A Crazed Society
The Parallels between Mao's Cultural Revolution and Trump's Vision of a Nihilistic Despotism
Having grown up during the most violent turmoil of Cultural Revolution in Mao's China, I cannot help but notice the most pronounce similarities and parallels between today's America with the Orange Fuehrer's vision of a near future America. With unprecedented concentration of power today in the US political structure, I am extremely alarmed.
The roads to serfdom can be various and many. So are the roads to a Nihilistic Despotism. The Maoist despotic society followed the great leader's motto of "everything is coming from the muzzle of a gun" to reach that crescendo of madness through absolute power. The Trumpian crazies have just gone through a legitimate election process to grab the almost unchecked power to shape society after 11/5/2024. The ultimate test for the strength of American Constitutional Republic is coming, right in front of our faces. Are we able to keep this "Shining City on the Hill" to guide the world toward light, hope and freedom, or we are going down the road toward just a "walled in tribe" with borders, worrying only about our pocket money, living space and physical existence as just another "fading away" old culture/empire as so many before? The answer is still out there.
Let's just list the unmistakable similarities and parallels between Mao's vision of a communist heaven and Trump's illusion of a culturally clean, nihilistic future American despotism, so pronounce that I, as someone who lived and suffered through Mao's chaotic era:
1. Both Mao and Trump want absolute power through any means they can, legitimate and illegitimate, insidiously quiet and outright violent. Dignity, liberty, justice and happiness are never in their vocabulary. What they want is actually - vanity and nothingness. Power thirst is only the cover for their own innermost silent despair - they are nothing but dust like everyone. The illusory satisfaction of seeing everyone kneeling down in front of them gives them the momentary fake meaning: They are still here.
Mao's belief in communism is as much as Trump's belief in the Bible - a tool to use fear and ignorance to subdue, deceive and scare his followers and masses. Mao has never read "The Capital" by Marx. On his bed, he left many books of classic Chinese ancient literature about power usurpation and deception. You will laugh if anyone says Trump reads the Bible. But there is evidence that he flipped through Hitler's "Mein Kampt" obsessively seeking the wicket advice as to how to acquire the absolute power from a mass murderer.
2. Both Mao and Trump use mass grievances resulted from their own making to paint themselves as victims of someone else.
Mao was almost sidelined during the 1960s, after the disastrous "Great Leap Forward" in which as least 40 million people died of starvation. He was criticized by some of his colleagues and retreated to an obscure mountain valley to plot his revenge. Trump was criticized and discredited through his disastrous handling of the Covid - 19 crisis during which more than a million Americans died from the disease. He was thrown out of the White House in the 2020 election, retreating to his home plot the comeback and revenge.
3. Both Mao and Trump use cultural issues, not economic issues, to rile up the masses, diverting attention from their disastrous failure which is the cause of deaths and sufferings.
Mao knew nothing about economics and building wealth. Trump is a laughing stock in the business community, having failed and bankrupted so many business ventures, including a casino. They can never use economic issues to gain credit and trust from the masses. They they plotted the clever one - the cultural issues. Mao started to blame the old cultures for his failure to achieve communism. People smashed everything old in the Cultural Revolution. Everything else from the West was labeled Bourgeois. Even things from the USSR was labeled revisionist. Young couple holding hands can be struggled by the masses as obscene and corrupt. The society was clean indeed without even money, since everything was rationed by government coupons. The society was clean indeed without religions. The society was clean without sex and porn, besides of course Mao's countless concubines and illegitimate children. Trump starts his comeback and revenge by magnifying the the intolerance of LGBTQ community, blaming "a moral decay" in America which endangers children. Religious folks follow him to clean up the society through misinformation and disinformation by today's social media. Trump's sexual and economic crimes can be ignored in this mass frenzy. "He is only a tool from God for us", the religious folks insist. "People are eating dogs. People are eating cats!" Trump is so afraid his disinformation has fanned the craziness enough against a "foreign invasion". All outsiders, new immigrants now are viewed with suspicion and distrust. "They are not American. America only belongs to Americans", the frenzies shout on top of their lungs.
