Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
I was startled when I read the latest Quinnipac poll numbers regarding the views of Republican supporters of President Trump. According to the poll 81% agree with the President that “the media is the enemy of the American people” while 86% believe trust the President to tell the truth rather than the media. In a world where during the election campaign the President’s statements were proven factually incorrect about 87% of the time this is stunning. Facts no longer seem to matter to most of the Republican Party loyalists, who once prided themselves on their individualism but now take their pride in the mob mentality of the mass movement that is built around the personality of the President.
I began to think about this and my mind was drawn back to the words of American philosopher Eric Hoffer who wrote about mass movements. Hoffer wrote of the people who become subsumed in mass movements:
“There is also this: when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”
President Trump has unleashed a new kind of freedom for his followers, a freedom from personal responsibility for their words and actions. This is a dangerous moment, for if our democracy does break, and the President and his supporters establish the authoritarian state that their words and actions seem to show that they aspire to, there will be little to restrain the base passion of those who have embraced the mass movement. This was shown true in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s as democracies flirted with, or in some cases embraced authoritarian rule with dreadful results. Timothy Snyder notes that “The European history of the twentieth century shows that societies can break, democracies fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands…”
This is not an over exaggeration or hyperbole, the signs of a coming authoritarian regime are everywhere, in the statements and actions of the administration, the acquiescence of the GOP majority in Congress, the actions of GOP dominated statehouse and legislatures, and in the words and actions of Trump supporters, from the most powerful to the most humble. Some of Trump’s supporters had a rally last week where Muslims, Jews, and immigrants were threatened and told to leave the country because it is a “Christian country,” called Senator John McCain a “Communist,” while an “Oath Keeper” told a reporter “I just want to let them know that I can’t wait for the liberal genocide to begin.” Other speakers, included a Congressman Anthony Kern added to the din. In a separate incident Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King called for a “purge” of leftists from government in a tweet so authoritarian sounding that it came right out of the Third Reich.
Obviously the people who are speaking in this manner are the more extreme proponents of Trump’s movement, but more concerning are the majority who are not saying anything in criticizing them, or him. In the face of evil, silence is tacit agreement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted: “It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people…”
So until tomorrow,
Peace
Padre Steve+
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