January 22nd, 2017

01-22-2017

Populism and Totalitarianism

"Totalitarian politics—far from being simply antisemitic or racist or imperialist or communist—use and abuse their own ideological and political elements until the basis of factual reality, from which the ideologies originally derived their strength and their propaganda value—the reality of class struggle, for instance, or the interest conflict between Jews and their neighbors—have all but disappeared." – Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Donald Trump gave an inaugural speech as the 45th President of the United States . "January 20th, 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again." At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction, that a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public. But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential... Continue reading this piece on Medium...

Form more information visit: https://medium.com/@arendt_center/populism-and-totalitarianism-de10749b9f14#.xwu0ilhr0

Stop Making Sense

[caption id="attachment_18655" align="alignright" width="300"] Donald Trump speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore)[/caption] In an interview, French translator Bérengère Viennot describes the challenges of translating the rhetoric of Donald Trump into French:

"You have to be able to get into someone’s mind in order to translate his speech and reformulate it into your own language. Trump is not easy to translate, first of all, because, most of the time, when he speaks he seems not to know quite where he’s going. In my essay, I took the example of the interview he gave to The New York Times. He seems to hang onto a word in the question, or to a word that pops into his mind, repeating it over and over again. He shapes his thought around it and, sometimes, succeeds in giving part of an answer — often the same answer: namely, that he won the election. Trump seems to go from point A (the question) to point B (himself, most of the time) with no real logic. It’s as if he had thematic clouds in his head that he would pick from with no need of a logical thread to link them. That is not at all the way I am used to thinking, which, in itself, would not matter so much, as I very often have to translate things that are unfamiliar to me. But here’s the other problem with Trump: even once you’ve understood his point (or lack thereof), you must still express it in your own language. You realize, at that moment, that you have written something very unpleasant to read. Trump’s vocabulary is limited, his syntax is broken; he repeats the same phrases over and over, forcing the translator to follow suit. If she does not, she betrays the spirit of the original piece. The translator has to translate the content and the style. So that is what I do, and reading Trump in French, which is a very structured and logical language, reveals the poor quality of his language and, consequently, of his thought... As a translator of political discourse, you also have the duty to write readable texts: so what am I to do? Translate Trump as he speaks, and let French readers struggle with whatever content there is? (Not to mention the fact that I will be judged on the vocabulary I choose — sometimes the translator is blamed for the poor quality of a piece.) Or keep the content, but smooth out the style, so that it is a little bit more intelligible, leading non-English speakers to believe that Trump is an ordinary politician who speaks properly — when this is obviously not the case?"

Form more information visit: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/lost-in-trumpslation-an-interview-with-berengere-viennot/

Global Populism

What, wonders Rebecca Liao, are the global (and globalized) classes supposed to do in the age of Trump?:

"If Trump and his ilk are Americanists, Brexiters, the Front National and the Alternative für Deutschland, what has happened to the boosters of globalism—the so-called globalists? Once the target of anti-globalization protesters, in Seattle and Genoa, the “Davos Man” is now the target of elected officials. The short-term result has been unctuous, false humility. In the days following the American presidential election, some of the most prominent globalists stepped forward to declare that globalization bears significant responsibility for the current populist resurgence. Barack Obama, one of globalization’s chief evangelists, acknowledged the day after the election that “Globalization combined with technology, combined with social media and constant information has disrupted people’s lives . . . A manufacturing plant closes and suddenly an entire town no longer has what was the primary source of employment.” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman made these high-level criticisms more personal: “When the two most important things in your life are upended—the workplace and community that anchor you and give you identity—it’s not surprising that people are disoriented and reach for the simplistic solutions touted by a would-be strongman.” Niall Ferguson, meanwhile, highlighted the cognitive dissonance of the globalist class. With a blithe lack of self-consciousness, he told CNNMoney that “establishments generally underestimate how much they’re hated, particularly if they’re cut off from contact with regular people. I think there’s a worldwide backlash against globalization—and it’s economic discontent, a backlash against immigration, a backlash against free trade."... he conflict between Trumpism and globalism is overstated, not least by Trump himself; but also by the people who feared him leading up to the election. Many of the people picked for the administration, or likely to work with it, are not only perfectly fine with free trade, but are boosters of it. Secretary of Commerce nominee Wilbur Ross, Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, and Goldman Sachs veterans Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn—the probable future heads of American economic policy—are all beneficiaries and defenders of the current global economic system. It seems unlikely that Trump will directly undermine the World Economic Forum (the organization behind Davos), the Aspen Institute, or the think tanks, consultancies, and conferences that make up the cottage industry of global thought leadership. For starters, massive tax cuts for the wealthy are more likely to inflate the fortunes of the small base that keeps this industry going.But this highest stratosphere of prestige is not simply bound together by money. Davos represents a very specific global ethos directly at odds with most of But this highest stratosphere of prestige is not simply bound together by money. Davos represents a very specific global ethos directly at odds with most of Trumpism. We’ve seen and will continue to see changes in the emphases and nature of global thinking as globalists look for clever ways to do business with the incoming US President and survive upcoming power shifts across the world system."

Form more information visit: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/trumpism-and-the-davos-man/