President Trump and Devin Nunes the real reason Trump is a threat…
Matthew G. Anderson, American Thinker: The 45th president of the United States, Donald John Trump, is a particular kind of president, out of all the previous presidents in modern history, and a specific kind of threat to established political organizations. He is not a threat perse’ to voters, or to Americans, but rather to the current political party system. But there is a fascinating reason why this is so, and I’d like to suggest that it stems from the most powerful element of America itself, including its founding: individualism.
That may seem like an obvious statement, but if you map out all the elements of the current U.S. political economy, for the most part they are made out of the exact opposite of individualism: more along the lines of institutionalism, in which Trump stands in especially stark contrast, as he is by nature not only an outsider to politics, but an outsider to many entrenched business practices. Even if you may find him completely objectionable, he still functions as a symbol, and that symbol, like it or not, is an individual.
What do I mean by individualism, and an “outsider?” I mean that all the contentions that you are daily subjected to from the “public square” of U.S. politics, are defined, organized and transmitted by institutions: the DNC, the GOP, the WHO, the CDC, the DOD, the DOE, the WEF, the U.N., and hundreds of foundations (such as the U.K. Runnymede Trust for example), and dozens upon dozens of other types of institutions. And of course there’s the media, made up of numerous corporate institutions.
And then there’s an individual named Donald John Trump, considered especially dangerous because of what he effectively transmutes socially, both to and back from the majority of Americans: individualism. This is the precise antagonism to progressive Left ideology, because everything they stand for is based on group behavior, group consensus, group solidarity, and group thinking. It derives its power from fear, and its value from perceived authority. Its authority stems purely from institutions, and its methods of coercion, including its obsession over the control of free speech and free thought, depend desperately on sustaining the illusion of institutional legitimacy, authority, and dependency: on lowering your God-given natural confidence, and replacing it with man-given doubt and controls. THAT!
No one should be so naive to think that Trump is an entirely independent entity: he is susceptible to influence like anyone else, but he is also more vulnerable because he is not by nature an institutional actor that fully understands or is facile with, the sociology of institutional hierarchical behavior (or compromise) … But I digress.
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Streaming future-forward anyone?
Come to the fore, one Lydia from the comments thread, opining that Trump was once part of their club, but became a heretic as soon as he began talking about the “forgotten men and women.” The Republican establishment was horrified that their wealthy exclusive club would be sullied by the great unwashed. This country was built by individuals, rough and courageous men and women who tamed the wilderness and built the wealth enjoyed by today’s “elites.”
The current American aristocracy of wealthy social climbers are no different than in feudal times. They believe themselves to be superior in all ways compared to the common rabble. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson argued about this. Jefferson thought that the economic opportunities of an unspoiled America would end class distinctions. Adams argued that aristocracies were inevitable in human societies and that the US would not be an exception to economic inequality.
The middle class that was envisioned by Jefferson today is under attack by a very wealthy global aristocracy. They want a return to the feudal system of lords, vassals, and serfs. Trump’s shared vision with the Founders of this nation (equality and individual freedom) is at odds with the New World Order — which is actually a return to the very Old World Order of rulers and the ruled. It is why We the People are a threat to the elites and why we are despised. Leftists are not progressive, they are regressive. We are actually not forgotten; we are their primary targets. More THAT!
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A political counterpart such as Obama as classic organization man
A political counterpart, such as Obama, is just the opposite; he is a classic organization man. He fully cultivates and serves, the entire institutional apparatus of the DNC, its systems, and its culture, and is sustained utterly by it. He is a true agent, and an institutional object. Trump is, but not to the same degree, or of the same kind. Even if his individualism may be thought rude, unsophisticated or uncultivated, it stands, still, as a threat because he symbolizes independence.
The individual is the greatest threat to progressive Leftism, as it is to all authoritative regimes seeking the fantasy of absolute control. Trump is part of that system in several ways, but a part of him also naturally stands outside it, and his presence alone symbolizes directly and indirectly, deliberately or not, the nonconforming individual will of hundreds of millions of individual Americans with individual lives, individual families, individual businesses, individual wealth, individual thoughts, individual aspirations, and individual power. That upon THAT! [end]
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Matthew G. Anderson, American Thinker – and all that Jazz – yup, THAT!
