The past two presidential elections have pitted a democrat against a fascist. In both cases, the democrat lost. The capital-D Democrat Obama was, charitably speaking, the fascist.
Those past two elections were lost when the Republicans, under the influence of the mainstream media, nominated a democrat.
This year, America is in danger of seeing the Republicans nominate a capital-D-type Democrat. If that happens, the general election will be a battle between the flamboyant fascist Donald Trump and the female fascist Hillary Clinton—that is, two effing fascists.
The essence of fascism is the contradictory attempt to preserve and control capitalist institutions in the pursuit of socialist goals. For example, the government providing health care to all is a socialist goal. Obamacare, a fascist program, pursues this socialist goal while trying to preserve capitalist institutions such as private insurance companies, private doctors, private hospitals, private drug companies, and other private medical research companies. Whereas socialism would simply abolish all these private institutions and set up a government bureaucracy in their place, fascist Obamacare tries to retain these private institutions, but dictates to them the socialist directives of government: whom to cover with insurance, how much to charge, what the coverage must entail, what drugs to approve, what specific treatments by doctors to allow and to pay for, etc. Fascism is bootleg socialism.
Donald Trump supports the socialist goal of health care for all. Trump praises ‘single-payer’ healthcare, which is overt socialism. He also supports bootleg socialism: although he now opposes Obamacare, he wants to replace Obamacare with what he thinks is a better program still run by government, in pursuit of the same socialist goal of health care for all. Trump in effect thinks that the Obama administration is a bunch of dumb fascists, while in effect also thinking that he, Trump, is a smart fascist. Consider these statements by Trump:
We’re run by either very foolish or very stupid people.
For Trump, the alternative to our being run by stupid people is our being run by a smart person, namely him. Trump does not want to run the government; he wants to run the lives of Americans. He wants us to be run by him.
Under fascism, the relationship between some businesses and government is often a symbiotic one. While fascist government controls all of business for socialist goals, some businessmen exert influence over specific politicians, getting the politicians to favor certain businesses over others. Trump has built his career on being this kind of fascist businessman. Trump himself admitted so much in this dialogue from the second Republican presidential debate on September 16, 2015:
Jeb Bush: The one guy that had some special interests that I know of that tried to get me to change my views on something—that was generous and gave me money—was Donald Trump. He wanted casino gambling in Florida—
Trump: I didn’t—
Bush: Yes you did.
Trump: Totally false.
Bush: You wanted it and you didn’t get it because I was opposed to—
Trump: I would have gotten it.
Bush: —casino gambling before—
Trump: I promise I would have gotten it.
Bush: during and after. And that’s not—I’m not going to be bought by anybody.
Trump: I promise if I wanted it, I would have gotten it.
Bush: No way. Believe me.
Trump: I know my people.
Bush: Not even possible.
Trump: I know my people.
Trump here is boasting that he gets politicians to change laws and regulations in favor of his business, not by convincing the politicians on the basis of rights, but by bribing or coercing politicians to change when they don’t think it is right to do so. Trump is boasting that he gets politicians to do what he wants, that he controls politicians. He is boasting that his people are good at this practice, implying that they and he have engaged in this practice often. Trump is boasting of his fascism.
Trump boasts on his Web site,
America needs strong leadership. Politicians can talk but they don’t get things done. I have a strong track record of success and if elected I will do what I have promised to do.
Trump’s Renfield-like sidekick, Chris Christie, made a similar boast and criticism of Senators when he was running for president. John Kasich makes a similar argument. The absurdity of this argument is demonstrated by the history of Herbert Hoover, a great businessman and disastrous president.
Much more important than executive experience is ideology, a characteristic that many politicians in the executive branch of goverment deride to their own detriment.
Trump, Christie, and Kasich have derided Cruz for not getting enough done in the Senate. But a senator has only one vote out of a hundred in only one house of the legislature. The president, with his veto power, has the equivalent of sixteen as many as thirty-three Senate votes plus seventy-seven one hundred forty-four House votes. [Underlined corrections made on 3/15/2016.] Cruz was right in the stands that he took, but his wrong colleagues and the wrong president outnumbered him. As president, the right Cruz will have more votes. That is what America needs: the right statesman to have more votes.
