Donald Trump has been president of the United States for almost a year. America is no longer the same.
Trump is the human embodiment of fascism and authoritarianism melded into an American form, which is in some ways new. It is a civic poison that is the product of reality TV, a culture of consumerism and celebrity, a deep loneliness and hopelessness among tens of millions of Americans, and what Sheldon Wolin has brilliantly described as "inverted totalitarianism" mated with gangster capitalism and unrestrained corporate power.
However, Donald Trump's movement is also the logical outcome of a country born of racism, misogyny, greed and white supremacy. In this sense, Trump's movement is nothing new and should have been expected. Moreover, the values that birthed Trumpism are not unique to America. The falsehood of American exceptionalism tricked and confused too many people -- both the average citizen as well as pundits and other professional "smart people" -- into being blind to the ways the political culture of the United States was fertile ground for demagogues.
How can Trump and the anti-democratic right-wing politics he represents be defeated? After one year of Donald Trump's rule, are matters worse or better than originally predicted? What can be done to sustain the efforts at resisting Trump and the Republican Party's agenda? In what ways has the culture of cruelty been energized by Donald Trump? Is American democracy lost?
In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Henry Giroux, a professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He has written dozens of articles and books, including the recent "America at War With Itself" and the forthcoming "American Nightmare: The Challenge of U.S. Authoritarianism." Giroux has also contributed articles to Salon, including his new essay "Gangster capitalism and nostalgic authoritarianism in Trump's America," published this weekend.
Donald Trump has been president of the United States for a year. Are matters worse or better than you expected?
I think it is much worse than anyone anticipated. Trump in the first year has moved at a speed that I do not think many people anticipated, in terms of dismantling as many democratic institutions as possible and consolidating and emboldening his neofascist, ultra-nationalist and white supremacist base. Moreover, he has transformed the Republican leadership into a party of cowards who have become utterly complicit [with] advancing his right-wing agenda. This consolidation of power and increasing normalization of Trump suggests something worse than I had anticipated. At the same time, I am surprised at several things.
One, I'm surprised over the enormous backlash that has emerged with respect to many of his policies, particularly in the courts and among some other Republicans. But I am also alarmed at the number of incompetent, right-wing people he is appointing as federal judges.
Two, there has been a reinvigoration of the press. This is particularly true with some elements of the mainstream media, whether we are talking about CNN, the Washington Post or The New York Times. Unlike in the past, these outlets have been persistent in exposing Trump’s lies and criticizing his policies and have actually pointed to his transformation of the United States into an authoritarian society. This is not to suggest they are now part of a more liberal and progressive network of media outlets as much as to say that they have been willing to criticize Trump in the face of the dangers he poses to the country, the globe and the planet itself. One wishes they would dig deeper and analyze the underlying economic, political and structural forces that make Trump the symptom rather than the problem.
Third, there has been an enormous groundswell of resistance emerging in ways that the mainstream media does not cover. People are organizing around big issues such as health care, "dark money" in politics and education, as well as the environment.
You're a lot more positive than I thought you would be. I'm on the pessimistic side of this whole thing, and I think it’s far worse than most observers anticipated. Are you trying to find the positive side of America under Trump's rule in order to nurture us going forward?
Don’t misunderstand what I am saying. What is happening in the United States right now is profoundly threatening. Matters are much worse than when Trump first started. To clarify, I am surprised by some of the elements of resistance which have emerged. What that means politically and theoretically for me is that I am not going to surrender to a notion of power that only concerns itself with domination while ignoring resistance.
This notion of resistance has to be kept alive even in the direst times. I think we have to be careful in this moment. It is not a matter of providing a balance. Rather, it is a matter of offering a language of critique and possibility, even though in some cases those possibilities have been greatly diminished in light of the overwhelming threat that we are facing from Trump and the broader movement he represents.
Please continue this interview here: https://www.salon.com/2017/12/04/scholar-henry-giroux-trumps-attack-on-democracy-will-fail/
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