4. Both Mao the Trump use blue collar folks against intellectuals and government officials who had criticized them.
Mao understood that his plot to acquire absolute power was hampered by the mid-level bureaucrats and intellectuals. They followed procedures and ask questions. So he called upon the most uneducated and susceptible crowed, the majority in society - the workers, the peasants and soldiers to rise up to crush their oppressors - the bureaucrats and the intellectuals by naming them "the enemy of the people". Books were burned and intellectual and officials were persecuted, imprisoned, struggled, humiliated and killed. All voices of protest, objection, resistance and insubordination were silenced. The society thus is united under the absolute truth of "Mao Thought". Trump starts with the disinformation that all harms done to America originated through "deep state" and spread through "fake news", intelligentsia and the Hollywood.... People need sanitized news and information. Trump even intended to establish a government news media in his first term to spread his misinformation and propaganda. The "pincer operation" from top and bottom to crush the middle is very effective in creating chaos in which the masses in their confusion are seeking a Savior to fix everything, not knowing the confusion and chaos are created by the very Saviors themselves in the first place for the very effect theses folks are suffering under.
5. Both Mao and Trump use vulgarity, indecency and cruel to appeal to the base urge of uneducated fold to indulge in their expression of grievances.
Indecent and uncivilized masses are the solid base for dictators. One of their major pleasures in to indulge in uncontrolled release of emotions through competition in vulgarity and cruel vocabulary and name callings. They derive a senseless satisfaction in the freedom to insult and humiliate others by their birth origin, skin color, weight, height, appearances, family backgrounds, etc. Decent behavioral norms not to do so is attacked as "political correctness". Mao's famous poem with the phrase "Don't Fart", and Trump's mimicking oral sex in public speeches are such examples. The folks love it and support them because he is one of us.
6. Both Mao and Trump are obsessed with mass rallies and military parades to fan illusions of strength.
Mao was famous in calling mass rallies during the Cultural Revolution in which he shouted the meaningless slogan "Long Live the People". He and all the communist leaders are obsessed with military parades to show national strength, actually to feed the masses with narcotic feeling of collective pride and fear. Trump wants to emulate the grandiose of such illusions in America. He wanted to have a huge military parade
7. Both Mao and Trump are fixed on controlling women's productive organs.
8. Both Mao and Trump are fascinated with obsession about political violence and its horrific consequences. They take the most vile, sadist pleasure seeing people suffer and die. Alas, the chickens come home to roost. They both have gone through assassination attempts on their own lives.
9. Both Mao and Trump are the ultimate nepotists in their ruling of the government. They want their blood children, wives and relatives around themselves in the government, due to a constant fear and distrust in their own comrades and colleagues.
Dictators, especially Oriental dictators, want ultimately a family dynasty to control power. Trump is following this pattern of Kim dynasty in North Korea. He is grooming his offspring to take his place after his is gone. Mao didn't have the chance with his son as an heir for taking over his own power. His son died in the Korea War and he was furious over such loss and blamed Peng the commander. Peng, not surprisingly, died of Mao's persecution during the Cultural Revolution.
The phenomenon of the "Stockholm Syndrome" never ceases to amaze me. Mao killed millions of peasants and caused unspeakable misery upon the Chinese people. Yet he is immortalized and worshiped today in China with countless statues and memorials, even printed on every bill of the Chinese currency. Xi himself was a victim of the Cultural Revolution. Yet he just wants to be another Mao to do the same on his fellow human beings. Trump victimizes and demeans women in every turn. Yet it's the white females who contribute to his being elected. Trumps Xenophobia against migrant foreigners is in the open for everyone to see. Yet it's the new Latino immigrants who give him their votes. My take? When people are powerless and helpless, they seek false information from propaganda/brainwash to blame the easiest often invisible target for their misery and suffering, be Mao's accusation of foreign humiliation and Western imperialism and domestic traitors like the intelligentsia, or Trump's frantic attack on the free media and "woke". People need an outlet to vent their grievances as victims. They need the easiest targets, even if they haven't seen them. They need a great "Savior" to fix all the problems in their lives, shedding their own responsibilities as individuals. They are whipped into a frenzy by propaganda and misinformation/disinformation, usually soaked with abundance of outlandish conspiracies. They will follow the Savior no matter where, even to the abyss of black hole - Nothingness.
All dictators share common psychopathic traits and pathological/paranoid ruling styles, from Hitler to Stalin to Mao to Kim to Putin
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