How did the US get to this point?
As we watch the 21st-century version of “As the World Turns,” we wonder why US President Trump seems to have such a free hand in almost everything. Where exactly is Congress in all this? What about the courts? In general, where is the system of checks and balances that is supposed to exist among the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches?
Surely at least a few Republicans would be willing to stand on the side of right, no? And what about people like the vile VP, J.D. Vance, who once compared Trump to Hitler but who now has a regular Monday morning appointment to shine Trump’s shoes? How did it all come to this?
Historian Sir Ian Kershaw’s analysis
One of my readers on Medium kindly pointed out a work by historian Sir Ian Kershaw in this regard. In a work on Hitler, Kershaw refers to a concept known as “working towards the Führer.” My reader suggests that this works in the case of Trump(ism) as well, as per this Kershaw quotation:
“Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Führer can hardly dictate from above everything which he intends to realize sooner or later. On the contrary, up till now, everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Führer. Very often and in many spheres, it has been the case—in previous years as well—that individuals have simply waited for orders and instructions.”
“Unfortunately, the same will be true in the future; but in fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Führer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough. But anyone who really works towards the Führer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future, one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”
[Source: Ian Kershaw. “‘Working Towards the Führer’. Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship”. Contemporary European History. Vol. 2, No. 2 (1993): pp. 103-118.]
The nature of authoritarian government
As my Medium reader notes, “[I]t is very easy to see that the same phenomenon is underway concerning President Trump … [T]here is a handpicked architecture of enablers already in place to do his bidding … whose actions and decision-making will almost certainly be made with a consideration to whether or not their outcomes are pleasing to the incumbent POTUS.”
Whether one agrees with all – or even any – of what Trump is doing domestically or internationally, this is the nature of authoritarian government, folks. Read it and weep, indeed.