The three most pivotal domestic functions performed by a president today are 1) deciding whether or not to sign legislation, 2) nominating Supreme Court justices, and 3) appointing key officials in government agencies. All of these pivotal functions depend on ideology far more than executive experience. Foreign policy too depends more on ideology than executive experience. Again, look at Obama.
A president can always delegate duties to an efficient executive. But he must not delegate his choice of ideology.
Obama has gotten much done. All of it has been evil. Had Obama been a more skilled executive, better at getting things done, he would have gotten done even more evil. The disaster that has been the Obama administration is not due to his lack of executive experience, but due to his leftist—and therefore anti-American—ideology.
The ideology of Trump is fascism, whether he knows it or not.
Trump’s domestic fascism is consistent with Trumps’s admiration of fascism abroad, as in this praise by Trump for Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 18, 2015:
MSNBC Host Mika Brzezinski: Do you like Vladimir Putin’s comments about you?
Trump: Sure, when people call you brilliant, that’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russia.
MSNBC Host Joe Scarborough: Well, I mean, it’s also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?
Trump: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country. [Underlined emphasis added.]
Scarborough: But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.
Trump: Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is. …
Scarborough: I’m confused. So you obviously condemn Vladimir Putin killing journalists and political opponents, right?
Trump: Oh sure, absolutely.
Scarborough: Alright, so how would America’s relationship with Russia change if you were President.
Trump: Well I think it would be good. I’ve always felt, you know, fine about Putin. I think that he is a strong leader. He’s a powerful leader. …
Thus, in less than two minutes, Trump praised Putin for “running his country,” excused Putin’s murders by comparing the murders to alleged killings by the United States (thereby renouncing America’s moral high ground), condemned “absolutely” the killing by Putin of journalists and political opponents, and said, “I’ve always felt, you know, fine about Putin.”
Then, in the debate this past Thursday evening, Trump participated in these dialogues:
Marco Rubio: And Vladimir Putin, who you’ve expressed admiration for, Donald …
Trump: Wrong. Wrong.
Rubio: You’ve expressed admiration for him.
Trump: Wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
Rubio: Donald, you said he’s a strong leader.
Trump: Wrong.
…
TRUMP: Let me just tell you, first of all, I’ve been hearing this man [Rubio] so long talking about Putin. Putin said about me—I didn’t say about Putin—Putin said very nice things about me. And I say very nicely, wouldn’t it be nice if actually we could get along with Russia, we could get along with foreign countries, instead of spending trillions and trillions of dollars?
…
TRUMP: I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin. I just think so.
Putin is a dictator, a murderer, and an enemy of America. Trump would not be tough on America’s enemies, because he does not even know who our enemies are. He sees in our enemies too much of his fascist self, and likes when they see that quality in him.
Trump boasts of being a great negotiator. But in the above passages, he negotiated away America’s greatest asset: the moral high ground. Trump would treat Russia as America’s moral equal, and Putin as the American president’s moral equal.
The same moral weakness holds true when Trump deals with America’s Islamic enemies. Although Trump has talked tough about barring immigration by Muslims, he criticized the brave Americans who participated in the Draw Muhammad contest in Garland, Texas. (For my own assessment of the participants and the critics, see here.) Moreover, Trump has pledged to be “neutral” regarding the conflict between Israel and the ‘Palestinians’. That is, although he talks tough about keeping Muslims out of America, he will not side with a free nation—Israel—against a savage, dictatorial, Nazi-like, Islamic regime—Hamas—that launches hundreds of rockets into the free country’s homes, forces the Islamic people’s children into the path of return fire, and digs tunnels for murderers to enter into the free country’s kindergartens. Instead, Trump will pressure Israel to ‘negotiate’ with evil.
Trump’s now-famous December 7, 2015 declaration about Muslim immigration stated,
Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.
In contrast, Ted Cruz long ago figured out at least part of “what is going on”: “radical Islamic terrorism.” (Unfortunately, even Cruz needs to figure out more.)
Cruz is fundamentally a man of reason mixed with Christianity, with a thought-out ideology, and a defender of individual rights. Because his ideology is explicit in his own mind, he has acted consistently according to it.
