Molly Jong-Fast: Donald Trump's Springfield Scapegoat

[Nevilledog]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-springfield-2024-election

No paywall link
https://archive.li/JYTrZ

Donald Trump doesn’t so much run for something as he runs against somebody. His latest attacks are aimed at Haitian immigrants, but what we’re seeing is a playbook previously used to target other ethnic or religious groups, and with a similar goal: to make the MAGA base feel like they’re under attack.

“The followers must feel besieged,” as the late Italian writer Umberto Eco, who grew up in fascist Italy, wrote nearly three decades ago in The New York Review of Books. “The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.” Indeed, in order to enact much of his radical right-wing agenda, Trump needs his people to think America is on the brink of collapse—and to associate that collapse with an “other.” The goal is to panic the base, and since there isn’t a scary enough truth, lies will do.

“They’re eating the dogs,” Trump bellowed to Kamala Harris last Tuesday night, alluding to the utterly baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are stealing and feasting on people’s pets. It was immediately clear what Trump was doing. After all, scapegoating is one of Trump’s favorite ploys. He demonized Mexicans and Muslims in 2016, and long insisted that immigrants are “destroying the blood” and the “fabric” of America.” He even used his closing remarks at the debate to stoke fears of “criminals” entering the United States and “destroying our country.”

But the irony of Trump’s fascist rhetoric was particularly rich in Springfield, where the Haitian influx has revitalized the city’s workforce—as with so many places in America, where there just weren’t enough people living in the area to keep the economy going.

*snip*

[pat_k]

1. We know the playbook.

We've seen the forces driving authoritarian and totalitarian regimes into power. Add that to the lessons Trump learned from the psychopathic Roy Cohn and you have the particular brand of evil we are up against.

Just months ago, defeating Trump looked impossible. Now it is in reach. We will win this election. And when we have, let it be the first victory of many.

"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
-- Mal Reynolds, Firefly