Henry Giroux: Trump Is a Symptom of the Authoritarian and Anti-Democratic Forces at Work in the U.S. for the Last Forty Years

 

Trump has emboldened the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists throughout the U.S., which is unsurprising given his right-wing populist and authoritarian politics. He appears addicted to violence as a measure of how he defines both his notion of leadership and his loyalties--and his own masculinity. He threatens a nuclear war with North Korea over their bombast, threatens military action against Venezuela, and refuses to answer questions by reporters about whether he condemn the violence waged by the neo-Nazis and their white nationalists in Virginia, thus suggesting that he condones both their support and their resort to violence in the name of anti-antisemitism, racism, and bigotry. He is a threat to democracy, justice, and human dignity and should be impeached. 

 

At the same time, it must be remembered that Trump is only a symptom of the authoritarian and anti-democratic forces at work in the U.S. for the last forty years, never mine its legacy of genocide, slavery, and state terrorism. 

 

We need to impeach Trump and then get rid of the political, economic, and social forces that created this Frankenstein monster. We need a radical, new political party that connects the needs of workers, unions, diverse social movements, all under the umbrella of democratic socialism. 

 
An addendum: my call for Trump's impeachment is not meant to suggest it can happen with this right wing congress in power as much as to suggest that it is one possible strategy to register both the profound threat he is to human life and the planet while opening a space for recognizing those in the middle, especially, liberals and Democrats who refuse to take the step of acknowledging that the call for impeachment provides one rhetorical tool to name both Trump's authoritarianism and the conditions that produced him while further addressing the conditions that make one complicit with such forces. And the notion that Trump is no more dangerous than Bush and other Democratic and Republican politicians strikes me as wrong headed. Trump represents a particularly fusion of right wing populism, neoliberal savagery, and a fascistic sensibility that will cause immense suffering for those who are vulnerable.

- Henry Giroux