Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize-winning German novelist who fled the Nazis in 1933, moved to the U.S. in 1939 and died in Switzerland in 1955, is quoted extensively this morning by David Brooks in the service of mass enlightenment through the example of all that went wrong in his once-civilized homeland. In Brooks' column you'll find brilliant fragments of a fiction writer as socio-political critic. I adored Mann's novels before I ever read his nonfiction essays; only after reading the latter can one fully appreciate the intellectual and indeed visceral basis of the former.
Mann would have had plenty to say about our yearlong domestic debate centering on whether Donald Trump is another Adolf Hitler. Permit me to speak for the novelist in observing that another Hitler need not come with goose-stepping S.S. goons and shrieking, violent demands for others' territory. Hitler was — is — as much of a frame of mind as a tangible manifestation of megalomaniacal and genocidal carnage. History repeats itself not exactly but in familiar ways, and nothing is quite so familiar to students of history as demagogic dictators' penchant for "despis[ing] the masses … while they make themselves the mouthpiece of vulgar opinion," as Mann wrote.
As Brooks sums up Mann's reflections on the authoritarian's art of malign propaganda meant to mirror the masses' sentiments, "[He] subjugate[s] thought by arousing mob psychology." A majority of psychological malignity is not required, for, as in Hitler's case, a dyspeptic minority's voice can always drown out more thoughtful ones. As Mann framed it: "This is the contempt of pure reason … [and] the release of stupidity and evil from the discipline of reason and intelligence."
This leads us to this morning's case study in an authoritarian's cultivation of mass stupidity and, ultimately, evil — the unmooring of reason and intelligence. The Hill notes that only a month ago a Washington Post-ABC poll "found that 58 percent approve of [Bob] Mueller’s investigation" into Trump's Russia collusion and obstruction of justice. Enter the president's drumbeats of bad-mouthing the special counsel's investigation as one of internal conflicts of interest; add to that his media allies' selfsame drumbeats, most notably that of Fox News, which, because of its sensationalism, seeps into the reporting of mainstream news outlets.
Alas, after a month of Trump Inc.'s slandering of the special counsel, a Harvard/Harris poll now finds that "a majority of polled voters say special counsel Robert Mueller has a conflict of interest." ("54 percent responded that the 'relationship' between [Mueller and James Comey constitutes the conflict], including 70 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of independents and [an astounding] 40 percent of Democrats.") What's more, a mere 35 percent believe that Mueller has discovered evidence of collusion, notwithstanding the mountain of evidence that Mueller has in fact uncovered.
The outcome of this mass stupidity and self-willed ignorance nourished by presidential propaganda could well be that when Trump sacks Mueller, the outcry will be muted — giving the Republican Congress the perfect cover for failing to follow up by reappointing the special counsel. Oh well, Mueller was essentially corrupt anyway, or so mass sentiment will go, so nothing much of investigative value was lost.
Whether the electorate and Congress agree or not, we would, in this scenario, have a full-blown constitutional crisis on our hands. Trump will have been judged to be above the law, free to commit other felonies and anti-constitutional acts at will. No check on his power will exist. And at that point, we effectively would have a dictator in charge — not one who inaugurates genocidal carnage, perhaps, but one who singularly reigns in a broken democracy nonetheless.
This, as the great Thomas Mann observed, is what occurs when what also reigns is a "contempt of pure reason … [and] the release of stupidity and evil from the discipline of reason and intelligence."
We stand on the precipice of choice. Which will it be? The abyss, or a city on a hill?