Donald Trump took another step closer to imposing autocratic rule in the United States based on the military and the police. The outlines of a fascistic state are becoming clearer by the moment. Using his Twitter account as a live feed, he is attempting to bypass what is left of the political process in Congress. This tactic has been used to goad the Repugnants in Congress to pass something, anything, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. So far they have fallen back in disarray in confrontation with a united Democratic Party and moderate defectors among the Repugnants.
Unmistakeably, both parties represent the entrench "power elite" as described by sociologist C. Wright Mills in his classic work on the subject sixty years ago. His description of loose cliques of elites centered in corporate America, the military, and established politicians is still accurate. One could amend this list by expanding it to include the security establishment which has ballooned in size and importance since the terror attacks sixteen years ago. As Mills pointed out, "America is now more a formal political democracy than a democratic social structure, and even the formal political mechanics are weak". They have grown even weaker since that statement was written. Three of the most powerful executive cabinet posts are now in the hands of retired military generals: White House Chief of Staff, National Security Advisor, and Secretary of Defense. House Democratic Leader and fellow elitist, Nancy Pelosi, welcomed the addition of General Kelly to the White House line-up of top military officials in government, despite the marine general's often expressed contempt for civilian control of the military. The Democratic Party is certainly no friend of radical, anti-capitalist change.
Using twits, Trump has savaged congressional Repugnants for their failure to pass a substitute to Obamacare without formulating his own alternative healthcare program acceptable to both sides of the political divide. He demands in his 140 word communiques that Senator McConnell trample on minority rights in the Senate and
proceed immediately to push through White House proposals for slashing
taxes on the wealthy and gutting social programs such as Medicaid. Senator Susan Collins from Maine, who has held out against repeal of the Affordable Care Act, has resorted to pleading in the corporate mass media that a bi-partisan congressional effort be allowed to work in public instead of behind close doors motivated by electronic diktats. Congress is collapsing beneath partisan deadlock; the only
legislation it can pass is more economic punishment of the traditional propaganda scapegoat--Russia. Anti-Russian hysteria has never been as prevalent in Washington since the dark days of Eugene McCarthy*.
In response to failure, Trump has whipped up race phobia in an attempt to appear above party by speaking to captured audiences. Speaking to New York police on Long Island, he advocated rough treatment for immigrants suspected of being illegal. The cops responded to the tough talk like an SS formation, chanting in unison, "USA, USA!". If Trump and the generals get their way, there will be an incident on the militarized Korean peninsula to distract from Trump's failed administration and chauvinistic attempts at dictatorial rule. Trump is not a new phenomenon, but the product a decades-long decay and corruption of democratic political culture within the ruling elites and institutions presided over by the criminal financial oligarchs who control both political
*Mills also foresaw the rise of the mass society in America. The workings of classic democracy in which informed communities of publics discuss problems of the day among themselves and eventually arrive at decision through the process. Their elected representatives are supposed to formally implement the publics' will into law. Mills writes, "But we must recognize this description as a set of images out of a fairy tale: they are not adequate even as an approximate model of how the American system of power works. The issues that now shape man's fate are neither raised nor decided by the public at large." That power is now wielded by elites; they manipulate the masses through media they control and the "dumbing down" of liberal (liberating) education into vocational training. Thus, an uniformed mass is reduced to a captured market for 'opinion making' by the elite. A sort of psychological illiteracy is therefore ingendered by a constant bombardment of banality and violence. The mass media tells the mass man what he wants to be (a sports or TV star); they tell him how to get that way (buy this product); and how to feel that way even if he is not (be outraged, for immigrants are taking your jobs). It is the formula of a psuedo-world, not reality. Mills warned, "We have moved a considerable distance along the road to a mass society. At the end of this road is totalitarianism...we are not yet at that end." Mills wrote this sixty years ago, and the direction of travel has not changed.