WSJ smears The Donald

This is hilarious.

The iconic voice of Wall Street's open borders and free trade conservatism leads a story about Trump with a giant picture of Il Duce.

The Return of the 1930s

Nice picture.

Still, Bret Stephens's article isn't bad, at all, given it touts the standard WSJ line.

In temperament, he was “bombastic, inconsistent, shallow and vainglorious.” 

On political questions, “he made up his own reality as he went along.” 

Physically, the qualities that stood out were “the scowling forehead, the rolling eyes, the pouting mouth.” 

His “compulsive exhibitionism was part of his cult of machismo.” 

He spoke “in short, strident sentences.” 

Journalists mocked his “absurd attitudinizing.”

Remind you of someone?

The description of Benito Mussolini comes from English historian Piers Brendon’s definitive history of the 1930s, “The Dark Valley.” 

So does this mean that Donald Trump is the second coming of Il Duce, or that yesteryear’s Fascists are today’s Trumpkins? 

Not exactly. 

But that doesn’t mean we should be indifferent to the parallels with the last dark age of Western politics.

Among the parallels: 

The growing belief that democracy is rigged. 

That charisma matters more than ideas. 

That strength trumps principles. 

That coarseness is refreshing, authentic.

. . . .

So we’re being “invaded” by Mexicans—except that for years more Mexicans have been returning home than coming here. 

So China is destroying our manufacturing—except industrial employment has surged in recent years, especially in the Rust Belt. 

So the great mass of Americans are now unprotected from the vagaries of the global economy—save for Medicare, ObamaCare, the earned-income tax credit, public-employee pensions and every other entitlement that Mr. Trump promises to protect.

All this generates the hysteria, the penchant for histrionic rhetoric, the promise of drastic measures, the disdain for civility, the combination of victimhood and bullying on which the Trump candidacy feeds, and which it fuels.

. . . .

“In breaking the taboos of civility and civilization, a Trump speech and rally resembles the rallies of fascist leaders who pantomimed the wishes of their followers and let them fill in the text,” writes the University of Maryland’s Jeffrey Herf in a brilliant essay in the American Interest. 

“Trump says what they want to say but are afraid to express. In cheering this leader, his supporters feel free to say what they really believe about Mexicans, Muslims, and women.”

. . . .

In the work of preserving civilization, nine-tenths of the job is to understand the past and stress its most obvious lessons. 

Now would be a good time to re-remember the ’30s.