The news is out: Donald Trump's executive order banning travel from Muslim-majority countries is a total farce. Even so, his Black History Month statements about Frederick Douglass's accomplishments being recognized "more and more" reveal a deep chasm in the legitimacy of his Presidency. His actions also tell of a person who lacks any intellectual character. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, political theorist Hannah Arendt covered the trials of former Nazi SS Lieutenant Colonel, Adolf Eichmann, saying "What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality—as if an instinct in such matters were truly the last thing to be taken for granted in our time.” In her report, Arendt rejects the idea that Eichmann was a psychopath or a "monster," arguing that he resembled a "clown" who utilized cliche expressions because he lacked the ability to think. As a deeply careerist man, he was driven by the simple motivation of professional advancement. Perhaps, the same can be said of Donald Trump.
"Clearly, bragging had always been one of his cardinal vices." Eichmann was known for conjuring brazenly false stories of personal accomplishments to bolster his sense of ego. Spreading his father's legend, Eichmann's son bragged that his father saved hundreds of thousands of Jews from deportation by assisting them in their emigration to foreign countries. Never mind the exploitative system for emigration that he devised, in which Jews were essentially robbed of up to ninety percent of their property in exchange for emigration documents. More sadistically, Eichmann became very bored of ordinary fame after the war. He openly bragged of deporting five million Jews, creating the "Madagascar Plan," and devising the pre-deportation Ghetto system. While the first reveals his utter stupidity in publicly admitting crimes against humanity, the second and third cannot be attributed to his propensity to build his self-image. Myths become "alternative facts." Facts become "fake news."
Eichmann's choice of language throughout his 1960 trial in Jerusalem made his appear particularly stupid. In actuality, his overuse of "officialese" (occupational jargon) demonstrated his propensity for cliche statements. Because he lacked the capability to think independently, he repeated stock cliches over and over throughout the trial. Arendt described: how
Adolf Eichmann's ability to recall the past was selective at best, and terribly poor at its worst. An interview done in Argentina before his capture revealed that anything unrelated to his career was simply pushed out of memory. During the trial, he was unable to recall facts that might have saved his character in the face of the prosecution. He failed to shed light upon the hypocrisy of the Israeli state, for the Zionist organizations that cooperated with him in selecting only the genetically best Jews for emigration to Israel. "Eichmann needed only to recall the past in order to feel assured that he was not lying and that he was not deceiving himself, for he and the world he lived in had once been in perfect harmony." Arendt's words tell us that forgetting serves as a coping mechanism when it comes to guilt and culpability.
Donald Trump's administration is facing a very precarious situation. Already, polls are showing that he has an unprecedented rate of disapproval for any new President. The travel ban was a clear sign of this fracture: his administration was unprepared, unorganized, and totally unclear in their order He neglected to consult with the Justice Department and gave the Department of Homeland Security no prior notice to interpret and prepare the order's directives. The same that Arendt said about Eichmann and Germany can be said about Donald Trump and the United States: the untruthfulness of America's foreign wars and Wall Street cronyism under President Obama played a great role in allowing the lies and cliches of Donald Trump to take power. Just as Adolf Eichmann frustrated Israeli prosecutors and judges, Trump frustrates liberals and parts of the Left that insist he is some sort of pathological monster. There is no monster. Donald Trump's words have a literal meaning that require little deep analysis. The reason he continues to speak using literal phrases and stock cliches is because it consoles his conscience as it battles with his own inconsistencies. Beyond this, Adolf Eichmann's decrepit memory uncloaks the establishment amnesia plaguing Republicans and Democrats, as they cope with denial in a period of intensifying political breakdown.
"Clearly, bragging had always been one of his cardinal vices." Eichmann was known for conjuring brazenly false stories of personal accomplishments to bolster his sense of ego. Spreading his father's legend, Eichmann's son bragged that his father saved hundreds of thousands of Jews from deportation by assisting them in their emigration to foreign countries. Never mind the exploitative system for emigration that he devised, in which Jews were essentially robbed of up to ninety percent of their property in exchange for emigration documents. More sadistically, Eichmann became very bored of ordinary fame after the war. He openly bragged of deporting five million Jews, creating the "Madagascar Plan," and devising the pre-deportation Ghetto system. While the first reveals his utter stupidity in publicly admitting crimes against humanity, the second and third cannot be attributed to his propensity to build his self-image. Myths become "alternative facts." Facts become "fake news."
Eichmann's choice of language throughout his 1960 trial in Jerusalem made his appear particularly stupid. In actuality, his overuse of "officialese" (occupational jargon) demonstrated his propensity for cliche statements. Because he lacked the capability to think independently, he repeated stock cliches over and over throughout the trial. Arendt described: how
Whether writing his memoirs in Argentina or in Jerusalem, whether speaking to the police examiner or to the court, what he said was always the same, expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, the more it became obvious that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else.
This might be the most useful commentary from Eichmann in Jerusalem. Cliche words spoken by figures responsible for immense wrongdoing and lies create a certain sense of elation and self-satisfaction. Hannah Arendt honed in on this diagnosis: "no communication was possible with him, not because he lied, but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such." Institutional wealth and power create an insular bubble that create a false sense of reality, by restricting access to the halls of privilege. No doubt, this reflects the mind of Donald Trump.
Adolf Eichmann's ability to recall the past was selective at best, and terribly poor at its worst. An interview done in Argentina before his capture revealed that anything unrelated to his career was simply pushed out of memory. During the trial, he was unable to recall facts that might have saved his character in the face of the prosecution. He failed to shed light upon the hypocrisy of the Israeli state, for the Zionist organizations that cooperated with him in selecting only the genetically best Jews for emigration to Israel. "Eichmann needed only to recall the past in order to feel assured that he was not lying and that he was not deceiving himself, for he and the world he lived in had once been in perfect harmony." Arendt's words tell us that forgetting serves as a coping mechanism when it comes to guilt and culpability.
Donald Trump's administration is facing a very precarious situation. Already, polls are showing that he has an unprecedented rate of disapproval for any new President. The travel ban was a clear sign of this fracture: his administration was unprepared, unorganized, and totally unclear in their order He neglected to consult with the Justice Department and gave the Department of Homeland Security no prior notice to interpret and prepare the order's directives. The same that Arendt said about Eichmann and Germany can be said about Donald Trump and the United States: the untruthfulness of America's foreign wars and Wall Street cronyism under President Obama played a great role in allowing the lies and cliches of Donald Trump to take power. Just as Adolf Eichmann frustrated Israeli prosecutors and judges, Trump frustrates liberals and parts of the Left that insist he is some sort of pathological monster. There is no monster. Donald Trump's words have a literal meaning that require little deep analysis. The reason he continues to speak using literal phrases and stock cliches is because it consoles his conscience as it battles with his own inconsistencies. Beyond this, Adolf Eichmann's decrepit memory uncloaks the establishment amnesia plaguing Republicans and Democrats, as they cope with denial in a period of intensifying political breakdown.
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