Dark Camelot

I remember my first trip to Texas. I was working on a project in the panhandle. The people I met were so wonderfully, overwhelmingly friendly, generous and welcoming, that I remember that time and place with real fondness. On the basis of the political opinions espoused by many of them, I'm reasonably confident they would have been predominantly Trump voters in the recent presidential election - not that we spoke much about politics back then. But I would change that now.

I would want to point out that as far as I could see, Donald Trump's inauguration speech on Friday 20th January 2017 was an inventory of fascist tactics. To my mind, any interpretation of it as anything other than an openly fascist call to arms is far, far too charitable.

I appreciate the point of view that the things he said were uncontroversial. But consider this. He openly rejected the legitimacy of his predecessors, whom he portrayed as having abandoned their people. He didn't just distinguish himself from them. He implied they were fraudulent and not qualified to hold office. He referred to people's problems in an inspecific, if sometimes poetic, way to allow him to claim to uniquely understand them. He placed the blame for these problems beyond the borders of the country he now controls, for example, by offering to repatriate jobs. He praised the police and the military - those authorised to use state-sanctioned violence - rather than, say, engineers, innovators, teachers, health professionals, and so on. He pledged to crush common (and dehumanised) enemies and restore a (real or imagined) former glory.

But perhaps most importantly he made clear he is directly addressing a previously neglected constituency, developing a personal relationship with the people, rather than relying on the intercession of, or working in collaboration with, established institutions and the media. These are not to be trusted. They are part of a perfidious metropolitan elite, who cannot relate to real people, who have ignored them. In this way he is asking you to disregard all sources of doubt or nuance. And it's not as if these institutions are not subject to democratic scrutiny, or the media to consumer choice. You already control them. You don't need someone to save you from them. But Trump's voice and version of events is to be the only one to be heard.

I would ask the Texans it was my pleasure and privilege to meet how they felt about these concerns of mine.

The Trump administration has recently been criticised for "alternative facts," that is, for having a rather relaxed approach to accuracy. I consider this all part of the plan.

I feel the truth-resistant character of his statements is excused in the minds of the people who vote for him partly because they don't require him to be accurate, since haven't the elites he replaces been consistently lying hitherto? At least he openly lies, making the most ridiculous statements in a way that is entirely forgivable compared to the weasel-worded plausible falsehoods of his predecessors. Are his lies acceptable if they indulge our fantasies of victimhood and marginalisation? In the land of the American dream, Trump and his constituents indulge each other's fantasies of betrayal.

That's not to say people don't have problems. They have been disenfranchised and ignored. A political culture does exist from which they have been excluded. But a characteristic of the fascist is that he refers to these issues in an entirely expedient, disingenuous way, selecting from reality as and when necessary to support the fantasy he is promoting, not to form its substance of a solution. They don't offer solutions, they mobilise frustrations to use as a battering ram at the gates of power.

I am not American but I say this because Trump's ascendancy affects us all. Just as a certain US administration was known in the past as Camelot when far reaching policies have been pursued that had widespread impact, Trump is assembling around him a Dark Camelot. His appointments have been criticised, by Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist, for example, as incurious incompetents notable only for their support for his damaging agenda. And beyond his borders a fascist international is forming, inspired and legitimised by his example. Extreme right wing movements are interpreting Trump's victory, and the Brexit result in the UK, as permission.

“Darkness is good ... Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power ... [it] will be as exciting as the 1930s," claimed Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist. This toxic fascist fantasia of Trump's Dark Camelot will cause lasting damage. I would urge my Texan hosts to please explain why it won't.