That is one of the most perceptive analyses of the state of the nation - and the origins of our current impasse - I have yet read. Deeply impressive - and given the scale of the problems we face - deeply troubling. I thank you for it and can only wish it is widely circulated among those of us who have a stake in the survival of our nation and indeed of the global order in the nuclear age.
Bannon is unlike any American courtier ever - essentially a European pseudo intellectual, a self taught acolyte of reactionary Catholic ideas taken from Cardinal Burke, Italian fascist philosophy borrowed from Evola and others, and Anglo Russian geo political theories of Makinder and Pugin. Such an anti Enlightenment illiberal cocktail has never befuddled Washington before. The notion that this hooded figure now manipulates Trump is truly terrifying. The incurious American people have yet to wake up and realize what an unprecedented, sinister - and potentially calamitous - turn of events this is.
This is the single most perceptive analysis of the Trump "phenomenon" I have yet read. Melville, Twain, Miller -- yes and P.T.Barnum - all figured out one strand of the American myth. The one that came here to escape "order","law" and "hierarchy". The one that came as a bandit, an outlaw and a thief -- often in chains. The Scotch Irish German us. The Italian us. That is the fons et origo of the huckster -- the feeling that to game the system is to win. To brag is to win. To re invent reality is to win. To bend or break the law -- and wriggle free -- is to win. There has never been a more American candidate than The Donald. He is our "Id". And the "super ego" of America -- the institutions of control -- are very very scared indeed precisely because they know he is "us".
Roosevelt called the infamous Evian Conference of world nations in 1938 to address the Jews of Germany and Austria -- and I have always read that whereas several small Western hemisphere countries like Cuba pledged to take in Jews -- Britain and the US were unwilling to raise their pitifully small quotas. Hitler famously scoffed. I've also read that FDR was as anti-Semitic in private as any other Hudson Valley grandee of his era. Even Eleanor made snide disparaging remarks in letters to her relatives about "that Jew Frankfurter". While what this newly published diary of McDonald's reveals is interesting -- I do not think FDR tried hard enough, and as so often in his career, hid behind "political realities" to stall on things that were distasteful or unwelcome. Later on he could easily have ordered the bombing of the rail heads and crematoria at Auschwitz and elsewhere, thereby perhaps saving several hundred thousand Jewish lives (while admittedly killing a few in the process) but chose, for "raisons d'etat" not to do so. (Waste of precious military resources etc.). Am I wrong?
That is one of the most perceptive analyses of the state of the nation - and the origins of our current impasse - I have yet read. Deeply impressive - and given the scale of the problems we face - deeply troubling. I thank you for it and can only wish it is widely circulated among those of us who have a stake in the survival of our nation and indeed of the global order in the nuclear age.
Bannon is unlike any American courtier ever - essentially a European pseudo intellectual, a self taught acolyte of reactionary Catholic ideas taken from Cardinal Burke, Italian fascist philosophy borrowed from Evola and others, and Anglo Russian geo political theories of Makinder and Pugin. Such an anti Enlightenment illiberal cocktail has never befuddled Washington before. The notion that this hooded figure now manipulates Trump is truly terrifying. The incurious American people have yet to wake up and realize what an unprecedented, sinister - and potentially calamitous - turn of events this is.
This is the single most perceptive analysis of the Trump "phenomenon" I have yet read. Melville, Twain, Miller -- yes and P.T.Barnum - all figured out one strand of the American myth. The one that came here to escape "order","law" and "hierarchy". The one that came as a bandit, an outlaw and a thief -- often in chains. The Scotch Irish German us. The Italian us. That is the fons et origo of the huckster -- the feeling that to game the system is to win. To brag is to win. To re invent reality is to win. To bend or break the law -- and wriggle free -- is to win. There has never been a more American candidate than The Donald. He is our "Id". And the "super ego" of America -- the institutions of control -- are very very scared indeed precisely because they know he is "us".
Roosevelt called the infamous Evian Conference of world nations in 1938 to address the Jews of Germany and Austria -- and I have always read that whereas several small Western hemisphere countries like Cuba pledged to take in Jews -- Britain and the US were unwilling to raise their pitifully small quotas. Hitler famously scoffed. I've also read that FDR was as anti-Semitic in private as any other Hudson Valley grandee of his era. Even Eleanor made snide disparaging remarks in letters to her relatives about "that Jew Frankfurter". While what this newly published diary of McDonald's reveals is interesting -- I do not think FDR tried hard enough, and as so often in his career, hid behind "political realities" to stall on things that were distasteful or unwelcome. Later on he could easily have ordered the bombing of the rail heads and crematoria at Auschwitz and elsewhere, thereby perhaps saving several hundred thousand Jewish lives (while admittedly killing a few in the process) but chose, for "raisons d'etat" not to do so. (Waste of precious military resources etc.). Am I wrong?