The
acclaimed philosopher cautions Democrats that "ridicule is not
enough."
Noam
Chomsky has a message for the resistance movement and the mainstream
media alike: "Ridicule is not enough" to defeat Trumpism.
"We
have to be a little cautious about not trying to kill a gnat with an
atom bomb," he told George Yancy in a New
York Times interview on
July 5.
The
political scientist and world-renowned linguist went on to praise
"Late Show" host Stephen Colbert's recent smackdown
of Republican efforts to gut the country's climate
laws. Chomsky
has dubbed the current GOP "the most dangerous organization
in world
history."
For him, the question is how Democrats can recapture the White House
before the planet's fate is sealed.
“It’s
necessary to address the concerns and beliefs of those who are taken
in by the fraud, or who don’t recognize the nature and significance
of the issues for other reasons," he noted.
While
the opposition remains fractured, talk radio "and other
practitioners of alternative facts" are uniting Trump voters
against a common enemy—the left.
"For
the majority of the base, Trump and the more savage wing of the
Republican establishment are not far from their standard attitudes,"
Chomsky asserted, noting that most Trump supporters "are
relatively affluent."
"Three-quarters
had incomes above the median," he explained. "About
one-third had incomes of over $100,000 a year, and thus were in the
top 15 percent of personal income, in the top 6 percent of those with
only a high school education."
According
to Chomsky, rebuilding the Democratic Party will largely depend on a
revival of the New Deal agenda, to draw in the "industrial
sector" of Trump voters.
“A
segment of the Trump base comes from the industrial sector that has
been cast aside for decades by both parties, often from rural areas
where industry and stable jobs have collapsed,” he said. “Many
voted for Obama, believing his message of hope and change, but were
quickly disillusioned and have turned in desperation to their bitter
class enemy, clinging to the hope that somehow its formal leader will
come to their rescue.”
Alexandra
Rosenmann is an AlterNet associate editor. Follow her @alexpreditor.
In a July 5, 1852, speech to a group of abolitionists, Frederick Douglass reminded them that for slaves and former slaves, the Declarat...
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