Source: In These Times
The Left should take the Trump threat very seriously.
To gin up progressive votes for center-right candidates, Democrats cry wolf every four years: “This is the most important election ever! If the Republican wins, the world will come to an end!” Understandably, progressives who feel burned by this routine have joined the “Never Hillary” camp. And it’s hard to disagree when Clinton rubs elbows with neocons, Wall Street bankers and Henry Kissinger.
But the moral of the fable is this: The wolf eventually shows up—and no one takes the threat seriously.
This is the case with Donald Trump, who is all too easy to dismiss as inept, a clown, clueless, and more interested in the trappings of power than the details of policies.
However much truth there is to all this, it masks a grim reality. As president, Trump would launch an all-out war on social progress.
Those who think the ruling class will restrain him ignore that it has been unable to stop him thus far. Trump’s own party couldn’t do it. And despite Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the corporate media all lining up behind Clinton, Trump is gaining in the polls. Given his disdains for any laws, norms or rules, he would make the Bush era look like a paragon of probity and judiciousness.
And he’ll have momentum on his side. If Trump wins, he will probably carry enough Senate candidates with him to retain GOP control of both houses of Congress. More sobering, a Trump victory would embolden white nationalists, giving them access to vast state power and resources and a White House that would downplay or ignore their violent excesses. Trump has bundled together many branches of racism into a proto-fascist movement hell-bent on the ethnic cleansing of America by eliminating Muslims and many immigrants through walls, bans, barriers and deportations.