One of the differences between our usage of the English language and the US dialect is the conversational meaning of the term “mad”. In the US, “mad” mostly means “angry”; they use the word “crazy” rather than “mad” to connote insanity.
In the case of Donald Trump, people on this side of the Atlantic are beginning to wonder whether he is mad (in our sense of the word) and whether a large section of the US population are mad (in our sense of the word) for even thinking of voting for him. A good many of his supporters profess to being “mad” (in the US sense) with the Establishment, but would not consider themselves “crazy”.
Trump, however, is beginning to look increasingly deranged (to use a term we all understand) over recent weeks.
His nasty side just bubbles up when he gets incoming flak that hurts. That psychopathic aspect of his personality is normally kept just below the surface – probably because he surrounds himself with yes-men who never have the “inner circle status” that would entitle them to tell Trump that he is behaving outrageously or even to hint at that possibility.
Examples abound. After the Democratic Convention he blurted out that he would like to hit hard his critics on the head and hurt them, “especially the small guy” – a reference to Michael Bloomberg. The same psychopathy led to him lashing out verbally, when a crying baby annoyed him at a rally –“Yeah. Get that baby out of here!” Moments earlier he had nearly controlled himself, saying “I love babies” – but the control cracked within seconds.
Trump’s response to the parents of a US Muslim soldier who died in Iraq betrayed the same psychopathy. Instead of countering the father’s criticism, he attacked the boy’s mother for her head-dress and silence which, Trump suggested, showed subservience.
His feeling of invincibility and infallibility, when combined with a propensity to attack critics, is but an extreme case of a condition that frequently manifests itself in oligarchs (some of them a lot closer to home than Trump).
But Trump just cannot conceal his nastiness and his tackiness. His ranting about Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly – hinting at her menstruation – and his mocking imitation of a disabled commentator are all part of the same psychopathy which this week led to him speculating publicly about the “Second Amendment People” (i.e. gun-owners) ”stopping” Hillary Clinton, and describing “Barack Hossein Obama” (as he called him) as “creating” ISIS .
If you want to witness the absurd, delusional mendacity of Trump, I strongly recommend watching Trump Exposes Trump by googling: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kSE-XoVKaXg . It’s an eye-opener.
Responsibility for the fact that the Republican party is fielding a dangerous and nasty nutcase as its candidate for president lies primarily with that party. But the causes run much deeper than the outcome of the recent primaries.
Far from being the “Party of Abraham Lincoln”, the GOP has become a rag-bag coalition of very different political and economic forces.
This coalition is a combination of the wealthy (who fear for their savings and want to use globalisation to keep their wealth growing), the fearful, and those among the coping class who are sliding down the scale of inequality but see no connection between their static or diminishing earnings and the greed of the wealthy.
They now want to re-establish dominance over the Supreme Court, denying Obama his right to appoint even a moderate Republican-appointed federal judge to the Scalia vacancy, so that they can appoint an even more right-wing Republican candidate if Trump wins.
That would ensure that the Obamacare provision of healthcare for the poorer citizens will be reversed. It will also prevent any gun-control measures. They also hope to reverse the Supreme Court Roe –v –Wade decision on abortion, and to punish women who have their pregnancies terminated (as Trump, once avowedly pro-choice, now urges).
The GOP used their own appointments to the Supreme Court to create a majority in favour of political fundraising “super-PACs” to circumvent campaign contribution laws, thereby entrenching and enhancing the status of US democracy as a plutocracy.
It is not a case of Trump being an extremist or outlier in the GOP on these issues. The majority of Republican US Senators are either with him on these issues or they are shamefully hedging their bets on Trump just in case he wins in November.
The polarisation of American politics is largely the project of the GOP. They surrendered in large numbers to the wacky Tea Party – all in pursuit of power. That, in turn, brought the US administration over the financial cliff of “shut-down”.
The GOP has willingly kow-towed to the equally malign influence of Fox News. That channel, to which more than 80% of US homes now have access, has had a radicalising effect among American conservatives. Ludicrously, Fox claims to be “fair and balanced”.
There is a curious symmetry between Fox as a rightest propaganda channel and Vladimir Putin’s Russia Today or RT news channel.
To those with the patience and discernment to watch Fox calmly, its daily grotesquery becomes clear. The channel used to host Glenn Beck, who spent hours in front of a blackboard festooned with swastikas and hammers and sickles attempting to persuade ordinary Americans that Obama’s healthcare policy was evidence of both Nazi and Soviet ideology. Fox’s news presenters even described Michelle Obama and Barack touching fists at a rally as a “terrorist” salute or gesture!
Fox’s hostility to Obama is visceral and vile –it exudes a deeply rooted racist antagonism. Like Trump, Fox constantly claims that Obama is “divisive” domestically and to blame for the end of bi-partisanship, and “weak” , almost traitorous, internationally for refusing to go to war with perceived opponents.
No Republican candidates for the Presidential nomination were willing to accept the truth of evolution or to publicly disagree with the literalist Biblical teaching that the world, and indeed the universe, were created at some point between 6,000 BC and 10,000 BC. Such was the perceived power of the Evangelical lobby.
Strangely, US Catholics have drifted in large numbers towards the GOP as well. The pro-life issue has been used to circle the wagons and to unify Catholics against an outside threat – abortion. This dynamises conservative Catholics while distracting them from the doctrinal issues such as contraception that are weakening the church. The conservative Catholic EWTN channel is doing for American Catholicism what Fox has done for American political conservatism.
Trumps’ car-crash rhetoric and emerging psychosis obviously pose a growing problem for GOP candidates defending their seats in November. Taking an each-way bet on Trump is becoming increasingly risky for those in marginal states.
Some may see hope in the credible run by Bernie Sanders, who succeeded in bringing the term “socialist” in from the cold. In a free democracy, where the conservatives have made the word “liberal” a dirty label that no candidate can survive, Sanders’ achievement is considerable.
Voters’ anger is the conventional explanation for worldwide political upheaval – especially as a reaction to predatory, global capitalism. But anger is not a policy.
One banana-skin or international outrage could yet up-end Hillary Clinton and hand the election to Trump.
Frighteningly, and despite the latest polls putting Hillary ahead again, the American meaning of “mad” as an excuse for voting Trump may yet turn out to be “mad” in the sense we use the term –he’s mad, bad and dangerous.