The last paragraphs of Roger Cohen’s powerful “The Banal Belligerence of Donald Trump,” opinion piece in today’s New York Times [my bolding]:<\/p>\n
I have tried to tread carefully with analogies between the Fascist ideologies of 1930s Europe and Trump. American democracy is resilient. But the first days of the Trump presidency \u2014 whose roots of course lie in far more than the American military debacles since 9\/11 \u2014 pushed me over the top. The president is playing with fire.<\/em><\/p>\n To say, as he did, that the elected representatives of American democracy are worthless and that the people are everything is to lay the foundations of totalitarianism. It is to say that democratic institutions are irrelevant and all that counts is the great leader and the masses he arouses. To speak of \u201cAmerican carnage<\/a>\u201d is to deploy the dangerous lexicon of blood, soil and nation. To boast of \u201ca historic movement, the likes of the which the world has never seen before\u201d is to demonstrate consuming megalomania. To declaim \u201cAmerica first\u201d and again, \u201cAmerica first,\u201d is to recall the darkest clarion calls of nationalist dictators. To exalt protectionism is to risk a return to a world of barriers and confrontation. To utter falsehood after falsehood, directly or through a spokesman<\/a>, is to foster the disorientation that makes crowds susceptible to the delusions of strongmen.<\/em><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s outrageous claims have a purpose: to destroy rational thought. When Primo Levi arrived at Auschwitz he reached, in his thirst, for an icicle outside his window but a guard snatched it away. \u201cWarum?\u201d Levi asked (why?). To which the guard responded, \u201cHier ist kein warum\u201d (here there is no why).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n As the great historian Fritz Stern observed, \u201cThis denial of \u2018why\u2019 was the authentic expression of all totalitarianism, revealing its deepest meaning, a negation of Western civilization.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Americans are going to have to fight for their civilization and the right to ask why against the banal belligerence of Trump.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Source: The Banal Belligerence of Donald Trump \u2013 The New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last paragraphs of Roger Cohen’s powerful “The Banal Belligerence of Donald Trump,” opinion piece in today’s New York Times [my bolding]: I have tried to tread carefully with analogies between the Fascist ideologies of 1930s Europe and Trump. American … Continue reading