Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, had the gift of prophecy, and she foresaw the destruction of the city during the Trojan wars. She warned that Greek warriors were hiding inside a huge wooden horse that the Greeks had built as a peace offering to Troy. In spite of her fervent pleas, the Trojan leaders accepted the ‘Trojan Horse’ as a gift and brought it through the gates. Once inside, the Greek warriors conquered and destroyed the ancient city of Troy.

Donald Trump is the Trojan Horse, bringing Fascism through the walls of American Democracy, and he may well destroy democracy, here and in many countries, together with those leaders who are also demagogues.  Donald Trump is Putin’s Partner, both intent on sole power in their own hands.

Islamo-Fascism cannot destroy America.

But Trumpo-Fascism can destroy American democracy. It is an existential threat to our values, unlike anything since Joseph McCarthy, but McCarthy never held the levers of power of our national government.

Trumpo-Fascism is a form of Neo-Fascism, and is based on ultra-nationalism, nativism, contempt for Mexicans, Muslims and other minorities, opposition to a free press and liberal democracy, and in the weakening of the independence, traditions, rights and powers of Congress and other political bodies. It is based on Trump’s belief that only he can solve the nation’s problems, even if he inflates them out of all proportion. He adds to that the humiliation of rivals, the encouragement of violence against his critics, the wish to jail his opponents, and threats against allied and friendly nations with ignorant impunity. He disregards all standards of decency and tradition, and seeks to copy and ally himself with similar authoritarian leaders around the world.

He has achieved this by use of the “Big Lie”, a term first coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf (1925). Hitler wrote that people “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” (Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X).

For years Trump claimed that President Obama was not born in the United States, and constantly repeated this colossal untruth. But it was effective, since it was so outrageous and he was taken seriously because of his TV fame. Even today,  polls show that 41% of Republicans believe the blatant lie. And in spite of it being clear that President Obama is a Christian, many insist he is really a Muslim.

Trump has been successful in his many lies because he repeats the same stories over and over again, insisting that only he tells the truth. Leaders of the Republican Party have prepared voters for Trump’s lies by continually denying facts, such as the reality of climate change, its causes and potential impact on all life. Trump did not invent ‘alternative facts’.

Republican leaders have been peddling alternative facts for years, many of them denying, for example, the conclusions of over 98% of scientists about climate change. Their propaganda about climate change being invented by environmentalists set the stage for Trump’s claim that climate change is a hoax created by China to destroy the United States.

Trump has also brought his own history of racism, preventing minorities from renting in his many apartment buildings, into the mainstream of American life. He makes it acceptable  for people to express hate again in public, to harass those who look or are different, whether on the street or in the workplace. It is pathetic and ironic that many of those expressing such hate are themselves the descendants of immigrants who suffered similar abuse a century ago, in an America that in those days resisted the inclusion of Italians, Irish, Poles, Catholics, Jews, Chinese, Japanese and many others into the fabric of our society.

His campaign used the legitimate fears of many people on economic and social issues and then channeled them, purposefully, by appealing to the basest of human instincts. He encouraged racist and religious hatred, suggested violence at his rallies, mocked the disabled and war heroes, and humiliated his rivals with his vicious scorn. Many reveled in this scene, like ancient Romans enjoying the gladiators in Nero’s Colosseum.

And like demagogues in the past, he always identified the same targets over and over again to blame……the media, Wall Street, the ‘elite’, international trade, globalization, other countries, and specifically Mexicans and Muslims, but any people different from yourselves. Populism need not be racist or destructive, but Trump knew how to wage his war on decency and traditional values by going to his own basest instincts, all made so manifest by the press.

And now he has filled his cabinet and other key positions with Wall Streeters and Billionaires, in spite of his campaign attacks on them, while still supposedly wearing the mantle of populism. He continues to blame all problems on minorities, other countries, immigrants, the elite, and perhaps most of all, the “Press”  for everything you don’t like or fear in this world.