Trump is a man of coercion, with an implicit fascist and postmodern ideology he has picked up from those around him. Because his ideology is not explicit in his own mind, he is wildly inconsistent and unpredictable, and will probably gravitate to more and more evil when under pressure.
Trump has made one declaration that would have been good for other candidates to make: America “should have kept the oil” from our enemies in Iraq. But even such a seemingly good idea is, coming from the mind of Trump, unclear and unpredictable. (For my own thoughts on this matter, see here.)
To see in concrete terms the contrast between the the coercion of Trump and the reason of Cruz, compare how each man deals with those who disagree with him. Trump resorts immediately to juvenile ad hominem and outright threats. Cruz resorts to rational, civil discussion.
Cruz has consistently worked to repeal Obamacare. Even in opposing his adversaries in the Senate, Cruz took the path of reasoned discourse, for twenty-one consecutive hours. Even though he lost that battle, his arguments—heard by many—were an important step toward winning the war.
Cruz wants to eliminate five major federal departments. One of those is the Department of Education, a highly popular and yet probably the most pernicious government department in America. That a major presidential candidate is committed to such a policy is astounding. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare—the precursor to the Department of Education—began in 1953. Cruz wants to roll back the welfare state almost as far back as to the beginning of Social Security!
Obama’s proposed 2017 budget for the Department of Education is $210 billion! That is more than $1,700 per taxpayer. Take a look at the department’s budget and strategic plan, and see all the money-burning, mind-poisoning programs that would vanish if Cruz became president. And consider how momentous a step this abolition would be toward abolishing government-run schools in America.
Cruz also wants to eliminate the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He also wants to eliminate climate research funding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Along with freeing American businessmen from stifling regulation, taxes, and government-financed competitors, Cruz evidently wants to dismantle the government-financed postmodern leftist brain trust. These actions could save America.
As an atheist, I am concerned by the religiosity of Cruz. But consider the following context.
In 2012, I wrote,
Even when the Left opposes something wrong, it supports something worse.
The Left does not oppose religion and mysticism as such, but rather the Western Judeo-Christian tradition in particular: the least mystical religion today because of its infusion of Aristotle via Aquinas. The Left supports all other religions and mystical beliefs: Islam, Buddhism, Eastern religions, all kinds of ‘New Age’ fads, and—that most primitive and mystical of all Western religions—environmentalism. Even among Christians, the Christian Left is worse than the Christian Right. Christian Obama rejects the traditional Christian notion of the individual soul’s salvation, and supports the notion of ‘collective salvation’.
The Left opposes the anti-abortionist notion that a human fertilized egg has rights, but supports the environmentalist notion that future generations of rodents and plants have rights. The Left opposes sexual traditions such as abstinence before marriage, but promotes promiscuity.
It should be no surprise that virtually the only schools that teach Aristotelian logic are parochial schools.
It was postmodern leftist Obama who declared to the world,
The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.
The following sentence may anger most of my readers, but I hope my Christian friends will forgive me. (Contemporary Conservative) Christianity is an absurd defense of the wisdom of the Enlightenment; contemporary postmodern Leftism is a rejection of that wisdom. [Parenthetical correction to the preceding sentence was added on 3/15/2016.]
It is far better to believe that individual rights come from God than to oppose individual rights. It is far better to believe in the eternal soul than that there is no soul. It is far better to believe that God will judge you for your choices than to deny that man has choice. It is far better to believe that masculinity, femininity, and sexuality glorify God than to oppose masculinity and femininity and to believe that sexuality is mindless. It is far better to grapple with the serious philosophical and scientific questions of when human life begins and when the right to life begins than to evade those questions. It is far better to watch (or to perform in) Handel’s Messiah to celebrate Christmas than to watch the ‘acts’ at Super Bowl halftime.
It is far better to be Ted Cruz than Donald Trump. Politically, it is far better to vote for Cruz than for Trump.
Here then is my summary regarding the U.S. presidency.
Incumbent Obama wants to destroy America.
Hillary Clinton wants to run America, to destroy specific Americans.
Trump wants to run America, like a business—or a plantation—that he owns.
Cruz wants to run the government, not America, freeing Americans again to run their own lives.
I choose Cruz.
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See also Judeo-Christian Conservatives Are Today’s Main Defenders of Western Civilization.