpism. The first was “The Ministry of Lies.” The following essay was posted in June 2024, nearly five months before the November election. Given recent events, I decided to revisit the content written before and after the 2024 election.

“…the ideological features and legacies of fascism that are deeply woven into Trumpism’s rhetoric of retribution, intolerance, and demonization; its mix of shlock pageantry, coercion, violence, and impunity; and the constant stoking of ultra-nationalism and racial agitation.”
–Page 118, American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism by Henry A. Giroux

The Myth of the Man

I must admit that, at times, I don’t understand it.

How did a man with a history of cheating, lying, conning, racism, and an inability to hide the worst of himself gain the support of millions of Americans and, even more troubling, get elected President of the United States?

I mean, read this. Does this read like someone who has all his marbles in one place?

“Like China, I was with President Xi. I said, “Do you have a drug problem?” “No.” He didn’t even know what I was talking about. He’s got 1.4 billion people. I said, “Do you have a drug problem?” He goes, “No drug problem.” I said, “How do you do that?” Essentially, he said, the death penalty. “We catch,” they call it a quick trial. They have a trial, and it’s quick. And by the way, isn’t that breeze nice? Do you feel the breeze? Because I don’t want anybody going on me, we need every voter. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote, I don’t care. You see, now the press will take that and they’ll say, “He said a horrible thing.” They’ll say, “He said…” You know what they did? I was just doing a little imitation of this horrible, horrible, worst president in the history of our country. So I imitated him a couple of times getting off the stage because he’s unable to find a stair. Look, stair, stair, stair, stair, stair, all over you have stairs. When he finishes his one and a half minute speech, his speeches last for about a minute, he never takes questions. When he does, he picks up a thing and he goes, “Ah, let’s see here. Ah, Jill of NB… Ah, C. Yes, where’s Jill?” “I’m here.” [inaudible], because they put her there. So she’d read it like, “What flavor ice cream [inaudible] favorite [inaudible]?” And then he picks up the thing, “Ah, vanilla.” -Donald J. Trump, Jun 10, 2024, Nevada

I’m convinced. I’ll vote for the genius….

Lying is Easy. The Truth is Hard.

I understand; he’s just a good old boy from Queens, New York, who says what people want to hear. His words resonate with feelings of insecurity, isolation, and distrust, shifting the blame for their misery onto everyone except those who are stealing their livelihoods for corporate profit.

He wanted your votes, so he said whatever you wanted to hear—just like Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. But they weren’t born in Queens.

So I keep searching through the library of the great leader’s policy statements. I’ll tell you I’m having trouble finding anything beyond the usual “close the border,” “keep those people from shit nations out,” and “I’m the best thing since Twinkies” (not exactly a policy statement). So why? Why did millions of Americans rush to follow this scam artist?

In January 2021, Scientific American published an article by Tanya Lewis, a senior editor covering health and medicine for the magazine. In “The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists,” forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee discussed the outgoing president’s pathological appeal and how to wean people off it.

According to the article, “Lee led a group of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other specialists who questioned Trump’s mental fitness for office.”

The results were published under the title”, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a Presiden”t. In an interview, Lee identified two of what she referred to as “emotional drives.”

One “narcissistic symbiosis.” This had to do with “developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive.”

What? Trump is “hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence.” Well, that sounds about right.

Anyone honest and who has followed this man since the eighties (talk to any New Yorker who lived back then) knows who he is. His followers?

Well, they have shared psychosis. Huh? “…also called “folie à millions” [“madness for millions”] when occurring at the national level or “induced delusions”—refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology.”

“When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals.” 

The solution? “Removal of exposure.”

Well, good luck with that. He keeps coming back with more and more energy, like that battery-powered bunny rabbit, but this one is a helluva lot more dangerous.

The attraction can’t be just about celebrity or “induced delusions” or racism or Christian nationalism. It can’t revolve around the economy alone, either.

Yes, inflation was awful last year (I’m sure those sky-high corporate profits have nothing to do with that), but even around the election, they were getting better. However, even with all that being true, how can a rational person believe that the answer was to install a madman?

You hear enough lies, and you start to believe them because the truth just isn’t appealing enough, or we’ve reached a point in this country where the truth really doesn’t matter as people convince themselves that truth is subjective (have you spent any time on social media reading, listening, and viewing the spectrum of flat Earth believers, sovereign citizens, and pro se individuals?).

Trump 2.0

So here we are, one month into Trump 2.0, and all hell has broken out. There’s no time for inflation, the economy, or the price of eggs.

There’s only time for causing grave danger to the Constitution and the federal services that matter to ordinary Americans, heaping revenge on Trump’s enemies list, and ensuring that the guardrails of independent agencies, the legislature, and the courts are ripped from their foundations so that no one dares come after him or his acolytes.

The lack of civic education, including basics like the Constitution and knowledge about laws, along with the dumbing down of American history—slavery, the massacre of Indigenous peoples, and the truths of the settler mentality—has created a vacuum that extinguishes truth, justice, and the real American way.

In its place, we face an avalanche of distorted visions and facts about what we desire as a nation that, in the twenty-first century, confronts a crisis and crossroads not seen since the American Civil War.

Hyperbole? Who knows. I’ll turn on Fox News to find out the truth.