[FRIAM] 2019 - The end of Trumpism

Wed Dec 26 15:59:00 EST 2018

I'm especially interested in understanding the different kind of *- isms, individually and collectively, like Erich Fromm. Narcissism on a collective level of a whole nation is similar to nationalism. It is the belief that the own nation is superior to the rest and far better than others. I believe Erich Fromm observed something similar, but I don't remember the book where he mentions it. He tried to analyze Nazism in Germany from a psychological and sociological perspective. And he spent some time in Santa Fe, too (no, we are unfortunately not related). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism
Authoritarianism on an individual level could be considered as the expectance of strict obedience to authority, for instance the family father that expects strict obedience to his authority. What it has in common which narcissism is the lack of concern for the wishes and opinions of others. On a collective level it appears in authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, where usually a ruling family governs a country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism
Trumpism has elements of both MAGA nationalism and authoritarianism. The 45 president demands absolute loyalty (as former FBI director Comey has reported) and attacks constantly the media. If Trump is successful in his fight against CNN, the NY Times and freedom of speech in general, and only FoxNews is left, then America would indeed begin to resemble a post-totalitarian authoritarian regime we know from the former Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
Usually these kind of systems can be observed if an empire or kingdom has collapsed and the institutions are gone or severely weakened. In a sense, communism in the Soviet Union can be seen as a post-authoritarian totalitarian regime, because it appeared after the authoritarian empire of the tsar disappeared in the Russian Revolution, similar to Nazism in Germany which appeared shortly after the German empire and the last German emperor disappeared (who lived in the Dutch exile) or Napoleonism which appeared shortly after the French kingdom disappeared in the French Revolution. 
The question is will the American institutions be strong enough to stop the emerging authoritarianism? Since America is one of the oldest democracy of the world, there is hope!https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-real-birth-of-american-democracy-83232825/
-Jochen

-------- Original message --------From: Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> Date: 12/26/18  19:16  (GMT+01:00) To: friam at redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] 2019 - The end of Trumpism 
Mueller will disclose nothing except what everyone already knows - Trump and his circle are immoral opportunists - totally corrupt and completely blind to those occasions they cross the thin line of absolutely technical legality (however much they violate the spirit of law) into the indictable and convict-able behavior.

And Trump will survive and almost certainly be re-elected. Especially if the opposition is Bernie, Beto, or Biden - or, and don't dismiss this out of hand, Hillary.

And we should learn a lot about isms: perhaps most importantly the difference between narcissism and fascism (nobody is getting that difference, so far).

And it would serve "the opposition" to get a clue about the fact that the vast majority of Trump supporters do not suffer from racism, sexism, 'genderism', "me-first-ism," etc. Instead recognize that their primary affliction is individualism - and even libertarian-ism (despite some obvious contradictions from the religious among them) - along with corollaries of "anti-government control-ism," "personal-responsibility-ism," and "my-values-are-just-as-valid-as-yours-ism."

davew

On Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 9:36 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

Dear Pollyanna,

It will end and we’ll all learn an important lesson?     

Whew, I was worried there for a minute!

Thanks,

Marcus

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net>
 Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
 Date: Wednesday, December 26, 2018 at 6:53 AM
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
 Subject: [FRIAM] 2019 - The end of Trumpism

Merry christmas and a happy new year 2019! I hope Mueller will finish his report in 2019 and I assume president Trump will either resign or be impeached like Nixon, since the House belongs now to the democrats (Did you know "Mueller" is
 the German version of "Miller" btw? As you know a miller is someone who creates the flour we need for life) Then Donald will spend the rest of his life in prison or seek asylum in Russia. This would be the end of "Trumpism". But who knows, it's a complex world.
 In hindsight we will learn more about "Trumpism" as well. At the moment it seems to be a mixture of the original Italian fascism and post-soviet authoritarianism, i.e. the rule of an authoritarian leader who demands absolute loyalty and trusts only his family.
 I believe we can only decode social systems if we really understand the various forms of *-isms like fascism, nazism or communism, and how they are related. 

-Jochen

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