Chomsky Explains Trump

[kpete]

Chomsky: Trump's rise due to 'breakdown of society'
By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL 02/24/16 10:35 AM EST


MIT professor and intellectual Noam Chomsky attributes Donald Trump’s success in the Republican presidential primary to “fear” and a “breakdown of society.”

In an interview published Tuesday, AlterNet’s Aaron Williams asked Chomsky for his thoughts on Trump’s “surprising progress.” After a second-place finish in Iowa, the billionaire has stormed to consecutive double-digit wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

“Fear, along with the breakdown of society during the neoliberal period,” Chomsky responded. “People feel isolated, helpless, victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence.”

Chomsky compared the political environment that’s allowed Trump to flourish to the 1930s, when the U.S. was in the Great Depression. “Objectively, poverty and suffering were far greater,” Chomsky said. “But even among poor working people and the unemployed, there was a sense of hope that is lacking now, in large part because of the growth of a militant labor movement and also the existence of political organizations outside the mainstream.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/noam-chomsky-donald-trump-fear-219723#ixzz418kCml7x

[matt819]

1. Reading The Anatomy of Fascism

By Robert Paxton

It's a bit academic but he expands on Chomsky's observations. The authoritarian/fascist leader creates or focuses on fear. And then presents himself as the one who can resolve that fear. Among other things. All of which are clearly at play in the trump campaign.