So Much Ugly—and Revealing—Fascist Shit Packed into One Trumpian Paragraph
January 23, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
As Trump’s inaugural address goose-stepped toward its conclusion, Trump hit us with this crucial paragraph—only 39 words, yet packed with shit meant to sanctify his fascist vision, comfort and cohere his hard-core social base as he sends them marching forth to kill and die for it—and to fill everyone else with paralyzing dread:
There should be no fear. We are protected and we will always be protected. We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement. And most importantly, we will be protected by God.
What is concentrated here are themes that run through the whole speech. On the one hand, the elevation of America’s military and police, and the massive and unjust violence that they continually unleash against people here and around the world, into instruments of “God.” And it’s a god that seeks to protect America and its “righteous people,” in its pursuit of its “glorious destiny” (to quote the Biblical language from earlier in the speech).
And on the other hand, there is the invocation of “the great men and women of our military and law enforcement” as not only “protectors” but also a moral standard for “the American people” who are, in Trump’s vision, foot soldiers, bound together in patriotic sacrifice, in “total allegiance to the United States of America,” submissively accepting the “hardships” entailed in the war to “Make America Great Again.”
We communists are atheists and do not believe in any supernatural beings. But people should be clear that the “God” Trump is invoking is not the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, preaching “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Still less is it the “universal” deity that billions of people of all faiths worship around the world, in the belief that “god’s love” unifies people of all faiths.
No, he is invoking the god of the Old Testament, the god who commanded the Israelites to lay waste to their enemies, killing every man, woman and boy, raping the young girls (Numbers 31:17-18). It is the god who commanded the slaughter of “deviants,” even among the Israelites: those who were homosexual (Leviticus 18:52); those who were disobedient, who failed to worship the “right” god (Exodus 32:25-29), or show unswerving “allegiance” to him.
The inculcation of the traditionally “secular” U.S. military with this Christian fascist sense of mission has been a major focus of religious reactionaries for several decades. And they had already achieved huge success with this—for instance, back in the Bush years, General Jerry Boykin publicly stated with regard to Islamic fundamentalists that “my god is bigger than his,” and that God had made Bush president to deal with them. Much of the U.S. officer corps in particular is now steeped in such dangerous nonsense. But this is no longer just a vision and a powerful current within the U.S. state—it now holds the reins of power. And Trump’s fusing of this “Christianized” military with “the nation” and the whole population is a further and extremely dangerous leap.
All this points to the key role—for the ruling class—of the Christian fascist movement, which insists that America should have, must have, a “special relationship” to God and must impose its “God-ordained mission” on the world, through the threatened or actual use of its military, bristling with nukes.
Another point to be very clear on is that when Trump says “there should be no fear,” he means among his social base, his shock troops for the violent crusade being unleashed. As to everyone else in the U.S. and, even more, around the world, “be afraid, be very afraid.” Earlier in the speech, Trump pledged that “we will eradicate from the face of the earth” what he calls “Islamic terrorism.” And remember, he and his fascist cohorts have insisted for years that “Islam” in general equals “Islamic terrorism,” that Islam is the enemy—or as his national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn put it, “fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.” Trump is threatening to unleash genocidal destruction of Islamic countries, and along with that will come sweeping persecution, if not outright murder, of people of Muslim faith in this country. And he is casting all this as a “God-ordained” mission.
And across the board—with respect to women, LGBT people, immigrants, Black people, Latinos, writers and intellectuals, artists and journalists, all those who either Trump does not see as “Americans,” or who simply are not on board with this fascist vision—”be afraid... and be silent” is the all-but-explicit subtext here.
Along with that, there is this: “We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement.” This “comforting” homage is invoking what are in reality two institutions that are swimming up to their eyeballs in the blood of the oppressed here and around the world.
The U.S. military, forged in genocide against Native Americans, which went on to invade dozens of countries to install bloody pro-U.S. dictators; which dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations in Japan, killing hundreds of thousands; which killed three million people in Vietnam, and rampaged through their country for a decade, raping, burning villages, brutalizing millions more; which twice invaded Iraq, killing tens of thousands and setting off a series of wars in the region that have now killed millions; and which, when people in this country have risen up against the system, has also been sent in to shoot and bayonet those they are “sworn to protect.”
And there’s the police, the hated pigs who every year kill more than 1,000 people, who arrest, beat, humiliate, degrade, and terrorize millions more, particularly among Black and Latino people.
Trump knows, his fascist social base knows, and we know (or should know) that these institutions are not going to protect us. They are not going to protect the masses of people here or around the world... that is not what Trump is getting at.
“We are protected and we will always be protected” is another message to his base, including the pigs and the U.S. military which is saying that "you are invulnerable, you have the awesome power to enforce the dominance of white, Christian American men on the vastly greater number of people who are our foes... we’ve got the guns, and"—once again—"we’ve got the God of blood and fire, and nothing can stand before us."
The paragraph from Trump quoted at the beginning of this article, oozing piety and pretending at reassurance, is in reality a stark indication of what is coming down the road at the people of the world, very quickly, if we do not act decisively now to drive this regime from power.
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