The Big Lie also includes his continuing, almost daily, attacks on the media, arguing that the people should believe only him and not facts that are evident on the ground. He insists that he won the popular vote in the election in spite of losing it by almost 3 million votes to Hillary Clinton. He insists that he had the largest turnout at his inauguration in history, in spite of photographs and other clear evidence to the contrary. He insists that the media lies in everything they say and write, and urges people only to believe him. He attacks the CIA for Nazi-like behavior, and then blames that charge on the media, just as he blamed Hilary Clinton for his lie about Obama’s birthplace.

He will communicate directly with the people through his constant tweets, and avoids the press. His attacks on the press as liars and being the worst people in the country has the goal of reducing  the influence and power of our free press.  Trump constitutes the greatest threat to the freedom of press in this country in a century. His words and actions conflict with and challenge our First Amendment of the Constitution which guarantees the freedom of press, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of religion.

Just as Cassandra warned of the Trojan Horse, all Americans must recognize the danger to our values and rights before it is too late. Trump is a demagogue and threatens all that is central to and in our democracy.

Let us see if Fox News defends Trump or the Freedom of the Press. Let us see how reliably Republican media like the Wall Street Journal and other major regional newspapers react to his un-American attacks on their rights and legitimacy.

We have already seen how major corporate executives worry about how much they can resist his bans on Muslim immigrants, couched in terms of travelers from dangerous countries. But he excludes all Christians from his ban, setting up a religious test for entry to the country that once welcomed immigrants and not just visitors. He violates our Constitutional protections against the establishment of a religion.

The use of the “Big Lie” in history and its use now by Trump should frighten all of us, and calls on us to resist. The business community and upper classes of Germany in the 1930s did not worry about Hitler, they thought they could control the wild man that Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, dictator of Italy, first called “that mad little clown”.   When Trump first started his presidential campaign, many thought of him as a Berlusconi, then as a cross between Berlusconi and Mussolini, then all Mussolini….now what?

And what of the once-sensible Republican Party, built on traditional American and capitalist values? The party that once boasted of Lincoln, who ended slavery, and of his fellow Illinoisian, Senator Everett Dirksen, whose leadership was critical to Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation; of President Theodore Roosevelt, the father of the environmental movement, and of his successor President Richard Nixon, who endorsed and signed every major environmental law in the United States; of President Dwight Eisenhower, who helped lead the war against Nazism and Fascism, and who led NATO at its creation in the defense of the Free World against the Soviet Union and Communism.

Throughout most of American history, political leaders fought with each other over policies and principles, but still attempted to work together for the common good. They questioned each other’s judgment but seldom attacked another’s character or motives. McCarthy was an outlier, and eventually brought down by the press and his own party, because members of Congress and the Senate were devoted to the institutions and people they served.

This has broken down over the last 25 years, as the parties, particularly Republican leaders, saw the other party as the enemy, to be beaten at any cost, and propaganda took the place of argument. Majority Leader McConnell made this change clear with his public commitment that the Republican Party in the Senate would do everything possible to oppose anything and everything proposed by the duly-elected President Obama (and elected by a vast majority of the American voters).  And they did so for eight years, refusing even to hold hearings as required by the Constitution on his most recent nominee for the Supreme Court.

Now we see too many Republican Party leaders falling in line behind Trump, Putin’s Partner, or is he Putin’s Puppy? or are they all Trump’s puppies? How independent will Republican Senators and Members of Congress be in the face of his vicious taunts, his ability to hold back appointments for their favorite supporters and money from their favorite projects? How independent will Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell be when his wife is a member of Trump’s cabinet—a hostage perhaps who can be fired any time.

Perhaps Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio, and others, maybe even Speaker Paul Ryan, will resist the juggernaut of Presidential power. Let’s hope, and let’s see.  But, let’s not hold our breaths. The people must in every way challenge Trump, and re-assert the abiding democratic values of America.

This is a Cassandra Warning—beware the Trojan Horse of Trumpo-Fascism.

–Cassandra