I’ve affiliated myself with the Republican Party since before I joined the military and moved from California to Virginia. I’ve been active in the Republican Party mechanics and inner-workings. I’ve served as an advisor for two state-wide campaigns, and I was a coalition director for Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012. I’ve always managed to stay behind the scenes in my activity – which is exactly what I prefer – so it may seem ironic that my loudest proclamation about my involvement in Republican politics is that I’m abandoning the party.
I won’t quote the old trope that “I’m not leaving the party, the party left me.” There’s some truth to that, but the fact is an unspoken condition of staying a member of a party is that you adapt to its priorities and philosophy. I am no longer willing to do so.
I cannot in good conscience be part of a state or national organization that claims someone so blatantly depraved and duplicitous as its chief representative–the current delegate-leader and likely nominee, Mr. Donald Trump. And there is a distinct possibility this party representative could actually become the President of the United States.
Now, in my ideal world, it wouldn’t matter – my ideal presidential election is one in which it doesn’t matter who wins because the office is so powerless over the daily lives of the people. But that’s not what we’ve been, arguably since the Civil War (with maybe a brief interlude in Calvin Coolidge).
No, we understand our democratically elected presidential candidates, and ultimately the President of the United States, to be a representative of the Philosophy of the American People – what James Madison and his contemporaries called the wisdom of the people. (The aristocratic Madison actually was quite skeptical of this “wisdom” because he understood that this collective wisdom was influenced in large part by the passions and priorities of those ignorant of governance, parliament, and policy.)
If we consider Trump to be a representative of the Republican Philosophy, that party is indeed in dangerous waters – terrifying waters. If he is elected president, even more so.
I had hoped that influential members of the Republican Party would halt the momentum of Trump; but as more and more of these leaders prepare for his inevitable nomination, they begin to urge unification behind his candidacy – unification behind the Party regardless of its chief representative. Unification behind the philosophy of Trump.
I have avoided attempts to pinpoint what Trump’s philosophy actually is, at times pejoratively considering him to be a representative of the pragmatist school, other times a representative of opportunism. But I don’t think these are quite accurate.
No, Mr. Trump represents a horrifying plunge into existentialism, specifically that brand of existentialism embodied by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche, who is probably most famous for his declaration that “God is dead,” is secondarily famous for his introduction of the Superman and the Will to Power.
The Will to Power was Nietzsche’s basis for whatever semblance of universal morality he could imagine. While denying universal morality based on traditional definitions, he did declare that humanity ought (a moral imperative) to abandon pity as a virtue and embrace the Will to Life.
“Pity” according to Nietzsche has the effect of positive feedback. “Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality!” he says. “It has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength which suffering as such inflict on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity.”
Christianity and Judaism were the most pitiful, and to be abhorred as “the greatest misfortune of humanity.”
On the other hand, it was precisely this Will to Power that embodied the vitality of the human race. The Will to Power was the prerequisite for the Will to Life – the highest goal – and for Nietzsche, “the strongest and highest Will to Life does not find expression in a miserable struggle for existence, but in a Will to War. A Will to Power, a will to OVERPOWER!”
Again, the Nietzschean ideal is “that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its Will to Power), and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement (“union”) with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on…”
This is The Art of the Deal. It is the Trump Ideal – to eschew pity and espouse power. It is an existential ethic of the most abhorrent nature. It recognizes – as Nietzsche did – that this life is all there is and there is no final consequence. That others in this world are means to an end, and exploitation of those means is not just a philosophical constant, but an ideal for which to strive.
“Exploitation does not belong to a corrupt or imperfect and primitive society, it belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the Will to Power…”
Some have called Trump a fascist. Given its connotations, I’m not prepared to do that. But like with Mussolini (and possibly Hitler) Nietzsche’s philosophy can be seen in the conduct of Mr. Trump. He represents existentialism at its worst – that “Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.” That essence, or ultimate reality, is subservient to what Sartre called the hic et nunc – the here and now.
Anything goes, provided you win (and more importantly don’t lose). This is a philosophy of despair, and just as it did for Nietzsche, will lead to a nihilism in which life has no intrinsic value, no rights, no meaning.
I will not be party to such a degradation of the human soul, much less the degradation of a country that once held life in the greatest esteem.
I also will not endeavor to convince Trump’s supporters to change their views – I know they have their reasons. I will only warn them that ideas have consequences.
