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I’ve been wondering whether *anything* about Trump’s approach to the pandemic in particular and the administration’s more broadly would change. I really shouldn’t have wondered. I mean, I’ve read The Origins of Totalitarianism. https://twitter.com/spettypi/status/1313137988289916932
The kind of government Trump wants is fascistic but not actually totalitarian. Under totalitarianism, you see, everything is the state. That means the state is responsible for stuff. In theory, at least, it has to *do* stuff. That’s the opposite of what Trump and the GOP want.
What Trump and the GOP want is a country where *nothing* is the state, because the state has been corroded and looted to an ineffective shell of its former self, where no public servants remain and everyone is a loyal and incompetent crony.
But there are similarities.
But there are similarities.
And one thing Trump shares in common with totalitarian leaders is the total unwillingness to admit that anything was or is ever wrong. Changing course would be implicitly admitting that they were wrong about something. By temperament, they can’t do that.
Fallibility of any kind is death. So of course they won’t change course here. They won’t even change course and then try to gaslight all of us into believing that they’ve *always* taken the virus this seriously.
Which is interesting.
Which is interesting.
Because of this was a matter of raw political calculation, that is in fact probably what they’d do, in significant part because the media has more than demonstrated that they’d play along. Or at least not push back too hard.
And they won’t lose the base over it.
And they won’t lose the base over it.
By appearing to be serious, and then insisting to a pliable media that they have *always* been serious because look how serious they are, they’d probably pick up some votes. That would be the strategically smart thing to do.
But Trump won’t allow that.
But Trump won’t allow that.
For the same reason that he’s demanding doctors go out and say he’s the healthiest president who ever did walk the land. It’s pure narcissism, because being weak existentially terrifies him.
In fact! Allowing them to be serious about how ill he is would potentially set him up to look stronger if/when he recovers. Look what dangers he faced and overcame!
But nope. He can’t allow that. Even if it would be smarter and play better.
But nope. He can’t allow that. Even if it would be smarter and play better.
He is not a skilled political strategist. He’s a stimulus-response organism whose instinctive responses usually work in a beneficial fashion with how our mass media functions and what incentives are in play, and he’s got an entire party propping him up.
He’s way luckier than he is clever.
It’s like how my hair went completely gray a few years back and then I started getting all these compliments on it and I discovered it just happened to coincide with gray hair being popular.
It worked to my advantage, but I didn’t plan it.
It’s like how my hair went completely gray a few years back and then I started getting all these compliments on it and I discovered it just happened to coincide with gray hair being popular.
It worked to my advantage, but I didn’t plan it.
He’s an opportunist. He’s not a strategist.
And his instincts make him weak in the way Hannah Arendt describes totalitarian regimes being brittle and weak.
And his instincts make him weak in the way Hannah Arendt describes totalitarian regimes being brittle and weak.
This White House is not going to change course and they never were. They’ll keep dropping like flies and nothing will change. Nor will Republicans in Congress change (which could work to *our* advantage wrt ACB).
I never should have wondered.
I never should have wondered.
By the way, I could totally be wrong about this. Something could come out of nowhere and change everything. I just think that’s vanishingly unlikely, given what we’ve seen.
