Trump: The Trojan Horse
Peter Schultz
Of late, I
have been reading a bunch of history about American politics, especially about
US elites, under the guise of what’s called “counterinsurgency,” adopted and
authorized the use of terrorist tactics, of mass killings especially in Central
America, in order to impose its will on, to dominate those nations. For
example, as one RAND analyst put it: “’US military advisers and intelligence
officers’ whom [the analyst] knew who were involved in the war [in El Salvador]
understood that the containment of the rebels was ‘not the result of reform but
of the consequence of the murder of thousands of people.’” [Empire’s Workshop, p. 105] In fact, this
was called “the genocide option” and it was practiced in Guatemala and Nicaragua
as well as El Salvador.
“Between
1981 and 198 in Guatemala, the army executed roughly 100,000 Mayan peasants
unlucky enough to live in a region identified as a seedbed of leftist
insurgency. In some towns, troops murdered children by beating them on the
rocks or throwing them into rivers as parents watched.” [p. 90]
“In
Nicaragua, the US-backed Contras decapitated, castrated, and otherwise
mutilated civilians and foreign aid workers.” [p. 90]
And this
behavior was the result of training by US advisers, training that was “designed
to purge civilization out of [the troops]….Some [troops] were required to raise
puppies, only to be ordered to kill them and drink their blood.” [p. 90] And
these things went on with the knowledge and under the auspices to the US
government and its elites. The “civilian militarists” in the Republican Party
not only knew about these things but defended them. Ted Schackley, who
supervised secret paramilitary armies in Laos and Vietnam that were responsible
for the execution of tens of thousands, wrote a book defending these policies
under the title The Third Option.
Against the
backdrop of these actions, which were endorsed and embraced by the governing
classes in the US, what is it that Trump has done to warrant labeling him a one
of the most dangerous politicians ever to occupy the White House? That is, the
policies, the actions of earlier administrations were far more extreme than
anything Trump has done. In fact, compared to other administrations – those of
LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Jr. – Trump looks like, at best, a minor leaguer
and possibly like someone without the skills to play in the big leagues with
the big boys.
But insofar
as this is accurate, why then do so many treat Trump as a gravely dangerous politician?
What purpose could be served by continually exaggerating Trump’s capacity for
harm?
Well, to
put it directly, Trump is being used as something like a “Trojan horse” in
order to disarm, defeat, and delegitimize a real threat to the existing
political order, viz., a populism that rejects the status quo, rejects its “realpolitik,”
its endless wars, and its oligarchic economic and political arrangements and
institutions. Trump as a Trojan horse conceals the attack on the real enemies
of our Orwellian oligarchy, while Trump has
never been and will never be a
genuine threat to that oligarchy. He is too much of a clown, too
superficial politically to generate the kind of popularity needed to undermine
the established order. But by being treated as such by that order, it can
fortify itself against greater, potentially more problematic dangers – like a
resurgent populism of the kind that elected Jimmy Carter in 1976.
There is
evidence in the appeal of Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete B., Beto, and
even Elizabeth Warren that the seeds of such a populism are present and could,
given the right chain of events, burst forth and replace the current oligarchy.
Hence, that oligarchy emphasizes, exaggerates Trump’s importance, by referring
to what they call “Trumpism.” But Trumpism only exists because the ruling
elites have created it, as Trump has not enunciated any doctrine, any
overarching vision except for the vague and hollow mantra “Make America Great
Again.” Obviously, this mantra leads
nowhere except to some imagined and imaginary past that no one, not even
Trump, can pin down. For Trumpism to be real, he would have to, like FDR or
LBJ, enunciate, elaborate, point toward a new political order like the New Deal
or the Great Society. But as almost everyone realizes, although it is not often
said, Trump is not capable of such leadership. Such leadership cannot be built
on tweets. And Trump’s tweets are a clear sign that his politics are at bottom
impotent. Tweeting, like womanizing, reflects a fear of impotency, and Trump is
strangely proud of both his tweeting and his womanizing.
Of course, this
would not be the first time that the ruling classes in the US practiced a kind
of “Trojan horse” politics. It is plausible to argue that the Cold War was used
in this way, when US elites used that “war” against communism as a way to
control – for better and worse – the American people and to fortify their power
against surging populist forces like black power, feminism, and gay liberation.
If you ask “What can I do for my country?” as JFK recommended, you will not be
asking what your rights are as blacks, as women, or as gays. And of course you
won’t be asserting those rights either, which if successfully asserted would
undermine the power of the prevailing elites.
In a nation that aspires to be a
republic, the elites are constantly battling the people for control. Currently,
Trump is a useful ally helping our current elites maintain their power. He is a
“Trojan horse.”
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