Again we are forced to return to the essence of Trump’s influence: the unswerving loyalty of his followers. Several years ago, the pamphleteer Ann Coulter, in an extended C-Span interview, admitted that her political awakening was based upon a reading of Gustav Le Bon’s theory of mass psychology. Of course, she saw Obama as the cult figure leading the Democratic mob.
A more comprehensive look at the topic of mass behavior would have led her to Sigmund Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. There, Freud’s extension of Le Bon’s premises would more appropriately describe Trump’s base today. Specifically, Freud delineates the dynamics of the reduction of one’s personality in a group to his/her identification with others in that group and a complete submission to the leader: “an extreme passion for authority and a thirst for obedience, with capacity for rational thought completely obliterated.”
Note the similarities between Trump’s base and those who were mesmerized by Hitler’s remonstrations in Germany. That authoritarian example was cruelly adjudicated by the mass extermination of hundreds of thousands of Germans, both military and civilian. De-Nazification was later carried out by education – mostly to younger Germans.
Can a similar fumigation of the current GOP solve the problem of Trump’s base, even after his term in office is completed? As in Germany, education and cultural education is only effective on a younger generation. Sadly, short of another civil war, the only answer now is the gradual passing of this older white generation, with careful attention to the emerging white nationalist terrorist violence, which will be addressed by new draconian legislation in Democratic administrations.
As the GOP will never again see a Republican president, preparations must be made for the impending violence in order to avoid all-out civil war. And in this regard, and unlike our mistake in Reconstruction, all rebels must be dealt with decisively. Are you listening Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and the entire House GOP delegation? This time, no Andrew Johnson (unless Joe Biden crumbles like a cheap suit). This time, rebel legislators will not be allowed back into Congress. And this time, rebels will face the noose. The era of “American Exceptionalism” has passed. Our democratic republic retains the right of its own survival, and in this regard the examples of Greece and Rome, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, demand that our new Democratic majorities eliminate the Tyrant and his rebels as necessary.