Gary Lineker take note: Trumpian fascism is where the real danger lies

Gary Lineker’s asylum policy tweets were ill-advised and a case of outrage misdirected.?

Tom Flynn

The Nazi era was one of the darkest moments in human history and should never be forgotten. But we should not be drawing idle parallels between the rhetoric of that era and the discourse of contemporary British politics. For a blunt reminder of what today’s crypto-fascist rhetoric really sounds like, Gary, just look across the pond.

Before casually linking Tory immigration policies to the racist language of the Third Reich, Lineker ought to have watched Donald Trump’s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC?2023) in Washington DC on 4th March in which the disgraced former President poured another draught of hate-fuelled fascism into the public ear.

For an example of the language “used by Germany in the 1930s,” as Gary put it, look no further than Trump’s rant — the political equivalent of crystal meth, a malicious rhetorical opiate formulated in the kitsch corridors of Mar-a-Lago by a brain-fogged maniac with a narcissistic personality disorder.

In a rambling, largely scripted, and often incoherent diatribe of over 90 minutes — which alternated between extended bouts of mewling self-pity and growling vituperation — the twice-impeached former President offered the clearest confirmation to date of his critically declining mental health.

Anyone who has followed recent American politics — particularly over the last eighteen months — cannot fail but wonder why Trump is not already behind bars, or at least under oath in front of a Grand Jury. The January 6th Select Committee uncovered copious evidence of Trump’s gangsterism, how his criminality has been allowed to metastasise. And yet still he walks free.

His CPAC speech combined simpering pleas for loyalty from his base while declaring himself their only hope of salvation. It provided an opportunity to test one possible answer to the question of why Attorney General Merrick Garland has failed to act on the overwhelming evidence before him. Three words say it all: Fear Of Revolution.

Trump knows it and brandishes the threat of a popular uprising to deter any attempt to bring him down. Deploying a concentrated draught of belligerent victimology, he appeared to be laying the groundwork for an even more comprehensive insurrection than that seen on January 6th.

You don’t need a degree in semiology to get the idea. Amid the numerous garbled circumlocutions, a few auto-cued passages were easily parsed for their DC Comic thrust — Trump as Lord of Retribution, as Angel of Vengeance, Lord of the Border, Foreteller of The End Times. But now, beneath the familiar narcissistic self-mythologising, shameless mendacity, and bloviating bombast, are unmistakeable echoes of Hitler at his most dangerously delusional.

It has long been part of Trump’s stentorian toolkit to devote a section of his rallies to name-checking the acolytes, cheerleaders, and henchmen who have openly supported him through his political travails and who protect him from the long arm of the law. The rabid Q-Anon booster Marjorie Taylor-Green and the alleged sex offender Matt Gaetz — (“great guy, Matt”) are among many who continue to lie on Trump’s behalf about the “stolen election” and the January 6 insurrection. They were among the anointed CPAC attendees basking in a televised moment of recognition by their Dear Leader.

A multitude of others who have made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring were similarly rewarded with the famous naming routine, “Stephen Miller. Stephen, where are you, Steve? Thank you, Steve,” each one accompanied by the pointing arm, the Joker grin and the miniature hand-clap. The roll call of the Honoured and the Fallen was as comprehensive as ever, embracing Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, former loyal Trump White House staff and, of course, servile Fox News anchors. The blessed among this last cohort naturally included Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, their recent confessional disavowal of the Trump lies conveniently overlooked.

This year, as if to press home the cross-cultural, viral potential of his autocratic blueprint, Trump even paused mid-encomiums to extend an especially warm welcome to Jair Bolsonaro, the disgraced former President of Brazil, present in the room — a man alleged to have incited his own failed, Trump-style coup in Brasília back in January. Since then, Bolsonaro has been holed up somewhere in Florida, a mere five-iron shot from his mentor’s compound, like a minor princeling grovelling at the feet of the Holy Roman Emperor.

But the inane naming ritual is never really in honour of any of these corrupt and morally compromised courtiers. As with everything Trump thinks, says and does, it is all about him. Having survived two impeachments, the January 6th House Select Committee’s investigation, the Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents controversy, the New York exposés of his widespread business malpractice, and accusations of blatant meddling in the Georgia election, he is again on the road, rattling the sabres, carving fresh meat for his adoring base, fostering division and effectively calling for The Next American Revolution.

When he’s on a roll and the guardrails are off, Trump loves to conjure an apocalyptic urban landscape, at one point meandering away from his prepared speech to tell of:

“Complete chaos. Fentanyl is pouring in, families are being wiped out, destroyed, and there’s death everywhere. Millions of illegal aliens are stampeding, refugee numbers are through the roof and spies and terrorists are infiltrating our country. Other countries are emptying out their prisons, their insane asylums and mental institutions and sending all of their problems right into their dumping ground, the USA.”

Note the reference to Fentanyl while ignoring Oxycontin, the fiendishly addictive, home-grown opiate that has ravaged middle America while making billionaires of its manufacturers — the Sackler family.

Now listen as Trump shifts into a hysterical, sing-song contralto, screaming about paper ballots, voter ID, the Afghan troop withdrawal, electric cars, statue-topplers, bird-killing windmills, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and a host of other crackpot conspiracy theories. He saves his most poetic articulations for the Democrats, or “the Woke, Marxist” persuasion — “They are sick people. They are bad for us. They want us to fail. They want our country to go down.” And as if that dire warning were not enough, he presses it home with a fawning faux-heroism — “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after?you. I’m just standing in their way, that’s all I’m doing.” Oh, the selfless martyrdom!

With the Ukraine war appearing to enter a more perilous phase with each passing week, with China vocally aligning itself with Putin?— doubtless as a way to forestall any future American intervention into the Taiwanese situation — and with bellicose components of the Republican Party outwardly critical of the NATO alliance, Trump’s cable-circulated public appearances are becoming more menacing and dangerous by the day.

I’m all for Gary Lineker’s right to voice his opinion on the Tories’ cynical ‘Stop the Boats’ policy and hope he resists pressure from higher up the food chain, not least given the BBC chairman’s own alleged conflict of interest in Boris Johnson’s loan arrangements. But let’s keep references to Nazi Germany out of British politics.

Gary, me old crisp-munching, goal-hanging hero of the greensward, before you fire off any more tweets about the Third Reich, take a look at what’s happening now in the most powerful country on earth. I don’t advise you sitting through the entire 95 minutes of his CPAC speech on YouTube — a special sort of self-harm — but the message is clear: if Trump is re-elected, you’ll have far more worrying issues to Tweet about.