I am so not impressed with news people and pundits coming forward lately to condemn Donald Trump. I’m trying to figure out where have they been? Were they in America in 1989 when Trump insisted that the innocent Central Park 5 should be put to death?

Trump’s 1989 Ad in the New York Daily News
Credit: Photograph: NY Daily News Archive

Were they in America in 2008 when Trump insisted that President Barack Obama was not an American-born citizen? Where were they in 2016 when he attacked Sen. John McCain? Where were they when he signed an Executive Order banning Muslims from entering the country?

The Media Embraced Trump

Yes, they were here. In fact, it was the media that gave Donald Trump his celebrity status as a Presidential contender. They turned Donald Trump into “just another candidate.” Trump was someone they knew – a television celebrity. The media respects Trump, much like Roger Ailes (his good friend) or Harvey Weinstein. According to writer Will Bunch, one study found that in 2015, Trump’s total airtime on network TV was 234 minutes. Compare that to just 10 minutes for Bernie Sanders. All the while, mainstream media maintained that Trump is not a fascist, and fascism could never happen here.

Yet, here we are. Not without warning. There were numerous writers who called the Donald out as an American-made celebrity fascist. For example, in July 2016, in the New Yorker Magazine, Adam Goplik pointed out that:

““Trump is unstable, a liar, narcissistic, contemptuous of the basic norms of political life, and deeply embedded among the most paranoid and irrational of conspiracy theorists. . . . he came to politics as a racist, a proponent of birtherism.”

We All Knew He Was A Celebrity Fascist

I can hardly believe that anyone else really, genuinely did not know that Trump has “a scheming mind, attuned very well to the ways in which hatred and intolerance can be manipulated.” His advocacy against the Central Park 5, his shrill birtherism slurs against Barack Obama were mere precursors to his recent attacks on the Squad and Rep. Elijah Cummings.

Indeed, people in New York were not under any illusions about who and what Trump is. In the past week, government officials around the world have acknowledged that they are not under any illusions about Trump’s threat to the world as a proponent of fascist ideas. The horrific chants in North Carolina on July 17, 2019 forced world leaders to come clean with their real views about Trump’s racist regime. They recognize celebrity fascism in America.

Credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum

In 2016, in the wake of the presidential election, I wrote a piece entitled “Will He Keep His Promises?” Unfortunately, the answer 35 months later is “yes, he will, and yes, he is.

Celebrity Fascism Steals the Show

Donald Trump is a veteran entertainer. He likes nothing more than stealing the show. Donald Trump is very good at stealing the show, having been mentored by media moguls like Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon. So, every time he is threatened by bad news, he takes to Twitter and steals the show with outrageous tweets. Our attention is thus, not on the funding of inhumane concentration camps by the federal government, but rather on his ridiculous tweets.

SO what exactly did Rep. Elijah Cummings do to trigger Trump? Elijah Cummings is the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. According to one investigator, Elijah Cummings “is probably the single most dangerous person to Trump” in this post-Mueller era.

The Oversight Committee has successfully won the right in court to subpoena Trump’s financial records from his accountant. The Committee plans to issue subpoenas for emails and texts that high-level White House officials sent on personal accounts discussing official business – subpoenas that apply to Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. So Trump attacks Elijah Cummings (and an entire city) to deflect attention from an investigation that threatens to unmask his administration, his fraud and his family.

As we struggle against celebrity fascism in America, we must remember 3 very important lessons:’

  1. this period that writer Andrew Wood describes as catastrophic poverty, wealth inequality, and environmental degradation that has engulfed Ameria started long before Donald Trump decided to run for President;
  2. Trump is a master manipulator and his attacks on other elected officials for standing up to his immoral actions – such as incarcerating immigrants and using the government to enrich himself and his family – are designed to distract attention from the underlying atrocities and illegal actions that he is engaged in;
  3. last but not least, “Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.